Carrot salad and other recipes

For Nic 😉

No recipe, really, but a few guidelines.
1. Grate lots of carrot.
2. Make a dressing. I usually use olive oil as a base, but any vegetable oil or sunflower oil is fine really, then add about half as much vinegar and/or lemon juice as you have oil (I used both for the one at the weekend) and mix well. Add lots of garlic, peeled and crushed, and a good sprinkling of salt and pepper, then stir in the grated carrot. You want to have enough dressing to coat it all without it swimming in oil – less than you’d think but more than for a green salad, if that helps at all.
3. If possible, leave overnight to soak up all the garlic and oil. If not, just leave it as long as you can in a cool place or fridge.
4. Toast a good handful of pine nuts in a dry pan until they pop, shaking occasionally to avoid burning. Stir these into the salad at the last minute for a bit of extra crunch. If you don’t have pine nuts then sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds make quite a good substitute.

While I’m at it, white carrot cake recipe is here. I reduced the granulated and omitted the brown sugar entirely, however, as the parsnip is pretty sweet already and the total amount the recipe called for seemed excessive. Oh, and I just used vegetable oil instead of canola. In fact, maybe I should just rewrite the recipe here with my amendments:

– 2 cups (500 mL) raw parsnips (about 2 parsnips) peeled and sliced 1/4-inch thick, then roasted in a covered dish until soft and sweet – about 1 hour

– 1 cup (250 mL) lightly toasted pecans, coarsely chopped

– 3/4 cup (150 mL) finely chopped tinned pears in their own juice, drained, reserving 1/4 cup (50 mL) liquid

– 11/4 cups (300 mL) granulated sugar (or a little less)

– 2 cups (500 mL) SR flour

– 1 teaspoon (5 mL) baking powder (or 2 cups plain flour and 1 tab BP)

– 1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) salt

– 1 teaspoon (5 mL) ground cinnamon

– 1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) freshly ground nutmeg

– 3 large eggs

– 1 cup (250 mL) vegetable or sunflower oil

– 2 teaspoons (10 mL) pure vanilla extract

– 1 cup (250 mL) shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 175 C/Gas mark 4.

Grease two 9-inch cake pans and line the bottoms.

Blend the parsnips and pears, or whizz with a soup wand, using the extra juice to moisten and make a puree.

In a large bowl, combine sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and stir to blend thoroughly. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs, then add the oil and vanilla, whisking until the mixture is homogeneous. Pour wet ingredients into the flour/sugar mixture and stir until just moistened. (or just chuck them all in a mixer together 😉 )

Now fold in the parsnip and pear puree. Finally, fold in the chopped pecans and coconut.

Divide the batter evenly between the pans. Smooth the tops with a spatula. Bake on the middle rack of the preheated oven, 35 to 45 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the centre comes out clean and the cakes are golden and just beginning to pull away from the sides of the pans. Allow cakes to cool in the pans on wire racks for 15 minutes, then invert onto the racks, peel off the parchment circles and cool completely. (The cake layers can be made one day ahead and stored at room temperature, well wrapped in plastic wrap. They also freeze well, wrapped securely, for up to 3 months.

The icing we used for the party was Seven Minute icing, which is basically an egg white (I use reconstituted dried egg white to save mess and worrying about uncooked egg), 1/4 cup of golden or maple syrup, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (hard to come by round here so I omitted, but I think it might help the texture and longevity of the icing; we had saggy sides to our cake!) and 1/2 cup of boiling water, all mixed together and then beaten until light and fluffy and looking like meringue mix – this takes about seven minutes at high speed, hence the name. You could also use a cream cheese type frosting (think carrot cake) or just a buttercream, perhaps flavoured with mixed spices.

Then there’s the Lazy Lentils, not quite as served at Melrose…
(Nic – better stop reading now 😉 )

For 4 people you need:
2 onions, chopped,
at least 1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed or chopped,
6 oz red lentils,
3 1/2 oz grated cheddar cheese,
1 tsp Marmite or equivalent,
1 tsp dried mixed herbs.

First fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until soft. Add any other veg you fancy – at Melrose we added peppers, carrot and courgette; celery would also go well, but most things would work. Adding nothing works just as well too, but it’s a good place to use up odds and ends – or hide a bit of extra veg.

Mix everything else together in a bowl, then stir in onion mix and spoon it all into a greased casserole dish. Level the top off and pour over 1/2 pint water. Cover with foil or lid and cook at 180C/ GM 4 until lentils are soft – about 1 – 1 1/2 hours (or 5 if at Melrose!).

Tuesday

New-found determination to do less computer stuff made a definite improvement to the day, but was seriously undermined by the unwrapping of Zoombinis (thanks Susan and K 🙂 ) and the boys discovering that we had upgraded TimezAttack to the bought version. In the end we decided they could do TA today and Z tomorrow, but would need to show they could stop when asked and not to random games on internet (my real bugbear). I also restricted myself fairly well and we got lots done, despite taking a break from workbooks and normals 😀 J got up to 4x tables reassuringly quickly, while K was chuffed just to get to a checkpoint – I need to make sure J lets him have sensible turns.

We began by opening cards and presents we hadn’t got to over the weekend, including aforementioned Zoombinis and also a Horrible Science Magnets Kit, which was immediately opened and thoroughly investigated; lots of fun and a fair bit of learning ensued 🙂 A meanwhile was busy with some very chunky first beads, which L and K also rather like. Then we did some singing from a teach yourself grade 1 book I had bought on a whim, which led on nicely to J doing a bit of music theory (he has a lot to do to catch up with J by the end of the holidays!) before taking everyone outside for a run around in the sun.

After snack (a bit late, but still with an impressive amount fitted in beforehand!) the boys worked out that between J, K and L they now have almost exactly the right amount of money to get their much-longed-for DS Lite, so in celebration they all made thank you cards for Bob to scan in and email (because realistically we won’t get round to posting them 😳 btdt before!). I’m celebrating too because they have just the right amount for a console, meaning Bob and I get to choose a game, so we can be sure it’s something a) that they can all play and b) that we’re happy for them all to play 😉 Perhaps also c) that we’ll enjoy playing as well :mrgreen:

After lunch the postman came by with a parcel which included a paint-your-own clock kit for J, so he did that while A dozed and L and K coloured and assembled a little cardboard playhouse (another popular gift). Getting a bit chilly so retired to bed to read Our Island Story, then got onto random story reading and a bit of after school tv…

Bob had gym induction in the evening, so rather than try to get them all to bed single-handedly I wimped out and got them into pjs and teeth cleaned and then we curled up in bed together and watched Animal Rescue Squad and then Big, Bigger, Biggest, which turned out to be pretty good actually – all about airports and their development from little airfields to enormous passenger terminals.

Party weekend!

K’s birthday seemed barely to have passed when it was L’s and then this Saturday was J, followed by A on Monday. Should have been 2 February babies and two March, but somehow we ended up with 1 just in January and 3 in March, or 2 in Jan, 3 March and 1 April if you count Bob and me as well!

Anyhow, the bigger ones have been begging for a party for ages and having been foiled last year by baby about to arrive and impending house move we decided his year would work better. I was not up for multiple parties in quick succession, however, so we took Easter weekend coinciding with J and A as a good start point and did a quadruple celebration then. Having a bit more space, we were able to invite a few friends from further afield (although not as many as we’d have liked really) and make a weekend of it 😀

There were a few intense discussions as to theme: space came a close second and I quite liked the idea of making cakes to scale for the solar system 😆 but in the end Superheroes won out, with the opt-out clause of coming in plain clothes disguise for those who preferred not to dress up 😉

Then we had to decide on cakes – apparently there had to be one each 🙄 and each child wanted something different. So K chose chocolate cake, L white carrot cake, J a plain Victoria sponge (although he ended up with Madeira as it holds together better for decorating) and A had no choice, as there was a Christmas cake we had neither decorated nor eaten at the appropriate time! I decided to take the easy option for decorating and just go for a word on each cake, rather than doing fancy shapes or colours: Cowpow! for K, a Supermoo fan, Meow for L, who was Super Cat Girl, Bam! for A and a last minute decision for J to have his cake decorated as high explosive!

