Category Archives: General

Thanks Nic, I liked this one

Posted on February 25, 2006 by HHaricot | 4 comments

You are a No Drama Mama!

No need for drama, you just chill out and don’t let things bother you You’ve got a peaceful, zen-like attitude… even when things get crazy You’re a pleasure to be around, and you have lots of friends to show for it You don’t need to be the center of attention, you’re happy enough as is!

Are You a Drama Queen?

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Posted in General

Itchy feet

Posted on February 24, 2006 by HHaricot | 2 comments

i have alsways liked northumberland and berwick-upon tweed.

[think i've fixed it sarah ]

2 Comments

Posted in General

Happy Birthday Chris

Posted on February 24, 2006 by HHaricot | 4 comments

only 43!

I didn’t manage to say happy birthday as I dashed out of the house this morning, late for work. I think that summed up my da really. totally dreadful – though not as dreadful as some of the people I work with. Finished on a low note with the suggestion that I come in for a day on my annual leave, as although I requested everything I do on that day to be cancelled, it hasn’t been!

So grumped home – at least car worked. Watched the beans diving about. the pink cakes had been very well received at nursery, and SB very proud. However, in floods of tears about finishing nursery at the end of next month. Hmm, maybe announcement should have been next week?

So she weighed out and helped me make Sarah’s fudge cake recipe, to cheer us both up. Didn’t quite work, as a bit too crispy on top, and gooey underneath, so the 2 layers separating?! Still very nice.

BB had a desultory feed, and fell asleep with Chris whilst I settled SB, so i have done about half a feed all day. Obviously I’m not ready to wean her.

4 Comments

Posted in Butterbean, Cooking, General

Cold, but not wet!

Posted on February 23, 2006 by HHaricot | 8 comments

So, my rotten car didn’t start after work, so there I am in the car park awaiting the rescue people desperate for a wee… Despite text messages suggesting I did a Joyce [thankyou - voice heavy with sarcasm!] I instead nipped and found a loo. predictably it took another 30 mins for the rather nice man to arrive. He thinks our non-functioning immobiliser functioning again, hotwired the car and made me promise not to stall on the way home [rofl]. However, seems to be non-functioning now. Shall I drive punto to work and risk it doing the same?

on a very bright note, I received 2 cheques today – one ?100 for an article I wrote – yippee! and another ?100 deposit that has been owed me for over a year. They will be spent on debt management.

On a rather scary not, I had to spend an hour with a chappie from price waterhouse coopers establishing my efficiency, and what i thought contributed and what reduced. Having decided I must have been chosen for ultimately useless efficiency, I found that actually i am in the top centile – blow me down with a feather! Interview still mind blowingingly grown up and scary though. Aaagh [still worrying about it]

So, got home rather late. girls have been at nursery – chris handed in their notice today. SB also had ballet. She says she has been doing surprises all day at nursery – does that mean we are close to mothers day then?

When I got home, Chris brought down the cooker SB got from a neighbour at about 18 months. BB thought this was the ultimate in bees knees. They both played together beautifully for over an hour. Was lovely to see. I have gorgeous daughters.

they are both asleep – hooray! So I have made pink fairy cakes for SB to take into nursery tomorrow to mark her birthday there. Still cooking. Not sure that I will ice them. She will also take in some sweeties.

8 Comments

Posted in Dance/drama, General

A Drama Day

Posted on February 22, 2006 by HHaricot | 5 comments

SB ‘mummy, don’t sing, I’m allergic to it’ [tough!]

Anyway, day started with total inability to get SB out of the house – I can’t remeber how much wailing went on! Daddy didn’t let her walk on the bath edge, I didn’t put her tights on [in the shower!], Daddy mustn’t help as I had said do it herself etc etc! So finally – way late – got in car and trotted off to Merry’s. we did, however [AVERT EYES CHRIS] do Daddy’s birthday card – and very nicely too.

I’d better say this early – Merry made a fantastic lunch, and all plates cleared! It was home edders Pasta Special – yummy yummy! Girls all played together, though SB not the only drama queen of the day. Probably Melrose come down syndrome! luckilly Merry had a plan B and we did PVA/tissue paper suncatchers and bowls. They’re still all wet so cluttering Merry’s house – rofl!

