Tilly Tatas

Happy Hallowe'en

2011-11-01T00:15:00.001Z

Tiddler's nursery had a 'witches and wizards day' to celebrate Hallowe'en. I usually forget about dress-up days but I was determined to remember this time and to produce a costume.

I bought a 'ghoul robe' from Clinton's which I had to chop about a bit to make fit. The cape started off as a cobweb scarf from the 99p store and I used the chopped off bits from the robe to make thecollar/ties. I found a cheap dress in the 99p store which had a multicoloured cobweb patterned skirt so I chopped this up and stitched the cobwebs onto the robe and the hat.

I'm quite pleased at how it turned out but I'm hoping it'll last for a few years so I don't have to go to all that effort again for a while!

Edited to add: This post should have been published on 31st Oct but Blogger ate it and I had to re do it so perhaps it should now be entitled 'Happy 1st November' instead).

The Gallery: Birth

2011-08-04T01:28:00.000+01:00

This week's Gallery subject is 'Birth'.

I'm going for the obvious, but no nicely washed and presented babies here - just the before, during and after of Tiddler's entry into the world. Perhaps not for the squeamish!

Before

During

After

The things we do to have our kids!

Ta Da - My Roxanne Mystery Shawl!

2011-05-31T17:52:00.000+01:00

My Roxanne Mystery Shawl is finished!

Here she is with a couple of detailed photo's too:

I used Abstract Cat's 100% Bluefaced Leicester Sock Yarn in colourway 'Soiree'. I started on 4mm needles but didn't like how it was looking so started over again on 3.75mm needles instead.

There were quite a few errors in the pattern but other KAL-ers had discovered these before I got that far into the pattern so they didn't cause me any problems.

Two new techniques for me with this pattern: a garter tab cast on and cables, both of which are easy if you look them up on You Tube first!

I do like mystery knits! I think I might try a mystery sock knitalong next.

New Post over on Non-neurotypical Nipper

2011-05-27T14:14:00.000+01:00

Nipper thinks I've got four eyes! You can read about it here.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival 2011 - Baby Quilt

2011-05-20T01:24:00.001+01:00

I've just finished a quilt in time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival 2011.

Our lovely friends Richard and Emily are expecting their first baby in August. I wanted to give them something handmade that could be used for a long time. Baby knits are lovely but babies grow too fast! I figured a quilt/playmat would fit the bill.

As usual I gave myself a headache with this project by buying the fabric before planning the quilt. One of these days I'll actually plan the quilt before the purchase (actually I probably won't!). I spent a couple of evenings mulling over how I was going to fashion my fabric into a usable item but I got there in the end. I think I prefer 'winging it' projects rather than following someone elses design really. I must do otherwise I wouldn't keep on doing it!

I took photos and made notes along the way so as and when I find the notes I'll blog the process. The fabric is 100% cotton with sashing made from 100% cotton sheeting (bought in Primark for a fraction of the cost of yardage in a fabric shop). The back is also plain white cotton sheeting. The batting is a cotton/bamboo mix with an eigth of an inch loft. The design is 'Farmyard Corne'r by Makower and I can't remember where I bought it (but it would have been an online, UK based, fabric supplier).

I can't get a walking foot for my machine so quilting is a bit tricky. For this quilt I just stiched 'squares' around the animal pictures. I'm not explaining that very well but you can see what I mean if you look closely at the photo. This way I didn't get any puckering.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It's not perfect but, to me, that's the beauty of handmade. I know it'll be loved as much as I loved making it.

Roxanne Clue 2 and a Moebius Cast-on

2011-05-10T00:15:00.002+01:00

I've finished Clue 2 of my mystery shawl and I'm now partway through Clue 3. After all my stressing about cables they turned out to be a doddle in the end.

The same can't be said for my 'between clues' project. I'd finished Clue 2 but hadn't yet received Clue 3 so was feeling a bit twitchy and needed something new to knit (no idea why I couldn't have finished one of my other wips!).

I found this pattern for a felted bowl with a moebius edge and decided to have a go with my favourite 'love to hate' yarn (Noro!). After attempting, and finally managing, a moebius cast-on I will never stress about a new knitting challenge ever again! I appeared to be knitting from the inside of the moebius loop outwards and was sure that I was doing something wrong - but apparantly not! The turquoise yarn in the centre is where I cast on.

I just kept knitting in the hope that all would be revealed and it was! I just need to stitch the bowl and the edge together and then felt it. Very exciting!

Kind of glad the holidays are over!

2011-04-27T23:30:00.000+01:00

Nipper will only attend school for five and a half days in total this month what with the Easter break, the bank holidays and the Royal Wedding. I was getting pretty stressed about how I was going to get through the month quite frankly. However, it went better than expected with regard to keeping Nipper happy (and me not having a nervous breakdown in the process!) but was a bit of a disaster in several other ways.

The family worker at our local children's centre told me about an inclusive holiday playclub which is able to cater for kids with additional needs. This was a godsend! Nipper went from 9am to 3pm for a several days across the holidays and had a lovely time of it. We'll definitely be doing this again.

Our family has otherwise spent a good deal of time in the company of the NHS and the local vet over the holidays. Not really how we wanted to spend our time.

First incident - my Dad being rushed in to hospital in the middle of the night with suspected heart problems. Luckily it was Angina, they gave him some tablets, he'll have to go back in a few weeks for some tests, and three days later he was up a ladder re-felting his shed roof!

Next - we are due to visit Mr Earplugs' parents but get a phonecall the day before to say that his Mum has fallen off her push-bike, dislocated her ankle and broken her leg! Scratch those plans then. His Mum is in plaster but so far no need for any surgery and she's feeling pretty ok.

Then - Tiddler falls over the stairgate, goes airborne, and crashlands with his forehead against the edge of the cupboard resulting in a nasty split which requires a 3 hour stint in A&E. I won't have a rant here (much as I'd like to but it's getting late!) but they did a crap job of steristrip-ing it and after 5 days it was very nasty, swollen and 'oozing' so we spent another 3 hours in there to be told that it should have been stitched but it was now too late. It's still bleeding intermittantly (10 days after it happened) and he'll be left with a scar!

Onward with the holidays and Nipper gets a nasty bug and has a raging sore throat and temperature for 2 days. I dose him up with Calpol and on day 3 he comes out in a horrendous rash all over his body. I consult my 'kiddie diseases' book and it looks like it might be German Measles. We go down to the walk-in health centre (as it's the weekend) and we wait 'in isolation' for 3 hours to see a nurse who says it's not German Measles, just a nasty virus which presents like it. Apparantly they'd been inundated with kids with the same symptoms and had problems finding rooms to keep them all isolated until they could see the nurse. He's much better now but still has the rash.

Then the cherry on the top was the untimely demise of Scooter, Miss Muffett's guinea pig. She couldn't have chosen a worse moment as Miss Muffett had just gone off on holiday for a few days with her Dad! Poor Scooter has had a couple of difficult months, bless her. She had an injured eye and a small abcess which meant that we had to give her eye drops twice a day, and both oral antibiotics and painkillers by syringe. We had 5 trips to the vet with her and she made a remarkable recovery, much to the vet's surprise, given that she was an old lady in piggy terms at six and a half years old.
She was doing ok, then, all of a sudden, she was behaving oddly and couldn't balance. I took her to see the emergency vet (£103! Why do these things always happen at the weekend?!) Turns out that if a small animal looks ill then they are really ill, and if they look in a bad way then they really, really, really are in a bad way! I was prepared to give her all the medications again etc but the vet said she had little hope of recovering and it would be best to put her to sleep. Once she was dead he was able to examine her more fully and found that she had a lump in her tummy so most likely had a tumour.

We dug a big hole in the garden and popped her in it and Nipper was very pleased to know that Scooter was now going to be buried treasure!

He then announced that when she was better he'd be able to dig her up, before going off to fill up the watering can to water her, since we had just planted her! I think I'd better plant a shrub above her to stop him from digging her up (as I know that he will try to as and when the mood takes him!)

RIP Scooter (hopefully!)

Yes, I'm definitely kind of glad that the holidays are over!

Roxanne Mystery Shawl Knitalong

2011-04-23T00:31:00.002+01:00

I've signed myself up for Feministy's mystery shawl knitalong (KAL). I'ts another 'in at the deep end' project for me as she is threatening cables in the pattern. This caused me a bit of an 'eek' moment as I've never knitted cables before. But I've bought some cable needles and I'm ready for anything!

I'm using 100% Blue Faced Leicester Sock Yarn, hand dyed by Abstract Cat, in colourway 'Soiree', on 3.75mm needles.

Here is the finished first clue:

Three more clues to go!

New Post over on Non-neurotypical Nipper

2011-04-15T00:25:00.000+01:00

Nipper manages to embarrass me at play club! You can read about it here.

Blog Gems

2011-04-10T22:10:00.000+01:00

I've been following Jen's Blog Gems since she started. I don't always get around to joining in and when I have joined in I've just added a link on her blog to my 'Gem' but not written a new post 'advertising 'it, but I will do from now on.

So, this week's instruction was:

It was Mothers Day on this side of the world last Sunday. Link up a post about parenting, being a mother or a father. If you are not a parent just pick a post about your own parents, if you have written one.

My Blog Gem: The End of an Era and a Disastrous Afternoon

Today is World Autism Awareness Day

2011-04-02T00:01:00.001+01:00

If you want to know a little more about this, and of the impact autism has on those with the disability and their families, then have a read of O'Mammy's blogpost.

Cross your fingers for good weather today as I'll be standing around in town shaking a tin for our local autistic society - though I don't think you are allowed to shake the tin. I think you have to just stand there and hope that people notice you!

New Post over on Non-neurotypical Nipper

2011-03-27T16:23:00.001+01:00

I've finally managed to write a blog post detailing what's been going on with Nipper's diagnosis over the last several months. You can read about it here.

When I get a minute I'll blog about the other stuff that's been going on here. See you shortly!

Happy Christmas!

2010-12-24T19:35:00.000Z

Nipper rarely likes to draw so I was really pleased to see that he had joined in with the other kids to design his own Christmas card.

I usually try to visit all the blogs I follow and all my followers to say 'Happy Christmas' but I'm not going to manage it this year. So I wish everyone who stops by a very Happy Chrismas indeed!

The Gallery: Celebration

2010-12-01T22:54:00.000Z

This week's Gallery subject is 'Celebration' and here is my rather obvious contribution:

This was my Wedding Cake (I got married for the second time in January 2008). This cake meant a lot to me, not just because it was my Wedding Cake, but because I put it together myself.

I had planned to do all the flowers myself but my supplier let me down and so I had a mad rush to find a new supplier, get hold of the flowers, and put together the table and cake decorations and also make myself a bouquet:

I had to completely change the designs as I couldn't get hold of the original choice of flowers. It was all a bit 'last minute' but wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. It would have been much better if I hadn't had to do it in such a rush though!

The Gallery: Black and White

2010-11-24T07:00:00.001Z

This week's Gallery subject is 'Black and White'.

I took the photo below a few weeks ago when I was playing around with my new camera. It's a quick snap of Tiddler taken using the camera's 'film grain' setting.

Since it's in black and white the Gallery has given me the perfect excuse for putting it on the blog!

Remembrance Sunday

2010-11-14T07:30:00.005Z

On the 11th November I posted a photo of my Great-uncle Will with his battallion.

Here he is again:

He was initially stationed at Pembroke Dock when he was only 18. Doesn't it look grim?!

The card above was sent to my Great-aunt on the 5th December 1914 to let her know that he wouldn't be getting any leave over Christmas.

He was a Gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery and according to his Medal Card he went to France in July 1915 at only 19 years old. Can you imagine?

He and my Great-aunt were married in March 1918 during a weekend leave break and she didn't see him again until he was discharged from the Army over a year later.

My Mother has a photo and postcard album which was put together by my Great-aunt and it's full of photo's and cards from around 1910 to 1920 with lots of cards sent during the war.

This is a typical example, sent to wish Will a happy birthday.

Unfortunately, Will was wounded when a bomb fell on his trench. The story goes that it was sometime near Christmas and my Great-aunt had sent him a parcel containing a Christmas cake. He had just opened the parcel when the bomb landed. He was knocked unconscious and when he came round was the only one alive and still had the remains of the cake in his hand. He had a shrapnel wound to his leg and was sent to hospital. Here he is with the nurses and some other soldiers (back row, far left):

He made it home in one piece after being discharged from the army in 1919 with the following medals:

From Left 1914-15 Star, Victory Medal, British War Medal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

He lived till the ripe old age of 71, bless him.

Previous Remembrance Day post can be found here.

Armistice Day

2010-11-11T07:01:00.004Z

My Great-uncle Will (front row, far right)

More about Will on Remembrance Sunday

'They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them'

Previous Remembrance Day post can be found here

The Gallery: Seasons

2010-11-10T09:56:00.000Z

This week's Gallery subject is 'Seasons':

This photo was taken in late spring but turning it upside down makes it look decidedly autumnal (well, to me anyway!)

New Post over on Non-neurotypical Nipper

2010-11-06T18:18:00.001Z

Noticing: the kids at school have noticed that Nipper is 'different'.

The Gallery: Makes Me Smile

2010-11-03T17:37:00.000Z

This week's prompt for The Gallery is 'Show Me The Funny'. Well, the following photo's aren't especially funny but they do make me smile every time I see them.
Nipper has problems with fine motor control and so struggles to hold a pencil properly. As a result he hardly ever wants to write or draw. I was absolutely thrilled when he brought this card home from nursery for Mother's Day earlier this year.

Nipper and Tiddler love to help me with the laundry. Inside the card was this:

The photo of Nipper makes me laugh every time I see it because it's him all over.

Nipper has Asperger's Syndrome and we have a lot of challenging behaviour to deal with. Sometimes its too easy to see only the disability and forget the little boy living with it. This photo is great at helping me to remember that.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2010-10-31T00:17:00.010+01:00

Or rather, how did our garden grow this summer with our first attempt at growing our own veg?

Here's how:

Three Ridge Cucumbers in a growbag

The cucumbers did really well and were very happy in a growbag. These were in full sun and I didn't bother to stake them. They just sprawled along the ground. Each plant produced about 5 cucumbers. I had another plant in a shadier part of the garden and that only produced one cucumber so that was interesting to see. I made two different types of cucumber pickle with them which I'll blog about at some point.


Two Pumpkins in large tubs

The pumpkins got off to a great start and soon took over the garden. Each plant was in a large tub filled with multipurpose compost. I think I should have limited their growth as they started to produce a lot of fruit which then died off leaving just one pumpkin on each plant. I think I needed to feed them earlier and also perhaps water them more. Growing pumpkins in a pot, however large, is perhaps not the best way to grow them!

Two Squashes in builders buckets

Some unknown critter ate one of my squash plants so I had to grow another one from seed, hence one plant being smaller than the other in this photo. As with the pumpkins these plants produced a lot of fruit which then died off. I think these need to be in a much bigger pot with earlier feeding. I've got one squash ready to eat and another one on the plant still (for some reason one of the plants decided to suddenly try to grow some more fruit).

Five Tomatoes in growbags

The tomatoes did well but because I started everything from seed in May, which was a little late in the season, they didn't start to ripen until September. I didn't manage to nip out all the side shoots properly so the plants looked a bit of an unruly mess! I picked all of the tomatoes about a week ago as the plants were starting to look a bit rough (getting nasty looking brown patches on the stems). I think we'll be making a lot of green tomato chutney!

Three Courgette plants in builders buckets

These three plants kept us in courgettes all summer. Next time I think I'll plant them in bigger pots or tubs as I think they need a bit more space. I had another plant in a smaller pot (as I ran out of buckets) and it didn't produce anything at all. Another interesting experiment.

One large tub of Carrots

We had enough carrots to last all summer. Next year I'll definitely plant lots more carrots - they tasted lovely and sweet. They were quite happy in the big tub.

Two window boxes of Mixed Radish and four Lollo Rosso Lettuces

The radishes grew easily and Nipper got very excited when he was allowed to pull them up. My original plantings of lettuce were constantly eaten by something as soon as their little heads popped through the ground. After several attempts I put the pots on roofing felt and we had no more problems. They grew really well and it's a shame that we don't like Lollo Rosso lettuce! (The seeds were free from the BBC's 'Dig In' project).

Large Strawberry pot and Apples from the old tree

The strawberries didn't do too well. They look lovely in the big strawberry pot but I don't think they had enough room. Also, it's quite difficult to keep a terracotta pot moist enough as the water evapourates off so quickly. I'll have to rethink my strawberry strategy for next year. We never do anything much to the apple tree and it always produces a nice amount of apples. There were more than this but Mr Earplug's had chopped them up for a crumble before I managed to get a photo. We also had over 3lbs of damsons but I didnt get a photo before Mr Earplugs made jam. Must blog that sometime too.

I know that I really should be planting something up for over the winter but I'm not organised yet. I might just hang on and get organised for an early start for next year instead.

Blogger's Quilt Festival 2010 - Grandma's Lap Quilt

2010-10-29T23:01:00.000+01:00

Having made my first ever quilt this year I thought I'd enter the Bloggers Quilt Festival 2010 over at Amy's Creative Side.

My 'entry' is 'Grandma's Lap Quilt' which I made for Mr Earplug's Grandma's 91st birthday back in January 2010.(I blogged about it here).

It was the first time I'd attempted quilting and I really should have bought a kit as I gave myself a bit of a headache trying to work out how much fabric to buy for the squares, the backing, and the binding. Not to mention working out how to cut it and how to use a rotary cutter, a cutting mat, etc. But I managed in the end!

I had a nice design worked out but unfortunately forgot to mark the orientation of my '9 patches' and so made a mess of it in the sewing together. You can only really tell though when it's held up at a distance away. Close-up it looks just fine. (Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the finished quilt so this photo is of it at the basting stage).

