POORLY GIRL

Alice is a very poorly girl, she is currently going by her Latin name - Pukus Maximus! She has a "viral infection" (the name given to most illnesses by many doctors), following a cold she had last week. It is a very sorry state of affairs, mainly as she won't be sick in anything - bucket, potty, towel etc she will only be sick on things - carpets, me and Christian's side of our bed! This is very unfortunate for him as he can't cope with the smell (justice I suppose for a certain couple from York!).

Anyway we've been told to give her plenty of fluids, she can eat bland food, we are to ride out the vomit showers and be prepare for the rear end to join in! lovely!! Following that last piece of information I have decided to postpone Mum's birthday dinner party on Saturday night!

YOU THINK YOU KNOW SOMEONE...

Christian and I were having a very important conversation this weekend about jelly babies. After all these years (14), I found out that he doesn't really like black jelly babies! He'll eat them just like everyone else eats the yellow and green ones but they aren't one of his favourites - what a weirdo!

I'M HUMAN AGAIN

For the past 3 days I have had a really shitty cold, passed on to me by my beautiful daughter! It was really bad sinus pain, where your whole face aches, your nose streams and you have to breathe through your mouth or not at all. I hate this, I can cope with anything, toothache, D and V, childbirth anything but sinus pain! But it's gone (hooray!) - I have my appetite back (maybe not such a good thing!) and I have energy! Now I can go and do the past 3 days of washing up that my husband has kindly left for me! Oh well.

FINALLY, A CAKE!

As I've had my blog for 6 weeks and not mentioned cakes on it at all, I thought it was high time to publish one of my creations!


Some of my friends have been for coffee, cake and gossiping this morning (we all met a couple of years ago through our children and meet at each others houses every Friday morning). So I made a carrot cake as they go down both very well and very quickly - all diets are strictly off on a Friday!

THE GREAT BRITISH MENU RESTAURANT

Finally, I have the pictures of the food we ate last week.
Starter:
I had Smoked Salmon with Sour Cream, Blini and Soda Bread.
Dianne had Texture of Pea - this was different to the TV show winner but still very nice, Pea Sorbet, Chilled Pea Soup and Pea Shoots.

Fish Course:
I had Turbot with Oxtail and Cockles.
Dianne had Poached Salmon with Sea Vegetables and 1 very rubbery Mussel!

Main Course:
I had Roast Venison with Potato Cake, Spring Cabbage and Roast Root Vegetables.
Dianne had Rabbit and Crayfish Stargazy Pie with Broad Beans.

Pudding:
I had Custard Tart with Garibaldi Biscuits.
Dianne had Perry & Berry Jelly with Elderflower Ice Cream.

We tried a bit of everything but I must admit I did prefer mine! I just thought my menu went together better. My main course and pudding were my favourites. I'll apologise for the photo's, I don't need to learn how to take a good picture being married to David Bailey and all!

HOME ALONE 2

On Saturday, Christian and Phil went to London, where they were meeting Jane and going on to Wembley to see Muse in concert, staying overnight at Jane's Mums then coming back Sunday afternoonish. "Brilliant!" I thought, another chance for some girlie weekend fun! This time I thought I could clear out my wardrobe (making room for some new purchases of course) and do some baking with Alice. But no! On Friday night, Mum (after a bottle of wine) decided to fall off the step into her kitchen and sprain her ankle! She did something similar a few years ago and broke her arm! So instead I helped my Auntie Tricia look after her, a very sorry state as Mum can't stay still at the best of times. Anyway a lesson is to be learnt about the dangers of drinking on your own at home - I would never be caught in such a predicament!!

Anyway after a long day, I did get chance to sit down with a whole pizza and watched Miss Potter, which was a complete chick flick and bloody fantastic - I cried in the middle and everything! One piece of advise - watch this film but not if any men are around, unless they are gay - it's lovely!

BBC GOOD FOOD SHOW

Yesterday Dianne (my mother-in-law) and I went to the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC in Birmingham. It was the summer festival of 3 shows (Good Food, Good Homes and Good Gardens) all under one roof, so absolutely masses to see. We had a fantastic time. We set off at 7am from a very wet Sheffield, plenty of time to do the 1 hour 20 min journey, to get there nice and early as we had tickets to see Gordon Ramsay at 9:30. Well thanks to crappy weather and motorway jams we sat down in our seats with just 5 mins to spare (we even ran from the shuttle bus to the supertheatre)!
Dianne really fancies Gordon and would eat him if she got the chance! I personally don't, but I like his cooking and he does actually seem like a really nice bloke. Incidentally, Dianne had bought a new red top to wear, I said it was so Gordon would notice her in the crowd (she disagreed - pure coincidence apparently), but every other 50 something woman had the same idea and the audience was a sea of red! V funny I thought!! He was on for about 30 mins, and cooked a lovely yet really easy 3 course meal:
Tomato & Pesto Tart.
Peppered Lamb Steaks (they smelled gorgeous) with Green Bean, Red Onion & Pecorino Salad.
Summer Berries with Basil & Muscat.

