Visiting an old acquaintance

By virtue of many Saturday morning visits, the "Unknown Market" has become a bit of an old aquaintance.  We both know that the adventure begins with the fish and Beatrice cautiously holds back her fingers as we peer into the boxes of crabs who reward our inspection with a bubble, a leg wiggle and occasionally the stretch of a leg and the squeezing of a claw.  We also initiate conversations with the prawns, much to the merriment of the fishmonger.  Then we count them, almost like calling the school roll.  Our counting is somewhat haphazard between 12 and 20, but the prawns don't notice.

The next fish who must be saluted, it the big one in the clock.

But on Saturday we had a mission.  I wanted to buy buns for my birthday, so we spent a lot of time researching all the cake stalls and then returning to our favourite.  On our way we discovered a lovely Willy Wonka-esque forest of sweetie trees.

We paused there to  buy cake pops.  These are balls of cake, dipped in chocolate.  Bea selected a white chocolate dipped one, decorated with a black beard, grumpy eyes and a red & black spotted pirate scarf.  He was nibbled faster than I could photograph.

I couldn't resist buying some more to join my birthday bun collection.

Of course the market is not only useful for bun shopping, and Bea was happy to pap Mummy buying Sigrid's birthday present.

So while the rain fell outside, we bumbled around the stalls inside, enjoying the atmosphere and feeling very eco-chic as we hauled our paper bags of buns about.  As for our "Bun Mission", well, in the words of Dora the Explorer...."we did it!"

We are off to the Johnston's for brunch today...we very well may pop into the market on our way there...we are becoming so well acquainted, it would be rude not to.

It's been one of those days

...not one of those days, but one of THOSE days.  The kind you only ever really dream about.  Let me explain.  

Most days, lets call them "normal days" pass where you have a mental checklist of all the things you have to get accomplished.  When you flop down late in the evening with a cup of tea you can only check off two or three of the things on your list, but you've had a giggle...you've played with your girl and you know that all of the cleaning will wait.  Then there are the other kind of days when you stupefy your girl with tv and growl "in a wee minute" as you storm through the to do list.  Today was neither of those days.


We accomplished a great deal.

• Into school to do the cover (Bea saw the bunnies, so joy ensued)
• Pop into Andys to buy GB pumps (again...great joy)
• Visit Granny and Granda 
• Got car washed
• Bank
• Post Office and emergency chocolate shop (Bea LOVES to stick on the stamps and post the letters)
• Dance at home
• Make spag bol (enough to freeze for GB dinner on Monday)
• Dishes / wash floor (Bea watches 2 episodes of Wombles)
• Josie and Phoebe visit (while their poor mummy visits the dentist :( )
• Lunchtime with Auntie Heather
• Elepfun, talking for Rapunzel, jigsaws
• Bea plays on computer while I clean the bathroom and dust upstairs (while doing TWO loads of washing)
• Painting of the certificate earned on the Cbeebies website.  Finger painting
• Bea makes Angel delight with real strawberries
• Kitchen gets cleaned (See previous)
• Floors washed.
• Car cleaned inside and hoovered
• Carpets hoovered
• Cuddles on sofa with bag of Malteasers (see point 6)
• Daddy comes home...off to exchange a birthday top of Bea's and buy new book for Book Club
• Make dinner
• Sort out freezer (who knew frozen food had use by dates!)
• Wash dishes
• Clean cooker

If it all sounds too good to be true...unfortunately it was.  After tea, I discovered that due to my expired driving licence and passport I do not officially exist.

Perhaps this is the secret formula.  Those days when you get LOADS done and STILL manage to have great fun with your girl only happen when you don't really exist.

Bea's Birthday Bash

I'm not sure why exactly this is one of my favourite photographs of Bea's birthday party, but it is.  I think it captures the slight insanity inherent in the approach to 3 years.

Anyway, Bea's birthday party was going to be held in the garden if the weather was good, and quickly shipped to the church hall if it became "inclement".  However, the weather remained determinedly unforecastable during the week no matter how many times I checked the BBC weather website, so we took the "bright sun " symbols displayed on Friday as a green light and opted for the garden.

As it turned out...good choice!  I was saved the bother of shipping stuff to the church AND the noise of the bouncy castle + kids dissipated into the atmosphere rather than reverberating off the hall walls.  There was a moment when it was touch and go, when we all looked skywards as the fat drops of rain bounced off our foreheads, and blew the cloud away uttering a disparaging "It's only a few drops of rain"

(Incidentally, Zelda has the best attitude to sending her kids out in the rain..."Don't worry, you're not made of sugar...you won't dissolve!")

