Sunday 29 April 2012

Such a Character

If ever P wakes up from her naps alone, I might be in the kitchen or pottering then she won't enter the room without a disguise.
This is from this afternoon and this happens most days.


She randomly naps for hours at a time and doesn't care if that means she keeps us awake till late until she is tired again.
It is getting better but today I doubt if she will sleep until tomorrow.

Yesterday morning she woke me up looking like this


She doesn't always like to be spoken to either.
Such a teenager.


So the girls had a daddy led day and none of the problems that he had were his fault it is just that I forgot that it was Sunday.

It started with G and the girls driving to Nana's to see if her fence was still standing after the gales last night.
He forgot the keys so had to look over the high back gate with the girls hanging out under their umbrellas.
Then they headed off to the shopping center as I had put in a request for some much needed wellies for T.
G called me from the center car park, I could hear the girls agitated in the back ground it was 10:10 and the shops don't open till 11:00.
Call it a day I said, no he said.
I believe they went to a coffee shop faces were pulled and over priced smoothies and muffins were consumed




I then heard that that things were going well in the wellie shop but there was a queue and a ticket system in place
Then quickly followed a retracted text message P had pooed and he was not happy. Neither one of us had to mention that he hadn't taken the nappy bag with him. I was helpful in suggesting where the nearest shop and baby change were.
The girls like to ride the escalator lots. T decided to show daddy she was a growing girl and wouldn't hold his hand and there was a bit of a wobble that involved a face plant and that activity was cut short.

Then they were home and following a late night last night at an enjoyable grown ups birthday party, Happy Birthday Balders, they slept all afternoon.

Typical


Hope you are warm and dry this weekend
CM

Friday 27 April 2012

The Oven Broke

Some time last week G showed me what I was ignoring. The elements in my cooker and curled in on themselves like horrid long nails and it was no longer safe to use the oven.

We were investigating replacing the top element but whilst trying to see if the back would come off the cooker we found that the base element was split open to the fire resistant cloth.
And actually two of the gas rings don't burn that well and the dials are all falling off.

Camping cooking from here on, I will only use the hob until we buy another cooker.
Here is a snap shot of the last week


These are the eggs from the cousins, how yellow are they!


So what started as a simple oven task has ended in us looking at sorting the kitchen out as a whole.
G and I rowed about it when I said his intentions were to re fit the whole bloody kitchen unnecessarily when all we needed was cupboard doors and now a new oven.

But that is a post for another day and I can continue the saga and fill you on the bit where I said a self leveling floor was crazy talk.

Let me also say that I WANT A NEW COOKER SOON I am pulling my hair out with this one.


In other news the other day there was a mum at the school gate with a gold lamè umbrella.
Lamè in the rain? I've never seen such a thing.

CM

Saturday 21 April 2012

Kaths Oak Tree

We have a house at the round the corner from us and the garden runs along the back of ours and then some.

Kathleen lived there for years. She had moved in with her husband and his parents who had lived their before and they had their children who now live away.

The front door is so big that when you stand in the stone porch you can't touch the walls with both hands and for an in the city house that's pretty big.

I think that Kath had some health issues and I know that she was very private person we would exchange pleasantries over the wall and chat about the garden but if we saw each other on the street or in the local shop then you could see she wasn't sure who I was.

The summer when I was pregnant she gave me a small doll that she had found somewhere with penelope written across its chest and that be one of the reasons P is named such.

Anyway in December 09, I popped in for an emergency c-section and Kath popped out for her paper and fags it was snowing and she slipped on her grand front steps and broke her hip or leg.
We were all expecting her to return as this had happened before but I think a thrombosis and a long stay in hospital was just too much and now she lives a few miles from here very happily I hear.

The house was to be sold but I took these photos last summer




This is the summer house where she would have her fag and do the crossword.
The strangest thing, white doves (surely not pigeons) settle here on this roof.
If Kath was ever away then the birds never came as soon as she came back so did the doves and she never fed them that I saw.

 


Her tights and carrier bags were always washed out and hung from the washing line that runs out from the top of the stairs.




The garden is lower than ours and when you are in it you can't hear the traffic.
Our cat runs up and down this wall and plays amongst the trees even if the apple ones are a bit diseased.


NOT ANY MORE

The back of the house is now painted white the bay window and the summer house is in a skip somewhere and this is my face as the chainsaw flattens everything.




This is what we call Kath's oak tree. Of course its another brand but it is so huge and blocks out the light for everyone so that's what we call it.

As I type this there is very little of it left, the apple trees are gone, mine included, my choice a long time ago, the gardens were once an orchard and I feel guilty.

I am sure that the developers will just turf the lot and stick some fashionable ferns in tubs.

It will be strange having new people in the place with their swanky BBQ's and possible trampolines and I suppose we will get used to being looked over by those living on the south side of our block.


The girls are driving us crazy with their endless questions today despite having more Lego that Denmark to play with!

