Category: Family
Silent Sunday 04 Sept 11
Silent Sunday 28/8/11
Flood Alert Dramatics
A couple of weeks ago, with the van on a campsite, the threat of flood water in the van was getting higher. The kidlets had told each other scary stories, ranging from dying under tonnes of dirty water, to hearing screams coming from the direction of the river.
The water was very dangerous and the flood alert was in force for the area on the Monday. Local disabled residents were evacuated, and the caravan site was sitting smack bang in the middle of the flood plain. We took an early evening walk down to look at the raging river, and I couldn’t get close enough to get a good photograph of the river, and all roads in and out were closed.
We sneaked across the football field, as close as we dared and although we could spot the raging river, we didn’t dare go close enough to get a decent one, so the flooded children’s playpark is the best that I could do. The raging water was terrifying. It certainly opens your eyes to just how awesome the force of water actually is, and I am someone who spent much time in the middle of the north sea on oil rigs in her youth.
At night, we packed a couple of bags, and I had them sitting at the door of the van, just in case the river had a major flood. We were told that the “flood man” would let us all know if the river began to rise again. The rain seemed to thankfully be slightly easier that evening, and we hoped that the rain would stay lighter upriver so that it didn’t head down towards our precious van again. There were major floods here a few years ago, and lots of fears that it could be repeated.
I had my alarm set for every two hours so that I could keep an eye on the flood alerts, and check out the window to see how it is going. I intended to pop out to the bottom of the site a couple of times during the night to see if they were under water. I never got that far. Thankfully we were at the highest up point on the site, so in less danger than the vans and tents further down the site.
The kids thought it was an adventure, and we all slept in joggers so that we would be able to get out at short notice if the knock came at the door.
I didn’t sleep well at all that night, and littlest woke up about 6 times during the night in terror. He sleepwalks, although it is not as often as it used to be. In strange places, he always has to sleep close to an adult so we hear him on the move. Several times, he ended up sitting bolt upright, in absolute terror shouting “mum, why aren’t you saving me?”? I guess I can get the gist of the nightmare. He faced the door of the caravan and it was not very nice to see hs terror & knowing he was still in his nightmare with eyes wide open.
Thankfully, the danger passed, and with it the last of littlest night terrors.
Whats in my bag 2011. (purse for you Americans I believe)
I have never managed to understand the designer bag craze. I just don’t get it. A bag is a bag, is a bag, is a bag, is a bag. It’s for holding stuff in that won’t fit in your pockets, right?
Now don’t go ratting me out as some kind of slobbish, unorganised, ineffectual mother (ok, yes you’re right, I am). My poor little bag sees very little TLC, and tends to suffer badly from the effects of rain, wind, sleet and occasionally snow in the lovely Scottish climate. I do give it the occasional polish to bring up the nice leather that it used to be, and the last episode of TLC was the day before the Cybermummy Train Trip.
My current bag has been slung on my back for the last 3 years and was a fantastic (splutter) £50.00 when new. I only tend to have one day bag and one for using on special occasions at any given time, so I like them to last. I have bought cheap synthetic ones in the past, but I’m lucky if they last me a couple of months. You’d think they could make them so that they would be tougher wouldn’t you? Then again, maybe I just spend too much time with my bag on my back.
Yes, my bag is a rather untrendy for my age, small, black leather rucksack. I’ve been wearing this type of bag off and on for about 20 years. The only time I don’t have one is when I can’t find a nice one when it comes time to replace a worn out trusty. Then I have to resort to the dreaded over body bags.
I just can’t understand the pleasure or practicality of having to use an arm or a hand to hold up a bag. Whats that for then? How do you hold onto a child, or children, and a dog, or shopping when one hand is permanently tied up holding onto a bag for dear life?
I also know people who have bags that seem to have a never ending supply of things in them. I have a friend whose bag is a revelation. It doesn’t matter what eventuality she comes across, there is something in that tardis of a bag she carries to fix the problem.
You are allowed to laugh when you see what is in my disorganised little carry bag. I am dreading looking actually as it is a couple of months now since I cleared it out.
Here goes:
House and Car Keys
Caravan Keys
Chewing Gum
Old Receipts (really bad habit I have of just throwing them in)
Ancient Purse (really could use a new one)
2 Pairs of Earphones
Wrist Strap
Paracetamol
Passport Photos for us all
Virgin Vie Tinted Moisturiser
Some Bloggers Business Cards
Two Pens
Bits of a Toy
Crayons
Tomato Ketchup
Oilatum Cream
Library Cards
Dog Poo Spare Plastic Bags
Yes, I am officially a slob. No lippy (note to self – must rectify that one).
