Friday, February 29, 2008

BIG THANKYOU TO JOHN BARROWMAN

Whilst my daughter SnoWhite was in work in IKEA Cardiff the other day, John Barrowman came in to make some purchases. She managed to speak to him and get his autograpgh and he was really sweet and nice about it even though his purchases were constantly being interrupted by other members of staff.
I just want to say how impressed I am that even though the poor OVERAWED shop assistant made a mistake in his order John was still really good about it and didn't throw a wobbly.
Now that's a STAR.
John Barrowman


Thursday, February 28, 2008

UPDATE ON THE LOCAL POLICE!

Weston-super-Mare beach
The officers were caught on the way to Weston-super-Mare
Two police officers have been forced to resign over claims they took patrol cars on seaside trips while on duty.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said two other Gwent officers were fined and a fifth resigned ahead of the conduct hearing.

Newspapers reported the Pcs were caught when a vehicle broke down on the way to Weston-super-Mare, after previous visits to Barry Island and Porthcawl.

Gwent Police said officers must face "the consequence of their actions".

It was claimed colleagues dubbed the group, four men and a woman, "the seaside five".


DUH!

No wonder the police didn't come when my car got shot, they were too busy at the local beach!

ONCE UPON A TIME.....

Our guinea pigs are so entertaining they never cease to make me laugh. Mostly because their behaviour so reflects human behaviour that they make us laugh on a daily basis.

Photobucket
Chunk and Mouth


They are especially 'human' in the sense that they never, ever learn from their mistakes!
Everyday is the same routine, I get up and they week and screech constantly until they are fed.

Photobucket

They have a top quality hutch with an upstairs and a downstairs and on the top floor is a separate room with a poopy tray and an area that I use as a feeding area and the stair/run way down to the bottom floor. I feed them in the top area to try and keep downstairs clean but every morning is the same , they are so intent on getting the food first that they grab a portion of the food with their teeth AND run!
BUT one of them always ends up falling down the stairs, like a little fur ball, with their cucumber still in their mouth! Everyday is the same.
Mouth, the ginger pig is so protective of his food that he even sleeps on any uneaten cabbage!
The family joke is that one day the guinea pig hutch is going to completely collapse because even though the little pigs have plenty of food, card and wooden toys to chew on, they have chewed almost every interior ridge of wood off they hutch. They have even chewed the steps off their stairs and it is now just a plank of wood. The family belief is that one day, when the hutch does collapse, they will sit there in the middle of the devastation and have that look on their faces, you know the one children and men get when they are caught and are in trouble and the only way out is by playing dumb(and it always works so it shows how clever children and men really are)!
Then start bitch slapping each other like Tuck and Roll in A Bug's Life
Tuck and Roll are voiced by Michael McShane in Walt Disney's A Bug's Life

And when the hutch does collapse, the rabbit will have that look on his face which says
NOT A CHANCE, THEY ARE NOT COMING IN WITH ME!

A TIP
When buying a huge IKEA station clock(HUGE!), make sure it is securely attached to the wall. On Tuesday night I was quietly sat at the kitchen table, painting and minding my own business WHEN the kitchen clock fell off the wall and hit me on the head. I have a lump on my head the size of a duck egg.

MORE WEIRD DREAMS!
David Hasselhoff
Last night I dreamed that I was at Heathrow Airport to catch a plane to the States and David Hasselhoth was there, he was signing autographs for free but if you wanted your photograph taken with him then you had to pay £30.
I declined his kind offer.

