The chap in the cape has visited again

We have lost Darling Husband's Mother.
She passed away in her sleep on Thursday night/Friday morning having gone out the evening before with friends to Bible study.
A friend sent a message...'it was a good death'.
We shall miss her in every way, a huge part of our lives, a big family in sorrow, shown by the fact we will need three funeral cars just to get our family to the church.
My children will miss their Grandma, miss making cakes and bread with her, miss raiding her tin of home-made shortbread when they came home from school.
Will shall miss many things and our lives will be very different from now on.

The Marvels of Gastronomy

The average Brit can cook ten dishes without resorting to the aid of a cookbook or online recipe - that’s the verdict of a new study into the nation’s culinary habits which suggests that many of us are more comfortable cooking foreign dishes than standard British classics when it comes to dining at home.

The “Great British Home-Cooked Menu Survey’ commissioned by UKTV Food, asked 3,000 respondents to reveal the staple dishes which they can prepare without the aid of a cookbook or online recipe.

The top ten dishes that Brits can make unaided:



1. Spaghetti Bolognese (65%)

2. Roast Dinner (54%)

3. Chilli Con Carne (42%)

4. Lasagne (41%)

5. Cottage or Shepherd’s Pie (38%)

6. Meat or Fish stir fry (38%)

7. Beef casserole (34%)

8. Macaroni Cheese (32%)

9. Toad in the hole (30%)

10. Meat, Fish or Vegetable curry (26%)

Well that's it then, I'm most certainly above average, I can make all those!
Jeepers, I must be a rocket scientist!
Can people really not cook these days?
Should I boast I can also make the following without the aid of a safety net or recipe?

Ice-Cubes - Darling Husband once berated me severely for buying such an item during Pimms weather and so I took it upon myself to become an expert in their preparation.

Toast - I even slice the bread myself!

Bread - ah, yes, all home-made in this house.

Tea - Glengettie, boiling water, a smattering of milk and sugar, et voila!

Scrambled egg - drop one box of eggs, sieve then whisk with a spot of milk, yum! (Serve on home-made bread made into toast)

Baked Beans - Get Darling Husband to open the can (it ruins one's nails!) and instruct daughter to stir slowly over a medium heat.

Cheese and Crackers - perfection with a nice Shiraz.

Pimms! How could I forget the Pimms! - slice the cucumber, strawberries, forage for fresh mint, pour in tall glass and top up with cold lemonade - scrumptious!

Boiled Eggs - oh I do a perfect boiled egg, with the aid of a timer even, gosh how clever!

Cupcakes - weight the eggs, add the same weight of flour and sugar and butter...instruct 5 year old to stand with the electric mixer for some time while I file my nails then whack in the oven in gorgeous paper cases, easy peasy!

So that's another ten and I haven't even begun to tell you the culinary classics I can conjour up!
Cheese on toast..
popcorn...
fresh fruit salad....

The increased culinary confidence is also reflected in the fact that men and women would now appear to be on almost equal terms when it comes to home cooking – women can make 11 dishes unaided, compared with men who can make nine, representing a seismic shift in the traditional male/female roles over the course of a generation.
Hmmm....

http://uktv.co.uk/food/homepage/sid/6136

Google - Frugal

I've just been sent some very depressing facts.
The average child costs more than £18,000 before their first birthday and over £27,500 by the age of three....
OHMYGOD!!!
No wonder I feel a little un-wealthy from time to time...my three girls have cost me, erm, (rubbish at maths) quite a bit already!
But surely that can't be right?
Perhaps my children aren't average..have I been too frugal...
OHMYGOD!!
Am I as mean as Shirl?
My eldest can't possibly have cost us that much..we couldn't afford a fridge for six months and nor a telephone until she was four years old.

Apparently Parents-to-be spend an average of £311 on trying to conceive!!!
How can it cost money to, well, you know..I mean one could always pretend there's a power cut and save a bit while, you know...

According to the Gurgle.com Baby Budget the costs continue to mount during pregnancy, with parents spending in excess of £4,000, yet Mums-to-be spend an average of £91.11 on maternity wear, including underwear...what else are they buying?
Crikey, second time round Mums will spend more than that on a good strong bra, six sizes bigger than they bought first time round!