Costumes – another easy option, I’m afraid, using fleece to avoid needing to hem, then stitching on little shields with initials made of felt for emblems 🙂 Looked pretty good though, especially A’s cute little mask – shame she didn’t get round to wearing it for the party!

We made a list of games the children thought would work well or could be adapted to fit superhero training. Top of the list was the chocolate game, which they have wanted to play ever since I first described it to them 😆 We also assembled some suitable craft activities, thinking that those would do to take home instead of a goodie bag full of sugar and tat 😉 I found some scratch art masks which proved to be very effective and also some little wooden peg pals to decorate and add magnetic strips to for sticking secret messages to the fridge. Just enough to keep every one busy in the pauses…

The Rainedrops having arrived early and helped with some “emergency tidying” – I didn’t realise it had a name, but it’s nice to know we’re not the only ones who do it! – we were pretty much set up by the time Monster and Teeny arrived, closely followed by Porticos and SOTP crowd. Hot soup proved to have been a good choice for lunch, given weather (hail, snow, wind…) and we all decided to drive to the hall rather than walking as planned! In fact, I ended up driving Bob plus stuff down there first, so he could collect the key and set up, then returning for children and remaining stuff, which made the beginning of the party a little disjointed, but we seemed to recover okay. Nic ad brought lovely food to add to our supplies, including Superbiscuits 🙂 and there was plenty for everyone, but not so much that we will be eating it for weeks to come! (Even the cake has now gone, apart from a last remaining slice waiting for someone to be rude enough to eat it without sharing 😆 ) TV’s Adrian Goddard made a cameo appearance as a villain, appearing alongside Brian, but was swiftly subdued by a large crowd of children with toilet roll…
We finished the party with a few karate moves, which we practised first before attacking a balloon full of chocolates (bravely held by Chris) which was taking the place of the pinata which we had not managed to get dry in time. Each child had a couple of goes and we were just starting to worry that it was an indestructible super balloon when a Portico kick did the trick and it burst in a very satisfying way, scattering chocolates all over the hall 😀 Then we took more balloons, each containing at least one chocolate, out into the field (sunny by now, thank goodness!) and let the children get on with it while we cleared up the hall.
Came back to a convivial evening, with lots of playing, chatting, eating and so forth 😀 Eventually rounded up remaining children and read them stories before tucking them up into bed, then adults played Blokus and ate cake 🙂 The Babyfoot proved a definite hit (don’t need a pub, as long as we get some beers in 😉 ) but sadly had to be abandoned once children were sleeping in the annexe – there’s always next time, Chris 😉

Sunday morning found the garden thickly blanketed with snow, which certainly helped to get the children up 😆
Barbara would like it on record that they left within one minute of the time they had said :mrgreen:
Breakfast, snow, play etc all happened and we all left the house at much the same time: Monster and Teeny going home (and hoping not to be held up by bad weather) while J and J came with us to church. The service was all age and communion and actually very good. The children all helped to tell the Easter story (ours were mostly angels, but J was a very memorable guard, including falling down in a dead faint when he saw the angels) and we decorated a bare cross with flowers to make something beautiful out of something ugly. We shared communion in our seats, which was nice for a change, and stayed for tea/coffee afterwards while the children played in the back room 🙂
By the time we got back and had lunch the snow had all gone so we were able to do a seasonal search 😉 and then Jan and daughter entertained us with a piano accordion and handbells duet (we have a video – just not sure where to put it for viewing) before they all set off home.
Early night – the house seemed rather quiet somehow!