Grandma was really pleased to receive it and I really enjoyed making it for her. She keeps our boys supplied with the most beautiful hand knits and so it was so nice to be able to give her a hand-made gift.

Pop over and check out all the other fabulous quilts:

Click here to go to Blogger's Quilt Festival

There are so many to see. And if you've ever made a quilt yourself then why not enter the Festival. And there are prizes to be won!

The Fawcett Society takes the Coalition Government to Court over Spending Cuts

2010-10-27T00:15:00.001+01:00

Photo courtesy of Francesco Marino : FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Two 'political' posts from me in less than a month!!

This article, published by The Guardian on October 22nd, follows on quite nicely from my previous post on the budget cuts.

Apparently the government did not hold an 'Equality Impact Assessment' for the June 2010 budget, and the Fawcett Society have requested a judicial review with regard to it's failure to honour its legal duty under the Equality Act to give "due regard" to the impact on women.

I wonder if they will get anywhere with their request for a judicial review, and if they do, will anything change?

Changes Afoot

2010-10-22T23:26:00.000+01:00

Over the next few days I'm going to be playing around with the design of my blog as I fancy a bit of a change.
If you stop by, and things look a bit of a mess, please bear with me. I'll get there in the end!

On a Cold and Frosty Morning

2010-10-21T13:17:00.001+01:00

This morning we saw the first frost. Even though I was running late for an appointment I just had to dash outside and take a couple of snaps. Mr Earplugs gave me a fabulous new camera for my birthday (a Panasonic Lumix FZ-38) and so far I've not had much chance to use it.

Here's what I snapped:

I love how the frost sits on the nastertium flowers and makes them look like those crystallized jellied fruit slices that seem to be on sale around Christmas time.

The Gallery: The Colour Red

2010-10-20T09:52:00.000+01:00

This weeks Gallery subject is 'The Colour Red' to tie in somewhat with Hallowe'en coming up. I don't have any Hallowe'en related photo's, nor very many that feature much red for that matter, but I do have this one:

This was taken at Shabbington Fair or possibly the Royal County Show during the summer of 2009 so Nipper had just turned 3 years old. Take him to an agricultural or a steam fair and he's in his element. I think this is a combine harvester though I'm probably wrong??

I'm going to cheat as usual and add a second photo:

I don't have many flowering plants in the garden at the moment but each year this lovely Peony pushes it's way through all the weeds. I just love Peonies. Unfortunately Nipper took a garden cane and walloped the heads off every flowering plant in the garden. I was so shocked when I saw what he'd done that I was speechless. We didn't have many flowers to start with and had none by the time he'd finished. Good job I'd taken a piccy then, albeit a slightly blurry one!

Cuts, ahoy! Women and children first! -- New Internationalist

2010-10-18T23:59:00.001+01:00

I very rarely talk politics on the blog - I want it to be a fairly nice place to visit and politics just gets my goat most of the time! However, the proposed public spending cuts are rather making me fume!

I just read the following article via OMammy's blog and it pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter:

Cuts, ahoy! Women and children first! -- New Internationalist

So, what do you think?

The Gallery: A Favourite Photo

2010-10-13T19:44:00.000+01:00

This week's Gallery subject is 'A Favourite Photo'.

I'm going to cheat on this one as I have many favourites but three in particular.

Nipper wasn't best pleased when I went off to hospital and came back home with Tiddler. This was the first time he paid Tiddler any proper attention (aside from telling him to 'be quiet' whenever he cried!).

This was taken at our wedding in January 2008. Mr Earplugs is giving me 'The Look'. I get this look whenever I do something that I shouldn't - like buy yet another skein of sock yarn to add to my ever increasing stash, or buy a pair of shoes that I don't necessarily need!

This is a rare photo of me and my Dad. Since my Dad was usually the one behind the camera there are very few photos of him with any of the family. I think it was taken in Blackpool when I was around 3 years old. I don't have any photo manipulation software but I'm thinking perhaps I should get some so I can rejuvenate this photo before it disintegrates completely.

National Poetry Day: 'This Be The Verse'

2010-10-07T21:34:00.003+01:00

Photo from Amazon.co.uk

I've just found out, via Oh Mammy's blog, that today is National Poetry Day.

One of my favourites is Peter Dixon's 'Oh Bring Back Higher Standards' which I blogged about last year because it reminds me of my time at a very stuffy grammar school.

Below is my chosen poem for this year. It's by no means a favourite. In fact I loathed studying Philip Larkin at school and I'm still not enamoured of him now. This poem caused quite a stir amongst us, possibly because of the language, and possibly because it rather resonated with us as a group of kids going through that teenage rebellious phase. Don't read on if you're offended by 'bad' language!

This Be The Verse - Philip Larkin (1922 - 1980)

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.

My school days obviously had quite an impact on me as my chosen poems hark back to that era. I wonder what that says about me? Hmmm?

The Gallery: Here Come The Girls

2010-10-06T14:30:00.001+01:00

I recently came across The Gallery and decided to join in.

Tara, who started it, says "Photography is my 'thing', my love, my passion.That's not to say I'm particularly good at it or even know what I'm talking about, but I do appreciate good photos and love taking them.And so, to this end, I launched The Gallery, a weekly feature for people like me to participate in.I want to encourage other bloggers, offer inspiration, give them all a place to showcase their work.It's essentially a virtual art gallery of photographs which opens its doors every week for everyone and anyone to join in.Every Friday I give a prompt, an idea, a notion and you go out and take a photograph using that prompt. Or just use a photo you already have.The prompt could be one word, an object, an idea, a phrase, anything, and you have to post a picture which you feel represents that prompt.Post it on your blog and write about it."

This week's prompt is 'Here Come The Girls'.

For me the phrase 'the girls' reminds me of our guinea pigs as that's what we call them. And here they are:

We got them for Miss Muffett's 8th birthday and she wanted to call them Rosie and Sophie. But that made them sound like Sally Webster's 'girls' from Coronation Street and that would have been a bit sad. So, Sophie stayed as Sophie, and Rosie became Scooter as she scooted away across her cage when we tried to pick her up. Sadly Sophie is no longer with us having popped her clogs last year. I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to get this large and very dead guinea pig out of the cage! She was quite a grumpy old girl and very greedy with it. Poor Scooter never got a look-in. Although guineas are very social animals, and should be kept in pairs rather than alone, Scooter is having a whale of a time without her domineering sister and seems never to have been happier, bless her.

Swingtime!

2010-10-04T20:39:00.003+01:00

Ah, the joy of being one year old!

Tomatoes Ripening At Last!

2010-09-23T11:48:00.003+01:00

So, my tomatoes are finally starting to ripen and according to the weather reports Winter is just around the corner!

My Dad did warn me that I might have problems with them as I grew them from seed but didn't start till mid-May. I've also done a very poor job of nipping out the side shoots as the plants look like shrubs and they shouldn't do!

Hopefully we'll get some lovely tomatoes to eat (I've had one and they are yummy) rather than having to make gallons of green tomato chutney!

And speaking of which we have made pickles and jam but I'll blog about them later.

Mystery Shawl Knit-A-Long (KAL) - Finished!

2010-09-17T21:25:00.004+01:00

My Mystery Knit-A-Long Shawl is finished! It took 4 weeks to knit and a day to block. I really can't believe that I managed to knit it. I thought I was quite a slow knitter but apparently not. I would never have attempted it had I seen the pattern beforehand as it would have scared me half to death. But now I feel quite confident about attempting another lace shawl.

And, I can now read a chart. For some reason I just haven't been able to get my head around charts at all. But, partway through Clue 3, I decided to have a serious go at it, and I did it. So that now opens up a whole host of other shawls to try.

I think I'll be on the look out for another mystery knit to try!

Mystery Shawl KAL - Nearly There!

2010-09-16T20:57:00.002+01:00

Currently blocking on the bedroom floor.

Mystery Shawl KAL - Clue Four Finished

2010-09-15T18:25:00.003+01:00

Clue Four is finished and I'm halfway through Clue Five. The designer has posted a photo on Ravelry of the finished shawl and it's gorgeous. If mine turns out like her photo then I will be amazed. Can't wait to get it finished and see!

Mystery Shawl KAL - Clue Three Finished

2010-09-08T22:23:00.003+01:00

Apologies for the awful photo - if I try to take a photo during the day Tiddler crawls all over my knitting so I have to wait till the kids are in bed. I'm not sure that you can see much from this photo but Clue 3 is now finished. While waiting for Clue 4 I started another project and I'm now behind with my mystery knitting, tut tut!

New Post over on Non-neurotypical Nipper

2010-09-08T21:54:00.001+01:00

Click on the post title to check out Nipper's first day at school!

The End of an Era and a Disastrous Afternoon

2010-09-05T22:34:00.004+01:00

Friday was Nipper's last day at nursery and it definitely feels like the end of an era to us. Off to 'big' school on Wednesday! We made a bit of a thing of it by buying a nice card and a big box of yummy biscuits for the staff, and a milky way bar for each of the kids in his class.

I was clearly on my own with this feeling of 'wow - he's finishing nursery'. When I went to collect him it was like any other day. None of the staff who normally work in his room were there, just an agency temp who wasn't aware it was his last day. None of the kids were aware that he wouldn't be coming back and when I went to check his tray his name label had already been removed (and there was no sign of the return of the deposit that I'd paid when he started there). It was a total anticlimax. So I gathered up his coat and bag and we went home. He wasn't bothered but I was miffed, and felt sorry that such a momentous time had been ignored, if that makes sense.

So, we decided to head off to the local leisure centre for their bouncy castle and soft play session. Both the boys love this and it was the last time that Nipper woulld be able to go. We generally have a drink and a cake in the cafe afterwards so it's a real treat. Unfortunately, the session wasn't running as they were hosting some sort of 'my bunny is better than your bunny' event. I was pretty cross, along with several other mummies in the queue, as there hadn't been any notice of the cancellation (I'd been at a session earlier in the week) and no notice on their website. This prompted a minor meltdown from Nipper who was really upset that he couldn't play on the bouncy castle. Now usually I'd do everything possible to calm Nipper down and stop him from disturbing everyone with his loud wailing. But this time I let him go at it so that they could have a few minutes of what I was now going to have to deal with because of their inconsideration!

I managed to persuade Nipper out into the garden area and we decided to have our drink and cake and this helped to calm him down. So, we're sitting at the picnic bench enjoying ourselves when a little gust of wind came along and lifted up our paper plate and deposited our cake on the floor! It happened in the blink of an eye - one second it was there and the next it was gone. The look of shock and horror on Nipper's face would have been comical except that it preceeded another bout of wailing. Now, I never go anywhere without a bag full of drinks, snacks, nappies, kitchen sink etc so I whipped out two snack bars and asked which one he wanted. Whilst messing about with the bars Nipper manages to knock over my coffee which spills like a waterfall through the picnic table and drenches my trousers and shoes. Cue louder wailing.

I've had enough by now so I suggest we leave and go see the boats on the river. But first we need to visit the little boys room. The main baby changing room is blockaded by a mountain of tools being used to mend the adjacent toilets. The other baby changing room is in the 'bunny' area and I'm not allowed down there. So I have to queue in the swimming changing rooms and wait for a family room to become available so I can change Tiddler. Then squash all three of us plus the pram into the smallest toilets I've ever been in so Nipper can do his thing! I don't know if it was the changing rooms or me having a hot flush but it was bloody sweltering in there!

We finally make it out of the leisure centre and head for the river where, thank goodness, there are plenty of boats, and lots of tractor type vehicles who are clearing up after the festival. And speaking of which the area looked like a refugee camp. I've never seen so much rubbish in one place, aside from a visit to the tip. God knows how much it costs to clear the place after the festival, though I noticed an army of 'community service' people (ie scallywags who avoid getting prison sentences and have to do 'useful' community stuff instead), so presumably that keeps the costs down!

We have a lovely walk without too much incident though we do have to venture into the undergrowth for Nipper to have another wee (I'd forgotten to bring the portapotty!) A little while later Nipper is having fun climbing on a fallen down tree when he informs me that I need to make his bum all shiny. Uh oh! That's what Nipper says when he needs his bum wiping - and on closer inspection boy does he need his bum wiping! This is very unusual for Nipper but I guess when you've got to go you've got to go! Making his bum 'all shiny' was a bit of a trick and viewed by everyone along the riverbank. Good job I've got the kitchen sink in my bag. This was shortly followed up by another foray into the undergrowth for yet another wee. Tiddler has decided that he's fed up of being an onlooker from the pram and starts wailing because I won't let him out to roll in all the goose poo that's on the grass.

I decide I've had enough disasters for one day and we head home. Mercifully, both boys fall asleep in the car and we have peace at last!

Mystery Shawl KAL - Clue Two Finished

2010-09-01T00:02:00.006+01:00

Well, Clue 2 is finished but I can't get much of a picture of it as it's longer than my knitting needle. I'm using a one metre long needle, which is great to knit with, but no good when you want to stretch out your knitting for a photo opportunity.

On with Clue 3!

R3YQYM7Y5FYD

Mystery Shawl KAL - Clue One Finished

2010-08-24T23:31:00.005+01:00

So, this is what it looks like so far:

I'm amazed that I have managed to knit it, though there are two mistakes (in my knitting and not the pattern that is).

Clue two has arrived!

It's a Mystery

2010-08-17T16:44:00.006+01:00

Fed up with attempting to knit Miss Muffett's poncho I did what most knitters do and shoved it in the WIP basket and started something new! I'm embarking on a mystery knit and have joined Picnic Knits mystery shawl knit-a-long on Ravelry. I'm a bit late joining and might not even have the time to finish it by the end of the KAL but I fancied having a go anyway. It looks like it might be 'serious' lace knitting which is a bit scary so I'm just looking at the pattern row by row in order not to frighten myself! I managed to knit and block a swatch, and it looks like all the others that are on Ravelry so I guess I'm doing ok so far.

I'm using a 100% Lambswool lace weight yarn in the 'Cherry Berry' colourway by Misty Yarns which I bought from Ebay a few months ago. It's on a 4mm needle and I knit quite loosely so hopefully it'll block out to size ok. I hate all that final stretching as I'm worried the yarn will snap somewhere. I've managed to knit the first few rows from the first clue (5 clues in total) and if I manage ok I'll post pictures as I finish each clue.

I'm much more excited about knitting this than that darned poncho!

Knitting at the Beach and The 4x4 Show

2010-08-14T22:09:00.009+01:00

We had a nice week in Devon (I'll pop some photo's up when I get them sorted out) and Mr Earplug's took an extra week off work so we have had a few daytrips too.

If we want a day at the beach then we usually head to Hengistbury Head but this time decided to go a bit further west to Boscombe. I've never been there before but I'll go again as it's great to be able to park up just feet from the beach with no need to lug all your beach gear more than about 20 feet from your car.

I decided to do a bit of work on Miss Muffett's much maligned second attempt poncho while Tiddler ate the sand and Mr Earplugs and Nipper had a paddle:

I didn't get very far with the knitting - the sea air seems to make stuff feel somehow sticky and I just couldn't get the yarn to 'flow' through my fingers the way I like when I'm knitting. I think that's probably just an excuse to stop though as I'm pretty much hating knitting this darned poncho!

But then, check out those clouds:

Yes, it poured down - good old english summer weather! So we retreated into our beach shelter and watched the rain and had a sandwich. The boys don't seem to mind whether it's raining or not. They just like digging holes!

Then today we went to The Berkshire 4x4 Show as Nipper really loves monster trucks and this show is within easy driving distance. It's not really my thing, and it rained, and the field was like a mud bath, but the boys liked it! Some of it was a bit ridiculous - check out this Mini:

And if you like monster trucks then here are a couple more:

And for a bit of a diversion check out 'Joseph' jumping through a ring of fire on his push bike! He was wearing a very fetching pair of frilly gold pants and not a lot else!

The finale was a bunch of cars getting crumped by the star of the show (before it karked it and got stuck on top of the cars!)

Now this would have been a great chance to sit in the tea tent and knit - shame I left the dreaded poncho at home!

Carrots!

2010-08-09T00:32:00.004+01:00

Honestly, you'd think I invented growing vegetables by the amount of excitement that happens every time I harvest something!
(Those are my strawberries too!)

Catch Up Before Holiday Time

2010-07-30T00:39:00.020+01:00

I don't know where the time goes! I've been meaning to do a post for I don't know how long but never get to it! So here is a quick catch up.

All three kiddies have had birthdays recently. Tiddler turned one:

He had a little family party at home which was slightly scuppered by my S-I-L's cat having an accident and everyone having to rally around to get it sorted out. Nevertheless he enjoyed the day and his cake! I managed to finish his quilt much to my surprise. It turned out really well (considering I can't get a walking foot for my machine) and I love it.

Nipper turned four:

He had a party for his nursery friends at a local leisure centre where you could hire the bouncy castle and soft play equipment. A fab time was had by all though the service from centre staff left a lot to be desired, the worst of which was when one of the kids was sick and the reception staff handed my daughter one wet jaycloth to deal with it. How can you clean up sick with one jaycloth?! No paper towels available anywhere - not even in the toilets, no disinfectant provided - yuck! Won't be going there again, nor recommending it - lol! Unfortunately I didn't finish his quilt - it's still a work in progress and he doesn't seem to mind. I bought him some Thomas trains and tracks off Ebay and he was over the moon with them.

I'm not doing too well on the crafty front generally. I eventually frogged Miss Muffett's poncho and I'm now attempting it again on smaller needles. It just wasnt working out - the Debbie Bliss cotton did not like being knitted up on a 10mm needle. We'll see how we get on with the new version.

