A faculty dinner at Kings College

you know, there are some good points to my job.

Take one spare rat….

Well, I guess it would make an interesting HE project:

How to make an LED rat throwie?

Note for the squeamish, this page does show shots of skinning and stuffing a rat etc.

I’m slighty disturbed by the thought that Stringbean would fine the whole process fascinating.

HT to Crunchgear

The last quiet weekend for quite a while

Friday

got home to find the kitchen table covered in Fimo – had to explain to SB it was expensive, and stamped out houses and butterflies in the future would be done in playdough… lovely pig and mouse though modelled.

They had also been to another home educator in the morning for a playdate and to bake jam tarts.

Saturday

Basic explode the code and maths done. we are holding a while on adding and subtracting crossing a 10 until SB competently bored by it. She was so proud of her writing in explode the code that she asked me to take a picture of the page!

She spent ages on the latest webland - and that had a wild mushroom bit, so I got out our dried ones and looked at all their diff shapes, and also a nature book. This of course led me to make the mushroom risotto… We are prob going to go up to the webland 5-7 for a bit, and are still debating the education city. Oh for a bit more ready cash!

She coloured in a volcano page and we then looked a volcano book and then got distracted by the ‘universe‘ book we got from the book people. She’s getting good at UNO now. A fair bit of colouring in as well.
The rest of the day was spent playing outside and harvesting things, being ‘messed about’ – ie thrown up and around and using me and Chris as climbing frames.

BB and I played with the lego, did some pegboards and jigsaws, fuzzy felt and she really enjoys a good sing and dance, and also a tickle.

The evening ended with watching 2 epsiodes of ‘the trials of life‘ with david attenborough from the tesco’s rental [3 months for the price of 1 - not bad!]
Sunday

started of with very early cbbc dose, where i was requested to stay – aargh! BB brought me some toast though. both girsl did some playdough play after the glorious pancakes [second breakfast - turning into a hobbit!]

Out into the garden to enjoy the rays of sun when we get them. I did some pruning/hacking back whilst BB and SB ran about. SB did then help me with some de-ivying. Horrid job, spiders, dirt, dust and woodlice. SB enjoyed the woodlice though.

Lunch and BB having a nap and SB doing maths. Dding 10′s onto things – so easier than crossing the 10. Having basic conversations in French at the moment to spark an interest in learning. Still feeling we should be doing more with languages and music. [and perhaps even something!]. BB still napping so have struggled over origami and now we are jointly making up a story and enacting it with the origami animals.

BB awoke and the mayhem began! SB decided not to bake and went out to play, so i baked cookies with BB. When SB realised [despite being told] there was a mega wailing session, which didn’t really end, so she was quietened down with explode the code – I know, mean of me. BB and I jigsawed, built towers and steps with bricks, and then they both wailed! So I read some stories, and then popped them in the bath whilst Chris cooked tea.

om our return, Sb insisted on doing a bit more maths. then tea, and now she is screeching now into my ear for going up to bed, so so be it!

Toast and pancakes

They were all lazing around in the lounge, Helen enjoying (…?) Sunday morning kiddie TV, Butterbean had had some toast earlier, came back carrying plate and saying ‘toast’.

So she took a plate full back for her and Helen, quite cute really

Toast on it’s way

And i’ve just made us all American style pancakes, which has gone down well. Greek yoghurt and Bannana on top was yummy.

Mushroom risotto aka ‘The Curse of Quorn’

I made a gorgeous mushroom risotto with dried wild mushrooms and chestnuts [not dried!] and parmesan cheese.

It smelled and tasted delicious.

unfortunately, when I became pregnant with BB I had to stop eating quorn as it brought on the most amazingly hideous stomach cramps that felt like labour of the stomach and lasted 4 hours [note to people we might be visiting - no quorn please!]. Had it 2ce and stopped then realising the common ingredient.