After Gordon we had a quick look round the food hall (eating loads of free samples) then had a good walk around the home and garden shows. At 1:30 we went for a much needed sit down and enjoyed our Great British Menu lunch (see separate post). Then came the spending part, and we went back to the food hall to buy the best bits from our earlier sampling. The best buy of the day was our balsamic vinegar, it's a 12 year old and as thick as syrup and tastes oh my God! I also bought a load of curry sauces, they are cholesterol free and fat free - it's healthy curry! Eat curry and loose weight and it tastes gorgeous - heaven! We also saw Lesley Waters and Ben O'Donoghue. It was a fantastic but knackering day, and I must go again next year.

SHE REALLY LOVES HERSELF

Having a really low self-esteem problem myself (I am trying v hard to overcome this), I know how important it is to teach your children to love themselves. When it comes to Alice, I don't think this is going to be a problem. As it is she goes out of her way to look in mirrors to admire herself but now she has gone even further. I caught her snogging herself in a mirror! Quite forward for a 2 year old, she obviously has the "goer" gene from me and her Granny!!

THE BEST EVER SANDWICH

The other night I made penne pasta for tea, nothing exciting just with passata, onion, garlic, mushrooms, broccoli and tomato sausages - it was very nice. But I have just had a big pile of it in a sandwich (white bread was needed) with cheese and mayonnaise! It so was bloody lovely I just had to share the news!

THE WONDERFUL WIGGLES FROM OZ!

Yesterday Alice and I drove over to Manchester to see The Wiggles, they were fantastic! The drive over was pretty straight forward, thanks to Tom Tom, apart from an annoying 30 mins of 1st gear crawling through Stockport. I can live with traffic jams, if you don't know the area there's not much you can do about it. The annoying part came from our conversation - anyone that's had small children will remember this:
A-"What's that sound?"
V- "A lorry"
A- "Why?"
V- "Because that's the sound a lorry makes."
A- "Why?" etc....
Anyway back to the concert, we got there at 10.30 and parked in the car park next to the theatre - on the 14th floor, so after carrying Alice down the 14 flights of stairs and later back up them (lift full of fat lazy Mancs!) I didn't feel so bad for missing the gym on Monday!

The Wiggles came on at 11am and sang all the old favourites and danced away for an hour and a half. I can't believe how fit they were, Geoff (purple wiggle) is 54 next month but you wouldn't think it. He was also running through the audience, he stopped to say hello and wave to various children, Alice included (we had end of aisle seats in the centre block of the stalls)but she hid her face in my hair! so he said hello to me anyway!
I was sorry when it ended, they were brilliant - especially my favourites Anthony (blue wiggle) and Captain Feathersword! (& yes you can fancy children's entertainers - just ask Christian or David Callaghan about their drunken debate on "Josie Jump vs Miss Hoolie" from Balamory).
The only down point was the price of the merchandise £6 for a balloon, £16 for a flashing stick, I don't think so! Luckily Alice was happy with a Northern Ballet leaflet with a picture of Angelina Ballerina on it. Hat's off to them though, parents were falling over themselves to buy everything!
Anyway 10/10 for a brilliant mother/daughter day!

Pictures are here.

SHE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES!

This week it is sports week at Alice's pre-school. We entered her into 5 events and everyone has sponsored her. Her 5 events were running, jumping, be an animal race, catch a ball and score a goal. Unfortunately, parents couldn't go to watch as everything takes place during outside playtime. But today I went early to collect Alice (as did a couple of other Mum's) and crept round the back of school to take a sneaky peak!
We found them doing the score a goal event, where all the children lined up in front of a little person's goal post and were taking it in turns to try and score a goal. I say all, all but one really. Yes Alice had managed to get herself a ball and was repeatedly kicking it at the wall, shouting "Yippee!" each time it bounced off! She hadn't quite got the right idea but she was having a great time and I was very proud as the other Mum's thought this was very cute!
We're off to Manchester tomorrow to see The Wiggles in concert - I think I am more excited than Alice (sad I know!). I will let you know how it goes.