Miss Muffett turned fourteen. Here she is with Tiddler's present - the cat thingy from Waybuloo (she has a thing about cats!)

She was easy to please - an LG Pop phone from me, some arty supples from Nipper, and a trip to the cinema and Pizza Hut with her best buddies. She even came home with some change from the cash I'd given her. I was impressed.

We were also impressed and very proud of her achievements at Junior Prizegiving. She has received prizes each year that she's been at secondary school but I've not been able to attend the ceremony before as they don't allow you to take young children (wonder if they'd have turned me away if I'd turned up with Tiddler anyway??) She received the lower school award for Drama, and also the Academic Achievement award for her year group. To top it off she came first in the 100m at sports day and was only beaten in the relay by the team who run for the school. Apparently her teachers are urging her to stand for head girl so Year 10 could be a very interesting year.

We've been to some lovely Summer fairs, four so far. I love them. Give me a cup of tea, a piece of cake, a book stall to have a rummage and a bouncy castle to entertain Nipper and I'm a happy bunny. We picked up some great books and cd's and some educational stuff for Nipper which looked brand new. But best of all was the visiting Fire Engine which came to Nipper's Nursery Fair. They allowed the kids to sit inside and pretend to drive. The nursery staff had a fireman's helmet and took pictures of the kids and gave them a certificate. Nipper was over the moon:

Some very exciting things have been going on in the garden! I decided to have a go at growing some veg, though left it a little bit late to be growing from seed, so I don't know how things will turn out. Here's a glimpse - the courgettes are doing very well and I'll soon have to start giving them away as we can't eat them fast enough:

The little ridge cucumbers are very sweet tasting:

The tomatoes are just starting to flower:

I never realised that pumpkins would take over the garden though given the size of the fruit it should have been obvious!

And look at this little chap having a whale of a time inside the flower:

The baby squashes are so cute!

What do you think of my lettuces?

Yes, they are nasturtiums. I gave up after 3 seperate plantings were gobbled up by an unknown critter. I'm having better luck with my 4th lot which are sitting on top of the guinea hutch:

I can only assume that the slugs dont like the feel of the roofing felt?

And remember this - the space where the old rotten shed used to be:

Well it's now this:

If only I had time to sit in it! It's become a den for Miss Muffett and her mates! It was a very kind and generous present from Mr Earplug's parents. It took a while to get it up and painted but it's lovely and won't be a teenage den for long!

Oh, and I finally got the remainder of the money that was outstanding following my car being pranged by the lorry driver - only took 16 months and a court case to get it!!

We're off to Devon tomorrow. This time we're having a whole week away and I cant wait!

New Post over on Non-neurotypical Nipper

2010-07-30T00:33:00.002+01:00

Click on the post title to be taken to : 'Round and Round'

New Post over on Non-neurotypical Nipper

2010-07-14T23:59:00.003+01:00

Click on the post title to be taken to : 'Hurdles Already?'

Nipper Goes To A and E (Again!)

2010-07-12T22:15:00.003+01:00

No, I haven't re-published my previous post by accident. We really have been to A & E again. It seem's to be our Monday afternoon activity of choice!

I don't know how but Nipper managed to get his finger stuck in a piece of Thomas the Tank Engine track. I took a photo (bad mother that I am - lol!)

At first I thought he was just messing about and told him to wait until I had finished feeding Tiddler. Fifteen minutes later and he was still stuck and I realised that it was quite serious. There was no way that the track was coming off without a battle. I tried rubbing in washing up liquid but there wasn't any space between his finger and the track for the liquid to get in. I tried olive oil next. No good. I then stuck his hand in a bag of frozen peas to see if that would 'shrink' his skin down just a little but that didn't work either.

So I called the Fire Brigade! Not a 999 call I hasten to add. I called the local station to see if they could advise me - especially as Mr Earplugs had told me to go at it with a hacksaw! They told me to take him to A & E and if they couldn't get it off then the Fire Brigade would have a go. Oh no, not another afternoon at the hospital!

This time I called Mr Earplugs and told him to meet me at the hospital so I wouldn't have to suffer 3 hours of rocket and dinosaur impressions from Nipper, followed by tuts and glares from the other patients, all on my own. I also made a sandwich and grabbed some fruit and toys and books ready for the long haul. When we got to the waiting room I sat us all in the corner by the vending machine figuring that Nipper would be occupied for a while by the mystery of the coffee making machine and by trying to get me to buy him some sweets!

We were doing quite well then Nipper excelled himself by loudly referring to the woman sitting next to us as a 'man'. I explained that he gets his men/women and he/she words mixed up and she was a very girly looking woman so I don't think she was too offended.

We hadn't been there very long when we were called in to see the consultant. Nipper had been stuck in the track for about one and a half hours by now and I was a bit worried about the circulation in his finger and I guess they were too. The doctor tried soap to start but soon gave up when I ran through what we'd already done. Then he had the idea of trying the saw that they use to remove plaster casts. The machine looks and sounds like a big hoover so Nipper was quite happy (he LOVES the hoover).

It took a while but the doctor eventually sawed through the track twice to take out a 'v' shaped piece of wood (like when you fell a tree). He was then able to press on the end of the track and the remaining wood cracked and Nipper was free. The doctor said it was the most unusual train related injury he'd ever seen!

I don't think Thomas will be able to trundle along on this bit of track anymore but we'll keep it as a reminder of things not to do with train tracks! I'm now wondering what's going to happen next Monday and hoping we won't be making it three in a row!

Nipper Goes To A and E

2010-07-08T23:18:00.004+01:00

We had a bit of an eventful start to this week. Nipper wasn't very well on Sunday and so couldn't go to nursery on Monday. He was fine but they have a 24 hour exclusion policy if your child has been throwing up. So, we were watering the veggies (must do a post about this as they are doing remarkably well!), me in my dressing gown and Nipper in his undies and welly boots, when he suddenly said that there was a bee in his ear and it was stinging him. Uh oh! I hoped that perhaps something had just buzzed loudly around his ear and made a big show of declaring that he was ok, there was no bee in his ear.

Well, there wasn't a bee, but there was a BEAD! A small pink one which, if I recall correctly, must have come off one of Miss Muffett's belts. I was tempted to have a poke around to try and get it out but then thought better of it. Rang the doctors and they said to take him to the hospital. Oh joy!

Knowing we'd be in for a long wait - we were hardly going to be a top priority - I made lunch and then packed drinks, snacks, books, cars and a couple of toys for Tiddler.

Trying to find somewhere to park was the first challenge. Even though the hospital has several car parks you're hard pressed to get a space but luckily we found someone who was just leaving. Next was the extortionate price for the parking - only slightly cheaper than getting a ticket for parking in the street in a residents marked bay! Having said that, when I was in having Tiddler one of the midwives told us not to worry about our parking ticket running out as we wouldn't be clamped. So I paid the minimum charge and decided to hedge my bets on that one.

There was a big queue for reception and a lot of people in the waiting room - most seemed to have leg and ankle injuries. Each person who came in the door was hobbling and hanging onto someones arm. Guess our 'bead in the ear' was going to be a nice diversion from the mundane then!

The boys were pretty good for the first hour or so. I had a stack of books about trains and tractors etc so Nipper was happy with them. But soon the shine started to wear off. Snacks and drinks followed but that was just a stalling manoeuvre and Tiddler decided he wasn't sitting in the pram for one minute more and Nipper took advantage of this to shoot off and inspect the automatic doors. No problem with that except that he wanted to know how they worked and so started pulling and pushing at them rapidly followed by running back and forth through them. All good fun for Nipper but mightily p*ssed off those in the waiting room.

Things just got better and better - Nipper joined in with a group of kids who were doing a 'maypole dance' around a column, got very excited by this and decided to be a 'rocket' which was closely followed by his dinosaur impersonation! Attempting to get him to come and sit down fell on deaf ears as I'm sure you can imagine. By this point I was getting huffs and tuts from various people so I snuck out and called Mr Earplugs and told him he'd have to come rescue me but given that he was an hour and a half away it wasn't going to happen very quickly.

Knowing how Nipper is I tend not to take him places where he's going to have to hang around for a long time. I do my shopping online at the moment rather than braving the supermarket, and if we go to the doctors or dentist I generally turn up just a couple of minutes before the appointment and hope they won't be running too late. I thought Nipper wasn't doing too badly really until the chap opposite said that he couldn't hear the doctors calling patients names because the kid was making so much noise (he wasn't making that much noise really and the doctors were barely poking their heads around the door which was around the corner from the waiting room).

So I wondered what to do? We couldn't go anywhere else or we'd miss our turn. I didn't think Nipper was doing too badly given that we'd been there nearly 3 hours by now. No other young kids were waiting to see the doctors so there were no other bored kiddies for the patients to focus on. So I rather loudly declared that Nipper was autistic and was doing the best he could given that we'd been waiting for 3 hours! That shut everyone up and nobody huffed or tutted or even met my eye after that! Funny how if you have a 'reason' everyone is much more sympathetic or perhaps it was just embarrassment.

Well, we finally got in to see the doctor who said that he didn't have the relevant instruments to get the bead out and so we'd have to come back the next day for an appointment at the ENT clinic! And if they couldn't get it out Nipper would have to have a general anaesthetic! Arrrggghhhh! Couldn't someone have decided that a bit sooner!!

So, Tuesday morning we did it all again! This time Mr Earplugs came too and we attempted to use the hospital's drop-off zones so hubby could park up somewhere while we found the clinic. First drop off zone was full of parked cars so no room to drop-off. Second drop-off area had the gates shut. Couldn't work out where the 3rd drop-off point was as it just looked like a huge car park with no spaces. We just plonked the car in the middle of the road and all piled out in the end. Mr Earplugs ended up half a mile away before he found a space and had to run back to make our appointment.

Except it turned out that we didn't have an actual appointment at all - it was a turn up and wait clinic and because I'd been told I had a specific appointment I hadn't brought the toys, snacks, books, kitchen sink! Bl**dy H*ll! This clinic had a supposed childrens waiting area. Great! Went into it and there was nothing in it bar a couple of chairs. It was basically just a holding cell to keep the kids locked up and Nipper was most unimpressed. Luckily we only had to wait for a hour for our turn so Nipper had only got to the 'rocket' impersonation stage! We were in and out of the exam room within about 5 minutes, the offending bead having been plucked out by a teeny tiny prongey tool.

And, get this, the nurse told me not to let him play with beads any more! Yeah right - I let my child play with beads, which his baby brother could choke on, so that Nipper can stick them in his ear and have us waste 2 half days fannying around at the hospital!!

......................................................................................

Just wanted to add a big thank you for all the supportive and helpful comments following my last post - I really appreciate them. I've started a new blog to chart our asperger's journey so will be posting any asperger specific stuff over here.

Non-neurotypical Nipper

2010-06-24T21:59:00.008+01:00

I'm not sure quite how to write this post so I'll just dive right in - last week we were told that Nipper has Asperger's Syndrome and probably ADD/ADHD as well. I wasn't entirely surprised as I figured that a 3 year old couldn't be consistently 'difficult' without there being something else going on.

I've found Nipper to be a handful since he was around 18 months old. I thought that I'd forgotten how hard it could be to look after a little one since it'd been 10 years since I had Miss Muffett. I followed all the advice given by the health visitor with regard to discipline and trying to get him to eat properly (at the time he would only eat yoghurt and fruit puree). But we didn't have much success. She eventually told us to forget doing 'time out' as it clearly wasn't having any effect. We also tried the 'this is what's for lunch/tea and if you don't eat it you'll go hungry' method but it made little difference and he would go from one breakfast to the next (and still does quite often) without eating anything.

I thought I was doing a bit of a crap job at the whole 'mum' thing and so arranged for Nipper to go to nursery several mornings a week as I figured that being with other children would help him to learn how to behave, get him to eat etc. Everybody said that he was just being 'a boy' and that boys developed slower than girls and were more boisterous. However, not long after he joined the nursery they expressed concern over his attention and concentration and about him wanting to go off and do his own thing all the time. They chatted to the health visitor but she seemed to think that everything was ok, and later I was told by a different health visitor that Nipper just knew his own mind and was awkward and stubborn.

Nipper moved up to the 'pre-school room' at nursery about a year ago. They continued to be concerned about him and in April asked my permission to call in the SENCO (local authority special educational needs co-ordinator). I agreed and talked to the health visitor again. This time she decided that perhaps she had better refer him for a paediatric assessment, especially as he was due to go to school in September and we've been having 'issues' for quite a long time. I asked the nursery to jot down their specific concerns so I could take it, along with my concerns, to the paediatrician. I was horrified to be given a 4 page report with a long list of issues on it, far more than I'd been led to believe, and including that there was a gap between his age and his development, and also that he wasn't meeting his Early Years targets. I'm feeling pretty annoyed, and rather let down, that we seem to have suddenly gone from there being a few areas of concern to him seemingly not being able to do anything appropriate for his age. It can't have happened all of a sudden so why didn't the nursery tell me sooner!

Anyway, the meeting with the paediatrician was very interesting. He was quite angry that Nipper hadn't been referred earlier given that there had been concerns for quite a while. His assessment is that Nipper has Asperger's and is clearly hyperactive with attention issues. Now we have to wait for a language assessment as there are concerns in that area too. It's very difficult to get Nipper to do what you want and it's not clear whether he fully understands what you are saying. When you chat to him he frequently talks about stuff which is completely unrelated to what you were talking about. It's almost impossible to get information out of him and though he will ask "what" and "where", he never asks "how", "why", or "when". The paediatrician can't make the ADHD diagnosis so we have to get his report plus the SENCO's report and go back to our Doctor and request another referral. We should also apparently request a referral to a dietician to get some help with his food issues. In addition to all this we think that Nipper may have some sensory issues too but we're not quite sure who should assess that - hopefully our Doctor will know!

I'm hoping that at some point someone will point us in the direction of getting some useful advice on how to manage and help Nipper. At the moment we have a diagnosis but not much else. I don't like labels but I would rather have the label of Asperger's than for people to think that Nipper is purposefully defiant, awkward and stubborn!

I feel a bit 'all at sea' at the moment and as if I should be doing something right this minute to help Nipper. I'm hoping that a good trawl of the internet will point me in the right direction. When I started my blog and named it Tilly Tatas ('tatas' being northern dialect for a journey) I certainly didn't think that we'd be off down this path. You never know what's around the corner!

I'd Better Get A Shift On!

2010-06-10T14:39:00.009+01:00

I was leafing through the calendar, trying to find a date when we can meet up with a friend so all the kids can play together, when it suddenly struck me that it's nearly Tiddlers birthday. It's not so much that I'd forgotten, just that I hadn't realised we were quite so far through the year!

I'm supposed to be making Tiddler and Nipper a quilt each for their birthdays so I'd better get a shift on as my Mum would say. Mr Earplugs is going to be on serious kiddie watching duty so I can get Tiddlers quilt finished by Saturday. Here's a peek at the fabric:

It shouldn't take too long as the front is a printed panel so no need for patchwork - just quilting and binding.

It'll be good to do some sewing as things are rather stagnant on the knitting front. I'm part way through Miss Muffett's poncho but it's not going too well. The pattern is great and the Debbie Bliss cotton is yummy but the two don't seem to go together somehow. Miss Muffett is quite happy with it so I'll plough on and we'll see how it turns out.

I do have a couple of finished items on the knitting front. Tiddler's First Cardy was finished in April ready for his Grandparent's 40th wedding celebrations but it was very hot on the day and he didn't wear it! I first tried the pattern (Baby Sophisticate) back in November but it soon became clear that Tiddler was growing faster than I could knit so I gave up on it. Luckily I found a modified pattern on Ravelry to fit a 12 - 18 month old and it's perfect.

It was my first attempt at using circular needles and I couldn't get my head around how that would work until I had a go and then it all made sense. It was also the first time I'd used markers and I have to say I hate the split ring markers. They really get in the way and they're ugly too! That was a great 'excuse' to buy some nice beaded stitch markers instead. They were much better.

My second item was my Lost and Found Shawl (Gaia Shoulder Hug) so called because the Royal Mail lost my yarn order and then it mysteriously reappeared 3 weeks later.

I really don't like Noro yarn - well the two I've used so far. But for some reason it's kind of grabbed me. The Kureyon sock yarn was really twisted up and it's very rough. Luckily no knots this time. I don't know if I'll ever wear the shawl but I love it nontheless, and I've got another ball of Kureyon sock yarn and I know I'll be making another shawl with it!

Anyway, off to the sewing machine!

Wish Me Luck - Updated

2010-05-25T19:28:00.005+01:00

Those of you who have been popping by for a while might remember that last March (2009) a delivery chap backed his lorry into my parked car and wrote it off.

For a variety of reasons his insurance company is refusing to pay the costs, even though the lorry driver admitted liability. I have been writing letters and filling in forms to no avail for the last 14 months.

So tomorrow I have to attend a hearing at the County Court, where hopefully the person in charge will make the other party cough up at last! We'll see! Wish me luck! ...................................................................................................

Well, I'm very pleased, and somewhat relieved, to report that I won on all counts at the hearing.

My insurance company had told me that I just had to show my face and wouldn't have to do/say anything. They were fibbing! I was questioned by the other party's barrister and the Judge. I was a bit alarmed by it at first. I'm none too happy that I had to be in Court, feeling like I was on trial for something, just because a gormless lorry driver drove into my car after he had watched me park it up.

The other party's barrister was disputing just about all aspects of my insurance claim - why was my car written off, why was I paid the relevant amount for it, why did I need a hire car whilst I attempted to get a replacement???

I had a strong belief that I would win but you just don't know. The Judge wasn't too impressed with the case and referred to it as a 'shambles'. He was even less impressed with the useless photo's of my car which were put forward - they were a fax of a photocopy and you could barely tell that the photo was of a car!