A busy week

Much of last week was spent getting ready (clearing the spare room and sorting out enough floor/bed/sofa space for friends to stay over, plus lots of baking and game planning) for our long-awaited birthdays party 😀

We still found time to do some Science Week things, K and L at the weekend and J on Monday, when he went to the University Engineering Dept for the Rocket Launchpad Challenge. First they needed to build a structure out of paper, held together with nuts and bolts. This had to be strong enough to hold the rocket launch equipment, so they used tetrahedra (triangular based pyramids – J asked me to explain it to you that way) because they are very strong and spread the load. Their structure was strong enough, but it was too windy outside to use the paper structures after all, so they had to just put the equipment on the ground. Fortunately it still worked, although the rockets may not have gone as far.
The next challenge was to build a rocket, for which they were given paper, scissors and masking tape. They rolled the paper around a tube the same size as the rocket launch tube, so that they knew it would fit well, then added a nose cone and some stabilising fins. After a quick safety talk and a demo of how to use the controls it was time to go outside and launch some rockets!
Meanwhile K, L, A and I had retired, with Gina, E and S, to a cafe where the children were able to play and we could chat. Intended to do lots of planning, but somehow didn’t get that far…
On Monday evening I went out to Pilates for the first time, which was great, but unexpectedly hard work; at the time it felt fairly gentle, but by the next morning I knew I had been working hard!

Tuesday should have been swimming, but Bob had problems with lifts so getting there was too awkward for us in our tired state and we missed it – which means a big gap before the next session and may prove not to have been a good thing at all. We will have to make sure we get to the pool a couple of times over the holidays.
We spent much of the day in bed, in the end, playing Blokus and reading stories 🙂 Also got the children’s capes made and started thinking of initials they wanted for their shields: a simple S for J, SK for Super K, for A an A, or possibly an S, or a B, and L came up with a different combination of random letters every time 😕
Managed to get to aerobics in the evening, which felt good even though the instructor is not great – sometimes it’s just good to be out of the house and doing something different!

Wednesday was always going to be busy and I ended up feeling totally overwhelmed and very low 🙁 We started innocuously enough, with Drama for J and K while L did some nice girlie things with her friend E, but we failed to collect a parcel on the way, just managed (thanks to last minute toilet trip for L, a few minutes after I had asked her and she had been adamant she didn’t need to go :wall: ) to go two minutes into the third hour of parking and so have to spend twice as much, failed again to collect parcel on the way back, didn’t manage to get a lift to Gymnastics for the boys as Susan and K were doing other things so needed a cooked lunch as boys out for tea but everyone was hungry and crabby by the time it was ready, failed to get bread into oven in time to take with us for boys’ tea between gymnastics and Badgers, didn’t get cakes made as hoped because had to go out to take boys – but (breathe, Michelle!) it did occur to me as we walked out of the door that I could take the capes with me and possibly get some hand-sewing done. Fortunately there were some older girls there who were happy to play with L and A, so I got a fair bit done in the end 🙂
Bob, being a sweetie and knowing I was stressed, came home just in time to take the boys to Badgers if we rushed home for tea and then got them into the car ready and nobly took the girls with him as well so I could do lots of baking – bliss!

Thursday was Tots and Nots as usual, with a bit of French, but no Latin in the end (too many not there so we’d have had to revise again anyway) and lots of eggs to decorate. Managed to collect parcels on the way 🙂 Ended up staying rather late and then leaving in a hurry to get home for some lunch and a bit of tidying, reading and playing Blokus 🙂 I made it to Body Combat, despite having been number 11 on the waiting list, so that was an unexpected bonus and means I did enough classes this week to cover our membership fees 🙂

Friday morning found J incredibly grumpy 🙁 and refusing to help at all with any kind of preparations. We have noticed before that he seems to find it very difficult to cope with treats and exciting things and almost always has a big strop, tantrum or difficult patch – a sort of self-sabotage I find very hard to deal with 🙁
The children had all been invited to play with W and E on Friday morning while Bob finished tidying and I did food things, so we asked them to do one job each (all to do with getting their room ready to fit extra sleeping children) before they went, so that Bob could hoover easily once they had gone. K and L both did their best fairly promptly, J had a strop and refused pointblank to do anything 🙁 In the end it came down to either helping out or not coming to the party and we decided the best way to get things back how we wanted them (ie him helping and coming to the party) was to send the others and keep him here. He was not very happy about this, but in all justice had to agree that it was fair and that he had been given several chances to do what was needed to be allowed to go. Emma very bravely agreed to take A as well, so we had a good clear run at everything and as J soon got over his sulks, joined in and made himself useful it ended up being a couple of hours very well spent, despite the shaky start.
The Rainedrops arrived in the middle of the afternoon and joy was pretty much unconfined 😀 Lots of playing, chatting and general helpfulness – thanks guys 😀
I think the weekend probably deserves a post of its own and I have children waiting for stories…

