I feel like the White Rabbit
From Alice in Wonderland, I mean. The one who needed more time. It’s been ages and ages since I blogged. Partly that’s because I’ve been so busy, partly it’s because I was sick and hiding in bed as much as possible for a couple of days, and partly it’s that on the rare occasions when I have two hands free, I’ve been doing things that are slightly higher-priority than blogging, like making dinner. Of course a real blogger wouldn’t put food before blogging, but I have an appetite (and a desire for sleep).
So, with the aid of the things I’ve posted on Brightkite over the past week or two, here is a rundown of what has been going on.
Toby had a speech therapy assessment with the new speech therapist (the old one is still on maternity leave). She was impressed how much language he has; the delay is only in his pronunciation, not at all in his vocabulary or his ability to use it. The old ST is called Anne, the new one is not - but Toby was adamant that she was “New Anne”. As we were leaving, he told me he’d come back and play with New Anne again. Toby has also been telling me about his “baby button” and that all “my bruvvers” have one too.
Louie decided that 4 o’clock in the morning is wake-up-and-start-the-day time. Uh, no. Especially not if you’re the mummy who can’t get to sleep until 1 o’clock in the morning.
Jack had a couple of days of coughing, during which his breathing was getting worse too; I was almost on the point of taking him to the hospital when he got better.
Barney had a day away with Air Cadets - he had to be delivered into town by 7 a.m. to get on a bus with all the others. That’s 7 a.m. on a Sunday. The only good thing about that is that it wasn’t me who had to deliver him 
He had a great day, doing all sorts of activities at the airport, and returned home after 7.30 p.m., exhausted and famished. He coped through Monday, but we’d the mother of all meltdowns on Tuesday, when he just wasn’t able to cope with anything. Cuddles and talking and a couple of hours of peace and quiet helped him tremendously. He did make it to Air Cadets on Monday night, but he skipped St John Ambulance on Tuesday and went to bed early instead.
I managed to go through all the kitchen cupboards - I was getting tired of a) not being able to find anything and b) not being able to get anything out of them without six other things falling on me. The kitchen has been largely Scratchy’s domain over the last few months - a fact reflected in Toby’s statement to Scratchy: “My mum is in your cupboards!” 
However Scratchy is not nearly as organised as me, and tends to shove things wherever there’s a space. The consequence of that is that the plate-cupboard contains everything from instruction manuals to vaseline, and that we have four large packages of paprika and six containers of chili. I wonder what I can cook…
We had my friend J and her children to visit - we don’t see enough of them, but we somehow managed to see them twice this week. On Monday J had a meeting near here, so she left the children here while she did that, and then they all stayed for dinner. I thought my fatigue on Tuesday was as a result of a busy day on Monday, but by Wednesday I was feverish and sneezing again, so maybe not. Wednesday and Thursday were write-offs due to me being sick, but on Friday we made up for it by doing lots of errands, including visiting the library, where I’d one of those conversations - a perfect stranger commented on how great the boys were, we chatted for a minute, then she asked didn’t they go to school and I said we home-educated and she asked a bunch of interested questions and agreed about all the problems of the school system and remarked on how well home-education seemed to work, and then, in a sort of embarrassed manner, she confessed to being a teacher 
We also managed to buy shoes for Freddy, Jack and Toby. Jack’s new trainers have Marvel Comics Heroes on them and Toby’s have Scooby-Doo - it’s hard to say which of them is more pleased 
After all our errands, we went to hang out at J’s house while we waited to hear if Scratchy’s car had passed its MOT. Fortunately it had, and J kindly drove me to our mechanic to go pick it up. And then we came home with J’s miniature Schnauzer (because J is going away this weekend) and her sat-nav (because I wanted to play with it, and she knows how to get where she’s going this weekend). I thought we might see how well it worked for geocaching, but there’s so much else to do, and the skies are getting a bit grey now…
With the kitchen straightened, I got cooking. I tried to make meringues (we’d made something that called for egg-yolks, so I had whites left over) using a recipe I found for making them in the microwave, but it…well, let’s just say it didn’t work very well. They were either mushy blobs or brown cement. I gave up after the first few and made the rest in the oven, which was much more successful. And I’ve been using my slow-cooker a lot, although it doesn’t help that the digital control panel on the front isn’t working, which means I can only use it on one setting. (I discovered several on-line reviews talking about the same problem in that model, so I phoned the manufacturer, but their response was less than impressive - if I send it back to them (at my expense), they’ll look at it, and if they decide there is indeed a fault, they might offer me a new one at a discounted price. I told them that seemed like throwing good money after bad.) We also made flapjacks, which went down very well with everyone. I might do more of those this weekend, if I ever finish sorting through children’s clothes - yes, it’s that time of year again (is it ever not that time of year?)