In his summing up he commented that it doesn't take much work to be needed on an old car before it becomes unviable, hence the write off. I had managed to prove to my insurance company that my car was worth more than they initially offered as I'd downloaded info from the web on half a dozen other cars like mine for sale. Based on my paperwork he made them cough up more for my car than even my own barrister was going to ask for. And since I had 2 children to ferry around and was 6 months pregnant, of course I needed a hire car! So it's going to now cost them considerably more than if they had just settled straight after the incident. And I'm glad. I don't like to gloat but if the other party's insurance rep had been there I'd have been giving him the 'loser' sign as he was such a git to me over the course of the claim.

I was very pleased with the Judges attitude to the case so all in all it was worth a stressy couple of hours in Court. And I'll be getting my policy excess back too. I'm less than impressed with my insurance company's handling of things though. If I'm ever involved in another accident I'll be much more savvy about everything. Let's hope it never happens!

In The Garden

2010-04-28T22:56:00.020+01:00

Stuck (In More ways Than One)

2010-04-12T22:46:00.013+01:00

(I wrote the 'knitting' part of this post several days ago but didn't publish it as I wanted to add a photo. Things have moved on a bit since then but I thought I'd leave the original post intact so to speak).

For the last few weeks I've been knitting a slightly adapted Saroyan.

I love the pattern but wanted it to be slightly more of a wrap than a scarf so I carried on with the leaf increases till I had the depth that I wanted. This hasn't entirely worked out as I had to stop increasing before I really wanted to or I would have run out of yarn. So it's not quite a wrap, and it's getting incredibly long. By the time I'm finished it'll look like I've got a Boa Constrictor around my neck!

So, what to do??
I could carry on till I've used all the yarn then block it and see how it turns out? I could pull it back and re-knit it exactly as per the pattern - though it would definitely be a scarf then and I really want more of a wrap? I could pull it back completely and start again putting in extra increases so it gets more wrap-like without getting too long?

Ho hum!

Well, while I ponder on what to do I'm going to do what most crafty folks do - start another project! I have some Bamboolo and I'm going to have a go at knitting Liesl. I've read that the pattern is more like a recipe than a standard pattern so wish me luck! (And please leave suggestions for what to do with Saroyan).

So, since I wrote this post I've had a knittery conversation with Miss Muffett along the lines of 'how dare you start another project for yourself when you are supposed to be knitting my poncho', followed by 'just finished the darn scarf and see how it turns out - isn't that the point of knitting?' Well, maybe it is the point sometimes, especially for me, though if I was knitting a serious item I'd for sure want to know that it was going to come out ok! So, I am knitting the scarf/wrap as initially intended and we'll see how it turns out.

On another note, we have recently been going through the 'trying to get your kid into a decent state school' rigmarole. We failed! We had applied for Nipper to go to a good school which isn't too far from us though we aren't in the 'designated area' as they call it. In theory your child can go to any school you like but of course in practice this is complete hogwash. Nipper is now on the waiting list along with 38 other little nippers. It's quite interesting looking at the list of oversubscribed schools, and checking out which are the perceived (usually correctly!) worst schools by their omission from the list. None of the schools nearest to us made the list. The 'best' school on our side of town only takes 30 children each year and has nearly 100 kiddies on the waiting list! In several cases kids who live in a school's designated area didn't get places. You pay a premium for a house in a good school catchment area - my goodness, you're going to be gutted if your kid can't get in your designated school! The school we've been allocated to hasn't been doing too well ove the last few years and was recently served with a 'Notice to Improve' in Maths and Science. Fantastic - the school is cr@p at 2 out of the 3 key subjects - marvellous! And so I'm stuck again. Do I send Nipper to the allocated school or do I sell everything that isn't nailed down to send him to a private one??

And here's someone else who's stuck.

Tiddler, bless him, is at the almost crawling phase and spends a lot of his time getting rather cross because he can't quite get where he wants to. I'm going to have to start some serious child-proofing soon - though it might not matter since if Nipper goes to a private school I won't have anything that needs 'proofing' as I'll have sold it all - lol!

Unexpected Flowers

2010-03-23T17:24:00.008Z

Each year my garden seems to produce something unexpected - no, not the gigantic weeds, I always expect them! No, something that I haven't planted but that looks very nice. Last year it was a Hyacinth and this year it's a Daffodil. I guess it's because I do a bit of a clear-up and presumably end up digging in little bulbs that had been sitting on the top of the soil.

I love this photo (below). I was just snapping away and happened to catch a nice shot - quite by chance - most of my photo's are rubbish! Spring must have sprung as the Daisies and the Dandelions are appearing everywhere. Lovely to get a 'special' flower from Nipper.

The most unexpected flowers of all were the ones I got for Mother's Day.

Mr Earplugs doesn't usually do flowers so they were a nice surprise. Having said that, he unceremoniously handed me 3 bunches of Roses and a bunch of Freesias and said "I got you some flowers but I don't know what to do with them". Bless him!

Where Did February Go?

2010-03-08T20:30:00.011Z

We're well in to March now and I just don't know where February went. I think it disappeared in a blur of knitting, trips to the orthodontist and starting to sort out our back garden.

Last summer we cleared all the ivy from the garden wall (though it's growing back very quickly) and realised that we had room for a small shed in the top corner:

It looks like a small space but we managed to get a 7'x5' shed in there. When it arrived it was very boring in it's dull brown 'sheddiness' but slap on a coat of paint and you have a cute wee 'building'!
This is Mr Earplug's shed since it's got the lawnmower in it and no doubt it'll be full of spiders soon - and I don't 'do' spiders!
Once the new shed was up we could get rid of the old shed which was rotten, had ivy growing through the boards and was full of junk left by the previous owners - and we're left with this space:
I have plans for this space and it won't involve storing lawnmowers! More of that later.

Miss Muffett reached a teenage 'milestone' last month when she got braces fitted. I was a bit alarmed when we got the appointment as the accompanying letter said we may have to pay for some or all of the treatment. Luckily it turns out she can have them on the NHS. It's so complicated though! I had a small brace as a teenager but nothing like the 'train tracks' that she has, adjustments every 6 weeks, attaching elastic bands to them overnight. Poor girl has been trying to get 100% attendance at school but it's not going to happen with all the appointments. Never mind, the treatment will be finished in 5 years!

Another milestone is Tiddler being able to sit up all on his own now:

This means that I can get a few rows of knitting done (when I should be doing housework!) I think knitting the bootees must have given my 'crafty gene' a kick up the bum as I've knitted 2 scarves and a cardy since - which is more than I've knitted in the last 4 years never mind 4 weeks!

I found this pattern and had to have a go. I've always wanted to try knitting with Noro but didn't want to attempt anything big as it might have been an expensive mistake. My first scarf took less than 2 balls of Silk Garden Lite and I really loved watching the colours develop. I wasn't so keen on the actual yarn though. It was very thick and thin and had lots of bits of plasticky looking stuff in it. I only found one knot but it did impact on the colour run and so I ended up losing the second run of the red/brown section which was a shame. When I soaked it for blocking the water was filthy - yuck! And it's quite scratchy too - hope my mother-in-law likes the scarf as it's her birthday present!

I loved the pattern so much that I had to make another one - this time for my Mum. I bought Debbie Bliss Stella, a silk/rayon/cotton blend. Unfortunately I didn't much like this yarn either! It was very loosely plied so I kept sticking my needles through it, and it was full of little knots so knitted up quite scruffy. I'm glad I got it at a sale price! I know my Mum will love it anyway.

I'm going to make another one for my friend for Christmas and possibly one for myself too. I also knitted a cardy for Tiddler but I haven't sewn the buttons on yet, and started a 'repurposing' sewing project. No wonder February passed in a flash!

Can You Sew Something For Grandma's Birthday Please?

2010-02-11T15:04:00.012Z

Mr Earplug's is always a bit 'last minute' when it comes to present buying so I wasn't surprised to find that he hadn't organised anything for his Grandma's 91st birthday. She's a lovely lady and keeps us supplied with handknits for the boys so I figured she'd be more than happy with a handmade item herself. I decided to have a go at making a lap quilt. This was my first attempt at patchwork/quilting so I had a good browse on the internet and decided on a Disappearing Nine Patch design.

It was a bit scary cutting into the fabric with a rotary cutter for the first time, but I managed without making a hash of it.

I cut the fabric into 5" squares and stitched them into a nine patch.

I laid everything out on the bed to try and get a random pattern. Unfortunately I forgot to mark the orientation of the patches when I gathered them up - doh! I had to try to re-do the design as I was stitching them together and it didn't entirely work out as I wanted. But never mind, I'll remember next time!

I made too much binding just to be on the safe side - 2.5" wide strips, folded in half and ironed.

And here it is just before binding.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the finished quilt - another thing to remember next time! Grandma was really pleased with it.

Mid Night Booties

2010-01-25T22:17:00.005Z

Well, I finally managed to knit something - yay!

These are the BSJ Inspired Booties but we call them Tiddler's Mid Night Booties as I knitted them through the middle of the night during a bout of insomnia. They're not as dainty looking as a lot of the ones on Ravelry as I used bigger needles and an aran yarn, but I wanted a chunky pair so I'm pleased at how they turned out. I'm not sure how much use we'll get out of them though - Tiddler manages to get them off within seconds of me putting them on. I tried to get a photo of him 'modelling' them but he kicked them off too quickly. Still, they satisfied my desperate need to get my hands on my knitting needles again!

I was hoping to have a go at knitting something for myself but I want to make a cardy for Tiddler before he gets too big, Miss Muffett has requested a poncho, and Mr Earplugs wants me to sew 'something' for his Grannies birthday, so I guess I'll have to wait a while.

I can't tell you how great it feels to get a bit of 'crafty' time into my life again.

I Wasn't Going To Talk About The Snow..........

2010-01-10T22:12:00.010Z

Especially as whole swathes of the country have it far worse than we do, not to mention other parts of the world.

But it really has been exceptional - nothing like it in the last 40 years in our area. I even had to dig the car out!

It reminds me very much of when I was a teenager back in Lancashire, trudging to school through snow which was as high as my welly boots.

No school closures for us back then. Miss Muffett has been at home most of the week, Nipper's nursery is closed and Mr Earplugs has been working from home. They are driving me nuts and I can't wait for a return to normal so I can enjoy nice quiet mornings with Tiddler again.

They have had lots of fun in the snow though. Miss Muffett has a sore bum from sledging down the hill on a biscuit tin lid and Nipper and Mr Earplugs were attempting to build an igloo. As fast as Mr Earplugs was building it Nipper was coming along and trashing it!

Just look at my poor Lilac though.

It had reached 'tree' proportions but the snow bent it double and it has snapped. On seeing this I got out there with a big stick and bashed all the snow off my Damson, the curly Willow and the Apple as I don't want to lose them too.

I hope it clears up soon - I've got a new shed coming and I really don't fancy trying to put it up in these conditions!

New Year....................

2010-01-03T23:37:00.003Z

New Shoes!!!!!

Don't you just love the January sales!

P.S. Ssshhhh, don't tell Mr Earplugs!

A Quick Catch-up Before The Year Disappears

2009-12-23T17:44:00.017Z

Not an awful lot has been happening around here aside from the general hubub of life with small children (though as I'm typing this Mr Earplugs is discovering that stale bread makes good tinder as he's set his cheese toastie on fire under the grill!). I don't seem able to get any computer time lately and when I do have a spare moment someone else has usually commandeered the laptop. I did attempt to do some knitting but it ended up getting frogged - I'll save that for another post sometime. Such is life!

I've had a touch of the baby blues but thankfully I'm feeling much perkier now. It's difficult to say whether it was post-natal depression or simply hormones and tiredness but either way life felt a bit of a trial for a while.

I've been sorting out our photo's and realised that we had a few successes in the garden this summer. Entirely down to Mother Nature, though I did plant the Lavender. Our Damson tree did really well:

and Mr Earplugs made jam - yum!

We had some lovely Hollyhocks. Last year we just had the red ones but this year had a pale pink and a dark pink too. These are growing in a crack in the tarmac at the bottom of the drive:

My Lavender border did very well though I haven't trimmed it yet so it may look a mess next year!

Lovely apples too:And speaking of things that have grown well - Tiddler has gone from this:

to this:

Doesn't time fly!

And since I'm unlikely to be blogging again before next year I'll wish everyone a very Happy Christmas!

Today is 'National Poetry Day'

2009-10-08T11:35:00.003+01:00

When I was at University most of my friends were studying to be teachers. One of them found this poem by Peter Dixon which I found entertaining - especially as I had been a prefect in the sixth form of the rather pompous local grammar school. I'm sure quite a lot of the teachers there would have liked to 'bring back higher standards'!

'Oh Bring Back Higher Standards'

Oh bring back higher standards –
the pencil and the cane –
if we want education then we must have some pain.
Oh, bring us back all the gone days
Yes, bring back all the past . . .
let’s put them all in rows again – so we can see who’s last.

Let’s label all the good ones
(the ones like you and me)
and make them into prefects – like prefects used to be.
We’ll put them on the honours board
. . . as honours used to be,
and write their names in burnished script -
for all the world to see.
We’ll have them back in uniform,
We’ll have them doff their caps,
And learn what manners really are
. . . for decent kind of chaps!
. . . So let’s label all the good ones,
we’ll call them ‘A’s and ‘B’s-
and we’ll parcel up the useless ones,
and call them ‘C’s and ‘D’s.
. . . We’ll even have an ‘E’ lot!
. . . an ‘F’ or ‘G’ maybe!!
. . . so they can know they’re useless,
. . . and not as good as me.

For we’ve got to have the stupid –
And we’ve got to have the poor
Because-
if we don’t have them . . .
well . . . what are prefects for?

And The Winner Is.......

2009-10-04T17:57:00.005+01:00

Thank you to everyone who left comments for my giveaway. Apologies that I'm a bit late with it - I've been a wee bit under the weather and Tiddler has changed from a quiet, sleep loving chap into one who has found his voice and refuses to nap. I haven't managed to get anywhere near the computer in ages!

I decided to use my 'cat and kitten' bowl for the names for the giveaway. I love this bowl and usually put my keys in it - otherwise I forget where I've left them.

The winner is Suzan from Scrub Oak - the package will be on it's way across the Atlantic very shortly!

P.S. Many thanks to everyone who wished me 'Happy Birthday' (or 'Hefty Birfday' as Nipper calls it), both here and on Facebook. I got some lovely presents - a copy of Sewing In No Time and a copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting, flowers, a large box of chocolates from Hotel Chocolat, a small box of Thornton's continental selection, a digital photo frame, a music thingy like an ipod shuffle but another brand, and a fab gadget that you attach to your wheelie bin to squash your rubbish down and therefore avoid being fined by the Council for having the lid open (I kid you not - I know someone who was fined!) - Mr Earplugs excels at finding 'useful' presents!

Belated Blogiversary Giveaway

2009-09-03T10:40:00.006+01:00

Somehow I managed to miss the first anniversary of my blog - what am I like?!

So here is a belated blogiversary giveaway. Since I'm a bit bonkers about hand knitted socks, and have too much sock yarn in my crafty cupboard, I thought I'd pass some on, along with the very easy basic sock pattern from my local John Lewis, and a set of dpns.

Don't be scared by the thought of attempting to knit socks - if you can knit at all, then you'll be able to knit a fab pair of socks using this pattern, it's easy peasy! And, of course, you don't have to use it to knit socks! The yarn is 100% wool (Blue Faced Leicester I think), by Fyberspates, and is called Fiesta. There's approx 100 grams which should be enough for a pair of socks.

Since not everyone likes to knit I also have a 36 square charm pack in Arcadia by Moda. I didn't want to open it to show the colours but if you Google it you'll get lots of images.

And as you can't craft without chocolate there'll be a little chocolate something in there too.

I'm happy to send this little lot overseas. Just leave a comment and I'll put all the names in a pot and choose one on the 21st September. That's my birthday so I should manage to remember!

Tagged!

2009-08-13T11:18:00.016+01:00

I've been tagged by Linda to tell seven amazing things about myself. I'm not too keen on the word 'amazing' as that feels like bragging and makes me feel uncomfortable, so I'll settle for seven 'achievements' instead:

1). Despite the very negative attitude of my teacher, I passed my O Level in English Literature with a grade A. During class I sat with a girl who constantly gave the teacher a hard time. I kept my head down but unfortunately got tarred with the same brush. The teacher hated me and gave me a really bad school report. Luckily my parents took the report with a pinch of salt and I showed him!

2). I was the first person in my family to go to university. I grew up on a council estate and my Dad worked in a factory and my Mum did part-time cleaning. We were pretty poor and I remember that a lot of my teachers were surprised that I did so well academically. I was very lucky to have a couple of teachers who could see beyond my background and were really supportive.

3) This cardigan, made for Miss Muffett, was my first 'serious' piece of knitting. Each row took 12 minutes to knit and I dreaded having to answer the phone etc because I would lose my place in the pattern. Even though no-one else will ever wear it I can't bear to throw it away.

4). I've been researching my family history off and on for a few years and so far have managed to get back to 1790. We are so English and 'northern' at that! My parents live only 2 miles or so from where my Dad's ancestors lived - they just moved off the moor and down into the valley!

5). I am a very poor traveller. I get really bad travel sickness and so any travelling is usually quite stressful. A few years ago I did a tour of Peru - Lima, Cusco, Macchu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and various Inca sites, lots of air and coach travel plus a train across the altiplano, altitude sickness and a touch of 'dehli belly' too. Frankly I don't know how I did it! I couldn't have done it without Mr Earplugs and it's definitely one of my greatest achievements.

