Green tomato chutney and spots

We tried growing tomatoes this year, but they've been a total washout.  The seeds took ages to germinate, and were then totally drowned by all the rain.  Such a disappointment, especially as the packet was something daft like £3 for 6 seeds.  Of course, Lucy was very upset about this, so last weekend we went to the garden centre to buy a tomato plant as a replacement.  £8 later, and a rosemary and a lavender, and an ice cream, we were the proud owners of a yellow tomato plant. 

Alas, the course of true love etc, and it developed some form of blight, involving the leaves turning yellow and curling up but the fruit being unaffected.  We decided to cut our loses and make green tomato chutney, loosely based on a recipe in Beryl Wood's book Let's Preserve It, which has over 500 really great ideas in.  It's currently doing its thing, and the whole kitchen smells of vinegar.  It should be cooked in about an hour, and ready to eat by Christmas.  Most expensive chutney ever though.

In other news, Lucy now has chicken pox; she is covered in spots and very sad and sorry for herself.  She understands that she mustn't scratch, and is dosed up on a cocktail of Piriton and Calpol, and is hopefully sleeping it off.  It's a bit of a pain, as we're supposed to be running a playgroup on Monday, but that's impossible now.

I want to write about the Olympics Opening Ceremony, but I need to think a bit first.  I've not done that since about 2005, so wish me luck.

entrepreneurship

Golly gosh, the power of advertising.  My last post was about the baby gro "business" and since then, I've had 117 people read the post and a whole bunch more look at the flickr page, and a couple of what I can only call pre-orders, as in people saying that they will be ordering one in a few days once they've been paid/had the baby/found a baby who needs more clothes.   It's all rather exciting really, and I think I'm going to need some more stock this week.

Let's hope that I can make £100 this year; that would be a wonderful thing.

Just in case: Baby gros

Bespoke Babies

I've been making baby gros for a couple of months now, and had some minor successes - an Indiana Jones one, a Chewbacca one and, my favourite, the kissing elephants.

Ideally, I would like to sell these and want to set up a website.  What a pain in the bum that is;  it takes such a long time, and I have to actually think about the text, and I've realised that my photos are super rubbish, and moan moan.  Anyway.  If you want a baby gro, send me a message via this or Facebook, or Twitter and it's only a tenner.

Here is the flickr site with all the photos on.

babygros

I can draw most things, given enough time and gin.

Pox infested

When you are cuddling the newborn and smacked up on hormones and epidurals, no one tells you "One day, darling, we will have chicken pox".

Hat goes to nursery at the Children's Centre on site, and the nursery manager came to collect one of my boys today.  She asked me to come along as soon as possible as she thought Hattie had chicken pox.  By the time I got there, about 20 minutes later, she was definitely spotty and starting to look a bit sorry for herself.  I took her to the chemist and it definitely is the pox, which means that Lucy will get it, and it's terribly inconvenient, what with it being the summer holidays in a week, rather than next week.  Still I am brightsiding like mad, and at least they'll have had it by the time they are adults.

The job situation is going from bad to worse, and I am just about struggling through.  I'll get a new job soon; I don't want to be working for a sociopath next year.

There's nothing cheerful to write about; non stop rain, pox infestation, funeral tomorrow.  I'll try harder over the weekend.

Insanity update

The most unrealistic list of New Year's Resolutions ever.

12 unread books read - tbh, this was always here as a make weight, I've more than doubled this in the six months since January. 

12 babygros made - half way through this

12 meals from Nigella's Kitchen book - hmm.  Two.  Not so great.

12 pounds lost - nope.  Moving on.

12 jumpers knitted - apparently, I've made 9.  Blimey.

12 knitted things for Lucy - including some of the above, 5 things. 

12 knitted things for Hattie - fewer for Hat, er, 1.  (note to self: knit for the baby) (although I have made her a quilt, so that counts)

12 individual socks - no way.  Haven't even thought about socks for months.  I might manage one pair.

12 weeks no yarn buying (except to finish projects, otherwise they become WIPs and part of the problem, not the solution) - I think I've managed this, on and off.

12 patterns used  - 13. 

12 blog posts a month (hmm) - moving on.

12 other things - decided that would be 12 things for me.  So far, I've made 3.  Which is not bad at all.

So now all I've got to do is lose 12 pounds and go back in time to write 50something blog posts for February, March, April, May and June.

Next year, no sock or weight loss based resolutions.

NCT

We joined the NCT back in April or May 2008, when we were expecting Lucy.  We didn't really have high expectations of the programme, and knew that we might be fed some, well, inaccurate information regarding pregnancy and childbirth, but felt that the opportunity to meet some people in the same situation as us was unmissable.  There were 7 couples in our group, and our babies were born between the 1st of August and the 12th of September, and they are all healthy, happy and strong children.  We had 4 girls and 3 boys between us, and some of the children have grown up to be very fond of each other.  Lucy and her friend Jessie are very fond of each other, and do ballet together, and talk. all. the. time.

My mummy friends are all close to each other in relative degrees - some I see fairly regularly, some I see rarely.  We have now mostly all had second children, and it's all starting again - the sleepless nights, the terrible twos, the going out and having to rush home to breastfeed a screaming child, the general scattiness, the lovely closeness that comes from sharing a deep experience with someone.

Last night, though, we went out for a different reason.  A week ago, one of us took her children to the park.  She didn't come back.  So far there is nothing to say what happened, what caused her to fall and why she didn't get up again.  It is totally unbelievable and shocking.  Her son is Lucy's age, her daughter is a tiny baby.  I am so sad and angry and want to shout at the world and God and everyone about this particularly unfair, random event.  We can't bear it, not one bit.

The friends I made in my NCT group were closer than I realised, and I feel that I must cherish them more.  If there's one positive thing that's come out of this, that's it.

RIP Sherryn.  We will miss you.