Links

Some videos

Some simple but excellent web grooviness (which I think need you to be able to download things onto your web host)

Singapore maths is or isn’t too hard to teach (depending on whether you home educate or not?).

Peacocks and rockets

On Saturday we went to the first of two open days at Kentwell. The name open day is a bit misleading – it was really a long registration process, for doing it later in the year. Katy might blog about it in due course, and there are some photos on Flickr.

On Sunday A was tired from the day before so I took the big 3 to church, which I definitely needed, while Katy got A off to sleep and did some jobs. Then home for a quick lunch and back out to a physics thing organised as part of science week. The decision as to who should go was settled by J having a behaviour meltdown – he stayed with Katy and A to do more jobs, while I took the middle two.

It was packed like last year, which wouldn’t have worked with J’s mood so I’m glad he stayed at home. We met up with Fiona and D and S and had a good time making rockets. (There was also a planetarium, which was good but pitched at J’s age and above, so a bit boring for younger people.) The rockets were simple things made of paper and masking tape, but you could really launch them outside thanks to compressed air and PhD Student Power. A poor cold PhD student put the rocket on a vertical tube, pressurised air in a container at the bottom of the tube using a bike pump, then the children had a proper setting-off-the-mining-explosion-like device including a red button to press.

K’s stayed in the air for 5.75 seconds and so got onto the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car style leader board. L managed 4 seconds, which was very good considering the strong and random wind. K also did a parachute for a Kinder Egg (mostly to eat the egg afterwards), which was launched on top of a different kind of rocket. Photos on Flickr.

Then, back home to pick up the others and go off to have tea with Fiona and family, which was very pleasant.

Influences

J has a friend I find very hard to deal with 🙁 We do things together because of common interests and because I like his mum, but each time we spend time with him aspects of J come out which I do not like and the two of them together behave in ways I hardly recognise and which make me angry and sad 🙁
We see him usually in a situation where in theory I am able to discipline him if need be, but in practice he tends not to listen and when they are together J doesn’t listen either. Together they become loud, bouncy and occasionally aggressive and they tend to push others out of their way. They whisper together, make jokes and comments about others, disrupt activities and generally do their best to wind everyone else up. Today J commented that he wished this friend lived with us; K and L both immediately said, “I don’t!” which saddened me but also made me feel better in a way, because it shows I am not just imagining things. Bob asked if J has the same effect on his friend, i.e. is the friend normally like this and infects J or is he normally calmer and nicer and becomes like this when with J. I’ve never seen him without J there so I don’t know, but I think he is normally louder and more aggressive than J and I know that others have problems dealing with him too, whereas I don’t know of anyone except me who has problems dealing with J (but maybe people just aren’t telling me?)… I know that his mother is worried and is struggling to deal with his behaviour at times, so I’ve not said anything, but it is becoming a real issue for me; I hate to see J acting the way he does around this boy – and the worst thing is that he carries on being like that for a few days afterwards, so if we meet up each fortnight we lose half a week after the meeting to bolshiness and unpleasant behaviour 🙁 It also concerns me that the people we meet with only see J with this boy so judge his behaviour by that – but maybe that’s just my pride; it reflects on me after all! I keep finding myself wanting to say “I’m really sorry – J isn’t like this normally – only when he’s with *!” and then thinking I can’t do that because *’s mum would be upset, angry or hurt and I don’t want that to happen.
Atm it’s low-level stuff and I know she’s trying to deal with it, but she also has a good line in excuses and reasons. I don’t want to stop doing things they do and I seem to keep inviting them to do things we do, partly because I like her, J likes him (and K does most of the time) and mostly because it’s hard to invite others and not them, but I really don’t like the effect being with him has on J or the lessons their joint behaviour is giving to the younger ones. I guess J has to learn to deal with negative peer pressure some time, but I’d rather it didn’t impact so much on the rest of us. I think we need a serious chat about this soon!