6). Having Tiddler has to be my greatest achievement I think. I wasn't sure I could face another pregnancy when I lost a baby last year. Tiddler's pregnancy was such a worrying time, constantly thinking whether everything was going ok, never mind factoring in my age (43). We are so pleased to have him and he's a lovely little lad.

7). My 1st Blogiversary! I have just realised that I have passed the one year mark! Look out for a blogiversary giveaway coming soon (or soonish anyway!)

(Sheep photo from answers.com)

At least it's not Swine Flu!

2009-07-31T16:51:00.007+01:00

It's been germ central here for the past couple of weeks. Nipper is very generous with the germs he picks up at nursery. He's had a nasty cough and has sounded like a dog barking! Miss Muffett had a nasty ears, nose and throat lergy and then poor Tiddler went down with a virus which had us at the local hospital for the afternoon. So worrying when they are so tiny (though Tiddler now weighs 13lbs and is moving into age 3 to 6 month clothing already). He's been coughing as if he's a hardened smoker, but as they said at the hospital, "at least it's not swine flu". He's also become quite colicky so we're not getting much sleep (I spoke too soon about him being a quiet baby!)

We had a momentous occasion this week with Miss Muffett turning into a teenager!

She was a bit disappointed not to have 13 candles but since she had a Thornton's toffee cake I think it would have been decimated by so many candles. She could open a shop with the number of presents she got - a benefit of having divorced and re-married parents and so a large extended family! I don't remember much being made of turning 13 when I was a kid. The big birthdays were 18 and 21. My 'big' present was a 'ghetto blaster' and a copy of Thriller on vinyl!

Nothing much else happening here at the moment. My parent's are visiting but the less said about that the better - lol! I could do 'a day in my life' but it would be filled with repetitions of 'fed Tiddler, changed Tiddler, put washing on, made breakfast/lunch/tea' so not very interesting reading! I hope to get a bit of knitting done at some point, but that really is hope over expectation so I won't be holding my breath!

Look at the size of the needle on this thing!

2009-07-20T10:50:00.007+01:00

Perhaps I shouldn't blog about something quite so personal (contraception), but what the heck!?

I had an earlier than normal postnatal check-up - 4 weeks rather than 6 weeks - as I wanted to be cleared to drive again. Everything is healing up nicely and I 'passed' all the exercises to prove I could drive safely. Yay! The doctor then decided to give me the 'contraception talk'. Only a doctor would be thinking contraception just a month after birth. The memory of the latter stages of pregnancy and having a baby are contraceptive enough, thanks very much. Mind you I do know someone who got pregnant 5 weeks after having a baby. 5 weeks!! If Mr Earplugs gets any ideas he'll be getting the stick treatment - I'll be beating him off with one. If there is an opportunity for sex then there's an opportunity for sleep and I know which one I'd rather have just now!

The easiest option would be for Mr Earplugs to have the snip, but since he's a lot younger than me he may well want to have more children should I fall under a bus! And really it's me who doesn't want any more children as at nearly 44 I think I'm lucky to have had Nipper and Tiddler. I did consider being sterilised during the c-section but it has a higher failure rate if done then and we really didn't want to be worrying about that. So, after much discussion, we decided that the hormonal implant would be the best option. It's a matchstick sized implant which is put in your upper arm and can stay in place for up to 3 years. Apparantly you need much less hormone than with the oral pill as it's being delivered straight into your blood stream, there are less problems with other drug interactions, and you don't have to worry about whether it's been absorbed if you are sick or have a tummy upset. Best of all you don't have to remember to take it.

I filled the prescription and was a bit confused when the pharmacist gave me a large bag - it's just a small implant, right? Well, the implant is small but I hadn't given much thought as to how it would be put in place. Just look at the applicator and check out that whopping needle (it's the whole section to the left of my thumb!)

The practice nurse was a real sweetie and gave me 3 shots of local anaesthetic in my upper arm, followed by a fourth for good measure. She was chatting to me about local schools (our LEA is one of the worst in the country) to keep my mind occupied but when she came at me with the needle my mind went blank and I must have been talking gibberish! I didn't look (would you have done??!) but I didn't feel a thing. She covered the area with steristrips and bandaged me up. Seems a bit extreme doesn't it?

Well, check out what it looked like when I took the bandage off the following morning:

So much for the bandage minimising any bruising. It's still rather sore now and I think it's going to be quite a few more days before the bruising fades. Thank goodness I only need to have this done once every three years.

I hate to think how they are going to get the implant out though - 'scalpel please nurse' I think!!

The Best, and Worst, of Weekends

2009-07-09T15:26:00.009+01:00

The Worst:

- Travelling to a wedding on Friday afternoon and getting stuck in a traffic jam among the M25 roadworks.
- Whilst stuck in the jam - Tiddler screaming for a feed, Nipper screaming because Tiddler has woken him up, and me feeling like my head is going to pop!
- Having nothing to wear to the wedding due to 'post-birth-fat-tummy'!
- Being crippled by my new shoes (big blisters), then hearing a loud 'crack' when I stubbed my toe on the leg of Miss Muffett's bed. Said toe swelled up and went purple and now I can't get any shoes on at all!
- Being up all night following the wedding with suspected food poisoning. I was as sick as a dog and Mr Earplugs was even sicker. I can't blame an excess of alcohol as we didn't have any aside from the 'toast'. Trying to breastfeed whilst holding a bucket in case you are sick is quite a challenge! I don't know how we managed the drive home.

The Best:

- Attending the wedding of our good friends. They have been together a bit longer than me and Mr Earplugs, and he introduced them to each other, so it was lovely to see them finally get hitched.

- Catching up with all of Mr Earplugs Uni friends. We've created our own mini population explosion - 9 kids between us so far and not everyone has had kiddies yet.
- Managing a quick salsa at the wedding disco before deciding it perhaps wasn't the best thing to be doing just 3 weeks after my c-section!

- Discovering that in spite of the 'baby belly' I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight :o)
- Tiddler finally deciding that he likes to have a bath!

(Tiddler isn't such a tiddler anymore. He's put on nearly 3lbs since he was born so perhaps I should call him 'Guzzler' instead).

Happy Birthday Nipper!

2009-06-29T13:06:00.003+01:00

Our New Arrival

2009-06-19T09:18:00.008+01:00

Here is our new arrival - only 30 seconds old! (Apologies to anyone who is squeamish!)

As you can see he was born by c-section despite me nearly having a nervous breakdown at the thought (several hypnotherapy sessions worked wonders!) He weighed 8lbs and 7ozs and was born at 12:44pm as we were last on the theatre list.

The whole experience seems somewhat surreal to me now that we are back home. It wasn't as 'bad' as I'd expected though they did give me too much anaesthetic and the block went right up to my upper chest and I could feel my chin and ears going numb - scary! We only spent two nights in hospital. That doesn't seem very long, does it? I was in for longer with both Miss Muffett and Nipper. My stitches came out on Wednesday and though the area is very sore I'm managing to get about and do a few things around the house. All in all, a pretty good birth experience, and much better than the previous two.

'New Nipper', as I kept calling him, will be known in Blogland as 'Tiddler' (Kitty referred to him as Tiddler and I really liked it).

Here he is looking a bit more civilised:

He's quite a quiet baby, more noticeable I think because the other two were real screamers. He likes nothing more than a good feed followed by a good kip with my boob still in his mouth! Miss Muffett thinks he's quite cute and Nipper has taken his arrival reasonably well though he seems a bit cross with me. Not so cross as to deny me the lovely bunch of flowers that he made for me at nursery though:

Fingers crossed that the quiet times continue!

A Labour of Love

2009-06-11T17:53:00.004+01:00

No, not that kind of 'labour'. New nipper is still tucked up inside and we will be setting off for the hospital at 7am tomorrow morning. By lunch time he should be with us!

No, this labour has been the knitting of a crib blanket:

Each row took approximately 5 minutes to knit and I ended up with around 180 rows (kept knitting till the yarn ran out). Altogether that's about 15 hours though it felt like much longer!

Soule Mama knitted a lovely blanket for her new baby and she mentioned that it was a variation of a 'feather and fan' pattern. So I looked up what this pattern was and it seemed pretty simple so I figured I'd give it a go. There's no actual pattern to follow, rather just a stitch and row repeat (18 stitches repeated over the row with 4 rows making up the pattern with a few extra stitches at the beginning and end of the row to form a border). Another 'winging it' project for me - lol! Here's a close-up, believe me when I say that it's much easier to knit than it looks:

I have some nice cotton yarn but was worried about making a mess of the project and wasting it so decided to use some baby acrylic double knit that I had in my crafty cupboard. I didn't have a clue how many stitches to cast on in order to get a blanket of the right size so I did a trial run of the pattern stitch and row repeat and hazarded a guess. My finished blanket is the perfect size for a moses basket. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and now wish that I'd made it big enough for a cot and out of the cotton after all!

In case anyone's interested here's my 'recipe':

2x 100g balls baby acrylic double knit.

1 pair of size 4.5mm needles (as I wanted it to knit up fairly quickly).

Cast on 116 stitches (6 x 18 for the pattern repeat plus 4 stitches at the beginning and end of each row to form a border).

Knit the first 4 rows to form a border.

Start the pattern repeat:

Row 1: Knit

Row 2: Knit 4, Purl to the last 4 stitches, knit 4.

Row 3: Knit 4, *knit 2 together x three times, yarn forward then knit 1 x six times, knit 2 together x three times*, repeat from * to * to the last 4 stitches, knit 4.

Row 4: Knit.

Do as many 4 row repeats as you like but ending with a row 4 (I did 42 repeats).

Knit the last 4 rows to form a border.

Cast off.

If I was going to do this again I would probably knit 6 or 8 rows for the top and bottom borders, and likewise 6 or 8 stitches at the beginning and end of each row for the side borders.

Pregnancy Update:

Well, tommorrow is the big day and I'm pretty nervous. I'll be away from blogland for a little while I think but will try to pop up a picture of the new arrival. Thank you for all your good wishes, I will be thinking of them all!

Things I Probably Shouldn't Be Doing At 38 Weeks Pregnant!

2009-06-01T15:29:00.013+01:00

1). Building shelving systems:

Though it's so good to have the toys going 'up' the wall instead of across the floor (Mr Earplugs did help) and we can now find what we want to play with.

2). Yanking all the ivy off the garden wall. We've been trying to keep the ivy in check but it's a constant struggle and it's getting into the borders and the lawn, not to mention growing about 8 foot high in places, and ruining the pointing:

So, it had to go:

Now we have a lovely ivy free wall which we can repair:

And a space to put a small shed (we have a shed already but it's too big and rotten in places so that'll be going soon too!):

3). Spending a couple of hours traipsing around Heathrow looking for the 'spectators area' which is signposted but doesn't actually exist anymore! I had a few choice words to say about that! We were able to watch some planes taking off by hanging around the car-park (which you're not supposed to do apparently??). We also found a spot outside of the perimeter fence where you can watch the planes coming into land. They are so low at this point that you feel as if you could reach out and touch them. It was quite an experience and Nipper loved it. Wish I'd taken the camera!

4). Clambering around with Nipper on the equipment here with a view to getting him a play-frame (not from here though as they are a bit pricey). Mr Earplug's Grandad left him a bit of money when he died recently and we know he would love the idea of a play-frame for the kids. Unfortunately we have a slightly stroppy neighbour who I'm sure will make a complaint about it. I tried to head this off by asking the local Council's advice but they were useless. There isn't any legislation that specifically covers kiddies play equipment so they wouldn't give me any advice. So we'll have to put it up and see what happens and possibly apply for planning permission! I ask you - planning permission for a play-frame!

Following the ivy yanking and the kitchen refurb we're left with this:

So from now until the 12th we'll be skip-filling (got one coming tomorrow).

Pregnancy Update:

Well, so much for me saying I'm going to take it easy. We've had far too much to do! I think the iron tablets must be giving me a new lease of life - lol! Having said that, I'm quite tired as I can't find a comfortable sleeping position. I'm also having severe braxton hicks. I only had mild contractions for a few days before Nipper was born and none at all before Miss Muffett came along. These are so painful that I have to practice a bit of deep breathing! Hope that doesn't mean that new Nipper is coming early! I'll be having an afternoon at the hospital later this week for a 'pre-op' visit and a trip to the path lab next week for blood samples to be held in case something goes wrong - don't like the sound of that!

Re the registrar telling us we couldn't have skin-to-skin contact - I went to a 'c-section class' and was able to talk to a theatre midwife who said that it will be possible. We just have to tell the midwife and anaesthetist on the day and they will make it possible. I figured that might be the case. Shame that the 'higher-ups' who are often giving you information don't actually know the reality! Isn't that often the way though?!

And finally, something which I did, but which probably should have been done a few weeks ago really - set up a 'baby station' in our bedroom:

My lovely (if somewhat dated) gliding rocker came from Ebay for just £24 and a trip by Mr Earplugs to collect it. I also washed the moses basket:

So if new Nipper comes early I think we might just be ready for him - aside from the fact that we'll have to wait about an hour for m-i-l to get here!

Kitchen Re-fit

2009-05-20T15:23:00.007+01:00

Before:

(Horrible units, even more horrible floor!)

During:

After:

(I was a bit worried about our choice of units but they've grown on me!)

(So glad this is finished and that we don't have that awful green floor anymore!)

Pregnancy update:

Nothing much to report really. I'm taking my iron tablets and so feel better than a couple of weeks ago. I've finally accepted that I have to try and slow up a bit. I popped into town for a coffee with a friend and had to get Mr Earplugs to drive in to pick me up as I knew it would take me forever to walk back up the hill to our house!

Baby is definitely making a descent and I'm carrying him very low. He is very wriggly and causes considerable discomfort very low in my pelvis. I'm also doing the pregnancy 'walk' big time now!

We had an appointment to see the Consultant last week but once again ended up seeing a Registrar. I was a bit annoyed as at this point (37 weeks) I'd rather like to meet the person who's going to be operating. The appointment didn't go too well with the Registrar questioning why I was having a c-section and making me feel that it wasn't necessary. She was also very negative and dismissive of things I was asking for ie I asked about having skin-to-skin contact with the baby whilst being sewn up and she said that there wouldn't be room available for that during the op. I've decided to speak to the Midwife and Anaesthetist on the day as I'm sure it must be possible (and 2 fingers to the unhelpful Registrar who ought to work somewhere other than obstetrics!).

A Bit of a Round-up

2009-05-10T14:08:00.023+01:00

I've been completely out of Blog land for the last month or so - just been too busy with the kitchen re-fit and all the decorating. You really do realise just how much stuff you have when you need to clear a room out. I seem to have done nothing but shift stuff from room to room lately! But it's all finished now and I'll put some before and after shots up at some point.

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I received a lovely present from Raina last week. She had mentioned that she was going to send me a little something as a 'cheer-up' following the sad demise of the Go-Go. I received the most beautiful necklace which Nipper has taken rather a shine to due to the iridescent beads - he's fascinated:

And also.........hand knitted socks! Gorgeously soft cashmere socks which fit perfectly:

I was overwhelmed. So much time and effort goes into anything hand made. I don't think I could ever let go of a pair of my hand knitted socks. Thank you so much Raina for your very thoughtful and generous gift. It certainly was a fabulous 'cheer-up'.

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Speaking of the Go-Go....I got an 'offer' from my insurance company for the write-off of the car.....£150, less my excess, so £50! I was rather cross at this to say the least! I got online and found half a dozen Micra's similar to mine with values ranging from £300 to £600 so downloaded the adverts and sent them, and a rather snippy letter, off to the insurers. Sure enough, ten days later I got a revised offer of £400, so result! However, I think I'm now going to equate insurance companies with 2nd hand car dealers and estate agents!

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I think it's about time I blogged some awards. Some of these are from before last Christmas so apologies all round!

Both Linda and Caroline awarded me the Premio Dardos award:

I'm afraid I can't remember specifically what it's for and when I tried to translate it I came up with 'prize darts' which wasn't really any help! But thank you Linda and Caroline!

The lovely Mel Mel (private blog) gave me the Hot Blog Award, which speaks for itself, and also the Marie Antoinette Award for being 'real':

This one was a little bit tongue in cheek as she passed it on to me after I'd regaled her with tales of all of us being up all night with a nasty tummy upsetting germ - and you can't get more real than that I guess!

Kitty passed along the Best Blog Comments Award:

And Linda very generously passed on the Lemonade Award:

for blogs which show attitude or gratitude (which was very kind of her since I hadn't blogged the first award she gave me!).

Having left it so long to blog them there's no way that I can list and link to everyone who deserves these to be passed on. So if you follow me, or are on my blog list, or have ever left me a comment then please consider yourself awarded with any or all of the above.

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I've also been tagged by Sara and Linda.

Sara tagged me for 'six random things about me' but as I did one of these before I thought I'd do a 'six things which get my goat!' instead, so here goes:

1. Since I started driving Nipper to nursery 4 times a week I'm noticing other people's bad driving habits (no doubt I have plenty of my own!). Top of the list has to be people who don't bother to indicate, especially at big junctions and mini-roundabouts. This leads nicely onto number 2....

2. People who decide to ignore the rules regarding who has right of way. This is another mini-roundabout problem and also crops up a lot as there are lots of parked cars around here.

3. And another driving related one - people who park across my drive, especially as the whole rest of the street is empty but they can't be bothered to walk the few extra feet! It's become so bad now that we have applied to the Council for a marking to be painted across the driveway. Hopefully people will notice that, though why they can't see the driveway in the first place is beyond me. (Mr Earplugs has been getting a tad stressed about this as he's worried that I might go into labour early and someone will be blocking the drive).

