I could see a single raspberry on a cane from the kitchen window. I went out to pick it and look what was hiding on the other canes!

I’m kinda sorry I didn’t lift the strawberries up in the garage earlier now – these would have made a lovely smoothie – aww well – there is always tomorrow

I have been sent to work this morning with a mission from Jessica. I am to find a nice present for her teacher, Miss B. It has NOT to say anything close to “Best Teacher.” It MAY say “Best Teacher in P6″ if I want, as Miss B was the ONLY P6 teacher. Do you get the impression Jessica didn’t really like Miss B?

In the car on the way to school I asked her who was the best teacher in the school. Seemingly Miss D (P7) is. From a parental point of view Miss D is an excellent teacher. She takes no prisoners and was instrumental in getting the whole school to pull up its socks and most of the P7 children leave to go to grammar schools. I asked Jessica if Miss D wasn’t too strict. Nope, she is great (says the girl who hasn’t had her as a teacher yet!) and not as strict as Mrs C the P1 teacher.

“Ah, Mrs C only seemed strict to you because you had never met ‘strict’ before P1″ I explained, but she wasn’t falling for that one.

Then I realised Jessica has managed to get to the end of P6 without being told that Mrs C and Aunty Lesley went to school together.

“REALLY?”

“Yup, Mrs C and Aunty Lesley were best friends in big school and when David had to take in a family photo of himself in P1 Mrs C saw Aunty Lesley and told David she knew this lady.”

“REALLY?”

“Yes, REALLY Jessica! Do you think that grown ups don’t remember their friends from all that long ago? Do you think our memory slips in just those few *coughs* years?”

“Are you SURE? Mrs C and Aunty Lesley were friends?”

“Yes. Jessica. I. Am. Sure.” (between gritted teeth and losing interest in the topic.) “Why do you not believe me?”

Drummmm roollll

“Because Mrs C looks WAY OLDER than Aunty Lesley.”

Ta Da! I give you my daughter: her Aunty Lesley’s favourite niece!

Do you remember the 1994 advert of the wee lad sitting on the toilet, swinging his legs and calling “MuuUUUuum” when he realises the puppy has stolen all of the toilet paper?

We have had various real-life re-runs of this advert over the years. Every now and then I’ll hear a pitiful “Muuuum” from inside a bathroom and have to go and leave a new roll outside the door for whichever child happens to be in there. Has to be said though, it is mainly a boy thing I think. Jessica is far too forward-thinking to leave herself in short supply. 

Well folks, today I am here to tell you the 2010, modern, geeky, technical version of the shout for “Mum.”

(David has been using an old sim card of Iain’s, from May 2006.)

Iain and I had a BBQ last night! The first one for ages – like seriously – years. We were having sausages for tea and I had bought a disposable BBQ from Poundland for . . . a pound, so I decided to fire it up and see if there was any point in buying some more over the summer. It had a special quick light paper over the top, and of course I had this lit before reading the instructions. Twenty seconds after reading them I realised the coals needed to be spaced evenly so I went back outside and lifted the foil casing to give it a shake. And. It. Was. VERY. Hot. My poor fingers are all burned. Stupid BBQ. There ought to be a law against them getting so hot. 

After that I made us a Chocolate Cake in a Mug – only this has kinda become Chocolate Cake in a Bowl in our house. I know, it isn’t so quirky in a bowl, but it is much cleaner and you can tip it out easier! While I had all the ingredients out I measured six more cakes into bags so the children can make their own cakes, only having to add an egg and some milk. I felt a little like a drug dealer afterwards though!

Clever huh? 

My mate Alex gave me a recipe the other day after I was complaining about the amount of eggs we are getting at the moment. It is for a 5 Minute Chocolate Cake in a Mug. That got your attention didn’t it?!

I got out all the ingredients and three bowls and three mugs, well, three of everything we would need and then called the children in to make their own. Every thing I did, David then did, and then Jessica did. I don’t recall starting the bickering over whose go it was, or whether she got more choc chips than he did, but there you are. We got the mixtures ready in a bowl rather than the mugs because I didn’t have any faith in the children not tipping the mugs over.

It took a little more than five minutes because of the above bickering, but had I been doing it on my own it could have easily been done in that time! The mugs went into the microwave one at a time and we laughed and pointed at each others’ mini volcanoes. All good fun.

But the eating was beeeettttterrrr than the fun. I know it looks a bit of a mess, but it tasted like real nice cake, I am fairly sure I could sell these off individually to restaurants! This may be a keeper for our family! It wasn’t until I was writing this that I read in the recipe that one mug is enough for two children . . . perhaps in YOUR house!

