I discovered a while back that soya was making the bleeding worse so we tired to get bread without it in - this ment no ready sliced bread etc... and checking with bakeries etc... but then it turned out that some of them didn't really know what was going into their bread and we were told they didn't contain soya and then when my Dad went he was told they did!
So we were making bread by hand except that my hands can't really take the neading, fortunately a friend stepped in with some no nead bread recipes which are great but I still missed classic bread.
Then my cousins decided they did not want their bread maker anymore and said we could have it! This was in the summer - it took us until Christmas to actually go and pick it up!
But we have been enjoying it 🙂
Today we had our last Christmas visitor, Barbara, so I put out the minced pies and cut up Christmas Cake and we apologised as we seem to have lost her tea towel with Mary's print on it that we were going to give her - so we gave her same homemade jam instead.
She gave Mary some lovely Hello Kitty wellies which is brilliant as it was starting to be a squeeze to get her into the ones she has and the previous bigger set she lost one of whilst we were out shopping one day. Jean got an art casse which she was excited about and Al got cheese which is always a hit with him. I got a pot of tulips which shall be going outside the front door.
Jean also tidied the front garden, litter picking the litter that blows in and sweeping up the leaves - mainly as she is whipping through her worst witch books and wants to earn money to buy the missing ones.
There would be photos of today but unfortunately Jean was taking photos yesterday and dropped it and today it has gone completely screwy 🙁 It was on it's way out anyway which is why I had saved up money to get a good one but I spent it on the TV so that we could use the X-Box, I do not regret this but I do now find myself with out a camera - right at the point where I am trying to launch myself back into things seriously - sigh.
On the other hand I do have a rather serious back log of photos to sort out anyway so maybe this will give me time to do that?
After Al's aunt left we started taking down all the decorations to general chagrin of the kids - Mary was walking about saying 'Oh! No!' whilst Jean was whining that the room was starting to look so bare which we felt too. Somehow Christmas went so fast this year.
It has been a fun one though.
Of course tomorrow I have one of my best friends from school visiting in a sort of post-Christmas/pre-birthday type of way which is going to be ace!
And last night I forgot to go to the pub with one of my local friends which I feel really bad about - It wasn't a good day medically for me but still...
Anyway the good thing about the decorations coming down is that I am in the mood for Spring Cleaning to be honest. We started today with putting hooks up to hang various house type things up, such as sun catchers and wall art butterflies and the broom and duster and carrier bag suasage.
Today also marks the constructed language Lojban's 25th Birthday - this is the language that Alaric has been learning for the past few years and that he has been teaching to Mary. So we have begun work on a little language comic type thing - we came up with the idea ages ago but haven't had the time to act upon it!
Apart from that we made bread in the bread maker and made our own sauce for the chickpea hodge podge we had for dinner - January is already a month of highs and lows but net effect seems to be positive at the moment.
Art and Craft, Building Maintenance, Domestic, Events and Outings, Gardening, Health, Lojban, Recipies, Relatives, The Family, Wines and Preserves | sarah | 
Sun 6th Jan 2013 11:17 pm | 
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Yesterday my friend visited - she is in her seventies, she bought loads of books and pretty trousers for Jeans and a teddy and dolly for Mary and for me purple, pink and white flowers. She reminds me of how proud I am of how I've set things up in this house - here they are at the dinning table.
The pink jacket Jean is wearing is from her too. I love our dinning area 🙂
I have loads of pics of improvements we've made which I really should post at some point. This time last year we were desperately waiting for the mortgage to go through after having negotiated a cheaper price. Alaric and Mary were ill with pnumonia and I was still using the crutches.
Things have changed for us drastically and even though the workshop has leaked and maybe ruined some of Alaric's tools things are still on the up. Over the next week or so he and my dad will make it safe for at least the winter, Monday he sealed some of the gaps in the bathroom and did some general mantinance things.
We have purple carpet on what was bare concret, with a purple setee from my family and purple curtains from my friend (same one who popped round today). We still haven't unpacked everything which is dreadful as we are approaching the 1 yr mark rapidly but at the same time I have just unpacked my Harry Potter lego which was still in the boxes we moved from Essex! They never got unpacked at The Bakery!
Last week we had my friend Becca visiting with her sister and little niece. This was something that wasn't really possible before as there was no were really to put anyone - oh we still had house guests but that had to be willing to sleep on the floor/sofa so was out for anyone with any sort of back problem!
(they bought astronaut icecream with them!)
We had a Baby Bake Off whilst Jean was at school!