4. Irresponsible dog owners. Don't get me wrong, I quite like dogs ,but have never owned one and don't know much about looking after them. But I do know that I wouldn't let my dog jump up at strangers, nor would I let it off the lead in a park where there were lots of small children playing. Miss Muffett was slammed into a wall when she was about 5 years old by a dog which was charging around the entryway to the park. It might not have been so bad if the owner had come over and helped but he just walked straight past and didn't say a thing. I had plenty to say! I've also had clothing ruined by dogs jumping up and scraping their dirty paws down my clothes, and had a picnic in the park spoiled by a roaming dog which figured it was a slap up meal just for him.

5. This one could be tagged on to no 4 really - dog mess on the pavement! It's a nightmare when you tread in it or get it stuck around your pram wheels. If a dog owner can't be bothered to pick it up then at least get them to do it in the gutter where it's less likely to be trodden in!

6. Another driving type one - cyclists riding on the pavement at break-neck speed. I have every sympathy with people wanting to ride on the pavement as the roads are so busy. Unfortunately a lot of them forget that pavements are supposed to be for pedestrians. I've been hit twice by cyclists zooming along and zig-zagging through people, and we had a scary near miss with Miss Muffett when she was small.

Linda tagged me with a 'Reading' meme:

Who is your first favorite author and why?

I think this would have to be Enid Blyton. I read the 'Wishing Tree' books, then the 'Mallory Towers' series, and of course the 'Famous Five' books. I think I liked the 'mystery' aspect of the Famous Five.

Do you still consider him/her to be among your favourites?

Not really, though if I was a kid again I'm sure I'd still like the 'Famous Five' and I do still like mystery novels.

Who is your all time favorite author and why?

I loved 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte, which we studied for 'A' Level, probably because it's set close to where I grew up and the language of the characters is real . That really appealed at the time as I went to a grammar school and there were very few kids there with a 'local' accent.

Do you still co nsider him/her to be among your favorites?

Absolutely.

Who is the most recent addition to your favorite authors and why?

Probably Jodi Picoult. Her books often deal with difficult subjects and she looks at them from all angles.

If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth?

Probably Jodi Picoult as I haven't read all of her novels yet. I love Sue Grafton's 'alphabet' series of crime novels. I also really like Nicci French but have to be in the right mood to read them. I like a good crime/thriller/mystery novel.

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Pregnancy Update:

I have only 5 weeks to go now! It has come around rather quickly, especially since I thought I had 2 more weeks than that. I've been feeling a little bit under the weather with tiredness, dizzy spells and breathlessness, and feeling a bit twitchy about the upcoming c-section. I figured it was just down to being in the latter stages of pregnancy and chasing around after Nipper (not to mention no longer being a spring chicken - lol!) Turns out that I'm anaemic and have been having the classic symptoms. So it's iron tablets for me from now on which means I have to also limit my intake of milk, tea and eggs. What'll I do without my first cup of tea of the day??

Everyone keeps commenting on how small I look (even though I feel like a whale) so I thought I'd put a recent photo up alongside the one taken at 25 weeks to see if there's much difference:

I guess I am bigger, though I don't look much bigger considering 10 weeks have gone by. Let's hope I don't get too much bigger then over the next 5 weeks.

(And this has got to be my longest ever blog post - congratulations if you made it all the way to here!)

Hats

2009-04-09T11:29:00.011+01:00

A little while ago Mr Earplugs collected Nipper from nursery and left his hat and gloves behind. Since it was still rather nippy, and he only had one set, I thought I'd better do something about it. Initially I was going to just buy a set but both our local Woolworths and Adams stores have gone to the wall and I couldn't be bothered with traipsing around looking for a hat! So I figured I'd knit one!

A quick trawl of the www and I found a pattern for a 'Pixie Hat'. As usual I didn't have the right yarn or needles and couldn't wait to get started either. So I figured I'd have a go with some pure wool sock yarn which I bought in a fit of enthusiasm whilst forgetting that pure wool wouldn't be that hardwearing and would likely felt when I mistakenly put it in the washing machine. Here it is:As I recall it's Fyberspates, 100% wool, sock yarn, in 'Blue Lagoon'. It feels quite thick for a sock yarn but since I've only knitted one pair of socks as yet what do I know?! But since it is a sock yarn I figured my existing set of dpns should do the trick. I wasn't sure what size to knit since I wasn't using the right yarn or needles and I wouldn't call Nipper a 'baby' but then again neither is he a 'small adult'. I went with 'small adult' in the end on the basis that it should fit him for a long, long time!

I had conquered my fear of dpns when knitting my first socks last year but was somewhat alarmed when I realised that this hat called for 7 of them!

That was quite some feat and to be honest I think I'd have found it easier to use a circular needle and just go onto dpns for the shaping. But I got the hang of it and here is the finished article:

Nipper looks a real cutie in it though I may have to make the 'stalk' disappear as he gets older and needs to look 'cool' (my friend's 5 year old insists on looking 'cool' - at 5 years old!!)

Following the success of this hat Miss Muffett decided she wanted one. We opted for the Saturday Afternoon Hat (which took longer than 1 afternoon for me to knit it!) but again I didn't have the right yarn or needles. So I decided to do a combination of both patterns and use my existing dpns and 100g of double knit acrylic which has been kicking around the place for donkeys years!

I cast on the number of stitches required for the Pixie Hat, did a few alternating knit and purl rows so the bottom wouldn't roll up, added in several rows of the Saturday Afternoon Hat detail, then reverted to the Pixie Hat pattern for the top shaping.

It seems to have worked out ok and Miss Muffett is very pleased with it.

Now I just have to whip up a pair of mittens to match Nipper's hat before the weather warms up too much (don't think that's likely to happen - lol!)

P.S. I can't remember where I found the Saturday Afternoon Hat but it was likely on Ravelry.

Thank You Kim!

2009-04-04T17:44:00.003+01:00

Things are a bit mad around here at the moment. With the decorating, the kitchen re-fit, and Nipper being in a super-moany mood I haven't had any time for blogland.

But I had to do a quick post to say 'thank you Kim' or rather Kim's kiddies, for choosing our joke as one of the winners in Kim's recent bag giveaway.

I received this fabulous bag and I can tell you that they are as gorgeous in the flesh as they are in the photo's:

Our winning joke, which is Miss Muffett's favourite, was:

Q: What do you get if you pour hot water down a rabbit hole?

A: Hot cross bunny!

Thank you Alex and Anna!

Go-ing, Go-ing, Go-Go-Gone!

2009-03-25T10:27:00.008Z

The salvage man came to collect the Go-Go on Monday. He arrived driving a huge 6 car transporter which Nipper would have loved but sadly he was at nursery and missed it.

I asked whether they recycle the car parts or sell them on etc and he went into a lengthy explanation about it all. I thought the Go-Go might live on if only in some very small way but it soon became clear that she just isn't worth the trouble and she's off to the crusher. I was so sad to see her go.

And here is her replacement:

Affectionately known as 'Nissy' she is another Nissan Micra, has done roughly the same mileage but is half the age of the Go-Go. I love the colour (a terribly girlie thing to say, I know!) and she has shiney new hubcaps. She also has a new MOT and a full Nissan service history - just so you know I didn't get her just for her looks! I think I'm going to love her as much as I loved the Go-Go.

Spring Has Sprung

2009-03-20T09:57:00.016Z

Well, spring has definitely sprung in my garden. It's so nice to see something doing well, other than the weeds which are flourishing! Mind you, if I planted more nice things I'd get to see a few more flowers wouldn't I?! We have made some progress with our front garden, including a minor disaster, but I'll put that in another post.

This seems to have been a very long week! I am trying to get the house back to some sort of order following decorating our living room. I'm not sure the photo's really show the before and after very well. Here's the floor before:

And after - shame to cover the parquet but Nipper has slipped and banged his head so many times:

Nipper was having fun 'helping' me to hoover the new carpet, which is a lovely cream colour. He has his own toy Dyson (thank you Ebay). And you can see the state of my back garden too!

Another couple of 'before' shots - the walls were a very minty-green.

We have a stone fireplace and hearth with a teeny-tiny woodburner. Now that the room has been done up I'll get a nice rug to cover the hearth and hopefully avoid nasty bangs on the head.

Here's an almost finished shot - the walls are now Dulux Orchid White:

You realise how much stuff you have when you need to clear a room out (we were having a carpet laid so the room had to be emptied), and we have far too much stuff despite my freecycling and frequent deposits at the charity shop. We are still trying to finish it off with a nice curtain pole but the drill bit has gone blunt and we're having problems getting a replacement (our drill has hexagonal bits which push in and click and we're struggling to find someone who sells them).

Then of course there was the pranging of the Go-Go. I can't believe how much hassle it is to sort out and how many different people you have to deal with - insurance company, courtesy car company, salvage company, engineer, underwriter, dvla. The underwriters want copies of every piece of paperwork we've ever had for the car so I've spent a lot of time rummaging around looking for it all, photocopying, and form filling. I really must do an overhaul on my household filing system!

I've also had some hassle from the other driver's insurance company. The cheeky so-and-so's organised a salvage inspection of my car without asking/telling me about it. They are desperate to sort the matter out themselves as I guess it'll work out cheaper for them. When I found out about the inspection I rang them to complain and told them my insurers were dealing with everything. They accused me of being obstructive and said I was witholding information and failing in my legal responsibilities. At first I was a bit alarmed but then I twigged that they were trying to scare me into allowing them to deal with the claim. So then I got a bit annoyed and gave them a piece of my mind!

We also had some sad news this week. Mr Earplugs was working in Belgium and his Mum rang me to say that his Grandad had died. It wasn't altogether unexpected as he had suffered a stroke recently and was rather poorly, but still a bit of a shock. I wasn't sure about this but I decided not to tell Mr Earplugs about it until he got home. He couldn't do anything and he didn't need to come home straight away - the funeral's not for a couple of weeks. I didn't think there was any benefit in him finding out when he was at work and miles away. It turned out to be the right decision.

Rather than sitting here blogging I should be clearing out my kitchen. We decided to replace our kitchen which is about 25 years old and hideous (grey stripey doors, grey trim, grey mottled worktop - yuck). We got a very good deal in the January sales and I know someone who can fit it for a quarter of what the store wanted to charge (and my chap's no cowboy, I've been using him for electrical and plumbing work for years). The work starts on Monday and I need to empty everything out. It's the same scenario as the decorating - far too much stuff and nowhere to shove it all! Here is a peek from the catalogue, though we aren't having any curved units and my kitchen's nowhere near as big:

It'll apparently take a couple of weeks. After that I've got a plasterer coming to do the hallway followed by a decorator to sort out the hall, stairs, and landing. Pretty much the whole of our house was trashed when we had building work 3 years ago. Here are a few pics to give you an idea:

We've been redecorating ever since but I'm hoping to get most of the house finished before the baby arrives, hence getting a decorator for a final push. It'll be so nice to be able to relax and enjoy the house without constantly seeing a list of jobs which still need to be done!

RIP Gorgeous Go-Go!

2009-03-16T11:45:00.005Z

Well, here I am again writing another 'RIP' post. This time it's for my lovely little car - the Go-Go - so called because of her number plate.

She may not look gorgeous to the untrained eye but I love her. We got her off Mr Earplug's grannie a couple of years ago. She was nearly 18 years old then and had only done 38,000 miles. She's never any trouble, costs very little to run, and usually sails through her MOT.

Unfortunately she now has to go to the great carpark in the sky as a stupid truck driver backed into her and crumped the back end. She is still driveable but our mechanic said that the safety of the rear end has been somewhat compromised and so it wouldn't be a good idea driving around with the kids in the back. So, she's a write off and I'm not best pleased. I now have to fork out unnecessarily for another car, the insurance payout will be rubbish because she's so old, I've got the hassle of finding another car, and in the meantime I'm driving a hire car which I hate - it was supposed to be a small car but it feels enormous to me! Ho hum!

However, I had a lovely surprise on the same day which really helped to brighten me up. I ordered this fab piece of fabric from Sara:

And look what else she sent - lots of lovely extras:

I was thrilled to bits! The brown fabric goes perfectly with our pair of 1970's cordurouy swivel chairs so I feel a cushion making session coming on. Thank you Sara for your generosity - you made my day!

Quick request for help - my anti-virus software (Kaspersky) has suddenly decided that certain blogs pose a phishing risk and is denying me access to them! I've read the help pages and they're not much help so I've had to disable the anti-phishing component, which isn't ideal. If anyone has any ideas on how to sort this out they would be gratefully received!

RIP Sophie Guinea-Pig

2009-03-10T16:19:00.000Z

I was going to 'introduce' our guinea-pigs since I introduced the cat a while back, but one of them has only gone and died on me! I must have put a hex on it or something. One minute it was fine and a couple of hours later it was lights out time! I know they don't live very long but I think this one was only about 4 years old.

We got 2 sisters for Miss Muffett's 8th birthday. As is usually the way with these things the shine rapidly wore off and there was always a lot of moaning when they had to be cleaned out. But I managed to resist the job being dumped on me as I told Miss Muffett she had to live up to her responsibilities (how harsh is that for an 8 year old - lol!) Initially theye were going to be called Rosie and Sophie but I realised that these are the names of Sally Webster's girls in Corrie and that would have been rather sad. So instead Rosie was renamed Scooter as she scooted off when we tried to pick her up.

They were quite a pair with Sophie being the dominant greedy and grumpy one - she's the one in front in the photo below. Poor Scooter never got a look in. They had a large indoor cage for the winter (they can get bad chests if left outside in UK winter weather conditions) which we used to keep in the family bathroom. During the summer they had a rabbit hutch with a large run so they could run around and scoff the grass.

Miss Muffett was terribly upset, especially seeing Sophie lying lifeless in the cage, but this prompted a discussion on how small animals usually live shorter lives than bigger animals, which is no bad thing really. I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to get her out of the cage. Stupid really, but I had to cover her up so I couldn't see her before I could manage it. Mr Earplug's very dutifully dug a hole in the garden border (I was tempted to put her in the wheelie bin but everyone looked at me with horror when I suggested it!). And so she was buried - hopefully deep enough so I won't be digging her up when I add plants to the border.

Scooter seems quite happy on her own, no doubt enjoying the fact that her greedy and grumpy cell mate is no more. And Miss Muffett was soon over it saying at least the grumpy one went first!

Mid-term Musings

2009-03-04T10:26:00.006Z

I've now passed the mid-point of my pregnancy and reached the point where new nipper is classed as 'viable'. Because of my age, and what happened with the last pregnancy, I've found it a bit hard to relax into this one. I was just starting to get there when my Consultant reminded me that this birth had better be a c-section. Yikes! Guess I'll be needing lots of these then:

This has now made me freak a bit (the c-section rather than the pants - lol!). I don't know why as I was told that this would likely be the case after I had Nipper. Still, there's quite a difference in a hpothetical c-section for a possible next birth and having one fixed and put in your diary (12th June)!

I don't have any issues regarding c-section versus natural birth. In my view you have the birth necessary to keep both you and your baby healthy. I think I'm stressing because it's a major operation, which scares me to death, and I'm unsure how much help I'll get afterwards (judging by my experience of 2 previous births and my friend's recent c-section it won't be much!) And Mr Earplugs may well have problems in spending as much time as we'd like at the hospital because he'll need to look after Nipper.

I've been 'musing' a bit on how different this pregnancy has been when compared to my previous pregnancies.

I read something along the lines of: 'In your 20's you can be pregnant, hold down a full-time job, and have a social life. In your 30's you can be pregnant and have either a full-time job or a social life. In your 40's being pregnant is more than enough!' I'd have to agree. I'm going to bed before 9pm each night but I'm still absolutely knackered. Having an active toddler who doesn't like to sleep probably isn't helping there.

The morning sickness was worse and lasted longer than with previous pregnancies.

I've had every germ going - the flu which morphed into gastric flu; the nasty chest infection which landed me in hospital; 4 instances of digestive 'upsets' (the type where you need both the loo and the sink at the same time - say no more!); I now have another throat and chest virus, and there's been an outbreak of chickenpox at our toddler group so I have to avoid the place until I've had a bloodtest to see whether I'm immune!

Name a pregnancy 'irritation' and I've got it already - really bad leg cramps keeping me up at night, needing the loo all the time, terrible heartburn (I should buy shares in the company that makes Rennies), other 'digestive' issues, pelvic joint pain, nose bleeds, dropsy, braxton hicks already, and backache! I'm not 'blooming' yet either!

One thing has remained the same though - a strange desire to eat freshly cracked black peppercorns. Even when they are burning my mouth I can't seem to stop myself. Very odd!

And I've become rather large rather quickly:

I've got another 15 weeks to go so goodness knows how big I'll be by then! I rather like the blurry photo. I couldn't use the flash in the mirror and there wasn't really enough light in my hallway. I also realised how grotty the mirror was so I've been at it with the Windowlene and it's all sparkley now!

*Pants photo from the book 'How to have a baby and still live in the real world' by Jane Symons.

Look What The Postie Brought!

2009-02-20T11:24:00.009Z

I had a lovely surprise when I got back from dropping Nipper at nursery this morning - Beth's 'cheer-me-up' giveaway win!

I love Beth's blog, not just for her crafty stuff, but because she is so honest and always makes me laugh. I have great admiration for her as she manages to produce lovely crafty stuff whilst looking after 3 kiddies under the age of 5, plus husband, and she's in training for a triathlon!

The giveaway was for one of Beth's handmade cuffs but look at what she sent.

The gorgeous cuff:

A crayon-roll for Nipper (I've been meaning to make one of these):

And a lovely card:

Thank you Beth - you are very talented and very generous!

If you want to know what I said that cheered her up then check my comment on this post!