Bea has requested a "princess party" on the odd occasion (and by "odd occasion" I do mean daily since May).  She has joyously attended the birthday parties of all her little friends and tried to blow out the candles on their birthday cakes.  We have had a count down of birthdays, and there have been many, leading up to hers.  But, I was more than happy to finally furnish her with a princess party.

Actually her choice was either prophetic or cannily predicted by her mum, who bought bits and pieces (mermaid dolls included) in the Christmas sales.

We had princess balloons, tablecloths, cut out dolls etc.  We spent some time making princess hats...

...I employed (I have typed that as it has a much nicer tone than child slave labour) Jenny and Joanna as face painters....

(Jenny was actually much better a doing terrifying lizard masks than butterflies...go figure!)

...we had toys to make a busy little street, with a cafe, kitchen, shop and boutique (and for that read a rail of dressing up clothes) with the vehicles to travel about...

(this is Beth in two costumes, because one is never enough!)

...with a bouncy castle....just to carry on the princess theme...

...and the jumpolene for when the bouncy castle was a bit too bouncy...

 

...but best of all, and believe me she was the best and coincidentally the fairest of them all....

When I brought Snow White to the table of little girls busily creating their hats there was, what can only be described as "awed silence".  They couldn't quite believe their eyes.

Snow White very graciously took the little ladies to her magical flower garden where she taught them how to be "real princesses".

This princess finishing school included a trip to the front garden where they collected gems and jewels (a princess always has a beautiful gown with sparkly accessories).  It also involved some princess dancing, rapunzelesque hair brushing, friend hugging and hunting for lost glass slippers.  

Unfortunately, Bea only possesses 8 glass slippers (or plastic clippy cloppy shoes).  I thought I would get away with it, but no!  Of course, the last princess to find a shoe (or not as the case would be) was Bea.  This rather held up proceedings as she refused to allow the games to progress without one.  Thankfully, one bored princess had abandoned hers, so it was rehidden for Bea to find.  She was somewhat disappointed that it was Snow White's slipper rather than the genuine Cinderella slipper, but we were permitted to carry on.

(According to Grace, the shoes also double as a handy mobile phone)

Meanwhile, the boys were not abandoned (even though the bouncy castle was deflated to make Snow White audible) but left with the dads to do "boy stuff" which princesses just cannot comprehend.

But when all was concluded, Snow White gave all of the little guests a gift (because that is what princesses do)

Then all of a sudden the oven beeped and it was time for party food...

...the singing of "happy birthday"...

...the blowing out of candles....

...and the eating of cake...

Then there was more bouncing and chatting to Snow White.  One of my favourite moments was overhearing this conversation...

Bea..."You have a badge of you on your dress"

Snow White..."Yes, that's like my photographic id"

Bea nods sagely as though she understands completely.

Then Snow White had to leave.  She had 7 hungry men at home waiting for their dinner.  Unfortunately, she was bit like Mother Hubbard and her cupboard was bare, so she popped into Tescos to buy some bread and red apples on the way home.  You may have seen her.

Then one by one, the little princesses drifted off...and then the rains came.

The GREAT SECRET of motherhood

Becoming a mother is a life changing experience.  Suddenly a whole new world opens up to you.  You begin to speak in a whole new language and you learn the GREAT SECRET.

The GREAT SECRET is revealed to you though experience.  No one draws you aside and whispers it in your ear.  You are a mother for three days and you know it, you LEARN it!

For those people who have not had a baby and would like to know this secret (and feel that having a baby to discover it is a bit overenthusiastic) I will share it with you.

An ordinary person thinks that these are just for cleaning a baby's bottom.  The fools!  The great secret of motherhood is that baby wipes are amazing.  Their uses are manifold.  They can clean stains from almost anything...they can eliminate smelly stains for anything...they can clean make up off in one wipe...they can remove marker from interactive whiteboards.  That is why mothers continue to have them in their handbags long after their babies are out of nappies.  Baby wipes can cause any stain* to vanish.  

This causes me to ponder...isn't God a bit like an everlasting supply of baby wipes?

* I have not tried to remove any and every stain with baby wipes and so please do not sue me if they don't work on that 3 year old red wine stain on your cream suede coat....but I would be pretty sure that if you had the wipes in your bag and used them within 5 minutes of the spilling incident the results would be impressive.