Things I learned today

  1. How to do web services in PHP via NuSOAP (yes, I actually did some work);
  2. How to ship a tiger to Canada (from the U.S.A.);
  3. How atheists can be similar to Christians and other religious types.

Actually, I think the second one missed a trick. Everyone who’s ever read Calvin and Hobbes knows how partial tigers are for tuna sandwiches, which would have made the whole procedure easier and possibly safer.

When I came home I was greeted with some masterpieces from the children. L had come across a box with packing peanuts in, and these were used instead of Happy Mais to make: an eagle (L), a more detailed eagle (K), and a log cabin (J).

I also realised tonight, looking at Katy’s blog browsing over her shoulder, that WordPress blogs are like Latex used to be when I was in college. You could always tell when someone’s dissertation or thesis had been produced on Latex as they all had a similar look to them. You could try hard and make them a bit different, but the idea was the defaults were pretty much OK, so why bother changing them? It’s a big like that with WordPress blogs, particularly if you’re as uninspired / lazy as I’ve been with the layout of this one!

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Tuesday was swimming, which led to a couple of minor strops, one from K, who didn’t want to go (unusual, as he is usually ready and in the car with time to spare 😆 ) and one from L, who did 🙄 J was ready when he needed to be, with no fuss 😯 😀
L, A and I didn’t swim this time, partly because A and I are still a bit under the weather and partly because it just takes much longer and costs much more when we do – worth it on a good day, but a pain on a not so good one. In fact, having told the boys that swimming is non-negotiable etc etc and much as I enjoy it when we do all swim, I am starting to wonder if it mightn’t be the thing which goes to slim down our week a little 😕 It is a long way to go for 30 minutes and although the classes are cheap it uses up a lot of time relatively unproductively on what would otherwise be a free day. If I could be sure that we would be very good about replacing the classes with something else the decision would be easy, as our gym membership includes unlimited and free use of the pool for us and the children (but only two children per adult) so in theory we should be able to just go along every weekend or regular evenings and do it ourselves… The flaws in this plan are that neither Bob nor I are very confident swimmers, it is hard to teach a child who is clinging to you for dear life, especially when another child is also clinging to you, we’re not sure what we should be teaching anyway and the pool nearest us is too deep for L to touch the bottom – K can and is happy to scoot around with a float, J can, but prefers to stand wailing and shivering in the middle of the pool 🙁 – so we end up either with one parent holding both girls while the other attempts to coax J to do something vaguely useful and K fends for himself or two parents each holding one girl and encouraging the boys (which works for K but is a complete waste of time and breath for J). I have a pool sling, but when we went swimming at the local pool last weekend the lifeguard took one look and told me I could not use it in the pool, which meant I had to wait for Bob and the boys to finish changing before the girls and I could even get into the pool, as there was no way I could hold A safely and get L down the steps 🙁 Being a coward I just submitted and then kicked myself for not having made a fuss and at least asked why (is there really a rule somewhere which says pool slings may not be used? It is what they were designed for, after all!) but it would have been much easier to have had hands free in the pool rather than just in the shower afterwards. Anyway, I digress! The only way I can see swimming with us working as lessons for the boys would be for one parent to take one child to the pool while the other parent did childcare and that involves a fair bit of time organisation. Otherwise we’re looking at local lessons – and the cost of those means that driving to CHEF ones and paying for parking, petrol and lessons for two is still cheaper than one set of lessons here! Maybe I should just let J win this one and accept that some people don’t swim?
Tuesday evening brought its own little disaster, as Bob attempted to make hot drinks in the evening and the kettle gave a dramatic little pop and expired!

