Today has been cracking. This week has featured some of the nicest weather we've had since our week in Cornwall and today really topped the chart.
The heat wiped me out a wee bit, I'll admit and while the mind was willing to take Small to the park, the flesh was weak. Nevertheless, we have a garden for a reason so after we got back from the supermarket shop I cut the front grass and Big did the back grass and we set up for a barbecue and a play in the backie for the afternoon. Lovely.
I made some simple chicken and sausage kebabs and we just had those plus the rest of the pack of sausage with some tortillas and a couple of buns. Small is a bit meat fussy at the moment so wasn't keen on either option so we just out our smallest le cruset pan and heated up a tin of sausage and baked beans for him instead. It worked better than I suspected it would actually! Also barbecued a potato waffle with slightly less success, but Small ate most of it anyway.
It was a lovely way to end the day, with the added bonus of actually getting to christen our bargain new garden table which we picked up the other week in the Ikea sale! Now I'm blogging away to the sound of Big giving Small his bath and putting him to bed, the earliest Big has taken him in weeks, because we both want the little dude settled and fast asleep before Dr Who comes on with dinosaurs on a spaceship.
Dinosaurs
On
A
Spaceship
Oh yeah.
Saturday, 8 September 2012
Friday, 7 September 2012
Thursday Holding Page (a little late)
Whoops, brain fried more than usual yesterday and I totally forgot.
Worth waiting for though, no? Oh come on, it's BAMBI!
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Tuesday, 4 September 2012
1st week complete
I've now done all three workouts of the first week of my running programme. All in all it wasn't quite as horrendous and embarrassing and painful as I feared it might be and despite the odd moment of doubt/despair, I completed all three workouts as directed.
At the moment, I think it's something I could continue and start building up my running times but my concern is with a route or venue to do the running in. I live in a very built up area with steep hills and not very well finished pavements. The first time I ran, Friday, I ran around the local cemetery. Which was fine even on the paths which have mostly grown over, and it was raining. The problem with running there is that it's not lit at all so as the nights draw in, it'll be pitch black in there.
Sunday I thought it might work better to run in the day, rather than evening so Big and I took Small up to the park, I ran round the park and they played. That worked out better than I thought as I wasn't as embarrassed about hauling my wobbly bum round a busy park in broad daylight as I thought. I might be able to keep running there on Sundays around the same time, so long as I can promise to not need my sunday afternoons for anything else (Big doesn't get up on Sunday mornings). Indeed, the local parkrun uses the same park.
Today, I tried exploring a route running around the block. The way up the very big hill was painful and I think running back down it was probably cheating. Even so, I ran out of block and had to head into the cemetery anyway. Extending the route any more would involve too many busy roads to cross that would break the flow. And a fair stretch of that route doesn't have a pavement at all, which will not be fun or safe in the dark.
I could run up the other big hill to the park then run around it and back home, but the problem there is that it's a very old street and the pavements, although newly resurfaced, are extremely narrow. The road is very steep and the park closes at 6pm in the winter. I can't run when there's no Big to mind Small, I can't take Small with me, I can't afford to join a gym and run there.
I don't really know what to do.
At the moment, I think it's something I could continue and start building up my running times but my concern is with a route or venue to do the running in. I live in a very built up area with steep hills and not very well finished pavements. The first time I ran, Friday, I ran around the local cemetery. Which was fine even on the paths which have mostly grown over, and it was raining. The problem with running there is that it's not lit at all so as the nights draw in, it'll be pitch black in there.
Sunday I thought it might work better to run in the day, rather than evening so Big and I took Small up to the park, I ran round the park and they played. That worked out better than I thought as I wasn't as embarrassed about hauling my wobbly bum round a busy park in broad daylight as I thought. I might be able to keep running there on Sundays around the same time, so long as I can promise to not need my sunday afternoons for anything else (Big doesn't get up on Sunday mornings). Indeed, the local parkrun uses the same park.
Today, I tried exploring a route running around the block. The way up the very big hill was painful and I think running back down it was probably cheating. Even so, I ran out of block and had to head into the cemetery anyway. Extending the route any more would involve too many busy roads to cross that would break the flow. And a fair stretch of that route doesn't have a pavement at all, which will not be fun or safe in the dark.
I could run up the other big hill to the park then run around it and back home, but the problem there is that it's a very old street and the pavements, although newly resurfaced, are extremely narrow. The road is very steep and the park closes at 6pm in the winter. I can't run when there's no Big to mind Small, I can't take Small with me, I can't afford to join a gym and run there.
I don't really know what to do.
Monday, 3 September 2012
Baking with Toddler, success!
Ish.
Decided to take another shot at baking with Small. While he napped this afternoon I got all the ingredients sorted out for shortbread, creamed the butter and sugar together and left the flour aside for him to mix in as he likes mixing.
When he woke up I gave him enough time to come round a bit then said we were going to make biscuits for Daddy. This was accepted cheerfully as Big's new term started today (no kids but still need the teachers in) and Small was not adjusting well to Daddy being missing. We mixed in the flour, turned out the dough and cut out star shapes with cutters. Small got a bit carried away and just liked plunging the cutters into the dough, regardless of whether that bit of dough already had a shape cut out of it and ate a fair bit of the raw dough too but we had fun with it and wasn't too messy. He even helped with the washing up afterwards bless him.
So the trick seems to be to pick your recipes carefully and make sure there's a bit where he can just play and have fun and it doesn't matter.
Decided to take another shot at baking with Small. While he napped this afternoon I got all the ingredients sorted out for shortbread, creamed the butter and sugar together and left the flour aside for him to mix in as he likes mixing.
