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 🙂
The innards of the pumpkin needed to be disposed off - I extracted the seeds, boiled it up and blended it and made bright orange soup.
And the baby pappled it making a great big orangy mess.
The seeds I roasted in a low temperature over with a little bit of sea salt grated onto the top - these were are writing snacks 🙂
SO... I found an idea/recipe for bread puppies here yesterday and today I have baked them for a friends birthday present!
They are not the best bake ever and I used sour dough and we don't have a bread maker etc... but I'm happy with them 🙂
Building Maintenance, Domestic, Events and Outings, Gardening, Health, Jean, Recipies, Relatives, Sarah, The Family | sarah | 
Thu 29th Nov 2012 8:37 am | 
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