Rainbow rice and pancake day

About 2years ago I found a post on the net about Rainbow rice.  I copied it and made some for my son.  I also added lentils and split peas and black beans to it.  He loved playing with his diggers in it.  A few days ago he added water to it and it all went mushy and mouldy and I had to throw it all out.

I've spent today re-making it (well some of it as hadn't got many food colouring in the cupboard).  He now has red (more like pink), purple, plain rice and lentils, split peas and red beans all in the tub.  I will get some more food colouring and make him some blue rice and orange and some black beans when I can get to tesco.

It's very simple to make, you need the following:
rice (dry not cooked)
food colouring
white vinegar
cooking trays

place the rice on the cooking tray (I use one bag per colour as we have big tub to keep it in), add a few drops of food colouring (more makes darker/brighter colours) and 2 capfuls of white vinegar, mix really well so that all the rice becomes covered in the food colouring.  Once it's all mixed together you need to re-dry it, so place in oven on low heat for about 5minutes or out in the sun for about 20minutes.  It is advisable to mix it round the baking tray half way through so that it all gets dried.  Once it's dried and cooled add to a plastic tub and mix all the colours together, it looks like a rainbow!  It lasts ages as long as doesnt get wet.  My son has had hours of fun with it.

Rainbow rice in tub

rainbow rice close up

Also today I have made 2 batches of pancake batter ready for tea.  I'm sure it will be enough but then again knowing my boys it may not be and I will have to make even more!!!  Toppings for the pancakes are lemon & sugar, golden syrup, and chocolate spread.

CHICKEN POX :(

My youngest son has got chicken pox.  He is covered head to toe bless him. 

I was coating him in the aqueous and calamine cream as hate calamine lotion as it dries it gets itchy.  A friend posted on facebook saying that his kids have it as well (doesn't live near me) and a friend of his said about virasoothe gel is the best thing to apply.  I had never heard of it before, so looked up on google.  I then rang the local chemist who said they had it in.   Got on the next bus and went to get it.  I have now coated my son in this spray gel, fingers crossed it helps.

I am so glad that he has onesie's as he is wearing them which means he hasn't got much skin visible to scratch.

What a lovely day

Today has been really nice, its dry and the sun has shined.  This meant that me and hubby have ventured outside to sort some more of the garden out.  However, it was very wet and muddy under foot.

When we bought the house last May, the garden had 6ft weeds, dead trees and brambles all over it, as the previous owners hadn't done anything for about 7year.  It had been strimmed by the estate agents for viewings.

All of What is in that picture, we cut down last year, and it looked like this in September:

 We put the kids swing in the top right corner next to the hedges, and added wood bark underneath, it looked really nice.  It was sprayed with cat repellant to keep them away, shame all the local cats didn't realise they wern't meant to like the spray and decided it was their new toilet!!! (yea totally gross!)  So, it has all been taken up and bagged for bin.  We were going to put decking squares under it but didn't have a framework to fix them to.  Son in the end we went for fake grass.  Took ages to do.

I also sat and scraped loads of the moss from the rock and stone walls!  Then decided to google how to get rid of it and apart from buying expensive stuff the top answer was whit vinegar in a spray bottle and they use a wallpaper scraper to remove.  This I will be trying.  I have lots of rocks/stones as part of retainers as the garden is on a downhill slope to the house.  I want them to look nice.

There is still LOTS to do in it, including digging out soil from the slop nearest the house in order to lay decking, leveling other parts to add grass seed to and part of it is going as patio.  It wont be finished this year I don't think, although it would be nice.

I certainly know I have done stuff as both my back and my knee are causing me pain!

book review

I Was given an e-copy of this book (Endangered Creatures) by the author Stephen Dunkley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the use of so many creatures that are believed to be mythical beings like the dragons, dodo's, the yeti and dryads to name a few.  They are described in ways which make you question their being and go against what you have previously read or been told, which in turn makes your mind start questioning things.

The end of each chapter has a clue about the next and therefore they link into each other quite well. 

I found the way the locality of the area where the creatures lived (Regents Park, London) to have been written in an interesting way as I have never thought of it as an "old place".  And also, the other local locations were places I knew of and got thinking as to what the events mentioned actually were.