Now, last night almost as soon as I had finished the delicious repast, the same happend. Initially i presumed I had eaten a deadly mushroom [I don't ever overreact!], but as CHris seemed fine and stayed fine, and I had the 4 hour stomah labour, eased marginally by maximal doses of all the various antacids/proton pump inhibitors and gavisocn I could find, I presume the curse of quorn.

Aaarrgh I love wild mushrooms. hmmm. Can’t be the porcini ones though as I have them alot

for the garden blog

way late blogging, but the host has been very variable so i hven’t had access either.

so in summary. we have done particularly well with butternut squash and the festival squash [or was it celebration?] and 1 courgett plant has been great, 1 ok and nothing from the other. the pumpkins don’t seem to have done anything at all. The festival squash has loved rampaging across a trellis that was supposed to have peas on it.

The sweetcorn was OK, but not brill, but have just harvested the now dried out strawberry popcorn sweetcorn, so will give that a go later on.

The runners have bean OK and a good crop of broad beans, given their late start, but nothing much from french beans and peas disasterous – but they did coincide with a lot of missed attention, so probably down to us.

the onions and shallot harvest was good, but the garlic non-existant – not sure what happened to that.

the brassicas are still doing well, as sequentially cropping. the romanescu is a particularly smelly plant, and since we placed in the fruit bed near the house, are garden has smelled of cabbages all summer, so won’t do that again! they have had both large and small cabbage white caterpillars. The younger daughter has happily called them snakes and fed as many as possible to the waiting goldfish in the pond – so organic control there.

Potatoes were put in late, and since no sign of blight yet are still growing, and we will do a harvest later.

We had a surprisingly good carrot harvest considering the overgrowth with weeds. Both daughters have been particularly happy with this, mainly eating them raw.

the figs had a good harvest, and we had a few fruit on this years planting apple [but didn’t let it do too much so establishes. Ditto strawberries. the grapes on our vine are just ready to harvest, and we are harvesting bunches as we use them.

care of the greenhouse could def be better, so no aubergines, few chillis but did get some toms.

A lot of things suffered due to pressures at work really, and these aren’t likely to let of much next year. I think we will concetrate on just a few things next year, and half the patch perhaps, covering the rest wiht cardboard to minimise weeds.

pictures to follow

Bring me back…


IMG 9263

Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

OK, should have used silver for iron rather than bronze, and when Mrerry supplied her book I realised tht it wasn’t actually perfect, but hey, I can cope with imperfection [not!]

fun day with the combined forces of puddles and monsterteenies

SB sis maths before we went and got excited by crustal kit purchase from ecay.

once there much racing around of children and a small bit of fimo. Much fimo by adults with negligible racing around. Must upload some pics.

BB had sudden fall apart predipitating our departure. She has a cold and earache.is now calpoled and nurofened and wailing/ feeding and sleeping in short bursts.

have left handbag at merry’s which has all my work stuff in it, so chris will have to go and collect it and then drop it off – aaarrgh

fimo

we have bought some and made stuff. It is fab!

A shorter post

maily to catch up on blogging as we are well behind on flickr!

SB had CHEF sports and a romp in the park with friends today [chris can elaborate?]

I got home from work early while chris went to dentists. SB did explode the code 4 whilst BB used me as climbing frmae and trampoline – nice! She also had fun with a generic builder kit toy, particularly the hammering – ouch! Chris came back, and I retired for a short nap before dinner having take some migraine tablets, SB I think did some maths.

After dinner/bathes, we explored my naughty book people order. SB was very taken by this atlas, and looked through it whilst I plaed with BB, and the we read this roman flap book together, which had been the real reason for the order. As predicted SB loved it. romans and flaps, what more can a girl ask for [she has the castle one already!]. She also impressed me by trying to read some of the flaps [after I had, so very scaffolded, but a definate interest in reading now]

So we were late to bed. For the last week when at home I have been reading poetry to her [at her request] as bedtime stories. We have now finished the book, so wonder what she’s going to go for next! Oh, and we ended the day with an ebay purchase of an abridged story tape of the railway children, which she very much liked. I have the book somewhere!