A week in my life - Tuesday

So today is the second day of my week long blog about our daily life.

Today Eilidh woke up at 7am and we came downstairs and had toast and yoghurt for breakfast.

 I had a Flat White (courtesy of the coffee machine we got ourselves for Christmas, its taken me eight months to master it but now I make a mean coffee!)

We had an early start this morning and had to be out of the house at 9:45, Eilidh is watching some TV while I ran around like a headless chook finding the baby wipes.

 My 10am appointment was my Weight Watchers meeting, and I lost two pounds, eleven in total now (5kg in other measurements)  in three weeks, I am so pleased!  After WW I went to my weekly ante-natal group catch up.  Eilidh is playing with P who was born on the same day, in the same hospital as her.  Incidentally P now has three teeth and E is a toothless wonder....

 Usually there are six to eight mums and their babies at our weekly catch up, but for some reason this week we only had three of us, this meant that I could make soup - leek and sweet potato, mmmmmm!

 E spent the afternoon playing with her mini-friends and snoozing in her pushchair, thankfully I have a very easy going baby who sleeps anywhere!

 While E slept I hung out with Miss Molly, my friend Jo's super cute dog, and don't you just love that jug on her hearth!

 This is us just after E woke up, hence the confused face!

 We hung out at Jo's for most of the day and came home around five when Eilidh and I played for a while and then she had a snooze till her Dad came home.  I am always amazed at how she gets so excited when the key turns in the lock!

 Just after Andrew got home we had a conversation about dinner, and it turns out that when you're having fun all day you don't necessarily think about cooking for your husband, ooops!  So we did what all couples with a seven and half month old baby do, go to the bowling alley!

 Tuesdays is half price night at our bowling alley so we played some games and ate some wings.  E is such a good baby when it comes to altering her (non-existent) schedule, she had a great time watching the other bowlers and eating her tea.  She is such a people person.

 I got one strike and a few spares, not as many as I used to (we had lessons a few years back, sad but cool!)

Oops, how did that get in here!

 Not the most healthy of dinners I know, but hey I've got another seven days till WW, bring on my exercise DVD!

 

 We got home about 10:15 and Chicken slept in the tank AKA the fully reclining pushchair till Andrew took her to bed half an hour ago, which is where I'm headed now, night all!

Pudding time

Yesterday my friend Liz hosted a BBQ at her house.  We met Liz and her husband at our ante-natal classes, and we've been hanging out with the rest of our group on Tuesdays since our babies were born.  Well actually thats not quite true, Liz was hanging out with us before her baby was born, her boy was the last of our group so Liz was our tea and coffee girl while we veged on the couch with very little babies.  Anyway, once again I am off track.  Liz's kitchen flooded before their baby was born and so they spent a long time getting the whole bottom floor of their house dried out and fixed, and to celebrate the 'new' house they held a BBQ.  I asked Liz what pudding aka dessert I could bring and she said I could choose, oh the options!

For those of you who know me, you know I love to bake, actually I love cooking in general, but I love love love to bake.  So I spent this week pouring through my cookbooks, canvasing opinions on FaceBook and generally getting my knickers in a twist because I couldn't decide what to make!  In the end I went with three desserts, two of which I've made before and one that Andrew had.  I would have loved to experiment, but a BBQ with people I don't know is not the time to take risks.

The first pudding I made was Chocolate Guinness cake from Cake Days from the Hummingbird Bakery.  I have both their cookbooks and they are well thumbed, the recipes are very very tasty.  This cake is rich, dark and moist, and most of all ridiculously easy.  I may even post the recipe later on in the week!  The most amazing thing to me about this cake is that it only contains cocoa powder, no chocolate!

 This is the outside, it has a cream cheese icing which is is really yum!  I made this cake for my friend Patrick's 30th a couple of weeks ago and it was also a huge hit then!

I'm sorry but after trying a bajillion times to post this photo the right way up, I give up!

The second dessert was for my friend Jo, who can't eat wheat, so no flour.  I'm really enjoying experimenting with cooking gluten free food for her (well cakes and cookies anyway) so I knew she'd love this Pavlova.  Pav as it is more commonly known in NZ (where it was first created!) is our national pudding and everyone has their version.  Most New Zealander's would put kiwi fruit on top or crumble a flake chocolate bar or slice strawberries.  Not me, I love my pav with raspberries, which is what we had.  Essentially a pavlova is whipped egg whites with sugar added, a meringue cake(ish).

The final dessert was profiteroles, and I have to say, I think they may become my dinner party staple.  So so easy!  Andrew made these for me on Mother's Day, and well if he can make them, I certainly can!  On Friday night I made the choux pastry and piped and baked the 'balls'.  On Saturday I filled them with cream and iced them with a classic chocolate icing.  Mmmmm!

PS  My friends bought me the cake stand as a party of my baby shower presents, not your typical present but very loved!  

 

And now post of mine would be complete without some baby photos, this is Chicken in her party frock.  Unfortunately she wasn't as lady-like as a wearer of such a frock should be.  From stealing her boyfriend's toys to scratching the host of the party on the face she did it all and had a great time, coming home with grass stains all over the feet of her frilly bottom tights.

