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.
We’re going through a hosting transition – everything will be back to normal soon.
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
Before the hordes descended
As the grass is starting to turn a fetching shade of brown and all the school children are just about to be released from their classes we decided it was time for our (now annual) summer BBQ. So after giving the house a thorough clean and with some help from one of our lovely neighbours to erect a marquee we were ready to receive all our guests.
We were lucky with the day we picked for the event as the weather couldn’t have been nicer, so sunny with a touch of a breeze to stop you over heating. With the aid of the marque we were able to have a lot of our guests gather outside – fortunate really as there just wouldn’t have been room for everyone in Tea Towers itself.
The hungry hordes descend
Rich manned the BBQ and kept all our hungry guests well supplied with burgers, sausages and some rather tasty teryaki chicken kebabs. While he was out slaving over the burning coals I was rushing about the kitchen trying to make sure all the guests had cold drinks/jacket potatoes/forks and anything else they wanted. (Apologies to any guests I may have snapped at – I sometimes get a little carried away when hostessing!)
Once all the food had been cooked I treated myself to a nice glass of wine and started to relax and enjoy the party properly. Sam spent most of his time running backwards and forwards, usually after one of the other kids that was there and enjoyed himself so much that he barely had time to come past and say hi to his mum. The guests all seemed to have a lovely time too, there was plenty of chatter and laughter around the house and apart from having to occasionally kick helpful guests out of my kitchen I think they all went home happy.
Thank you all so much for coming and making our party a success – we loved having you all and will now have fun trying to drink through all the alcohol you left behind…
Sam enjoys the toys
Last week we spent a happy week up North at Center Parcs in the Lake District. We travelled up on the Friday and attended my cousins wedding on the Saturday. Samuel was reasonably quiet during the service except for the last bit where he was allowed to roam into a section of the church with toys… members of the congregation with good ears heard a crash, shortly followed by an “Oh oh” from Sam. At the reception Samuel played with the toys that his Great Aunt had bought for him and was fascinated by the disco where he spent a while doing his signature dance.
Sam relaxing in his trailer
On the Monday we made the 2 hour drive to the Whinfell Forest ‘branch’ of Center Parcs. Samuel brought a healthy supply of minions in the form of Cara, Nick and his Grandparents. Our lodge was reasonably close to the village centre so we didn’t have to use our bikes too much. We enjoyed our last Center Parcs trip but this one was even better as Samuel is walking around and could enjoy things like the little trolleys in the park market. Everything was quite busy as it was half-term but we got the chance to play a bit of badminton and discovered that I’m rubbish at table tennis. Whinfell is a red squirrel conservation zone and we had spotted quite a few of them during our five day stay. It’s the first time I’ve seen the (smaller) red squirrel – they seemed much more bouncy than their grey cousins, jumping about all over the place.
Archery pros
We had a lovely time and I think the minions did too. Me and Jessica got to have a bit of free time, trying out some archery and ensuring that Jessica got her standard strawberry and cream frappuccino. Samuel always develops a huge amount when there are so many people around to pay him attention.When we started the holiday he was saying around 5 different words and now he’s approaching 30 words – the days of everything being a car seem to be behind us 🙂