Yes, yes I know, my bag is in need of replacement. This one might just last another winter before it bites the dust. I need to keep an eye out for rucksack handbags from now on.
Why is Baby Food so popular?
Baby food seems to be an emotive subject. I stated my opinion on it on twitter, and I was rapidly unfollowed by 4 mum bloggers. Who knew that baby food mums took it so seriously. Nobody said anything in defence of baby food which was surprising, but there were plenty of us who think that jars (and the ready-made tubs ) of baby food for older children are just not needed. I can see the snacks being useful, but the need for the meals confuse me.
Image: Sharron Goodyear / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
My youngest came to me at 9 months old. I was told that he had been fed on cow’s milk, and he didn’t like pot noodles, so I decided to take it from there. I didn’t know any better, and with my mothers yada yada yada in my ear, I really never thought there was any other way of feeding a child, other than making something for them to eat. From day 1 in my home, he began eating the kiddie sized portion of what we grown ups and his older brothers had for meals.
Saying all that, before I get struck down with some bug from a curse from the mothers rights brigade, it is every mums’ choice of what to feed their child. The fact that their childrens’ taste buds might suffer eating bland gunk for so long in their lives is their choice.
What does annoy me is having to stand in a supermarket trailing my three hyperactive kids, who have little skills for waiting in line, to have to listen to a mummy righter blagging on about the baby food tub she had just bought in the shop – and wanted it heating up. On and on she went about how was she going to feed her baby now. The man behind the counter remained as calm as could be, although it was obvious he was dying to tell her exactly where to go.
She started off trying to persuade him to use the kitchens microwave to heat it up, but he explained that he couldn’t use industrial microwaves, then she tried to get him to let her go into the kitchen and heat it up herself. He explained that it was against company policy to allow that. I don’t know how often he said it, but eventually she paid for her food and walked away from the counter.
I had some sympathy for her, and stayed behind her in the queue without saying a word, as I could see that she was obviously getting stressed out about how to feed her baby. When she asked what she was going to do now to feed her baby, I almost felt like joining in and championing her cause.
When I had my childrens’ food paid for and got seated, I found myself facing straight towards where she sat with her friend and her “baby”. I felt a little jar of shock when I realised that this “baby” was well over a year old and possibly two or more. The kids menu had several choices of things that would have suited that child perfectly well. In the end, the mum mashed up some of her food, and spoon fed the little one.
My shock was at the fact that not only was she wanting baby food for such a big toddler, but that the toddler was getting it all mashed up, and not allowed to use a spoon or anything to eat it for herself. Far from being unable to feed herself through some disability or special need, I spied the “baby’s” dexterity with toys and the ability to be able to potentially eat for herself was evident.
It’s the mum that seems to want to keep her baby as a baby, and not let her grow up. Either that, or total laziness in feeding her child, so that the only thing she will eat is blah, blah, blah. I have tasted the jars and tubs of baby food, and they are completely disgusting. I suspect most children would turn away from them once they had “normal” not processed food to eat regularly.
I am not adverse to sticking on the odd packet of chicken nuggets, or pizza when I don’t have time to cook from scratch, but surely feeding toddlers that big on baby food is just silly.
If you want to unfollow me for that feel free, but I’d rather you debated the reasons for using it for older children with me.
I’d love to know the rationale and why baby food is so popular. Feel free to comment below.
Aberdeen Beach
We tried to find a way to amuse the kiddos on Tuesday, which saw us visit Transition Extreme. It is a skatepark for BMX’ers, skateboarders and climbers
My boys need to do the training before they are allowed to enter the park, so it was disappointment all round as I booked them in for next week as there were no slots left for this week.
Leaving TA with dejected faces, I took them to Codonas. It has long been the little carnival that is resident in our little home City.
I’m sharing some of the pictures of the only sunny day we’ve been privy to for three weeks now.
Beware.. When you buy a Codonas wrist band for the day, you get a ticket entitling you to a free kids meal for every adult meal purchased. When you try to order it, you are pointed to a large board with a corrected statement that says you only get a kids main course.
They refuse to honour the ticket.
Apart from that, it was a lovely afternoon for the boys.
My Vege Bags
My little pots are growing their leaves and flowers, and I hope, that eventually we will manage to have some lovely little flowers from the pots and containers that are full of gorgeous leaves. Whether they actually have some fruit or not remains to be seen, but hopefully they do. I have spent hours (ok minutes) tending these lovely pots and bags to try to turn my non gardening fingers into some semblance of a growers beginnings.