'That' Time

2009-02-13T10:40:00.014Z

It's 'that' time again. No, not the one where we all get moody and grumpy and want to eat chocolate (though being pregnant I'm luckily missing all that, except perhaps the chocolate bit), but the one where the latest copy of Country Living magazine falls through my letterbox.

I love this magazine and recently treated myself to a years subscription. It was a very thrifty treat though as it only cost £10 using Tesco clubcard vouchers. Mr Earplugs always wants to use these vouchers when we do the shopping but I hide them so he can't and I use them for treats instead!

March's edition has lots of articles which are right up my street. Wouldn't you love to have all this fabric:

And look at this sewing machine:

My grandmother had a treadle Singer and I loved it. I so wish I had one. I don't know what happened to it. When she died the house was rather speedily emptied by one of my aunties, causing a family row!

Lots of ideas for storage:

I think my Dad has a cupboard like this in his shed. He's had it for years and stores all his plant foods etc in it. It's probably worth a few bob now!

One day I'm going to live somewhere a bit more like this than where I live now:

And have a garden that I can do this with:

I love Acers:

We planted a dwarf one in a large pot in the garden as a sort of 'baby loss' memorial following my miscarriage last summer.

There's some yummy food too. Wish my dinner's looked like this (love the plate):

And wish I could eat this:

Sadly not allowed at the mo.

But lots of other stuff to drool over when I get a few free minutes - yum!

So Much Snow!

2009-02-11T11:58:00.010Z

Well, I couldn't let all the snowy weather pass without a blog post about it. Anyone reading this who has to suffer serious snow each winter will probably think I'm bonkers for enthusing about it. But in the 25 or so years that I've been living in the south I've never seen it coming down like this:

Nor it settling, and staying for days, like this:

I attempted a shopping trip into town but the pavements were so icy that I had to walk in the road (a very busy one) so I decided the shopping could wait! Nipper was very bemused by it all but soon got stuck in with his too big welly boots on, and 'helped' his sister to build a snowman. She was very excited about the snow to start with but the novelty soon wore off when she had to walk to school in it. It takes her 45 minutes each way so it's not really much fun when it's freezing cold!

Hopefully it'll be another 25 years before we get any more weather like this!

Back at Last!

2009-02-03T21:08:00.004Z

Thank you so much for all your lovely messages while I've been poorly.

Things got rather worse before they got better. Despite the double strength antibiotics my chest infection got worse. Mr Earplugs got back from Spain and didn't like the look of me(!!) and whisked me back to the doctor, who said the same thing. I thought she'd just give me more pills but she sent me to the hospital with suspected pneumonia or a blood clot on the lung and they admitted me!!! I was completely unprepared - no spare underwear and badly shaven legs - lol!

My only encounters with hospitals have been when having the kiddies and I'm not too fond of them! Staying in for 2 days wasn't my idea of fun - nor anybody else's I'm sure. Whenever anyone comes near me with a needle my veins collapse and it's virtually impossible to get a blood sample. After 4 failed attempts the nurse called a doctor to take a deep vein sample instead and I still have the bruise. Add to that 2 attempts at a canula, an arterial blood sample, a shot of heparin, and a supersized canula for a CT scan and I felt like a pincushion! Apparently the risk to me of a blood clot was greater than the risk to the baby of having an x-ray (hence the CT scan rather than a standard chest x-ray). I would have preferred not to have an x-ray at all but didn't much fancy dying either! I don't know which was worse - the chest pain and not being able to breathe properly or the sickness caused by IV antibiotics and painkillers.

Luckily the scan showed no clots but some small areas of collapsed lung which would right itself over time (apparently!). I was sent home with even stronger antibiotics which made me rather sick. There was also some debate over whether I had pleurisy or a cracked rib from all the coughing. Since my ribs are still uncomfortable (sneezing really hurts!), and I've finished off the pills, my bet's on the cracked rib.

What was quite funny (well not really) was that I'd recently received the death certificates for my gt-gt-grandfather and his family (I'm a fan of family history). Pretty much all of them died of either pneumonia or TB. When I told my mate Pete he said my 'living history' experiment was taking research a bit too far! It certainly makes you realise how fortunate we are. Less than a hundred years ago people were dying for lack of antibiotics.

Pregnancy update:
I'm just over halfway through my pregnancy now and I'm getting very big. If I carry on at this rate I'll be like a house-end by 9 months! We had a scan on Friday which showed that everything seems ok despite my ill-health, so that was a great relief. They still think that new nipper will be a boy. Mr Earplugs was very pleased as he reckons he doesn't understand women. I said "even me" and he replied "especially you"! I guess ignorance is bliss?? (And we've been together 7+ years and just had our 1st wedding anniversary too!).

Hopefully I'll soon be able to blog something a bit more interesting than the state of my health!

It Never Rains But It Pours!

2009-01-21T17:17:00.003Z

I'm having a much longer blogging break than I intended!

I had the nice quiet Christmas that I wanted, albeit at the expense of having the flu. That left me with a cough which has turned into a nasty chest infection and pleurisy in my right lung. I have a cough worthy of smoking 100 fags a day (I don't smoke any!) and I feel like I've got a knife through my ribs. The doctor has me on double strength antibiotics and those pain pills that send you a bit funny in the head - not ideal since hubby is in Spain with work and there's only me to look after the kids!

I'll be back in a couple of weeks when I can breathe again!

Gastric Flu and a Christmas Meme

2008-12-22T20:28:00.000Z

Thank you to everyone who left such lovely messages about the swap and also your 'Happy Christmas' wishes. I'm so sorry that I haven't been to see everyone recently but for the last 9 days I've been struck down with gastric flu. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy (not that I have one - lol!). Today was the first day that I managed to eat properly. You'd think I might have lost weight, but no, only 2lbs, so there hasn't even been an 'upside'. I'm finally feeling vaguely human again but still have a really bad chest. At least my tummy is over the worst now though! If I don't get to catch up with everyone then please all have a super Christmas and I'll be along to visit soon, xx

I was tagged by Linda (Remote Treechanger - see under 'Followers') for a little Christmas fun and I had this in draft so can now do a post while I have a bit of energy:

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?

I quite like both though since I'm pregnant it'll have to be hot chocolate. I'm apt to overdue it though by putting huge amounts of 'shushy' cream on top. ('Shushy' cream is that mock cream which comes in an aerosol can and makes a 'shushy' sound when you squeeze the dispenser. Gross really but yummy on hot chocolate.)

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

Oh they have to be wrapped and with ribbon and a bow on too preferably. If it's not wrapped then it's not a proper present!

3. Colored lights on house/tree or white?

I don't mind really. Our lights are coloured and they twinkle .

4. Do you hang mistletoe?

No

5. When do you put your decorations up?

Usually the weekend before Christmas Day.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?

Hmm, not sure. I'm not that much of a foodie really. Mr Earplugs has to have a mountain of 'pigs-in-blankets' and I quite like them. I like the 'peripherals' really, the bread sauce and the stuffing. And I love roast potatoes.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?

I used to like watching (and sometimes being in) the school Christmas play. Also, there was a very steep hill opposite our school and we used to going sledging down it, usually in half a plastic water barrel. You could get about 3 kids in one and they were very fast (and probably quite dangerous as there was a barbed wire fence at the bottom of the hill and you had to swerve at the last minute in order to miss it!)

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?

I don't know. I don't remember believing or not believing.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

No, that's cheating!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?

The lights go on first, followed by tinsel and those chains of little balls, then the ornaments, the chocolates, and lastly the angel on the top (though I've forgotten to get chocolates this year).

11. Snow. Love it or dread it?

Now that's a difficult one. Where I grew up we used to get snow which was several feet deep. Great for playing in for a while but not much fun when you were trying to walk to school in it or when they canceled public transport and you couldn't get anywhere. Where I live now it's quite rare to get more than a sprinkling of snow so I guess now it has novelty value.

12. Can you ice skate?

Yes, though I can't do anything fancy.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?

As a kid I was given a game called 'Tug a Bug'. You had a large plastic bug in a large plastic cage. The cage had a hole on each side which was big enough to get the bug through. Each player had a long stick with a hook on the end and you had to catch the bug and get it out of your side of the cage. It was great fun and there was lots of tugging – hence 'Tug a Bug'.

14. What is the most important thing about the holidays for you?

Time with hubby and the kids. To be honest the perfect Christmas Day for me would be a lovely day with hubby and the kids, opening presents, playing some games and watching a good film etc, and just having some quiet family time. I know that most people see Christmas as a time for seeing all the family, but whenever this happens I find that I have a very stressful day, don't get time to do presents properly as everything ends up in a big rush, and I don't get to relax at all. I much prefer to 'do' Christmas with family slightly after Christmas but this doesn't go down well at all. I guess I'm being a bit 'bah humbug!'

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?

Mr Earplugs loves Christmas pudding but I've only recently developed a taste for it. I'm not very keen on dried fruit but we found a pudding recently which contained lots of cherries and nuts and it was really yummy. Otherwise I love to make Delia Smith's Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding which is scrumptious and very easy to do.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

I've been thinking of this recently and we don't really have any. As a kid I used to like leaving milk and mince pies for Father Christmas which my Dad would obligingly eat. But as we got older he didn't eat them anymore and I found that quite sad. I do like decorating the tree with the kids and having candles in the fireplace.

17. What tops your Christmas tree?

A cardboard angel with a bit of tinsel and half a paper doily stuck on it which was made by Miss Muffett when she was at Nursery.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?

I love seeing the kid's faces when they open their presents. I have to say the 'giving' has become a bit of a stress in recent years. I always end up doing Mr Earplug's Christmas shopping (even though I say I'm not going to do it anymore). He never knows what to get for anyone and it gets left to the last minute. I tried to solve this by asking for wish lists. This usually results in responses of 'I don't know', or everybody being told the same item so a person ends up with the same thing 3 times over!

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?

'Santa Baby'. Kylie has done a version of this song but my favourite is the version by Suzanne Courtney who is a co-presenter on the Andrew Peach Breakfast Show on our local BBC radio station.

20. Candy Canes. Yum or Yuck?

Look lovely on the tree but to eat - yuk.

21. What do you want for Christmas?

I'm a very low maintenance person. I don't do expensive perfumes, designer gear or fancy jewelery. There's usually a cd or book that I quite fancy. I'm a real cheap date! I do like getting chocolates of some sort at Christmastime. I use an old and rather unstable laptop which is on it's 3^rd hard drive so I think Mr Earplug's is getting me a memory stick so I can backup my stuff regularly (can't get this laptop to burn cd's properly!).

22. Do you attend an annual Christmas party.

If this means an adult party then no. We have had a party at nursery and a party at the toddler group.

23. Do you dress up for Christmas Eve or wear PJ’s?

Not sure I get what the question means – is there a tradition where you dress up on Christmas Eve? I very rarely dress up for anything so the answer would be no.

24. Do you own a Santa hat?

There's one in the house somewhere – I think it's at the bottom of the toy tub.

25. Who do you normally spend Christmas with?

It changes from year to year. If Miss Muffett is with us (rather than being with her Dad) then there are the 4 of us, plus my Mum and Dad who come to stay for a few days (as they live a long way away it's not possible to just come for Christmas dinner). On the 'alternate' years we either visit my in-laws or they visit us.

I won't tag anyone as I know this is a busy time of year. But if any of you do your own version of this then let me know as I'd love to see your answers.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! xx

Swap Time!

2008-12-12T11:19:00.012Z

I popped down to the postal sorting office this morning to pick up a large parcel of golf balls (don't ask!) and, unbeknown to me, my swap parcel from 'Thrifty Mrs' was also waiting for me - naughty postman had left it there without letting me know as he knew that I'd have to call in for the golf balls at some point! Suddenly the visit was much more interesting! I was dying to open it but decided to restrain myself so that I could take photo's!

But before I do, here's a sneak peek of what I sent, as me and Nipper had great fun creating the wrapping and labels. It was a very 'thrifty' endeavour using brown paper and luggage labels and a potato cut into the shape of a Christmas tree. I was really pleased that we had enough paper left over to wrap the box in:

I managed to behave myself and waited until I had the camera ready before opening mine - how exciting!

Here it is:

And look what was inside, all beautifully wrapped with little labels to give a hint at what was inside, a lovely card, and chocolate coins too:

I now have the perfect excuse to take a long, candlelit bath:

Followed by a pedicure with lovely sparkly pink varnish and warm woolly socks to snuggle into:

Before settling down to an entertaining evening with Doris Day and Rock Hudson and a bar of Green and Black's:

What could be more perfect for a 'cosy night in'?!

Thank you so much 'Thrifty Mrs'. I'm delighted with your gifts and I'm now feeling very Christmassy.

And of course 'big thanks and a hug' too to Mel and Lesley for organising the swap.

A Lovely Wedding and a Great Relief!

2008-12-05T13:59:00.021Z

Last weekend we drove to Chichester for a friend's wedding. We stayed at a lovely hotel; very clean, good food, a small 'leisure suite' and very reasonably priced but we had a really hard lumpy bed! This was the first night in months that Nipper had slept through and we didn't get any sleep as the bed was so uncomfortable (even Mr Earplugs couldn't sleep and he usually sleeps like the dead!) Isn't that just always the way?!

The wedding was held in a barn complex and although it was very cold and wet it was a really lovely day. The barns were decorated with christmas trees and fairy lights and there was a whole pig turning on a spit in the courtyard which smelled fabulous. The bride's dress reminded me of a mermaid and her attendants wore dark steely blue dresses with organza wraps and sparkly shoes. They all looked beautiful. I loved wearing my new velvet coat but only just managed to get into my posh frock as I hadn't realised just how much I'd expanded given that I'm still only in early pregnancy!

There was lots of champagne - I was on the lemonade :o( - and canapes and nibbles. This was followed by a sit down dinner of red onion and feta tarts with rocket leaves and balsamic dressing, hog roast with roasted vegetables, wedding cake with mixed berries, raspberry sauce and whipped cream, and a cake of stacked cheese which looked amazing. The people on our table did very well with the wine and champagne allocation, and were very pleased about it, as none of the four of us was drinking! Nipper was still quite poorly with his nasty virus so we stayed just long enough for Miss Muffett to have a few dances and then headed back to the hotel, where I was very happy to get out of my frock! We didn't take many photo's but here are a few:

You might remember that I was knitting a shrug to wear with my posh frock. Well there is a bit of a story attached to that! Something rather strange happened. While I was knitting it I had terrible morning sickness, which is thankfully getting much better now. Every single time that I looked at it I felt really sick and so couldn't then face the idea of wearing it for a 'big event'. So I put it to one side. Very, very strange!

Here it is:
It's almost finished with only about 15 rows to go. Miss Muffett has taken quite a shine to it and so I'm going to finish it off for her instead, perhaps for Christmas if I can face it or more likely for her birthday.

Pregnancy Update:

On Wednesday we went up to London for a scan and blood tests to see if all was ok with the pregnancy. As Wednesday is the day on which the clinic deals with pregnancy problems our appointment was delayed by 2 hours. The waiting room was quite comfy and I had a sandwich and a magazine so I was happy waiting (that's probably the quietest 2 hours I've had since Nipper arrived!)
I must admit that I was feeling very nervous about the scan so when it was our turn and the doctor very quickly said that everything looked ok I was so relieved that I cried. I couldn't help myself. When we went in our 'unadjusted' risk for Down's (trisomy 21) was 1:33 and for trisomy 13/18 was 1:61 based on my age. Following the scan and blood test results our risk went to 1:1109 and 1:2011. These are better results than those we had for Nipper and since the risk of miscarriage with a CVS is 1:100 we decided that it wasn't necessary to have any further tests. And here is the little fellow:

The doctor was 80% sure that we are having a boy. Miss Muffett was somewhat underwhelmed by this news as it means that she'll have 4 brothers, bless her! I'm just so relieved to have got to this point, I can't tell you. We can now get on with thinking about Christmas!

A Big Week For Nipper

2008-11-24T11:15:00.006Z

Last week was a very big week for Nipper. Not only did he have his first ever haircut (photos below) but he also started at nursery.

He was due to start at nursery shortly after his 2nd birthday. None of our near friends have any children and although we go to a toddler group Nipper doesn't really get much chance to be with other kids. Since we have another baby on the way I wanted to start him at nursery in good time so that he doesn't feel pushed out when the baby arrives.

We had found a fairly local Montessori nursery and were happy with it following our initial visit. Unfortunately my view changed once we had been for a few drop-in sessions. I'm quite happy with the Montessori ethos and thought it would be good for Nipper given that he's still quite young. This nursery was quite small and so they had all of the children in one room, rather than being split by age. And this is where the problem arose for me. The teeny 2 years olds were being pushed around by the older children who, of course, were much more boisterous. We went for 3 sessions and each time we had problems and witnessed accidents caused by, in my view, inadequate supervision. Nipper was deliberately pushed over (flat on his face) and pestered by a much older child. Despite me very nicely telling the child that Nipper didn't like the 'attention' the child wouldn't leave him alone and this culminated in the child nearly throttling Nipper with a rubber snake! At no point did any staff do anything about it and I had to sort it out myself.

When I asked the manager about 'supervision' she said that Nipper would 'soon get used to it' and that following a 2 week period of personal supervision he would have to 'learn to fit in'. I was rather concerned about this so Mr Earplugs got on the phone for a chat. The manager wanted him to speak to the owner (who also worked in the nursery with the children). She turned out to be a nightmare and unsuited to work in childcare as far as I'm concerned. Mr Earplugs is pretty laid back and so for him to have issues with the woman was quite something. He didn't tell me much (I would have have gone bonkers!) but said that she had denied that anything had happened to Nipper during his visits (even though she had been in the room at the time) and suggested that we were accusing her of allowing bullying - we weren't, but if the cap fits....!! Needless to say Nipper didn't go to this nursery and I had a big dent in my faith in myself since the nursery had seemed ok initially. I've since discovered that 2 other parents have had a 'run-in' with the owner resulting in one of them withdrawing their child.