Before their baby is born or in the first year, parents spend £3,383 on decorating and furnishing the nursery...
OHMYGOD!!
Now look..don't all children sleep with their parents for the first five years whether we like it or not? The only reason you have other bedrooms is so there's somewhere else to go when they wee in your bed or push you out!

Half of the parents surveyed by Gurgle (50%) said that because of the recession they are actively trying to cut costs where they can by implementing a host of cost saving measures such as accepting hand-me-downs from friends and family (48%)
Oh my gosh..imagine the shame! (I thought everyone did that?)

40% are making homemade baby food instead of buying packaged food...
I have to admit buying maybe a dozen boxes of baby rice and four cans of baby pudding in the last 14 years..surely mashing up your dinner is obviously better than tinned food anyway?

A smaller number of respondents are even trying to potty train their children earlier in order to save money on nappies...yes well, speak to my friend Potty Mummy about that one!

Somewhere, there must be thousands of pounds floating about...I must look down the back of the sofa.

Bob's Your Uncle

Sadly Uncle Bob (on Darling Husband's side) has passed away.
He was well known for his lifetime of farming, wit and intelligence.
Also for hiding when relatives visited.

We gathered with family and friends at this beautiful Church in Herefordshire to say farewell. The farmland stretched out below us in the valley.

The Reverend King welcomed us to his Church and spoke with passion about Life and Death and the Good Lord. My sister in law and her cousin had written some memories and tributes to Uncle Bob mostly regarding their childhood spent at the Farm with him.

SIL: I can remember going thistle pulling with him, thinking it would be a good opportunity to get to know him better...but when I turned round he'd gone home and left me to it.

Mad Cousin Pat wrote about how he'd taught her to drive when she was really young (and certainly not legally allowed).

We were asked to view the statue of a sheep dog on our way out of the Church (Uncle Bob always loved his Sheep dogs) and to make sure some-one took it home otherwise the Reverend said he'd 'nick it'....(you really can't trust anyone these days!)

The reverend referred to Uncle Bob pulling marigolds...
(a murmur rumbled around the church)
"Ah, should I have said mangles?"

Congregation: "Yes!"

"Sorry I thought that looked funny and I couldn't understand for the life of me why he would top and tail them, I can't read my own writing!"

Darling Husband: "You should have gone to SpecSavers!"

We walked out into Bright Sunshine and gale force winds down to the graveside.
My beautiful pashmina whipped round in the wind and attached itself to a headstone making me jerk back somewhat in-elegantly as I tried to walk.
My nephew burst out laughing, Darling Husband rolled his eyes.
I struggled to get the silk away from the lichen while holding up the mourning procession.

My Brother-in-law threw a handful of dust into the grave and the wind caught it and threw it straight back out again, we all clung on to each other for fear of being blown over.

We all gathered later in the village hall for cups of tea and a good thaw, followed by scrumptious cakes and sandwiches.
Uncle Owen paraded with SIL's handbag over his shoulder for some time and we all had a very pleasant time.

Later the family gathered back at the family farm for sherry, tea and more cakes and we were shown Uncle Bob's school books.
They were beautifully written, so neat!
Fantastic illustrations and many a story about finding some sort of stick, must have been a boy thing.
So there we are, another true story about some tea and cakes, a blustery day and Bob's your uncle!

Friday 13th

What's going on today?
The Headmistress was wearing her PJ's and dressing gown in school this morning; smallest daughters' teacher was still wearing hers at 3.30!!
The boys were wearing Welsh Rugby shirts back to front.

Eldest daughter (previously known as the Vampire) persuaded Darling Husband to drive her to school on his tractor.

Davina McCall appears to be a little 'squiffy' presenting Comic relief, I didn't think it was possible to embarrass David Tenant, but it she appears to have managed it. She's an embaressment...

Smiffy was driving my Volvo on TV..I could tell by the bottle that fell out the door.

I found a M&S bouquet of flowers on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere.
The nearest M&S was 7 miles from where I found them. A beautiful bouquet of white lilies, roses and nice green stuff (I'm so horticultural).
How did they get there...was there a domestic in a car and they got flung from through a window?
I did consider taking them back and asking for a replacement, half of them had been run over after all. Darling Husband said he'd seen them on the road and considered picking them up for me, but he didn't want to go to too much trouble.