Beauty is progressing daily,her communication skills are coming along in leaps and bounds.
When she is tired and does not want a bedtime story she will communicate this to me by pretending to snore! If that doesn't work and I keep on reading then she resorts to repeatedly saying Shush. She has also been known to kick me off the bed!
Beauty has a favourite bedtime story- the Three Little Pigs. Telling Beauty the Three Little Pigs story is like going to a Robbie Williams concert.You know how Robbie doesn't even have to sing the words to the songs as the audience knows the words so well he just turns the microphone towards the audience and they do the singing.Well I only have to say the first word or two of a sentence and Beauty does all the huffing and puffing and blows the houses down.
I have a question......(well a few actually)
if the Big Bad Wolf WAS NEVER SEEN AGAIN why does he reappear 2 minutes later in Little Red Riding Hood?
What was Goldilocks doing in the woods on her own anyway?
Why didn't the 3 Bears just put milk on their porridge to cool it down?
Why did Daddy Bear and Mummy Bear sleep in separate beds?
I tell you, after the trillionth(if I've told you once I've told you a million times,don't exaggerate!) reading of a fairy story,all you want to do is give Goldilock's mother a good slap for letting her wander and tell baby Bear not to be such a baby!

Sunday, February 24, 2008

I DON'T CARE WHO STARTED IT..........

BUT I'LL FINISH IT!
This is what I thought about when I read the following local story.

Pc cleared over colleague attack



A police officer has been cleared of wounding a colleague in an argument over who should drive a force van.

Pc Byron Emerson-Thomas had claimed he acted in self-defence in the row at a Cardiff police station with Pc Aled Bartlett, who needed eight stitches.

After the Newport Crown Court jury took less than 30 minutes to reach its verdict, the judge questioned why the Pc's case had ever come to court.

His barrister said the "silly incident" could have been handled better.

South Wales Police said it respected the court's decision and an internal investigation would take place.

The trial heard Pc Emerson-Thomas, 37, of Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan wanted first go in the patrol van because it had been fitted with a new radio.

Rather than dealing with this silly incident in another way they've (the South Wales Police) spent months, thousands of pounds and man hours in dragging this to court
Daniel Williams, defending

But Pc Bartlett had been handed the keys to the van at the start of their night shift last May at Fairwater police station in Cardiff and refused to hand over the keys.

Pc Emerson-Thomas then allegedly spilt a cup of tea over him, starting the parade room altercation.




I also could not understand why this had gone to court.
Obviously violence is wrong but PLEASE, BEHAVE LADS!
If you can't play together nicely then neither of you should play with the shiny new toys.

NOTE FOR CHRIS- I do not put onions in the filling of the pie or anything else but the important part of the pie for my family is the gravy. Pianoman however, when he has the Corned Beef Hash pie eats it with Brown Sauce! And yes I made the pie in the photograph.
HP Sauces


Friday, February 22, 2008

WHO LIKES IRONING?

I recently read a news story that said that in our life time we spend over a year doing laundry!
All I could think was WHAT A WASTE OF TIME!
It made me think about a friend that I had about 18 years ago and was a mother at SnoWhites nursery.At the time she was about 40 and was expecting a baby and she was always telling me about her house work and all the things that she did every day. At the time she made me feel quite guilty because I seemed to do so little in comparison. She would wash and dry and iron and put away all her washing everyday, as well as clean her house from top to bottom daily.Whereas, I would iron only what really needed to be ironed and most things were stacked in tubs on the pantry shelves until I managed to take them upstairs. Even today my everyday clothes very rarely make it to the wardrobe upstairs and this morning Beauty and I were dressed completely with clothes that came out of the wash basket.
I have definitely achieved a lot in the last 18 years but it would definitely been a lot less if I spent MORE time on laundry.
Afew weeks ago, Ariel said that she couldn't understand how I as a mother had produced such lazy children, meaning SnoWhite
I know some people love doing housework but I'm certainly not one of them though I do love the results of a clean house after the cleaning up.
Ariel said a few weeks ago that she couldn't understand how I as a mother could produce such lazy children as herself and SnoWhite and Fiona.I have also wondered that a few times!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

BETTY'S HOTPOT

I have been making meals for Pianoman and his mother as his mother has not been very well, yesterday I found Betty's Hotpot recipe on line-it was so easy to make and it looked brilliant(if I say so myself, when the reviews come in I will let you know how it tasted!


Corrie Hotpot

This hotpot's a favourite at The Rovers. Betty Turpin, who’s been behind the bar since the summer of 1969, makes a great one.