Need to think about: Christmas presents and Hallowe’en costumes. In that order, because Scratchy’s off to Canada for a week later this month, and he might be able to pick up some gifts there, if I plan well enough.
In: animals, babies, bloggingstuff, conversations, cute stuff they say/do, education, family, food, getting organised, giggle, life, outings and adventures, social stuff
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My cupboards need a sort too. Atm there are far too many shouts of argh! coming from the kitchen because I’ve just opened a cupboard and a container of something has just gone doink! off my head.
Our kitchen is only about 10ft by 6ft and that’s wall to wall. The floor space is considerably smaller and there are 3 doors in that space too. I hate my kitchen, it’s a kitchen only suitable for a bedsit, but transported somehow into a house for a family of 4!
I can recommend our slow cooker, it’s massive and was cheap. It’s Morphy Richards, model number 48715 and is oval, stainless finish. No digital bits. I avoid digitalised kitchen things now as everything I’ve had that’s been digital hasn’t been reliable.
It’s this one here
http://www.morphyrichards.co.uk/ProductDetail.aspx?Product=48715
BWs Elaine
That’s the slow-cooker I’m considering as a replacement
- my current one has a timer, which has been useful, but I can use a plug-in timer with a non-digital one. Makro has a MR for £20 just now but I need to check the model number.
I’m lucky to have a good-sized kitchen now, but I’ve had one about the size of yours before - you could open the oven door, or the fridge door, or the dishwasher door, but only one at a time
I have Elaine’s slow cooker too
It used to be big enough to cook 3 meals’ worth of food in, but it seems to have shrunk slightly and now it’s only about 2 and a half … 
I don’t do kitchen cupboards though - have lots of open shelves. Which doesn’t completely solve the organisation problem (though at least you can SEE everything!), but certainly does away with the shove-it-in-and-close-the-door-quickly idea!
There’re some things that don’t get used much which do - e.g. my wine glasses always need a rinse when I use them! - but most of it’s up and down enough that it doesn’t seem to get settled on. Some of the open shelves are within a big sideboard-y thing, so they’re covered enough to stay clean too. I did wonder about it before, but it’s turned out ok. Goodness knows where all that gunk is going now!
Our dishwasher usually goes on once a day, and whenever we have visitors, I am always surprised that it needs to go on more often - who could have imagined that twice the people make twice the washing up???
Seems like the Morphy Richards one is the way to go then as both myself and Alison have one.
Yep we’re the same as you used to be, can only open one appliance door at a time. It’s a lot like a slapstick black and white movie, especially when you add in the ‘doinks! on the head.
I have two kitchen timers, one upstairs and one down. I use them for all sorts of things….No not that!
Although I do wonder what people would think when I’ve left my timer in the bedroom next to the bed! It’s so I get reminded to check on something downstairs, like the laundry or something in the oven or whatever.
I also use it to motivate myself to do things like paperwork. I set it for just 5 mins, I think, ‘well I can do at least 5 mins’ and more often than not I do a lot more.
We can’t have open shelves here unfortunately. We are extremely close to a major railway with loads of lines and also between two main arteries into the city. Our dust is horrendous. It’s black and oily. Sometimes if the car traffic is really bad it takes on a bluey grey tinge. It’s nasty dust which you can’t beat.
The schnauzer we’re looking after this weekend lives about five minutes from Makro, so I’ll go and look at the slow-cooker again then; if it’s the right model, it’s a very good price (it’s about 35-40 everywhere else, so 20+vat is excellent). It’s definitely a 6.5 litre one anyway.
I used to do your five-minute thing too, but now I sit nursing Louie and planning my next hands-free moves - and then, as soon as he’s willing to be handed over to someone else, I whirl about grabbing and running and getting as much of my plans executed as possible. Or I collapse in an exhausted heap
Ah I remember the nursing, dashing, crashing thing. It was a long time ago now as youngest just turned 12.
nursing, dashing, crashing - what a great description! I love it!
surely the slow cooker is unfit for purpose if it doesn’t do what it says? Bah to crppy after sales care!
My slow cooker is neither slow nor big enough to cook for more than 3 (assuming you cook spuds seperately, we can’t fit spuds in once the meat and veggies are in….) adn it cooks too hot for me to leave it unsupervised like I used to with the old one. But then it was cheap and you do get waht you pay for!
I will, if I get time (hah!) write to them pointing out that it’s a known defect, and that I would expect it to last longer and the law says blah blah blah. The person on the phone didn’t have any comprehension of the difference between warranty and legal rights (trotted out the myth about “legally required one-year warranty” etc).
“Our dishwasher usually goes on once a day, and whenever we have visitors, I am always surprised that it needs to go on more often - who could have imagined that twice the people make twice the washing up???”
Funnily enough i was just saying this at the weekend….
Erm Paprika pie , you could make one and send it to the LAs hehe