There were some lines that have really stuck in my mind and made me smile, for instance the linking of Knights in armour to ready to bake meals for Dragons, Dodos to battery farm Turkeys in Norfolk, and he Dryads being linked to being like rugby players and lumberjacks as they are a female nymph! 

The line (quote) "....often mistaken for Lumberjacks.  Although they  never, ever cut down trees.  After all, it would be easy to make a mistake and end up cutting the feet off a hibernating relative." (end quote) really  made me chuckle and think of the fun I could have if I was Dryad and if my own relatives were hibernating at times!

The other line that I really liked was (quote) "I'm sorry, but dragons don't come in pink." (end quote),  this is just utter brilliance and a great conversation stopper, and a line I would love to find a use for!

Knowing that the author was previously a barman, it made me wonder how many of the creatures were based on punters from the bars and/or his own drinking buddies!!!  The whole book had a feel of being along the same lines as a Terry Pratchett book. 

I finished reading it in 1 day as I didn't want to put it down, which is usually a sign of a good book, as it means it has caught my full attention.  It was an easy read, was entertaining with humour throughout that flowed well with the storyline.  I'm looking forward to reading another instalment if there is one.

What a day!!!

Today is horrid, i'm hoping that it ends better than it is now!  Despite things starting well this morning.

Today is the day we finally get our boiler fitted on the government scheme for people on benefits, this has only taken 7months, 3 companies and a cancelled appointment to finally take place.

The 1st company back in July 2013 said yes they could do it and filled out all the paperwork, did all the checks said they could the loft and wall insulation as well.  Well the guys came and did the insulation and whilst they were here we received a call saying that they were no longer fitting boilers and we wouldn't be getting one.  So we hunted around and found company number 2.  Who came and did all checks and the paperwork and booked a fitting date in September.  The day before we received a phonecall "we're very sorry but you won't be getting your new boiler tomorrow as we no longer have any funding to do them."  So the search begin yet again for a new company.

That was when we found the company we have used.  This took us longer than planned and we finally had the assessor come out in December, who did all the checks and paperwork and booked us in for February.  The date of last week was cancelled as the engineer was ill and it was re-booked for today.

Well the engineer turned up and started to remove the old boiler, the back door is wide open, the kitchen window is open and I have a hole in the wall where my boiler once was - my nice warm house (and myself) is like a fridge!!!  No joke I think the north pole wold be warmer.  And the weather is threatening to snow - there is snow 5miles away on the fells!  The engineer received a phonecall saying that they would NOT be able to get an electrician out to check and test it all until tomorrow!  ERRR NO!!!  not an option to have no heating and no hot water in winter (in the Lake District) when I have 3 young children, 1 of which is majorily Asthmatic and temperature changes affect him, 1 is under the age of 5years and I have pre-booked hospital appointments for tomorrow.

So Hubby gets on the phone to the company who tell us there is no electrician within 100miles who is free to come to us, Hubby tells them it's not good enough and about children and appointments etc. They say they will ring us back.  Which they did with the same answer.  So we tell them again that its not good enough and need it sorting today.  I told the engineer that the local papers would be very interested in this and how bad it will look for their company and we receive yet another call saying they have found an electrician and he will be with us in half an hour.  Well an hour and 20minutes later there is still NO electrician, so another call to the company is taking place.

I will update later on the elusive electrician and weather or not I get heating today!

UPDATE - the electrician has finally turned up and the 2 of them are trying to get things working so that they can sign it off BUT they are not getting any pressure and the tank wont re-fill.  oh dear!!!  Also the electrician has said that the last "periodic inspection" was done in 2001 and is therefore out of date as only last 10years - i was led to believe that this had been done before we bought the house as all websites are saying need to be done to sell a property.

Tea is in the slow cooker, no idea what its going to turn out like - pizza rolls.  We will see.  if it fails I have pizzas in the freezer!

FINALLY.....

after 14months of having an injured knee and being on crutches someone is listening to me and doing something - arthroscopy (camera in knee) to find out what is going on and operate at the same time if they find anything!!!

saw the pre-op assessment nurse and filled out paperwork.  now just got to wait for the appointment date anytime in the next 6weeks!

AND I have received one of the books I won a week or so ago in the post, signed and dated by the author.