1½ lbs. lamb neck meat - cubed
1½ lbs. potatoes, leave skin on and slice thinly
1 large onion, chopped
1¼ cup stock or water
3 oz butter or cooking oil or bacon fat – or 1 ½ oz each butter and oil
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 325 F. Sear meat on all sides over high heat in butter, oil or butter/oil combination, reduce heat to medium and cook until evenly browned. When browned put meat in deep oven-proof casserole.
  2. In same pan, sauté onions in pan juices, adding more butter, oil or fat if needed. When they begin to turn brown, sprinkle with flour.
  3. Stir until roux begins to brown, stir in a little stock or water – stir quickly to avoid lumps.
  4. Stirring constantly, add remaining liquid and bring to a simmer. Add Worcestershire and season to taste.
  5. Pour onions and liquid over meat, mix well and add bay leaf.
  6. Layer potatoes over meat, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.
  7. Cover and cook in oven for two hours, 1/2 hour uncovered.

Note - brush potatoes with butter or oil if they appear dry

ENJOY!







I have also been making ONE POT MEALS for the rest of us and it is so much easier than cooking the usual meals that we have.
Everyones favourite is Corned Beef Hash Pie but I have also made fish pie using Coley with a mashed potato topping, beef pie with pastry and a variety of vegetarian pies. I am busy searching the internet for other pies and I think that my next attempt will be some kind of cobbler.
My children think I am a brilliant cook but as I have told them many times, I am just good at multi-tasking-a microwave technician.The only person who appreciates what I say is SnoWhite's friend as he worked in a local restaurant and basically he was a microwave technician and we probably have the same amount of cooking ability!
Beauty however is so not interested in my cooking if it is not pizza or fish fingers or tomato sauce! Children can be such strange creatures.
I am not that interested in watching celebrity cooking shows (do not get me started on Nigella Lawson)but when I am occasionally sitting with Fiona and she is 'couch commander' we do sometimes get to watch a bit of a cooking show and I am just shocked at the poncy food that they shuffle out. I am on a diet and managing to lose weight but the amount of food they manage
to produce for a meal is not enough to fill even my hopefully shrinking stomach.
I look at the meals that they produce and invariably think - A PLATE OF CHIPS WITH THAT WOULD BE PERFECT!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

TORCHWOOD TIME

I am convinced that the local post man is hiding around the corner and waiting for me to leave the house before he delivers my post because when ever I come back from dropping Beauty off at school, there it is! And the problem is?
The little red and white card he leaves which says SORRY YOU WEREN'T IN WHEN I CALLED which means a parcel to pick up at the Post Sorting Office! I am sure that the post men(I am not being sexist, they are all men there)at the Sorting Office know me by sight now.I wouldn't be so bad if the Sorting Office was close by but it is actually quite a distance.

John Barrowman

John Barrowman

FOR ALL JOHN BARROWMAN FANS - according to SnoWhite, he is as lovely in real life as he is on TV. John and his sister Carole were signing copies of their new book ANYTHING GOES at Borders in Cardiff on Saturday and so SnoWhite queued to get a signed copy for me for my birthday.What a lovely daughter. And John is a sweetheart too!
SnoWhite has also met Ianto from Torchwood(on the left of the photograph)-she served him in Ikea, Russell T Davies stood in front of her in a queue in M&S and they spoke to each other and she passed Burn Gorman(far right of the photograph) in the street. Probably the only 2 she would like to meet now are Rhys, Gwen's husband and of course David Tennnant.

Torchwood

David TennantDavid Tennant







Kai Owen as Rhys Williams in Torchwood Kai Owen as Rhys Williams

All I can say to SnoWhite is GET IN LINE GIRL!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

WHAT CAN I SAY?