We did manage to have a good gossip though in between wailing children, and also used the new-to-us camera. So a really nice day, in spite of probable overtired children! BB and Josie had fun playing with, beside and arguing over various toys. What also made me laugh was at the end with the shiny ball, Fran was quite determined josie should be the winner, and popped it out of BB’s hand for Josie to get, and SB was equally determined that BB should have it, so did the same to Josie. Luckilly it seemed more of a game than a fight to the death!

on the way back, SB started counting in the back of the car, and we gradually realised she was working out the 2 times table. She did it very well [apart from 2×7=13! So I dotted about the 2 and 3 times table for her. Some she was obviously counting up, and some she just came out with the answer. She also said with a voice of wonder that six could be 2 lots of 3, or 3 lots of 2. And we worked out that as 2 lots of 6 were 12 [one of those she could just do] and 2 lots of 3 were 6, then 4 lots of 3 should be…12! So a full scale mental maths lesson on the way home of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. She was surprisingly agile.

At home, SB was in full crash and burn mode, so read 4 of the usborne stories from around the world, and then settled her with cbeebies, a quick tea, and the a soooo protracted going to sleep, as she was a night owl again, so got cuddled to sleep. By this time BB woken up, so thats our evening sorted. [Chris has got her again].

I did watch the apprentice – someone give that girl a tranquiliser! haven’t started tagging the Melrose pics, and can’t put todays up out of sync [rofl at my listmaking tendencies!] Will start now, though actually should be sorting a number of more urgent work related tasks instead.

5 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, numeracy, Out and About, photos, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing

Melrose Baking

Posted on February 21, 2006 by HHaricot | 7 comments

Carrot cake

225g carrots grated[2 med] 110g soft brown sugar [1/2 cups], 110g golden syrup [1/2cups] 110ml oil, 225g flour [ 2 cups].1 tbsp baking powder, 1tsp bicarb of soda, 1 tbsp cinnamon, 1 tbsp mixed spice, 1 tsp nutmeg.

Mix altogether and cook at gasmark 3. 60-80 mins

Morroccan Stew for approx 20 adults and 20 children
6 onions, 2 kg carrots, 2 kg parsnips, 2 butternut squash, 4 tins chickpeas [450g tins for all] 5 tins sweetcorn, 8 tins chopped toms, tube garlic, tube tomato puree, cinnamon, ginger, coriander, cumin, turmeric, pot harrissa. 1kg dried apricots and 500g sultanas pureed [in advance and frozen]
fry off onions with half of each of the spice packets [? about 3 or 4 tbsp each] and half jar of harrissa. when fired sweat with a couple glasses red wine. The add all chunky chopped veg and all other ingredients, including good squirt of the tomato puree and the premade fruit puree. Cook for approx 1 hour, adding water to make right consistency. Bit of chopped coriander on top at the end. It took 2 big youth hostel pans, so I had harrissa in only one fo them.
couscous was approx 3kg, but there was spare, though we did do 1kg rice [too much – next time for same number prob 2.5kg couscous and 500g rice. Approx price per head was 1.50 adults and ?1 child [though actually a bit cheaper than that so extra money went into kitty, prob 1.25 adult and 75p child]

7 Comments

Posted in Cooking, General

A Yorkshire weekend

Posted on February 20, 2006 by HHaricot | 3 comments

i have to mention that I cried going past Leeds in both directions. SO still homesick then! the bit of the A1 round there I know like back of hand, so even though they had changed the road!!! I still felt the tug at the signs. particularly the A64 [which for a year i trotted up and down commuting to York]

Hmm!

On the way home we stopped at Aunty Margarets, which was wonderful. As old readers of this blog may remember, she used to come round on a fortnightly basis when we were in Leeds, and i have missed her. So we spent the weekend there. Bit of a later arrival than expected due to the pernicketyness of the youth hostel manager.

SO nice evening, with BB showing off her walking and talking and general being adorable skills [she was under the weather at christmas]. SB got out Aunty Margarets collection of books and made her read loads. She also liked Aunty M’s rather ancient maths shape things [now called polyhedrons in the brightminds catalogue]. She was very good at manipulating them and making shapes. good, as we have bought some! We got to drink wine[surprise] and chill! As we were all sharing a room, the amount of sleep we got was silmilar to at Melrose – approaching 0!