Here for your enjoyment, in all the Scottish dreary weather are some shots of my growing pot collection.
I did try to hold off until the sun showed its’ smiley face again, but I suspect that might not be anytime soon.
Ok, ok, I know these are not vegetables, but some pansies and geraniums make lovely pictures.
The strawberries are nearly ripe for picking (all three of them). There are two more, honestly, there are.
Leeks and Onions and Lettuce are really doing well.
My potatoes are growing up a storm.
And apart from the carrots on either end, I have no idea what is growing in the middle of my trough.
My neighbour gave me the seedlings and I planted them. She cannot remember what they were. If you recognise the leaves, do let me know.
Thats it for now. I’ll post more when I start to harvest my little crop.
Silent Sunday – Big Waves
The Crunch in Real Life – The Great British Holiday Empties
Sitting in a campsite, that is usually busting at the seams at this time of year – I am forced to reflect on the impact of the huge cuts that all of us below the levels of the wealthy pampered have been steam rollered into.
Around us, where there should be dozens of laughing and happy children, all enjoying the Great British Holiday, there are empty spaces. There are no children playing outside in the pouring rain. We were here the last two years at the same time of year, and the site was full of laughing, happy families and their children, splashing in huge puddles of thundering torrential rain. In a circle of 17 spaces that are usually crammed full, there are only three of us who have braved the economy, and the wet and wild scottish summer.
The site may fill up once the English children are all off school, but what does it say about the Scottish economy that a camping and caravan site that is usually full, is so empty? Yes, it is likely to fill up again for the weekender crowd, but without holidaymakers, there will be fewer sites to use, and the potential for “wild camping” will come back into business.
Camping and caravanning have seen a nice boom in recent years as money has tightened, although its safe to say that it is certainly not one of the cheapest hobbies around. There is something lovely about being able to relax in comfort, and away from your main home, and the absence of fellow holidaymakers this year has totally taken me by surprise.
Are seasoned caravanners and campers really giving up on their holidays and staying at home, or are they “wild camping” and being ostracised as travellers wherever they go.
It’s obvious that the campers and caravanners won’t be staying at home, but where are they? Are they staying closer to home to save petrol / diesel money, or are they taking off as our elder generations did?
My parents and grandparents both set off on adventures across the UK with packs on their backs in the summer time. I never did that. I wouldn’t feel safe doing that, especially now with the children, but I’d love to.
- Should “wild camping” be allowed?
- Should we be able to go, as we did as children – off into the wilds, and park where we felt the scenery is beautiful?
- Are we too focussed on the “scare tactics” that seem to be evident as news in todays media that we are over cautious of where we go and what we do?
- Is it really more dangerous today than it was in our grandparents younger days?
I don’t know. I only know that I don’t do some things that I would like to, and I shelve “just in case”. About the extent of my bravery, is my tin tenting with the kids while hub stays at home to work and keep an eye on grandma.
I am sad to see such an empty campsite and I hope the business picks up for them soon. I can’t really believe that people are “wild camping” instead, so it has to be that people have less money to spend using their lovely tents or caravans. Hopefully this isn’t one of the British Traditions that sees the end of many well run and well loved sites.
Silent Sunday – Dog in Glasses
When will MEN learn to PEE IN the TOILET?
It should have been a wonderful experience. It should have been 8 hours of pampered bliss.
After months of anticipation, waiting for the 24th of June to roll around on the way to Cybermummy 11, I tentatively stepped aboard the 7.52 from Aberdeen to head down to London. I was hoping that the trip was going to be full of excited tweets, and maybe a little work along the way. I splashed out and treated myself to first class tickets, and convinced myself that I was going to have a spectacularly wonderful journey, on the way to a spectacularly fantastic conference full of bloggers.
My first impressions went really well, and the seating suited me perfectly. Being an insular blogging tweeter, my chosen single seat meant that didn’t have to make polite conversation based on get out moments of unintentional eye contact. I settled in for the 8 hour trip, and very smugly, I opened my laptop to begin a marathon tweeting session. All seemed to go well until I tried to connect to the free wi-fi. After trying on and off for 2.5 hours, the guard did eventually say that the wi-fi and the promised power in the socket was out of order. My heart sinks with the realisation that IT IS NOT GOING TO WORK AT ALL. The reason I chose first class and paid more mullah was for WiFi and POWER. AND to top it all, I didn’t have any books with me.