When he woke up I gave him enough time to come round a bit then said we were going to make biscuits for Daddy. This was accepted cheerfully as Big's new term started today (no kids but still need the teachers in) and Small was not adjusting well to Daddy being missing. We mixed in the flour, turned out the dough and cut out star shapes with cutters. Small got a bit carried away and just liked plunging the cutters into the dough, regardless of whether that bit of dough already had a shape cut out of it and ate a fair bit of the raw dough too but we had fun with it and wasn't too messy. He even helped with the washing up afterwards bless him.
So the trick seems to be to pick your recipes carefully and make sure there's a bit where he can just play and have fun and it doesn't matter.
Sunday, 2 September 2012
DVD Extras
I have one massive failing in my geekdom, my complete and utter lack of interest in 'extras' I don't watch Dr Who Confidential. I haven't watched a DVD extra since DVD's first came out. I'm just not that interested.
Thing is, if I want to see the film, I want to see the film. I don't particularly want to be distracted from the film by listening to the director or cast waffling over the top of it. You'd shoot them if they tried to do it while you were sat in the cinema after all.
Added to that, if I want to watch the film then I probably have a couple of hours spare in which to do it, not a couple of hours then another hour or so to watch behind the scenes stuff and blooper reels that frankly, aren't that entertaining or enlightening. I've seen the odd blooper reel that looked somewhat scripted too, what's the point?
Lets face it, extras were invented to encourage people to move over to DVD from VHS. Now it's being used to encourage people to move over to Blu Ray. I don't want to move over to Blu Ray, I've barely managed to replace my VHS collection with DVD! There is a limit too, to how much I care about the picture definition. I can see it, and see it clearly. That'll do me.
A facet of my grumpiness with regard to it all is how distributors and studios work so hard to exploit us all. This new habit where they release different versions of the DVD and Blu Ray with a variety of different extras to try and get complete-ist geeks to buy all of them and raise their revenues more. I know that the home cinema market has impacted on Hollywood profits over the last few years and there's a constant battle to recover from that but I can't help but feel there better ways to go about it. Less pointlessly expensive CGI which still fails to be as convincing as promoted would be a good start.
I'm probably wrong, I know Big loves his insights into the making of the films and tv shows he loves but I rather want to protect my ignorance. For me it's like the Golden Days of Hollywood in a way, back when studios despotically controlled what information on their stars' lives got out to the public. Perhaps it wasn't in the best spirit of press freedom but not knowing their every failing, every bad choice and what they had for breakfast all added to the experience. Sometimes it's better not to know and to let the story you love live on.
Oh and don't even get me started on 3-D!
Thing is, if I want to see the film, I want to see the film. I don't particularly want to be distracted from the film by listening to the director or cast waffling over the top of it. You'd shoot them if they tried to do it while you were sat in the cinema after all.
Added to that, if I want to watch the film then I probably have a couple of hours spare in which to do it, not a couple of hours then another hour or so to watch behind the scenes stuff and blooper reels that frankly, aren't that entertaining or enlightening. I've seen the odd blooper reel that looked somewhat scripted too, what's the point?
Lets face it, extras were invented to encourage people to move over to DVD from VHS. Now it's being used to encourage people to move over to Blu Ray. I don't want to move over to Blu Ray, I've barely managed to replace my VHS collection with DVD! There is a limit too, to how much I care about the picture definition. I can see it, and see it clearly. That'll do me.
A facet of my grumpiness with regard to it all is how distributors and studios work so hard to exploit us all. This new habit where they release different versions of the DVD and Blu Ray with a variety of different extras to try and get complete-ist geeks to buy all of them and raise their revenues more. I know that the home cinema market has impacted on Hollywood profits over the last few years and there's a constant battle to recover from that but I can't help but feel there better ways to go about it. Less pointlessly expensive CGI which still fails to be as convincing as promoted would be a good start.
I'm probably wrong, I know Big loves his insights into the making of the films and tv shows he loves but I rather want to protect my ignorance. For me it's like the Golden Days of Hollywood in a way, back when studios despotically controlled what information on their stars' lives got out to the public. Perhaps it wasn't in the best spirit of press freedom but not knowing their every failing, every bad choice and what they had for breakfast all added to the experience. Sometimes it's better not to know and to let the story you love live on.
Oh and don't even get me started on 3-D!
Saturday, 1 September 2012
Dr Who Night
Tonight the new series of Dr Who airs. This is an event of no small importance in our home. We love Who. Big is a truly dedicated fan with a carefully built library of 40 years worth of episodes.
It's no small measure of how dedicated to his dj spot at the Turk Big is that when he was asked to swap his Friday night gig for the Saturday that he agreed even though it meant he'd have to miss it. Of course we're recording it, but it's not really the same. Because I am a good wife, of course I have decided to sit here and watch Man V Food reruns instead of Dr Who tonight, we will watch the season premier together. (it's the episode with the Doughman challenge, which would just make me heave. I like the idea of candied bacon on maple cupcakes though)
It's no small measure of how dedicated to his dj spot at the Turk Big is that when he was asked to swap his Friday night gig for the Saturday that he agreed even though it meant he'd have to miss it. Of course we're recording it, but it's not really the same. Because I am a good wife, of course I have decided to sit here and watch Man V Food reruns instead of Dr Who tonight, we will watch the season premier together. (it's the episode with the Doughman challenge, which would just make me heave. I like the idea of candied bacon on maple cupcakes though)
Small, being our child and subliminally aware at least of the importance of these things, aided me in keeping up my resolve by refusing to settle to sleep until enough of Dr Who had elapsed to make it pointless tuning in. What a wee hero.
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