Saturday was a beautiful weather day. Just absolutely perfect for taking great shots at the West Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Or would have been if we had a camera – aaarghh!!! The light was perfect, as was the landscape. Oh well, Alison linked to some rather nice ones on flickr in the comments below! We are just not made for lack of camera. SB decided to work out which was her favourite. She was taken by the various Henry moore statues , the access sculpture trail, and in fact lots of the sculptures. She was also rather taken by the tree climbing opportunities. She got quite high in one tree, and was persuaded to come down as I was getting nervous. on the ground she tripped over a tree root… BB also enjoyed poddling about the place – taking ages obviously! Both of them had a good walk in the beautiful sun. Maybe Aunty Margaret will have a few photos for us!

in the evening, fed up with Aunty Margaret’s toys, she was allowed to open a birthday present early, as Merry had given it to us. She loved the pink geomags – thankyou Merry! [can't think why you chose pink - rofl] and immediately managed to make a pyramid, cube and diamond and then various shapes I am going to have to look up! So the lollipop phase is over then.

Another night of less sleep than required and we were off home. An uneventful journey, except stopping at the most unfortunate travel stop in the world! There was not veggie food in the moto cafe bit as they stop serving lunch at 3 and bring out differnt stuff, and it was quarter past 2 so she didn’t want to cook and waste any!, and at the little chef the oven didn’t work, so basically only breakfast. So thats what we had!

At home we unpacked, looked at a couple of blogs, SB played a lot of the year 1 jump ahead and BB just pottered about. SB is calling her chickpea at the moment, but I guess it is too late to change her name!
End of a lovely week!

3 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, literacy, numeracy, Out and About

Melrose

Posted on February 20, 2006 by HHaricot | 15 comments

after reading others blogs, it is difficult to know what to write!

We did have a lovely time, and I think between us talked to everyone. SB had a ball, and played with all age ranges. She was loving and kind to the littlies, and the oldies were loving and kind to her. I never heard Kennedy and Hannah’s placing for her, but think it might have been bossy…

It was much more comfortable this Melrose knowing most of the people.

Things: well, luckilly the Morrocan stew seemed to go OK, and it was all eaten up. So i think I might do that again. Perhaps with rice rather than couscous, as although the cous cous was far easier [once Alison and sorted it out from exploding out of the saucepans – it was a right PItA for sweeping up from the floor!! Good sous chefs and conversationalists in Alison and Karen for the veg chopping, and Jax was in charge of rice.

Trips:The little roman trimonutium museum in town is lovely. SB really got a lot out of it, and we were in there for some time. She particularly liked the roman game, the pictures, and getting dressed up with the clobber and sitting on the horse! Apologies to Jonathan and Jan for her inclusiveness when they were probably looking for some family time!

We went round the abbey this time, just before closing. the warden was great, and allowed SB to lock all the big doors. we talked about home-ed – which his sister is doing! It was a little bit chilly…

A hooray for leandra organising the Jed Forest outing. Yes, I know it was totally brass monkeys weather, but unless leandra really is a goddess, I can’t see how that could be avoided… SB loved being able to have the hawk land on her. She also asked some sensible questions!!!! The chicken moment was the best really. Its not often you get to really see how good they are as birds of prey! The chappie doing the demonstration was cute, and although the farmer not cute, he did talk to SB about the deer and ponies in the sheds.

We also managed to get to the swimming pool without getting lost – hooray! SB did some swimming, but mostly tried to cling onto Joanna [already laden with 2 of her own] or Jonathan, who also was dragging 2 around! BB loved the pool.

Other People: well, there were very noticeable changes in some of the children – ‘Little Chick’ who does indeed now talk, and talked to me for a bit. also Small, who in adding talking to his repertoire seems way older! Some of the older girls are definitely proto-teenagers – somewhat scary! Manny thanks to Violet for her organising SB, and allowing her to be in the play at the last minute. A born Head Prefect that girl! [maybe we should make some prefect badges for next year - give them the task of keeping the middle ones happy??] SB played with loads of different people, and had an absolute ball. Some predictable falling outs with equally strong-willed girls, but quickly resolved. i had lovely evenings of chatting, though didn’t actually drink much [shame!] with as many people as possible.

