Co-op Mince Pie
This time we are trying Co-op deep filled pies.
Richard:
Sweet pastry but top is a bit too crumbly… is only half full but mince is pleasantly fruity.
3 out of 5
Jessica:
Pastry was a little bland and the mince was a bit like chutney, not my favourite mince pie so far.
2 out of 5
Today Jessica has exhibited her culinary talent by making a fine batch of mince pies – see below for our thoughts.
Richard:
Good crunchy pastry and filled to capacity – the only thing that could improve this would be to have an ‘R’ on top.
5 out of 5
Jessica:
There is a nice balance between the buttery-ness of the pastry and the sweetness of the filling.
7 out of 5
One day Sam will ask the awkward question “Where do babies come from?” – in readiness for that day we have prepared our answer and have photo evidence! Babies are delivered by the Royal Mail.
It’s now the 2nd of December and we can look forward to a month of mince pies 🙂 Each year I like to get a selection of pies from various retailers and attempt to find the best one. This year we are going to review pies on the blog… starting with Tesco’s Finest.
Richard:
Good, buttery pastry with reasonable depth of filling. The mince could have a little more flavour.
3 out of 5
Jessica:
The pastry tastes a bit like apple pie… very nice, I’m off to have another one.
4 out of 5
Sam is not so sure about his new going out clothes.
It’s been a while since I’ve added anything to the blog – obviously Sam has been taking up all our time. I’m pleased to report that Sam is continuing to grow and is now about one and a half times the weight he was when we brought him home.
He is starting to enjoy playing on the play gym and now turns his head to follow you with his gaze. Recently Sam had to have a small procedure performed to rectify a tongue tie but he got through it with minimum fuss and is now able to feed better.
I’m going to create a Photobox album with some of our best pictures so family can print them out if they want. If you’d like to get access to this album, send me an e-mail and I’ll send the details.
Just wanted to put a few recent pictures of Sam up as lots of people have been asking for them. He is continuing to gain weight and we’ll hopefully be able to share the new figure tomorrow.
I just wanted to start this post off with a quick comment… myself and Jessica are currently undecided as to how much information we should put into the public domain about our son. At the moment we are simply going to stick to a photo or two and his forename.
I wanted to take this opportunity to let everyone know what has been going on over the last fortnight or so. Most of you will know that we are now parents and that baby Sam is making us very happy, but not everyone is aware of how difficult it has been getting here.
Samuel was not expected to be born until the end of this month but a routine doctor’s check at the end of September saw Jessica admitted to hospital for monitoring. They were worried about the rise in Jessica’s blood pressure and so she was admitted and for a week the staff of Mayday’s Hope ward tried to get things under control, before eventually deciding to induce labour.
The labour was very painful for Jessica as inducing leads to very strong contractions. After almost 24 hours of labour things looked to be going well but a new concern arose around the regularity of the baby’s heart beat. It was decided that an emergency caesarean was required and suddenly a lot of people appeared to sign off the operation and to perform it. I was led to an area where I could put on some scrubs and after what seemed like a lifetime I was allowed into the operating theatre. I sat by Jessica’s head reassuring her whilst her shoulders downwards were obscured by a sheet.
We were both very scared but tried to cope as best we could, then we heard a little whimper but were almost convinced we hadn’t. A second later Samuel gave a proper cry and we knew he had been safely delivered. Sam was wiped down and swaddled in towels and I held our tiny son close to Jessica whilst the surgeons took care of sewing Jessica up. Sam needed no help breathing which was a great relief as I thought being delivered after just 37 weeks may have given him problems.
After the operation I met up with Jessica in the recovery ward where I had been waiting with Samuel. The nurse checked Samuel’s blood sugar level and found it to be very low so he was carted off to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) with me in tow. Samuel would not emerge from the unit for another week (finally coming home yesterday). During Samuel’s stay in SCBU we visited him for several hours every day and were relieved to see the number of cables/tubes attached to him gradually lessen until he was just in a simple cot. Once a regular feeding pattern was established he was allowed to come home.
In the meantime Jessica has made an excellent recovery, going from exhaustion and Morphine on day one, to a wheel chair on day two and walking around the day after. Her recovery has been amazing and she has always thought of what she can do for Sam despite us urging her to concentrate on her own recovery first.
So it has been an emotional and stressful two weeks or so but we are now happily back at home where we can be a proper family. I want to say a massive thank you to all the staff in the Maternity unit at Mayday hospital (Hope, Labour and Mary wards + SCBU). Although we may have been occasionally frustrated it is obvious that mother and baby are at the heart of everything they do and they have been fantastic. Also thank you to all the people who have sent presents, cards, texts and e-mails – we have enjoyed reading them all.
Last Friday there was a big party at Kingswood Warren to celebrate the BBC’s 60th year there. In the day we had a visit from the new director of FM&T and a range of other senior staff who all looked at our technology demonstrations.
At 5pm the presentations were packed away and we began to look to forward to the evening’s party. The weather was excellent and we sat outside enjoying the food provided by the canteen. Me and Jessica took some photos but they all seem to be of people on the bouncy castle! You can see them here.
Announced during the day was that the move of R&I from Kingswood has hit another delay as the new guy finds his feet and re-evaluates decisions made by his predecessors.
To prepare for Bump’s arrival we needed to clear some of our junk out of the spare room and into the loft. We’d recently had the loft insulated and the picture on the left is the view that greeted me when I opened the hatch. I decided to board a small area which would provide enough storage for what we had to store and would hopefully dissuade us from putting much more up. Unfortunately you can’t just throw some boards on top of the insulation as this crushes it and renders it less effective.
I needed to raise the height of the joists and decided to do this by laying new joists perpendicular to the existing ones. We were lucky enough to have Mike help us clear the loft in advance of the insulation installation and Steve kindly offered to help with the boarding. I was really glad of Steve’s help as what I thought would be a quick job turned into a five hour effort – this is the first major bit of DIY I’ve had to do and none of my planning accounted for uneven joists.
You can see the results in the final two pictures. I boarded an area 2m by 1.3m on which to put boxes and used some remaining wood to create a ‘landing area’. You can see the extra area at the bottom of the picture with Jessica in and it has been very useful. Heavy boxes can be hefted onto the landing area using the ladder as a ramp so I don’t endanger myself trying to climb with a box in hand. I’m pretty pleased with the results and can’t thank Steve and Mike enough for their help with the project.