CM

Monday 16 April 2012

Weekend Away

These pics are from a visit to Grandmas toward the end of last week



The girls had a blast and it was really nice to visit as the Dr in the morning referred me to the breast clinic as I have a thickening that hasn't gone away and my nerves are on a simmer and it took my mind off of stuff.
It is probably hormones I have reached an age where things are not broken they are just on the blink.

I am the warning light on the dashboard, the one where you think, oh no, what now?



Friday we took T for her bloods. It was the repeat of last months and I will book an appt to see if she is still slightly anemic but hopefully that has sorted itself as she seems to be raging with health at the moment.

We went to the hospital and I forgot the forms so had to go back for them, when we got back we had missed our slot and a babies veins weren't playing ball and with one phlebotomist working for a whole children's hospital we entertained ourselves in the waiting room for two hours.






P didn't like what was happening which was rather sweet and T insisted on watching and did green out a bit at the end and had to recline in the big chair.

If you don't have to work Friday afternoons that is amazing.
G took Friday afternoon off as we went to visit family. The girls have three cousins, Katie Leslie and Joshua and they are chickens.
I didn't take any pics they are all on G's phone and I have not looked at them yet but Friday afternoon off makes the whole weekend nice a long. I suggest everyone does this more often.


When we got home the T decided to dress up P in clothes that belonged to me that no longer fit her.





I love this dress I wore it on my third birthday party and G made her the crown

Back to school tomorrow

CM

Monday 9 April 2012

Easter Weekend

We did well on the egg front.

When T heard the 'boing' at the back door she left her game like a rocket to catch sight of that pesky bunny.
But alas no where to be seen.
Maybe next year.


Do you think she takes the bird home and chops it's head off?

This year we just let them eat and T knew by quite late in the morning when enough was enough.
Today were are taking the route of break a bit off and eat off a plate.
Last night I made her eat shepherds pie and told her she needed to eat the protein to cancel out the sugar and she needed to give her body not what she liked but what it needed.
Today she has said that she isn't going to eat as much chocolate just in case she has to eat that dinner again!!
Can't bloody win.

Later on I might ask T how long she thinks this sugar trip might last because I think that she could easily get to the end of the month.


Early this morning was blow away the cobwebs down at the cliffs and with the road clear were able to drive in no time.
It was wet blowy and salty







I honestly think I could take her down there and she would draw with the chalk for hours.

Now we are watching Funny Face with Barbara Streisand




and it is one question after another, I couldn't hear to tell her what was going on!
I am slowly on movie at a time dragging her away from daft pink princess

CM

Saturday 7 April 2012

Artistic Child

When I was under ten my mum gave me two books with art projects in them.
One was from St. Michael and cost 49p says the label
But I think mum got them from her special 'Boutique' anyway she was clearing out stuff and gave them to me recently.

Any way we were living in South Africa at the time and I tell you looked at these books like my girls watch television.

Here are some badly taken pics

Potato print butterflies so wonderfully layed out
Do you remember when poster paints came in these pots and you tried not to muck the white or yellow!!
I never thought I had enough paint for this, such a shame I was in love with this pink
Loved these illustrations - never read them just looked at the pics - somethings never change
Mum had the crayons for this but we didn't want to ruin them!!! and I didn't have a white T shirt or a brother!!
This boy was allowed to do this to his clothes - oh how I wished for a spare pare of stone washed denim
Still a lovely illustration

Odds and Ends!!

You see the problem with me is I couldn't and still can't always think out the box so the reason that I never did any of these projects is that if I didn't have the exact correct equipment then I didn't do them.

I remember once plucking up the courage to make a covered matchbox gift box, except I used a cooks matchbox and the only cloth to hand was a swatch of brown velvet furnishing cloth not the nice ditsy print as shown in the Blue Peter demonstration. Finished it was awfully chunky and didn't close properly and it still haunts me!


As I said we were living in South Africa at the time and I was OBSESSED by this photo



We had been over to visit my Grandma and so I was familiar with the late 70's feel of England and I had watched some TV here (we didn't always have a set growing up) and seen footage of the place through the seasons and everything about this image gripped me

What was the boy eating, whats in his role of paper?!
Decorative manhole cover whats that? Pavements? Look at the size of the crayon!
Where did those steps take you? Were they in a city?
Those children were so pale, look at their cheeks they were so rosy
You needed to wear a coat outside?
It seems so cold and navy and grey.


Meanwhile here at home my children continue to be creative without me having to do any of this stuff. To be honest I get the craft stuff out, there is glue and cutting out but as yet nothing has really been produced!

Hypno specs
Hannibal Sticker

Dreading tomorrow.

T's expecting the bunny to appear at some point I really need to talk to G about how much is too much and maybe I need to have the greed talk before it hops past the house although I feel with P anything I say may fall on very young deaf ears.

I feel sick already and I probably won't eat anything made from cheap sugar and fat!

CM