US: well, SB had a great time, playing with all sorts really. i thought all the children goit on really well. The age ranges of the people playing were fluid, and that is one of the things I erally like about home-ed. Port and Starboard seemed to be quite a favourite, and other wierd counting games involving the staircase that I never quite sorted out. I actually missed SB a lot, as in my hols i do like full-on parenting mode, but she had a riot! BB enjoyed poddlilng about. As predicted, she did have rather a thing for the saucepan lids… She did seem to play with rather than just alongside the other triplets and R, J and L. Chase was her favourit game. BB also seemed to love the disco – doing her groovy dance moves [rofl]

things I missed: well, actually the resource table to look at. Also everyone who went home early! I didn’t realise some where leaving, so never said goodbye.
Hmm, may add more to this blog later! Anyway, thankyou Merry for doing a great organisational job.

oh, and although all my photos already on flickr via Mery [as she kindly lent us her camera as I was going to suffer major withdrawal otherwise!], I will put them up again i our bit and then add them from there.

15 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, Dance/drama, General, history, Out and About, photos, socialisation, Stringbean

Our debut with CHEF

Posted on February 10, 2006 by HHaricot | 5 comments

Well, one of my New Years resolutions was to integrate with both the home ed communities that we are roughly equidistant between [ie not near either!!]

So we went to the botanical gardens and met up with a number of other home families of under 8′s, SB immediately clicked with another nearly 5 year old, and ran about having great fun. We also investigated the glasshouses – I always love the tropical. there were coffee plants, banana, cotton, papaya and pineapple in a section – which SB thought was cool!! A nice cafe attatched too – very important! SO, lots of nice friendly people, not intimidating at all, and enjoyed by all of us. So even I should imagine I’ll go again!

It was, unfortunately, very expenisve, as we picked up a parking ticket… Anyway, chris has also taken some lovely close up flower pics, and I’ll let him sort them out and flickr. I liked this one of the jade flower though. What a colour on a plant!

SB has played quite a bit on BBC Jam since we got home, BB has poddled about. Chris now reading brer rabbit stories, which are going down a treat.

I have packed SB’s stuff. realised have no clothes I like, and nothing to pack, and no money to buy any new ones. well, I have 2 pairs of trousers – one held together with a safety pin, and lots of tops that are too short for a rather over-endowed figure – please can thigh length tops come back into fashion!

Hmm, must finish packing as much as poss tonight, as very busy day tomorrow! Feeling vastly disorganised.

5 Comments

Posted in General, Out and About, socialisation

When can it be bedtime?

Posted on February 9, 2006 by HHaricot | 6 comments

Well, we did the experiment at lunchtime, and have just reviewed the results after tea. rather unsurprisingly, vinegar, diet coke and brown sauce made the shiniest coins. red wine made one of the [a canadian one] shiny, and the other [english] not. milk and bicarb made no difference. So we went back to teeth and looking after them.

In the afternoon, SB did another heart sticker thing for valentines day and rather a lot of jump ahead maths. We had a peer at the crystal experiment. The stones are still floating, and very little on them, but obviously a nice crystal growing on a preciptate on the bottom! So will be a success ater all.

I took my eye off the banana loaf, so it is a bit overdone – not too dreadful though! She and chris picked up her library books from the library, and so we had a readathon! The afternoon was finished with her ballet class, and she and chris cycled there and back on the tandem.

of course massive wailing to actually get her out of the house on time. How is it that my teeth can grit so hard, and yet i manage to get words out? i am trying not to shout with frustration, but am aware that both of us need to perhaps work a bit on our tone not sounding so violent as well! It would help if she could, for once, just do something without lots of i’m justs, walking off, and sundry other delaying tactics. She does actually want to go though. i think the fact that we had yet another broken nights sleep doesn’t help any of us really.

BB has done lots of dolly loving – i’m sure she is nearly saying baby. Also playing with this metal car she has taken a fancy too – and doing a brr kind of sound with it. She has also dived head first off the sofa. Didn’t cry though – is that more worrying?? oh, and lots of dance mat moves! i like the twirl around [in slo mo] move she now has too.

Both girls ate the stirfry nicely – well done particularly for SB as she’s not keen on peppers, cashews or courgettes, and they were all included, though I made sure she mostly had brocolli and tofu. And before that, she had tidied her bedroom as well. So she really is a helpful girl, just at her own pace not ours!

There is wailing upstairs at the bath. So i’ve had ooh, 9 mins on my own!! Other plus of the day, was my argument with Catipol1 about bank chrages, whih they took off – after a concerted discussion with someone more senior.

These are just some other photos I liked