We’re busy cleaning behind all the furniture as the removal guys will be coming on Tuesday to pack up all our stuff. Then we’ll be living with my parents for a few months whilst we find a new house in Manchester.
It’s our intention to publish things on the blog more often so that all our good friends in the South can keep up-to-date with the quest for the next Tea Towers. Once we’re established you’re all welcome to come and visit us 🙂
As most of you know, my job will be moving to Salford this Summer so this week we started the process of finding a new place to live. There are loads of places that we could pick but my desire to have a shortish commute to work and the fact that we don’t have a car (yet) has led us to South Manchester. It looks like we should be able to get a nice 3 bedroom house within our budget so we were happy with what we saw… now we just need to sell the existing Tea Towers.
Samuel has been on fine form all week, feeding of the attention off his grandparents. In the picture below you can see him in his best ‘love me’ pose.
love me
We no longer say the PB word (whisper *pooh bear*) here at Tea Towers as we’ve had to separate Sam from his favourite night time companion recently. Sam has had little PB since he was only a few months old but as he is annoyingly only “surface washable” we’ve not been able to keep him as clean as we would like.
So last week I sent Rich out with Sam to see if they could find a suitable washable alternative and Sam came home clutching his new friend Giraffe (or Graffe if you want Sam’s version). Giraffe was an instant hit in the shop, Sam carried him all the way home and hasn’t really been separated from him since. Giraffe also ‘talks’, Sam will hold him up to you and say in a low growily voice something like “hello mummy” which always makes me smile 🙂
So now the problem is going to be getting hold of Giraffe for long enough to give him a spin in the washing machine…
Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to wish you all a Happy Christmas and apologise for the lack of updates here. Samuel has been ill for the best part of a month and we’re now on our second batch of antibiotics which will hopefully give him a Happy New Year.
Love to all family and friends,
Richard and Jessica.
It’s time for the first of our 2010 mince pie reviews… today we’re looking at Waitrose’s shortcrust mince pies.
Jessica says 8 out of 10
The pastry is softer than the usual pie,not as dry. The mince meat has worrying shapes in it, it’s crunchy and has all sorts of chewiness. Very nice.
Richard says 7 out of 10
A well filled pie with soft pastry. Let down a little by its appearance and tastes a bit too buttery.
Finally got the embedded video player working again… now I just have to find all the old broken posts.
Samuel recognises most of the characters “In the Night Garden” and has his own names for the characters which he shouts out when they’re on the screen.But strangely and perhaps worryingly:
Last night I managed to get him to shout Binky Bonk instead but I’m still curious as to why he felt the need to shout insults at a train.
A toddler truck made for two
Unnck - mmm corn!
September seems to have come round so quickly this year, where did our Summer disappear to? We’ve done our best to make the most of the good weather what with lot’s of BBQ’s and plenty of trips out to some of our local parks. This weekend though may well see the end of us attending BBQs (for this year at least) and I’m very grateful that the weather stayed lovely and sunny for our evening round at our friends home.
Sam loves to play with his friends Abi (on the left) and little Isa and always makes himself right at home whenever we visit. Murphy the cat also gets a lot of attention – whether she wants it or not! The three of them had a great time on the trampoline (in the background on the left) as well as enjoying a game of kick the football into the tent and shout ‘goal!’.
After the kids (and a few big kids) had finished rushing about madly in the garden we all settled in for some very delicious grub, including a very tasty peri peri version of spatchcocked chicken that I can’t wait to have a go at doing myself. Tons of tasty food and great company made for a lovely evening which we didn’t really want to leave.
We all had a lovely time, especially Sam who has discovered a new love for corn on the cob, so thank you so much Kim, Mark, Abi & Isa and we can’t wait until our next chance to all get together!
How many engineers does it take to construct a gazebo?
This Saturday was not the best day to pick for a BBQ – the heavens opened and tipped down a very large amount of rain on a select group of us who had hoped to enjoy a nice summers day with a little charred meat.
Dry at last!
To be honest we should have expected things to go wrong from the time the host realised mid BBQ set up that he only had 10 little briquettes and sent Rich out to procure some more. On top of this our generous host had also admitted that he had no chicken in the house – only burgers, sausages and lamb kebabs!
While the BBQ started to warm up we may have been fooled into thinking that everything might work out and then as the first burgers were cooked the rain started to fall. At this point a brand new gazebo was pulled out of the shed and while all the men present started trying to figure out the instructions and work out which poles went where, the rain began to come down properly.
Much fun was had with poles coming apart at different corners and there was a brief worry that the gazebo may in fact be too large to fit in the garden… but somehow with a lot of frantic work and some help from Sam a gazebo appeared.
We all had a great time though (Sam especially loved the novelty of being able to run in and out of the rain) and were very pleased with ourselves for being able to beat the elements. So many thanks Richard B for giving us all a great time – I wonder what challenges you’ll think up for us at your next party?
Admittedly it’s not really white, but the wipe-able board in the kitchen attracted a fair bit of attention at our recent BBQ. We generally use the board to record silly quotes and occasionally a reminder but now the board is full and it’s time to wipe it clean. I thought I’d record the current content of the board here:
“Shall I call myself Polly and put on an apron?” – Me (allegedly)
“Let’s make like a raspberry and split” – Me
“I rule with an iron fist and a tickling stick” – Me
“Do they eat ants?” – My question about pigeons
“Probably – they’re like miniature raisins” – Jessica
“Sock rhymes with fox” – Jessica
“I’m a fidagree” – Me (no idea what that was about)
“Eee, they did for me those sausages” – My parents maintain I said this once but I didn’t
“Yoghurt, it’s like oil for your tummy machine” – Me
“You seep what you sow” – Me
“Is that the one where he goes to Mars and takes the lid off?” – Jessica describing “Total Recall”
“His Dad is a bit daft” – Jessica
“Can you put hot beverages in this cup?” – Cara
“Do you remember the time there was a sock on my foot” – Me
“Run, run as fast as you can, I am made of ginger” – Me
“I find cleaning my ears makes me feel like coughing” – Jessica
“It makes me close my eyes” – Cara
“It makes my tongue itchy” – suspected to be Thea