Wednesday should have been easy, since Bob had the day off to take delivery of the freezer (and clear a space for it to go) but with no kettle and therefore only a mediocre microwaved cup of tea the day got off to a bad start. Bob had vouchers from work which we hoped we could use to buy a new kettle, but a quick google soon turned into a prolonged hunt for anywhere nearby that we could get a relatively eco-friendly kettle, with little to show at the end of it other than a pair of grumpy parents and a big rush to get the children out to drama 🙁 We decided to buy an Eco Kettle by mail order and hope that it arrives quickly, making do with the microwave in the meantime.
Drama was good, apparently, and while the boys were busy L did girlie things (Felicity Wishes 🙂 ) with her friend E, courtesy of Gina, A crawled around on the floor and helped herself to food from my bag (baby led weaning?) and I got to drink a fairly decent cup of tea, again courtesy of Gina 🙂
We came home for lunch then pottered in the afternoon until it was time for Gymnastics. The freezer had been promised for early afternoon, but by 3:30 had still not arrived. L stayed with Bob while A and I took the boys to gymnastics, then we went to Tesco’s to get a cheap and nasty kettle because I had suddenly remembered that toddlers was to be here this week as church in use 😯 By the time we had made our way back through the housing estate maze to Badgers it was getting late and the boys had decided they didn’t really want to go, which suited me tbh, as it meant we didn’t have to go out again to collect them (bad Mummy!) so we just came home and they had another tea (as well as the one out after gymnastics!), J played his new computer game (The Incredibles, bought with his own pocket money) and we all trooped out to admire the enormous new freezer.

Since we had no idea how many people might come, or at what time, today we decided to just go ahead and get on with things, starting with Maths etc as usual (J still not fussing!) and then moving on to making bread. While we had yeast etc out we decided to copy an experiment I spotted on the Beans Flickr recently and put some into a large bottle with a balloon on top to trap the bubbles. Finding we had a couple of spare large bottles (left over from Cartesian divers) we decided to do one with yeast, sugar and warm water, one with just yeast and warm water and one with just sugar and warm water, so we could see what happened. We fielded a few guesses as to what caused the bubbles, coming up with a short-list of hydrogen, helium (but they thought either of these should make the balloon fill up and the bottle lift up!), oxygen (which they thought unlikely as they knew yeast would need it to live so would not be producing it as well surely) and carbon dioxide. We decided to test the gas once enough had been collected to see if we could work out what it is. As we were finishing off the bottle filling and balloon placing there was a knock at the door so our first visitors, new to HE and possibly a little nervous about meeting new people, were greeted with a confused jumble of hellos and science explanations 😆 By the time that was pretty much sorted out and new children were being shown toys and introduced to Fussball Chris had arrived with SB and an unexpected but very welcome BB. Cups of tea and chat followed, while children played and then J and BB came through to escape the noise of an impromptu musical rehearsal which presaged a concert 😀 In fact J and BB spent much of the morning together, indoors, outdoors and on the computer (“Mummy, please may I show BB my new game? She really wants to see it!” I was sceptical, but BB was nodding like mad so I agreed and she did then spend a fair while sitting with him and proffering advice on what move might be best *grin*) – it was rather sweet to watch.
New family had to leave at 12, but Beans stayed on for a bit, enjoyed fresh bread rolls (but not enough of them; we had to supplement with cream crackers) and pootled a bit more. K and SB played Greedy Gorilla, while J, L and BB carried on Incredibl-ing.
The pumpkin pie I had intended to make earlier in the week finally happened, with just about enough custard left to make another using an emergency pie case from the cupboard 🙂 Cheese straws also happened, as did a small batch of chocolate cupcakes; these can now go in the freezer, which we managed to clean as per manual, and then turn on. K was worried about how we would reach to clean the bottom and suggested that he could get in, with shoes off obviously, and do it from inside. L also volunteered to go in, as long as we were careful not to shut the door. Cue explanation (completely unasked for) from both L and K as to why shutting the door would be a bad thing: there would not be enough air for very long and no more air could get in because the door has a special seal to stop cold air getting out or warm air getting in but that means no air can get in. Yay!