February 17th 2015 - PANCAKE DAY & family walk

February 17th 2015 - PANCAKE DAY & family walk

Today is pancake day or shrove tueday!!! (Today's pin is a link to the stack of pancakes I made in 2013 for the family).  I love this day as I love pancakes, I always have.  Golden syrup and sugar and lemon toppings are the best!  I tried Nutella last year after being reccommended it, it was nice but i'm not a great fan.  I have also had ice cream toffee and raspberry sauce on them - the raspberry is actually really nice, but I never remember to buy any.

So one question is how do you eat your pancakes - do you roll your pancakes into a coil,  fold them into triangles or have them as a stack one on top of the other with fillings inbetween???  I usually roll every one into a coil but saw on pinterest that people put them as a stack with fillings in between, i'm trying that for mine tonight!!!

Then there is also the big debate of tossing it in the air or flipping it with a fish slice - well me I flip mine as the one time I tried to toss it in the air I didn't catch it and it ended up on the floor and the dog licked it before running off!

Happy pancake day to everyone no matter how you make or decorate or eat them.

Hubby has been asked to get extra eggs, milk and flour so we can have pancakes and so the kids can make cakes like they have asked to do.


EDIT

After lunch today we decided as it was nice we weould go on a walk.  We all put on jumpers and coats and gloves and hats and set off.  We had been told about a lake and woodland walk about 8miles from where we live, according to the website its takes about 2hrs to walk around Longlands Lake.   So we thought may take longer with my knee.

We found it very easily as its signposted from the main road, when we got there, there was 1 car in the car park.  We crossed the bridge and then came back to get sticks as the kids wanted to play pooh sticks - where you all drop a stick at the same time from one side of the bridge and then go to the other side to see whose stick comes through the bridge first.  We ended up doing this 2 or 3 times!

Once we got across the bridge we tossed a coin as to which way we were going to go as had a fork in the path and according to the map would both take us round the lake.  We went with the heads route.  The older 2 ran of being very noisy, and lil man stayed with me.  Me and him saw mushrooms growing on a tree stump (see below) and 1/2 coconuts being used as bird feeders.

It was very wet and muddy under foot, so we probably should have all worn our wellies, never mind.  We continued on round the paths round the lake and saw daffodils, snow drops and croscus's.  Blossom was starting to form on some of the trees as well.  There were quite alot of birds at the lake including swans and ducks, but they didn't come to us, maybe we should have taken some bread for them.  There was a fissherman and lots of people with dogs who all spoke to us.

We headed back to the car park, which was now very packed.  It had taken us just over 45minutes to walk all the way round, so not quite sure where they say its 2hrs.  There are lots of benches to stop and rest at as well as picnic spots.  This was our first visit here but I certainly think we will visit again as its so close and not uphill or a long way which is good with my knee as it is.  I think it will look a very different place in the summer months when its dry and flowers are out etc.

Although I forgot to pick up the camera I did get some nice pics on my phone.

 

February 16th 2015 - Tree stump removal

February 16th 2015 - Tree stump removal

I am in the process of trying to sort out the last part of my garden where I want the decking to go.  But this is going to be a big task as I need to dig out soil.  And in part of where I want it there are some old pine tree stumps that need removing.

I found this artical on Pinterest about how to remove tree stumps with the use of Epsom Salts.  I'm not sure if it actually works or if its a hoax.  But we bought a bag of Epsom Salts last week to try it, if it doesn't work we have only wasted £2.99.

Hubby drilled holes in the tree stumps as deep as his drill bit would allow, I filled them with Epsom Salt and then a tiny bit of water and left them.  It says that you may need to re-apply salt after a few days and again each week as it can take upto 2months for the stumps to rot as the salt absorbs the water from the tree.

Fingers crossed it does work as I really need the stumps gone.  They were cut as low to ground as we could do without damaging the saw.

February 15th 2015 - Parton Rock pools

February 15th 2015 - Parton Rock pools

Today's pin is from the places I want to go to board, and was Parton.  This is a place that we visit regularly as its only a couple of miles up the road from where we live.  It is a sort of cove area on the coast and the beach is all rocks from tiny pebbles upto huge boulders.  Some of these huge boulders have been worn away by the sea and  therefore the sea gathers in them making rock pools.

My boys love going there to see if we can find anything in the rock pools, and usually 1 of them ends up wet for whatever reason - falling into a rock pool, walking in the sea, standing in a rock pool, being splashed by his brother etc.  Today we were lucky no-one got wet but we wern't there very long as my eldest decided to be stupid and climb the wall that has a train track above it!!!

We did collect some shells whilst we were there but I don't think there is enough for the lady at the community centre's summer craft session.  So will have to get some more on another visit.

