T-Bird Anni Rides Again

My intrepid explorer had a good journey, stopping every few hours en route to investigate the ladies loos in all the best service stations.  She is, aparently, staying in a hut at the end of someone’s garden.  My mum assures me it’s a wooden cabin  with several rooms although it is indeed at the bottom of someone’s garden.  There is a little path over a bridge into the woods which she is planning on exploring - my poor dad is going to be giving that new knee a very throough test drive by the sounds of it.  She sounds absolutely full of life and excitement.  I am once more a happy mummy.

In no particular order here is the weekend!

My tent behaved pretty well considering we did have some proper rain (as opposed to a gentle summer shower) but dripped a bit through the zip on the "window" due to a really stupid design - it’s a mesh window with a zip round it that has no flap to stop rain working its way through the teeth and dripping onto my groundsheet.  Nothing serious but mildly irritating.  The fabric was a bit clammy by the end of the second night and I suspect that Kessingland type weather would have defeated it.  I’m going to get some Nikwax and do it and the Hobbit Hole (which is probably due a good doing judging by the way it was beginning to hold water a bit), assuming of course there is ever a few dry days for me to put them up to do! 

The company was lovely, it was great to catch up with people which I felt I missed out on at Kessingland with the awful weather keeping most of us holed up.

The food was wonderful and I was amazed to see Aprilia polish off Jan’s lovely bolognase with visible "bits" in it.  As promised here is the link for the chocolate cake (I used sunflower oil instead of marg in this and just left it for 10 minutes rather than standign there stiring and waiting for the marg to melt) and the frosting for the top (although I used orange juice instead of water this time and totally forgot to stir the margarine through, it’s even richer and more adictive with the marg or butter in the frosting!!!)  And just in case you don’t already have it, here’s the Chocolate Oatie recipe (also known as Preacher cookies)  I never add the peanut butter and usually use soya milk instead of normal milk, it gives a better taste and somehow seems more likely to set than normal milk.

The weather was mixed but there was enough time when it wasn’t actually raining for varying groups of children to charge round the garden.  Naturally this has lead to Aprilia coming home slightly second-hand but the scratches didn’t seem to bother her and the sore ankle is aparently now better for the most part, just a bit stiff if she sits still too long.  I will confess to being neurotic about the ankle as the last one that was presented to me looking like that was broken!!!  But to be fair, that one didn’t look better after an ice pack and hers did.  and I reserve the right to forget all the First Aid I ever knew when I am hormonal and it is my child

There seemed to be a lot of slightly fragile children about, I’m sure a lot of it is just down to the total lack of sunlight this year which is making most people a bit under parr.  Aprilia seemed to swing from totally frantic to catatonic in a rather startling way.  However C came to the rescue by letting her share the PC alcove and play with her on the PC for a while.  She just doesn’t *do* lots of noise and crowded-ness as a rule (although of course she seemed to cope perfectly well with it at Sparkies!) which makes me wonder how well she would have coped with school or on the flip side if school would have tought her how to deal with it better?  I think not.

Roxy coped remarkably well with all the hoards invading her home, she’s a lovely dog, almost makes me want to have one (but only almost….) 

 I am going to wait until Wednesday to upload the pictures as I just can’t get Flickr to play and I suspect it is my PC that is sulking rather than Flickr!

had a great weekend although Aprilia was up and down like a yo-yo.  Aprilia is now probably just about at TeeBay I’d guess having left mum and dad’s at about 9am.  This is going to be an odd week!  Have spent the morning without Net access so got a lot done but don’t want to get sucked back into catching up on everyone until I’ve finished what I need to do which is

Clear shelves ready to pic up Rainbow stuff tomorrow   done!  was remarkably easy once I got going!

Find address of lady I’m going to visit to colletc Rainbow stuff (!!)  - phew!  found it and have satnav on charge so I can get there without trauma - whimp or what?  It’s only a couple of miles away but in an area I’ve never been

Take trash to the tip - 4 bags and counting - seems silly to make a special trip today when I suspect there will be more by Thursday evening so just loading it all in the car for now.

Clera desk - wow, it’s brown you know!  And there’s carpet underneath it!

(weather permitting) fold weekender tent up, it’s dry but I need the drive to spread it out and fold it - flysheet back in carry bag, inners are just airing out a little as, since having the Hobbit Hole’s inners go milldewed I don’t want to take any risks.

Have also booked for getting my eyes tested with an intuitive colourimeter for September, thankfully I don’t need to go the Manchester as I was told I would have to as a few highstreet opticians have started getting hte kit to do it now (but not many hence I still need to wait a few weeks and I need to go to Macc which is about 45 minutes away)

Other To Dos this week

rediscover living room floor

clera washing backlog created when I turned compost on Duke’s side of the bed - really should do it more often before it gets out of hand!

Lounge on hammock (once it’s dryed out - forgot to put it away last week)

Draw

Chill

attack final TMA with a view to getting it pretty much nailed down

Start revision

Get ready for overnights at the weekend so I don’t have to run round doing it on Saturday