I love the fact that people can tell it's our house by the fact there is a purple butterfly on the house and the amazement that I did not put the butterflies and dolphins in the bathroom - they were already there!
Yes we have had to give up the idea of bees (urban bees would upset the neighbours), but plans for chickens are under way. Main limiting factor is money is going to be tight again in the new year 🙁 But we plan to make a list of what and when we are doing certain things to the house and garden at New Year 🙂
We love our house! Everything from the kitchen that lends itself to our epic cooking feats to the Hammond Organ we accidently bought! This was dinner yesterday - Jean wasn't impressed but it was yummy.
Tuesday Morning we went for a stroll around various bits of London on the way to Paul A. Youngs Fine Chocolates in The Royal Exchange. I have to say that a) I was surprised the Royal Exchange was a shopping centre and not a bank or something and also it was quiet boring as shopping districts go but there was lots of pretty buildings and statues around it to photograph.
The Chocolate Shop itself was something else! I was could have just spent all afternoon photographing the chocolates to be honest! Plus the shops were obviously designed with me in mind - see even the bags are purple and the boxes tied up with little purple ribbons - tell me why there is not one of these in Cheltenham? Next to the Cheese Works would be best - just saying.
I may have ended up with a book on cooking with and making chocolate etc....
Alaric is going to try and get it signed for me at some point 🙂 I'd really wanted to go and look in the kitchens or do the tempering course but when we looked they seemed to only be for Chocolate Week 🙁 But I have coffee beans covered in chocolate - t my mind there is slightly too much chocolate on the bean but it is a lovely roast! Alaric got a Marmite bar. The chocolate still contains soya lectin unfortunatly so I can't exactly eat a tonne of it - but then shouldn't really anyway 🙂
I then took more pictures of London 🙂
We headed over to the Institute of Contemporary Arts to have lunch and meet a friend. This statue was on the way and is of Uri the first man in Orbit!
I didn't even know the ICA existed!
Lunch was veggi curry of butternut squash and chick peas for Al and tarragon chicken with mushrooms for me 🙂
It was really tasty!
We looked around some of the exhibits the main one was The House to Die In which had a large narcotices theme running through it though I thought the structures looked like space ships. We found the perfect present for mum but had fortunatly had already gotten her a sketch pad as the blanket was £450!
We mainly sat in the coffee shop with all our stuff and wrote things and drew things and designed things and made things.
We had tea and ginger bread men and chatted lots to Dez who I some how failed to get a photo of :/ Though I took this sequence...
Alaric kept moving his eyes about which was funny 🙂
We then headed over to Padington Station to make our journy home - I filled up my dragon note book mostly on this four day adventure 🙂 And I haven't arted Alaric out - I think he almost Artied me out and I've ended up with a set of Tech/Net/Web/Geek tarot cards from the ICA which I love and am going to write so many stories from. Al broke the 10K barrier on his novel and me the 40K barrier which is just fantastic
Polyps Together the Colony Unitied 🙂
Bonfire Night saw m and Jean cooking away - we attempted ice box cookies but it went a bit wrong - Jean ever resourcefull decided to turn them into bone sliver biscuit slivers.
We made some spooky chocolates as well with white chocolate 🙂
Not to mention a Fire Works Night cake 🙂 complete with an icing Guy Fawkes on top 🙂
Once all the cooking was done we popped out the decorations I'd gotten for Halloween which then sort of hadn't happened for us as we were at Cubs!
Jean toasting a marshmallow! A giant marshmallow! Baby scoffing a non-toasted marshmallow 🙂 And a tray of giant marshmallows - we still can not believe the size of these things!
I love my purple spider mug add in the glass eyeball stick that my friend Ulrike gave us and it is perfect for spooky drinks 🙂
Of course Jean's glowing screaming skull straw is pretty ace too 🙂
We had snacks 🙂 Little jelly ghosts, chocolate covered witch biscuits and chilli spider web pretzels.
Then we had indoor fireworks! (it was pretty miserable outside which is why we were not out at a display as planned plus there had been a good fireworks display at Legoland anyway!).
We did do one of them outside though as it was a fountain 🙂
After the in door fireworks we lit a fire lantern 🙂
After the outside stuff we had toffee and chocolate apples 🙂
The cats who should have been hiding from the fireworks - followed us out into the garden to see what all the fuss was about and seemed completely unworried about the fireworks. This being our first fireworks night in a built up area with them we were concerned but it was all fine in the end 🙂
If you want to see bigger versions of the photos just click on them 🙂
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