So Nipper was stuck with me (I don't know how people home-school, I really admire them!) We started looking for a nursery about a month ago and this time didn't bother with 'ethos', we just went straight to Ofsted and looked for anything reasonable near with an 'outstanding' report (the Montessori nursery had been 'outstanding' but had changed hands between the report being published and Nipper starting). We were lucky to find that the only one we 'qualified' for (the others were tied to colleges/offices) was within easy driving distance. Nipper hasn't had any problems with the other children and he's in a room with his own age group. We do have a bit of an issue when I leave him though as he clings onto me for dear life! Hopefully this will ease soon and it won't still be happening by the time he goes to school - lol!

As Nipper was starting nursery I thought it was perhaps time for a haircut. Just about everyone we come across thinks that Nipper is a girl because of his hair - even though he's dressed like a boy! He wasn't too keen when the barber came at him with a pair of clippers but was quite fascinated when the scissors appeared. Here he is before:

And here he is after:

He looks so different. I spent most of Saturday just 'gawping' at him because I couldn't belive that it was him. He's gone from baby to little boy and he looks just gorgeous! I don't think anyone will think he's a girl now - though he does have very long eyelashes so you never know.

Pregnancy update:

I was able to have another scan at the end of last week and this time I could clearly see a baby and a heart-beat (I had to take the doctors word for it last time). The baby was also doing that 'jumping bean' thing they do at this age so that was very reassuring. My doctors are in the fortunate position of having an ultrasound machine on site. This is a good thing since there seems to be confusion regarding when you can have a scan on the nhs. Both my doctor and midwife told me to ring the hospital and book an early scan. When I tried to do this a very officious woman told me I couldn't have one and I'd have to go to the emergency clinic. Apparantly I wasn't allowed to go there either as I wasn't having a threatened miscarriage. I thought most big hospitals had an epu but maybe not.

Next week we have the 'serious' scan where we will find out if everything really is ok. I had booked this at a private clinic as the doctor said I couldn't have it on the nhs. However, the midwife told me that I can have it on the nhs after all! We have decided to stick with the private clinic. If we go via the nhs then the blood samples and scan info have to be sent away for analysis and results take about 5 days. If there is a problem you then have to wait to see a consultant, then have a diagnostic test, and wait for the results again. We are lucky enough to live within reasonable travelling distance of the Fetal Medicine Centre in London. Here we can have the scan and blood tests analysed at our visit and have a diagnostic test too if it's felt necessary. Even better, on the day that we visit the testing is done by a world renowned specialist in fetal medicine so we couldn't be in safer hands.

A Fabulous New Coat!

2008-11-16T10:17:00.007Z

I'm not much of a shopper. I used to love it but attempting to shop with a toddler in a pram, a moaning pre-teen and an equally moaning husband (he really hates shopping) doesn't really do it for me! Opportunities to shop alone are few and far between and never come around when I actually need them. Usually this doesn't matter too much. I'm pretty much a jeans and tee-shirts girl and this works fine until we have a 'do' to go to. With a friend's wedding coming up some serious shopping was required.

I already have a lovely black dress which I got from Monsoon a couple of months ago. My mate Pete kept an eye on Nipper while I dashed into the changing room. On the way there I spotted a lovely velvet skirt for Miss Muffett and bought it on the off chance since it was such a bargain at only £8. Luckily it fits and she loves it.

The problem has been in finding a coat. Now I wouldn't usually be thinking of buying a new coat just to go to a 'do'. I have (or rather 'had') a suitable, if somewhat dated, woollen coat but when I got it out of the wardrobe and dusted it off (literally!) it had clearly seen better days and a dry clean wasn't going to sort it out. Even Mr Earplugs agreed. The thing is though, I hardly ever need to wear a 'nice' coat and have had real trouble in justifying buying a new one. I'm usually out with Nipper in either waterproofs or an anorak (nice!).

I saw this one in the Boden catalogue:

A lovely coat and workable with both my jeans and perhaps a posh frock. It was a bit pricey but I had a discount voucher and free returns so I ordered it. The model looks great in it. I looked like a sack of spuds! I sent it back and remained coatless.

Yesterday we had a lot of bits and bobs to sort out so decided to 'coat-spot' on our trip around town. I tried a few on but none were really doing it for me. Then we spotted this in Marks and Spencer's:

It's the most gorgeous, long, chocolate brown, soft velvet coat. Completely unsuitable for daily use - but then I won't use it daily! I tried it on and it looked lovely. Mr Earplugs declared that he wasn't sure it was worth £130 (ouch!) but a passerby said 'yes it is, it looks fabulous!'. And with that the coat was mine! When we got to the till we found out there was 20% off and I had some vouchers to use up too, so a fantastic buy.
(I think hubby may have been feeling a touch guilty as earlier in the day I'd told him that Mel's lovely hubby Olly had given her roses twice in one week and I've only had flowers twice in 8 years - so thanks Mel!).

However, I'm left with a slightly niggling feeling that I really should have bought something a bit more 'sensible'!

(Photo's from the Boden website and M&S Website).

Remembrance Sunday

2008-11-09T16:04:00.007Z

A while ago I did a post about my grandparents and mentioned how my grandfather had been spared being sent to France during the First World War because of his job.

Not so his brother. He was conscripted in March 1917 and dead by June 1917. He doesn't look like a soldier does he?

He is buried in a small military cemetary at Fampoux near Arras.

'They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning

We will remember them'

Kitchen Poetry: 6 & 7

2008-11-08T19:41:00.007Z

As it's Remembrance Sunday tomorrow I've decided to combine my last two 'kitchen poetry's.

Here's a forgotten corner of my kitchen - don't look too closely as it's rather dusty. We never eat the nuts, I think they've been in that bowl since our first Christmas here!

The next photo's are a bit of a cheat as they were taken last weekend. Nipper had great fun helping to make a cake:

But as usual as soon as your back is turned he's up to no good:

Here is the result - yummy!

Kitchen Poetry: 5

2008-11-07T18:23:00.003Z

Lovely autumnal comfort food from home - Lancashire Hotpot - made with carrots, leeks, courgettes, thinly sliced potatoes and lamb neck fillet. I'm sure this is the cut of meat which we used to call 'scrag end' when I was a child. It certainly looks scraggy but 'neck fillet' sounds much more up market - lol!

Kitchen Poetry: 4

2008-11-06T20:34:00.003Z

I just love the look, the colour and the feel of this wooden fruit bowl!

Kitchen Poetry: 2 and 3

2008-11-05T13:38:00.006Z

I didn't manage to post yesterday but here is Tuesday's photo:

My Weekly Shop (plus extra as we have guests this weekend, plus getting ahead for Christmas). I couldn't face the trolley hell of our local Tesco's this week so I got it delivered instead.

Here is today's photo:

I have about twice this number of cookery books. I hardly ever cook from them but I do like to drool over the photo's - I think this is referred to as 'gastroporn'! The picture is a tiny print of one of my favourite places - Manorbier in Wales - a fabulous castle and cove. The chicken is a Navajo wood carving bought when we visited Mr Earplug's grandad who lives in Arizona. There is a lovely pink heart shaped pebble which I found on a beach (though can't remember exactly where - most likely Wales), along with rose oil handcream from Morocco and Miss Muffett's pottery class cup.

(Good news: I had an ultra-sound scan this morning and there was a wee tiny baby with a beating heart clearly shown on screen - so far so good!)

Kitchen Poetry

2008-11-03T21:06:00.006Z

Toni at Simple Sparrow is having a 'kitchen poetry' week. The idea being that whatever's happening in your kitchen, be it poetry or chaos, just blog it. I'm signing up for the chaos as there's not much poetry in my kitchen!

This is the story of my life at the moment:

Peppermint Tea!

The cup and saucer is a lovely dainty little set, far too dainty for me, which I found in a flea market in Paris about 10 years ago. The handle is so tiny that you have to hold it with your fingertips. It's 'Porcelaine de Sologne' which has been around for over 100 years and is made in the Lomoges tradition (according to the good old www).

A Very Busy Few Days

2008-11-03T16:55:00.011Z

We have had a very busy few days! Mr Earplugs took a few days off work and we thought about going away, but as I'm feeling rather rough I was happy to stay at home! It was a good thing really as Thursday was a flurry of appointments and dashing here and there - dentist appointments for us all, dry cleaning to drop off, Miss Muffett to drop at her Dad's, car to go for a service, visit to a nursery for Nipper, my long awaited doctor's appointment (more of that later), and then retrieving the car.

I was hoping to post a photo of a fabulous Halloween lantern but sadly my pumpkin is still in it's natural state. Miss Muffett wasn't too bothered as she spent Halloween gadding about London with her Dad, Uncle and Aunt (and they went to see Joseph too - lucky girl). Nipper couldn't care less either as he's been rolling the thing around the house like some sort of boulder.
This was the closest to Halloween that we got (display at Legoland):

Legoland is within reasonable driving distance of us and as we had some 2 for 1 tickets we decided to go on Friday. Nipper was too small for most of the rides but he really enjoyed watching them, especially the 'weeeeee splash' (the log flume). Aside from the pumpkin photo we only managed one more before the camera packed up. I bought a spare battery for just such moments but I hadn't charged it - doh! It was absolutely perishing cold (I may be a northerner but I really don't do 'cold'!) . We had a good time though, despite my feeling sick a lot and Nipper having a nappy malfunction whilst sitting on his Dad's knee! Again I was prepared for just such an event with a set of spare clothes (for Nipper at least), however I had left them in the car in the car park - doh! Are you getting a kind of theme here? The day ended with a fantastic fireworks display set to the music of Star Wars. Almost every kid in the place had a light-up light sabre and you could see hundreds of them glowing in the dark.

On Saturday we decided to go to the Sealife Centre in Brighton (more 2 for 1 tickets). I use the term 'we' very loosely as it certainly wasn't my idea to venture forth when it was bucketing down! We made it to Brighton in really good time. This was probably due to the fact that no-one else was daft enough to be heading for the seaside in torrential rain! The carpark by the centre was closed so we had to park a 15 minute walk away and got absolutely soaked to the skin. Even my underwear was wet! Not nice! It's a very interesting place to visit but Nipper spent more time jumping off the steps than he did looking at fish. I managed to get a photo of the Stingrays though most of the fish were just too fast:

Nipper might not have liked the fish but he was very interested in the Amazonian 'poison-dart' Frogs. I couldn't get a photo of them as their tank was all misted up but here's a good likeness (Nipper's rubber frog, bought as a souvenir):

Pregnancy update:
The spotting seems to have stopped, which is a relief. I'm as sick as a dog as they say but I'll try not to whinge on too much about that. If you don't hear from me for a while it's because being at the computer makes me feel worse! My trip to the Doctor resulted in being sent to the hospital to be stuck with a needle, twice actually, once on Friday and again this morning, in order to check for a rise in hcg levels. I'm also booked in for a scan on Wednesday morning so we should know by then if everything looks to be ok at this stage.

And finally, if you're interested in finding new and under-rated blogs then check out this idea.

Emergency Knitting Required

2008-10-27T15:43:00.009Z

We have been invited to a wedding at the end of next month. I knew the invitation was forthcoming but it had kind of slipped my mind. I have a lovely dress to wear but it's black. The unanimous decision here (Miss Muffett & Mr Earplugs rather than me) is that I should knit something to wear with it and make it a touch less funereal! So, emergency knitting required!

I'm not the fastest, or most accomplished, knitter but when I saw a shrug in Monsoon and it was £40(!) I agreed with the aforementioned unanimous decision. So, Wisp and my second socks are on hold and I have started the Reading-In-Bed-Shrug. I had a look on Ravelry and several people had used Sirdar Blur so I got myself on Ebay quick sharp and bought 2 balls, total £6.50. Much better than £40!

Here it is in all it's glory:

The colour is a bit bright to say the least but it's certainly not funereal! It's a bit of a nightmare to knit with as the furry mohair sticky out bits get caught up. And I did my usual of thinking I was doing it wrong, so changed what I was doing and then discovered I was right after all, and had to pull back 4 rows. (I get mixed up between yo and yfwd, not sure if it's the same thing or not). Not to be recommended with this stuff. I will never doubt myself again!

Here is progress so far. You can just see the beginnings of the pattern. I'm going to make it longer than the pattern says as I want it go down to my elbows:

The person who wrote the pattern refers to it as 'mindless' knitting. It may be a simple pattern but I can't remember it to save my life! I have to have it written right next to me. The only pattern I can remember is K1, P1!

Quick pregnancy update:

I haven't managed to see the doctor yet. If you're at death's door you can usually get an appointment quite quickly but otherwise it can take a while. I've got an appointment for the end of the week. I can't see the midwife when I'm supposed to as they don't have enough appointments available. This always makes me laugh (well, not really) because the government is always banging on about maternity care and it seems to get worse with every pregnancy (and I'm on my 5th now). So that appointment will have to wait till the week after.
I've got the worst sickness I've ever had - many thanks to Kitty for her suggestion of ginger pop ice cubes - and I'm feeling very lightheaded. All because I'm 'manufacturing' as Mr Earplugs so charmingly puts it. I've had a bit of 'spotting' but I know this is quite common so I'm trying not to worry about it. Either way there's not much I can do so we'll just have to see. I'm hoping that the doctor will be able to arrange for an early scan so we can see how things are going.

Quick update on my Mum:

Mum had her MRI scan last week. They scanned her head and neck (to see if she had a brain according to my Dad - very cheeky!) and as she has to wait for 4 - 6 weeks for the results we figure things must be reasonably ok.

An Ordinary Week

2008-10-21T15:50:00.019+01:00

A while ago I came across a blog project called 'A Week in my Life' where participants were cataloguing their entire week from photos down to bus tickets and till receipts. I thought I might have a go at the photos (I've got enough junk and clutter about the place thanks very much!). I took a few photos but then ditched them as they were all so 'ordinary'. I don't know what else I expected really!

Anyway, a few days ago Lesley posted about her 'ordinary day' and so I decided to resurrect the ordinary week project, and here it is, with a few explanatory notes (Sunday to Saturday of last week):

Our version of 'Simply Breakfast' (ha ha!); Mr Earplugs usually makes bread at the weekend;

Miss Muffet baked a cake (should have been fruit cake but we didn't have all the ingredients, down to me being an 'undomestic goddess!!'); I used to love a cappuccino in the afternoon but now I'm on the peppermint tea (morning sickness); I love these noodles - disgusting really;

Nipper loves 'In the Night Garden'. If he's having a strop this is sure to shut him up (good old electronic babysitter!); He also loves 'Squiglet' - this is included as Nipper decided to colour along with Squiglet, only he did have a crayon and it was all over the tv screen. Mr Earplugs was pretty cool about it because he reckoned it was 'educational' - lol!; We don't get to watch too much tv but sometimes tape stuff to watch later. I love 'Heroes' and I'm a 'Strictly' addict!;

Here's a bit of what Nipper got up to: Every morning he switches on the cd player and we listen to Mr Earplug's blues & soul cd. We have to have Ray Charles' 'What'd I Say' playing with Nipper shouting out 'awright!'; A bit of a strop coming on as Nipper couldn't work out how to get his sandal on; Being 'helpful' with the cotton buds; And generous with his bubbles;

Getting 'up close and personal'; He likes to have his cars all lined up; Fun with playdoh - he's mixed up all the colours now so it looks like something that needs to be scooped up and put in a poop bag; What Nipper likes best - a big mess!;

Trying to get rid of our colds; The poor cat trying to get some shut-eye; Our girls - don't look too close as they need cleaning out (that's a Miss Muffett spending money job but the 'carrot' isn't working); Big beastie who made his web across the windscreen inside the car - Mr Earplugs nearly had a heart attack.

The usual daily stuff; Washing; Ironing - which is usually a mountain before I do anything about it; Nappies!; The epic proportions of our recycling pile (another Miss Muffett 'undone' job);

And what I might be doing once I've dealt with all of the above!; Trying to make some number and letter flash cards - will blog them if they ever get finished; A bit of blogging; And my knitting (Wisp).

And what isn't shown:
- my friends daughter's birthday party - 30 rampant 4 year olds!
- my s-i-l's birthday tea
- Miss Muffet's friend's paintball party - she's covered in bruises and doesn't fancy going again
- our toddler group session (no cameras allowed)
- Nipper's Sunday swim (no cameras allowed)
- the look of horror on my face when Nipper pulled the needles out of my knitting
- and again when he emptied half a bottle of body lotion down his front and all over the bedroom carpet
- my grumpy face when woken by Mr Earplugs alarm clock at 5:15am. He can't hear it because of the earplugs!
- my grumpy face (again) when woken in the middle of the night by Nipper. This happens about 5 nights out of every seven.
- my even grumpier face when we were all woken up at 4:00am with the cat yowling because he fancied a midnight stroll!
Yep, I'm one grumpy Mama!

Now I Know Why........

2008-10-13T23:47:00.005+01:00

.......... I've been feeling so under the weather for the last couple of weeks. I'm mostly robust but have had a spate of headaches and dizzy spells, been feeling shattered, and just generally not good. I have indeed got Nipper's cold but that's not the whole story. I have just discovered this:

I really should have twigged! They're the classic symptoms for me. I especially should have guessed when I suddenly started putting lots of pepper on my meals (this always happens when I'm pregnant, the rest of the time I can take it or leave it). I've spent so much time trying to forget the rather abrupt end to my last pregnancy that I haven't really been looking forward too much. That will all have to change now! We are very excited but I'm also very apprehensive. It's early days but fingers crossed for this one!

Edited to add: click here to see the outcome of this pregnancy!