Friday Five - Things about me

I've had a rather big day today, I mean I had to get up at 6:30am!  Now I know for working people (and my mum and dad, and my brother) that this is quite late, but for us, well it was quite a challenge.  Today I went into my work to see my kid's assembly.  Kids you say?  Yep I have had for the past eight years, thirty kids.  Thirty kids in my class that is!   This week's Friday Five is not about my baby, or my brother, or my husband, what I've baked, or my latest scrapbook layouts, or where we've been on holiday but about me - five things about me.  Not that those aren't great things to blog about, must remember that for the future.




1.  I'm a teacher.  For the past four years I've taught seven and eight year olds in a school in London.  I love my job because I get to make a difference in their lives (well hopefully).  I really love teaching History and Design Technology.  Before I taught in London I taught eleven and twelve year olds in New Zealand, quite a different story to the younger ones!  I have a funny story about one of my students, lets call him Steve.  Steve had a habit of saying what he thought out loud without thinking about he consequences.  One day I came to school looking particularly rough, I'd had a cold and was very tired, and I had no make up on.  Steve asked me (very innocently)   Miss C, why have you got pen marks under your eyes?  I raced next door to the mirror to check, and what did I see, just my dark circles!  I made sure I was wearing make up the next day!

2.  I like old school crime novels.  My favourite series is Agatha Christie's Poirot, and I'm also partial to the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters, and the Alphabet series by Sue Grafton.  I like these books because while you have to think about 'whodunit' there isn't too much gore or scary things, I'm not a fan of scary things.  I also looooove Poirot on TV, there is no better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  Any by Poirot I mean David Suchet, not that Peter Ustinov guy!

3.  I spend far too much time on the internet.  Now this is probably to be expected, I mean I (try to regularly) write a blog, but there's so much more than that!  I read lots of blogs, food blogs, mum blogs, scrapbooking blogs, photography blogs and travel blogs.  I also tweet, check three email accounts, read two New Zealand newspapers, spend far far too much time catching up with friends stalking people on Facebook, and then there's my Cityville game, and people.com.  Sad, sad, sad.

3.  I quite like the idea of gardening but never really get round to doing much.  I'd much rather leave that to Andrew, he used to be a gardener in a former life so is much better qualified, and then I don't have to get dirty!  When I do garden however, it seems to be the destructive type.  I'm quite good and pulling out things, or cutting things back, but I certainly don't like cleaning up the mess, that's a boys job!

4.  I played football/soccer for nine years.  From 1994 to 2004 I played soccer in New Zealand.  I started off as a goal keeper, and then moved up to right defender and finally ended up as right midfield.  During my first two years we lost every single game, talk about character building.  During the five years I played in the field I scored two goals, yep only two goals.  I'm sure I helped set up a lot and save a few even.  When we moved to the UK in 2005 I was sure I'd be able to find a team here, it is the home of football!  But no, it wasn't too be, there was no team in my area.  Never mind, I'm sure I'll get to play when/if we move back to NZ.

5.  I used to live in the Scottish Highlands.  In 2005 when we moved to the UK we stayed with friends in Dundee, Scotland for a while.  It soon became obvious that while we loved staying with our friends, Dundee wasn't the place for us.  Andrew found a job as a gardener on Attadale Estate in Lochcarron and I worked in the best pub in the village, the Strathcarron Hotel.  Lochcarron is a teeny tiny village on the west coast of the Highlands, about an hour and a half west of Inverness.  This was a very remote place, no broadband, no freeview TV, and not many people, about 1000.  We had the best time up there and even used a Highland name for our Chicken, Eilidh.

So there you go, five things about me, happy Friday everyone!

So there you have it

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to those in England and the US.  For those Dad's in NZ we'll get to you in September.  We have had a quiet day here, and I'm pretty sure Andrew had a good first Father's Day.  I mean he got beer, a golf club and is having his favourite food for dinner!  Let me tell you how it went.

I woke up around half seven and took Chicken downstairs to let Andrew have a sleep in.  We set up a treasure hunt for Andrew so he would have to work for his presents, (sneaky huh?)  He woke up around nine and we gave him his cards and a few small gifts, some snacks from NZ, and the first clue.  I think he really enjoyed the treasure hunt, and was pretty stoked to get some beers from NZ.  We really miss special NZ treats so this was a good opportunity to spoil him.  The other gift I found Andrew was a driver, a golf club that is.  

Andrew was a pretty serious golfer when we lived in NZ, he had a handicap of 5 or 6, which meant he played a lot!  I've been trying to convince him for a while to take it up again but as he has rightly pointed out, Golf don't come cheap!  Anyway, I was at a second hand shop last week and I found a driver in reasonable condition for £5.  I thought this was a good start, if he didn't like it, it was only £5, and if he did like it, well bargain!  We went to our local driving range to have a whack (not the technical term I'm sure).  It was loads of fun, and I even got in on the act (badly, v.badly I might add)

After that we came home and spent a lazy afternoon, relaxing on the couch and just chilling.  And now tonight,  after a yummy rack of lamb dinner we are sitting down to watch The Kings Speech.  Which means I better go, hope your day has been as enjoyable as ours!