I think in the life of every Blogger comes a natural sabbatical.....and the last 2 weeks was mine!How it happened I am not too sure, it was really a combination of things.
One of our computers is down and so access is a major problem coupled with the fact that Fiona and Beauty are on half-term holiday from school, getting a look in on the computer is a difficult thing.Beauty and Fiona fight over the computer in the day and invariably in the night it is Sno-White and Fiona!
The only answer is to get up early!

Life trudges on with little change.Anastasia was home for a holiday last week but has gone back to Austria,it was nice to have adult conversation in the house.Anastasia had an enjoyable time .....shopping!She bought plenty of clothes and books to take back with her, definitely my kind of holiday!
Ariel was also home for a short break and whilst she adds to the adult conversation, it is usually LOUD adult conversation!
I have also just had a birthday and my children bought me many beautiful presents.I especially wanted a jet-wash(yes I know it is a strange present!) to use to clean my car and clean out the fluff-chamber on my condenser dryer!And yes the jet-wash duly arrived and is beautiful.

On Tuesday I went to the hospital for some results on a scan I had done on some large lumps in my throat, thankfully they are all benign which is good news because my mother died of cancer which started with lumps in her throat.It wasn't all good news though!
On arrival I had to get a lift from the ground floor to the first floor where the clinics were situated because I had Beauty with me in her wheelchair /buggy. Anyway, when I got in the lift 2 girls got in with toddlers in buggies plus a man in his 60's who was tall,well built and using a walking stick.The man looked at the 2 girls who were both wearing full length black Islamic dress and said I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU SPEAK ENGLISH!I was so shocked because his manner was so aggressive and he was really quite scary.The girl stood next to me also had her face covered apart from her eyes and she quickly replied to the question NO!
I looked at the other girl who was stood opposite me and smiled and rolled my eyes and smiled and she did the same and we exchanged pleasantries regarding our children and when the lift doors opened we all disappeared into the crowd.But the gravity of the situation stayed with me.
I could tell from the accents of the girls that they had probably grown up in Cardiff and their English was as good as any other person who lived in Cardiff.Yet here they were having to put up with an aggressive man questioning them.
I have a friend who is a nun in a convent in London and her order also has a house in Cardiff.The last time that I spoke to her she told me that the majority of new nuns joining her order were coming from the Far East.It made me wonder if 2 nuns from the Far East had entered the lift would the man have questioned them in the same way?
I felt the girls dealt with the situation in the right way because if they had become aggressive back then the man could have become violent, with a stick , in a small space.
Why do people behave in such a way?
It just isn't necessary.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

I AM A LOSER.....

Well according to NCIS anyway. In the episode where Magee's book is discovered they describe a blog as something that losers write!
Well Fiona and I heard this and looked at each other and fell about laughing!
Who cares?
Not me.
NCIS is my favourite TV show and I love Abby and I wish I were young enough to dress like her(well sometimes anyway) and I would love to have had black hair but I do sometimes wear my hair in pigtails.

Very slow progress on Mansfield Park whilst my reading of the Eva Brun biography is going well and very interesting.Reading about the German way of life is very interesting especially considering our German family(to Be!).
I feel so sorry as a woman,for the situation that Eva Braun found herself in and I am so glad that my life and mistakes were never quite as public.
Love is such a strange thing.

I am sorry I have not blogged earlier but with one computer down it is very difficult to access the computer. When Beauty is not on the computer she can be found watching videos, watching TV, playing with her toys, flooding the kitchen floor or smashing eggs! She is so into everything at the moment that she has to be watched 24/7.
Beauty has also started to eat a wider range of things and for tea last night she had fish fingers and spaghetti hoops, hoops as in
Life on Mars
Gene: I'm Gene Hunt. Your DCI. And it's 1973. Nearly dinner time. I'm 'aving hoops
.
She also loves mini Pringles, Wotsits, raw cabbage and lettuce!

MISSY

MISSY
BEAUTY

MAMMA BLOGGING ABOUT BEAUTY AND HER SISTERS


An Irish Blessing

(A Blessing from St. Patrick)
May the road rise to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

May the rains fall soft upon your fields,

And, until we meet again,

May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.