Faced with the prospect of 8 hours on a train with very little, and patchy mobile signal, no power and a laptop that wasn’t going to last for an hour, I could only see the endless journey ahead of me while I stared out of the window. I religiously checked and rechecked the power point to see if it had come back on again. The woman and her daughter in the quad seat at the other side of me. eyed me sideways as I plugged in and out every fifteen minutes to see if it would come back on again. I’m sure they thought I had checked out of the closest hospital for the day.
On the map when I chose my seat at the point of booked, it showed a toilet right next to the seat I had picked. I worried slightly that the door would open onto where I was sitting, and that a toilety smell would invade my long journey. I needn’t have worried, as the entrance to the toilet, was through the carriage doorway. I breathed a sign of relief and smugly smiled at my decadence.
The man across from me, who got on at the first stop past Aberdeen, asked for a cup of coffee when they were taking orders for breakfast. He obviously just wasn’t with the programme as he stared at his ALL DAY menu, but was told that there would be no coffee again until after Dundee. I secretly giggled at his long face as I reached down and extracted my secret stash of juice to see me through the journey,
I gave up hearing the guards announcements by Edinburgh, but was pleasantly surprised on the way back up again on the Sunday, to be able to hear ALL of the announcements. I think some of it is a male thing. Deep voice + loud train = mumble, garble, burble.
On the way down, I ran out of juice in my phone, my laptop, and my emergency back up phone battery. Whats a girl to do on a train that has no wi-fi, or power working, and was daft enough not to have anything installed worth reading on the phone? Yup, you’ve guessed it – she sits and refreshes the content on her screen every 30 seconds and wills the wi-fi into life – just to make sure she isn’t the only idiot on the train staring out of the window when technology is boop boop booping for everyone else.
There was no wi-fi on the way back up the road again either, so I guess it’s just me who seems to be internetty challenged on trains, and I am grateful for the lovely Kathryn Brown from Crystal Jigsaw who played a game of cat and mouse with me while she planned waving a yellow flag from her farm, while I watched from the train (yup, I missed her). (ps, if you haven’t read her new book, you should, it’s fab). Kathryn – please forgive me for mentioning you in this post.
After holding in the desperate need to pee for as long as possible, the time finally came when I had to face the dreaded toilet. The bitter disappointment I felt when I entered the cubicle, will stay with me for life. There, like a vision of misery, was a soaking wet floor, with lots of bits of someone else’s toiletry paper adorning the floor like a decorated tapestry.
Now, forgive me for being a woman with too much expectation from others, but is it really too much to ask, for men to PEE IN THE TOILET. I have to say, that the biggest no no for me would be when I put down a toilet seat, and am then confronted with PEE LINES.
NO human should be subject to PEE LINES. Am I making myself totally clear?
And if they do pee on the toilet, or miss the pot altogether is it too much to ask for them to CLEAN IT UP AFTERWARDS…………?
Being the slightly obsessive toilet freak that I am, I take toilet roll from holder, and try to squirt a healthy dose of soap from the dispenser.
THERE IS NO SOAP
My bladder is going into overdrive, and the need to pee overtakes my need to sit on a sparkling like new toilet seat, but while I am in there, another train dweller begins to batter on the toilet door, and whang at the handle, and as I get ready to venomously spew out “whats your problem”, I open the door in a rage, to look down at a smiling junior battering ram. I laugh at the silliness and I ignore the pain pressing on my bladder, walk out of the toilet, and head back to my seat. I take my hand sanitiser and march back to wait in the now queue to the loo. At this point, the man opposite with serious liquid envy seems to snigger as I pass. I straighten my back and swish my hair with a flourish to get my own back.
A healthy dose of santisier, and I once again run back to my seat to grab the make up wipes that hide in the bottom of my never ending laptop bag. When I’m done, the toilet seat ends up as shiny as a new pin.
I ignore the “water” on the floor, and try to tell myself that it’s the result of drip dry hand shakers.
The piece of sodden loo roll scrunched up with what looks suspiciously like fresh blood fills my shoes with shaking feet. I seethe as I consider the fact that somebody needs to open up a school that deals with teaching men to pee straight. Women in their millions would book their men onto it, and we’d all live happier at home, on trains, and enjoy friends coming to visit.
With hours of a train journey still to go, a new obsession takes over. Every half an hour, my body decides to make me suffer with the necessity to visit the room of a million smells. Even Mr fluidly challenged begins to think it’s funny. Every male that passes me on the way to the loo, I eye up with daggers, convinced that the possibilities will make them pee straight in the loo.
Will MEN please learn to PEE IN the TOILET !
Can I put cooked garlic mushrooms in the fridge for a couple of days
Neeps is just short for turnips.
Made this last night and it as perfect , i never made bread before and its the first time i…