Charming!

Footwear for Frogs

I'm so excited, I have a new pair of Wellies... ta-da!!
No, they're not purple, they're 'Iris'.
Why is this worthy of a post? Well, I spoke to a fellow blogger on the telephone once, discussing a commercial transaction of the party bag kind. She mentioned her husband referred to me as 'the one in pink wellies', so I need to let you all know I'm a Frog who follows the latest fashion, and I've changed my image - to purple (that's as exciting as life gets these days!)

My Fuchsia Hunter Wellies had been treated to a large amount of biting from my Saddleback Piglets and have sadly passed their best some time ago, but being a frugal frog I have made them last. I scrubbed them in readiness for the Ball, but really felt they weren't going to be good enough and so hunted down a new pair of Hunters (without the aid of horses, hounds or fox fatalities).

I went to a local supplier where the staff were only able to grunt one syllable at a time and gave up pretty quickly valuing the tad of sanity I had left. I came home and once again thanked the Lord for Google. A few clicks and emails et voila! a new pair of Wellies in the desired colour and size arrived the next day! That's what I call service, something rarely seen these days.
I'm a huge stickler for good customer service, I get rather mad with companies whose attitude is bad and I would be bloody furious with myself if my company ever (spare the thought) let a customer down.
This post recalls a particularly humorous episode on the Frog world:Never Work With Animals

Thank you Fitness Footwear!
outdoor shoes

Hunter wellies

Fitness Footwear

Global Warming

Last night,in my official capacity as Chairperson of Friends, I welcomed a Professor of Glaciology to the school and introduced her to a group of attentive parents and students. Also among the audience were a group of boys from the boys school, privately invited for the Lecture entitled "The Effects of global Warming on the Arctic".
The Lecture was to be held in the Bar.
I think I may have to report them to Trading Standards.
The term Bar refers to the ballet bar all along the wall rather than the type of room I imagined would serve an excellent Claret. A number of us were very disappointed.

The Lecture was actually really good. The students helped make an 'ice flow' experiment which worked perfectly.

We were shown a photograph of the tent the Professor lived in for three months when in the Arctic. Now either she was really clever and had discovered the true theory of time and relative dimension in space, or that tent didn't have an en-suite.(OHMYGOD!)

Around halfway through, thankfully after I had extinguished the lights, a slide appeared on the screen highlighting an illustrative map of the contours formed by heat on an iceberg. It was the exact same shape as the male genitalia. I looked at the floor, frowning and trying not to laugh, but the boys in front of me obviously thought exactly the same thing. They struggled to stifle their giggles and their shoulders shook for some time as they laughed. I hoped the lights wouldn't be required to go back on for some time.

After the Lecture some intriguing questions were put forward by the girls.
Then a parent asked a few questions.
He hogged the floor for some time even ignoring the obvious hand waving from the Head that she'd like to ask a question. He was obviously prepared to heckle for some hours that Global warming is total nonsense and the audible groans from the students each time he put another argument forward were becoming cringingly obvious.
The students started to laugh and everyone was getting twitchy, I got signal across the room from a Head of Year in the form of fingers across the throat and a look of panic, from the Bursar.
Totally out of my depth I leaped up and Thanked the Professor very loudly, thrusting a beautiful bouquet of (eco-friendly and environmentally sourced) flowers at her.
The Professor looked a little stunned and the man glared at me.
The audience heaved a sigh of relief.

As I left the school I realised I was following the Professor in her small and low-emission car. She was lost and had pulled over to look at her map, so, being the people person I am, I went to her rescue, and show her how to get back to Swansea.

Me: "Shall I tell you how to get onto the dual carriageway?"
Professor of Glaciology: "Yes please"
Me: "Go up to the traffic lights, turn right and when you get to the roundabout, turn right towards Newport"
Professor " Brilliant, Thanks"
Me " No problem..right at the lights, right at the roundabout"
Professor of Glaciology: "Thanks"

She drove off.
Straight through the traffic lights and up towards school again.... (sigh!)