Here are a few pics taken at parton last year:

February 14th 2015 - Valentines day

February 14th 2015 - Valentines day

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYONE I hope that you have had a good day and all got at least a card.

I have had to "make" a pin for today as I couldn't find anything suitable that I liked.  So here it is, my pin about Valentines Day.

Today has been a rather strange day, it started off with 2/3 children giving me cards they had made at school (see below) and a card from hubby.  Blake (5) also got his first valentines card from Rosie his girlfriend at school.  Hubby got me a mini sewing machine that I have winged about for ages so I can try and learn to sew with it.

Anyway after the nice cards had been given out etc I went and got dressed as I was being picked up at 10:30am to go on a course with St John Ambulance.  I got picked up, nipped to asda to get my luch on the way and off we went.  An hours car trip to get to the training venue to be told the course had been cancelled as "there was no-one booked on it".  Errrr we were booked on it and at a meeting thursday we were told there was 4 people on it.

So we had a wasted trip and i'd bought a pack up for no reason.  The lady who picked me up wasn't happy either.  As it happens I could have gone out for dinner with my family and the neighbours but had to alter it to next week because of this course today.  Never mind, I have sent an email to the person who organised it asking why we wern't notified it had been cancelled.

Well when I got back from the non-existant course the sun was shining and it looked really nice out, so I decided to go outside and pull up some weeds and cut back my hedge.  The boys decided to help by taking the cuttings to the bin for me.

February 13th 2015 - QUOTE

February13th 2015 - QUOTE

Todays pin is an inspirational quote that I found on pinterest.  I have added it to my board depression and moods.

I had a good day yesterday for the most part, I was at a meeting in the  evening which went on longer than I thought so I was hungry but never mind.  By the time I got home I had quite a few messages about something that I didn't know was happening and this turned my mood very quickly, however I wasn't feeling down about but very angry!

This event of yesterday that I knew nothing about made me realise that I need to get a grip of my moods and move upwards.  There is no point in moping about things that have happened or that I can't deal with, I need to sort out what I can deal with.  So I have spent today making phonecalls to try and sort yesterdays problem, although I don't have  answers yet and may not for a very long time I have started things in the right direction.

February 12th 2015 - HP Printer

February 12th 2015 - HP Printer

I swear to god I am going to throw something or hit the stupid thing!!!

All I want it to do is scan about 7 pages so that I can send them as an email so that they arrive quicker than via snail mail.  But no my HP 4500 Printer has other ideas.  It keeps telling me that 1. there are no computers detected and 2. scan to computer is not enabled.  So I follow the instructions, turn printer off and on again still nothing.  I click the disable scan to printer button and then click enable and still nothing.

I have no idea why it is doing this as it was working fine the other day.  My next port of call is to re-download the drivers incase they have somehow got corrupted or removed from laptop, not sure how they would have though.  I have unistalled and re-installed the drivers and still nothing.  So My final option was to completely uninstall and re-install the printer, turn laptop off and on again, turn printer off and on again and finally they are speaking to each other and have scanned the documents.  Only problem is I placed them upside down on printer and my laptop wont let me turn them round.  Oh well they will be emailed upside down!!!

Despite the printer being a pain today it is usually a good printer.  Although it wasn't that expensive when we bought it and the ink is very cheap to  replace (£17 total for both black and colour).  It has a scanner (when it works) a copy mechanism and is a good quality printer.  It also has the benefit of being wifi and you can connect to it via phone as well as laptop.  Most of the time I would definately reccommend it to people.  However today my answer would be NO!

February 11th 2015 - Story Mountains at Family learning

February 11th 2015 - Story Mountains at family learning

Today is wednesday, that means that its the day I go to school again.  I wasn't able to attend last wednesday as I had a meeting with St John Ambulance and hubby couldn't go in my place as we had a child off school ill with chest infection and asthma.

During today's session we were talking about story's, not just those read from books but those that you make up as you go along, those that have been told to  you by family members, stories that have happened to family members etc.  And after we had been told the story of the monkey that lived in a Jarmun (jaaa-moon) tree that tricked a crocdile we were asked to fill out story mountain sheets. 

A few of the younger mums had heard of them and even remembered doing them at school, whillst myself and the rest of the older parents (some are older than me) had not seen them before, so it was a whole new ball game for us. We all got the idea and filled them out.

We also did a "if you hold the toy you can talk" thing, but with this we had to each re-tell part of the story we had been told (again about the monkey and the crocodile).  It didn't matter if we altered it slightly or got bits in the wrong order.  I volunteered to go first - Once upon a time a little brown monkey lived high up in a Jarmun tree..... (I got the easy part!)

Again was a good day and the kids came in and joined us and again a story was read to them, this story was a true story about a boy and his green trousers and how he made a friend for life when they became to small for him, and they have a piece of homework to do linked to it - drawing the pictures about the story.