Now…. That took care of three eggs. What am I going to do with the other EIGHT DOZEN we have right now?!???

P.S. Bonus points if you can tell me what it says on the mug!

Yes, the large egg the other day was another double yolker. We have only had about 4 double yolkers in all the time we have had our chooks, but two of them have been in the last couple of weeks! 

Last week was the Gosford Poultry Fair which we all trooped off to, hoping to sell the Barnvelder birds we had bought as day old chicks at the last fair. Two of them had turned out to be boys and one of the boys wanted the world to know about it! All the time. We took five of the six to the fair, after reading up on these birds I decided I wanted to keep one of the girls. While we were packing them up in the guinea pig cage (just go with it. . . ) the gorgeous wee Pekin hen I had hatched from Granda’s eggs last year started to CROW. He had never done it before and had he started the next day I would have had the trouble of having to get rid of him too. . . All in all we took seven birds with us. 

Now, visualise this. We are directed to a space in the big field about fifteen minutes after the fair had begun. We parked up. We opened the boot. We then had about 20 people all over us wanting to know if we would take a fiver for ALL the birds. We hadn’t time to blink with surprise. One of the guys told me he had just bought a pile of Barnvelders from a car two or three up the row for 15 euros each and he would give me the same for my three girls and take the boys off my hands too . . . Euros? Pounds? Currency Convertor to the ready. I really didn’t like the idea of letting them go so quickly – it felt like we were being cheated out of the fun of wheeling and dealing, but I let them go with him anyway. So much for us having a rare breed at this fair – the guy selling the chicks at the last fair must have had hundreds of them!

We had the rest of the day to sell the Pekin and one of Granda’s Speckeldy hybrids. David and I had decided we would let them go for a fiver each, but near the end of the fair we got £8 for the Pekin and a fiver for the Speckeldy  - not bad going for birds we secretly thought we would have to give away! 

While Iain took the dog for a walk I sat under the cover of the boot lid and chatted away to people as they passed by. One couple had a bag with two Rhode Island Reds in it and admitted to having a basic set up, no food yet, and to these being their first birds! David took them down the row of cars to find a cheapy hybrid to keep their two girls company. I also chatted to another woman who kinda fancied keeping chooks, but had no room, although she could use her mum’s yard . ..  but didn’t like the idea of having to close them in at night. . . she then looked at the boxes of eggs I had for sale and told me in no uncertain terms that they looked “very small and pale” to her. Egscuse me? Small and pale? From someone who didn’t know one end of a chicken from another? How RUDE! Needless to say I developed an interest in the next people and totally blanked her.

Well, over the past week I have been thinking about her on and off as our girls have really got back into the stride of laying. We now have eight eggs a day from ten hens, at least one of which simply isn’t old enough to be laying yet. Three days in a row we have had a large egg (I think from Buffy) and today’s was massive. From what I remember from my days on the Omlet forum, anything over 100gms is considered large and this one weighed in at 103gms! Even David crossed his eyes and said “Ouch!” at that one.

Starting at the left, this is a fairly small egg, most of ours are as large as the middle one. Look how much bigger the right hand one is!

Small and pale? Pffffft!

The children have started attending Taekwondo on a Wednesday night. A leaflet came through the letter box about a month ago and they both jumped at the chance of going. Seemingly, the instructor guy thought that Jessica was better than David and that went down well!

Last night Jessica and I were cuddling. We were laughing and joking and when she became too boisterous I reined her in with a well aimed tickle.

“Watch out Mummy, I know Taekwondo you know!!”

“Jessica, you have been to TWO WEEKS of Taekwondo!” I said with another tickle. 

“Yes, I know! And that is TWO WEEKS MORE THAN YOU HAVE BEEN.”

Siiiigh. She may have a point. 

This isn’t fair! I am now well into my second cold of the year. I feel horrible. I have aches and pains and sniffs and sneezes. And because I don’t have a proper job (with sick pay etc) I still have to go into work. 

Sigh.

/whine

I had to go to Belfast today. Driving along the Motorway there was a Gantry sign saying SIGHTTEST with weird letters underneath, like VGHS and FDSR – nothing that made any sense. 

Just in case they were doing some kind of bizarre check up on drivers’ eyesight I tried to memorise the letters.

Then came a second one not long after. More letters. More memorising.

On the way out of town I realised it said SIGNTEST not SIGHTTEST. 

You FOOL Susan. 

Sigh. 

Hot on the heels of how cold it was here a while back, here is a photo to prove how warm it is now.

Yea, we think there is water getting into the car electrics. There are only 185,000 miles on it. We are hoping it won’t sizzle out any time soon.