Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to everyone!!!
Busy cooking dinner here and running late as per always! My lovely friend Marie is making the starter, I am making chicken wrapped in prosciutto with parmesan, potato gratin and vegetables with stilton sauce and home made banoffie pie for dessert! Yummy yummy, diet starts tomorrow!
Harry the hamster
Harry wasn't the average hamster; cute, cuddly and sweet, he was more like a meat eating beast and would draw blood from you if you even attempted to put your hand into his cage! This, coupled with the fact that I am most definately NOT a pet person meant that I tolerated him (just) rather than liked having him around! But surprisingly I was a little sad when he left us.
Now, how do you explain to a 3 year old that a hamster has died? I started off saying that he was ill and has now gone to heaven and won't be coming back. I immediately thought this was probably wrong as around the same time Esme had a really bad cold and I didn't want her to think that when you are ill you might go away and not come back.
So I said that he had grown wings and gone up to the sky. She promtly started crying saying she didn't want the birds to take Harry up to the sky (she has a dislike for birds). Hhhmmm, I settled on saying that he is now an angel with wings and he won't be coming back.
This morning we were looking out the window and she was asking where the snow has gone. So I was trying to explain that it is now getting warmer which means the snow is melting. She was then telling me that it is not windy because the tree wasn't moving. This obviously made her think about Harry and she was saying; Harry has gone up to the sky. When is he coming back? I explained again that he was old and won't be coming back. So she then asks, why didn't we take him to the doctor? Well because he was already very old and it was too late?!
Oh dear, I don't think I am handling the awkward questions very well. Why isn't there a manual for dealing with these things?
At least I am hoping that by the time I get questions like "Mamma, where do babies come from?" I'll have gone through a few more years of parenting and will easier be able to answer!
RIP Harry the hamster
A&E (akuten)
Off I went, no special favours for staff, so I had to wait like everyone else to go into triage, where the nurse confirmed that I would probably need a stich. So I wait again for a fair amount of time and then get to see the doctor.
I have never ever had a stich before (not counting the c-section), broken any bones or anything equally dramatic, so one little stich made me quite nervous. It's funny that nothing at work makes me squemish, I'm quite happy to see operations, lots of blood etc but I couldn't watch when he did the (one!) stich in my hand.
The doctor went off and came back with a little mini operating table, with scissors, stiches, stuff to clean the wound with and a needle! I wasn't sure whether to bother with the local anasthetic or not but he recommended it so I went with it. It hurt BADLY!!! ouch ouch ouch, very stingy!
Could feel the stich being put in but not very much so it obviously did its job well. Bandaged up I was then on my way back to work again. Very strange feeling to have a numb hand as most of it seemed to have gone numb from the anasthetic.
Oh, and the last thing the doctor says to me, try not to get your hand wet for 48 hours! WHAT?! How does he think I am going to have a shower, wash my hands, do the washing up etc etc?! Well I guess I will figure that one out soon!
I leave you with a photo of the poor patient!
Christmas!
Well this year its really just us as a family for Christmas so we decided to go out for a meal on Christmas Eve. We have just come back from http://www.thebellshenington.co.uk/ where we had a lovely meal; Pete had garlic prawns to start and I had brie and we both had aromatic lamb shank for main! Too full for pudding I'm afraid! Esme did enjoy her chocolate icecream for pudding though!
Since we got back we have spent the last couple of hours wrapping all the Christmas presents. I thought it might take half an hour and its nearly taken two hours! Oh dear, my New Year's resolution is def going to be to be more organised when it comes to Christmas next year and buy stuff in time, post stuff in time and wrap stuff in time!!
Reindeer food has been sprinkled outside, a bisuit and a drink has been left for Father Christmas so its nearly time for me to go to bed too!
Esme on the way to our meal; she loves her new glittery ballerina shoes!
Esme and Pappa!
Esme and Mamma!
I wish you all a Merry Christmas!!!
xx
Stressfree Christmas Food Shopping!
Well after nearly having a panic attack a few years ago in Tesco whilst Christmas shopping in what felt like the front row of a take that concert I have finally worked out how to have a stressfree Christmas food shop!!
I emailed my order through to our local farm shop, www.wykhampark.co.uk and dear husband picked it up this morning, turkey and all!!! how amazing is that! the turkey was even in its own little box and all the veg was bagged up too!
To be fair, we also needed some things from said supermarket but I solved that problem by sending dear husband down last night! Apparently people were queing all the way to the back of the store!
So the Christmas food shop has been entirely stressfree for me this year, he he, slightly cheating though I guess!!?? or just very clever!?
God Jul!
God Jul to everyone today! Missing you all lots!
In Sweden Christmas is celebrated today rather than tomorrow and I am sat here missing my Swedish traditions. In Sweden the morning is spent cooking the big dinner which involves around 20 different dishes (see photo below of a typical Christmas dinner).At 3pm everyone sits down and watches Kalle Anka (Donald Duck), its a collection of old Disney cartoons and the same have been shown since 1960 so its the 50th year this year! Luckily for me, my brother has now recorded it for us, so we will be watching it later on today! Can't wait!
After that it is tradition that Pappa goes outside to fetch the post/pops to the shop. During this time Jultomten (Father Christmas) comes and knocks on the door and hands out all the presents. He may be offered some gingerbread bscuits and glogg (mulled wine) during his visit. Once he has finished handing out all the presents he says bye and leaves again. About 5 minutes later Pappa turns up from the postbox/shop and exclaims, Oh No, I have missed Father Christmas again this year!!! Oh I love it!
Sadly for Esme I don't think she will meet Jultomten this year, she will just have to make do with the British way of a Christmas stocking on her door! 
never ending to do lists
Am I the only one with never ending to do lists?! It's not even like I have just the one to do list either; there is a General to do list, a Christmas to do list (and I'm afraid I am nowhere near towards the end of this one so people are going to be getting their presents in the Spring!), a DIY to do list and lets not even talk about the lists I have at work!
But does all this list writing actually make me any more efficient or does it just mean that I offload all the stuff whirling round in my head onto a list and then forget about it, until I find the list again and start stressing that nothing has been done!?
Is this a female thing only?! Or does men secretly keep to do lists in their manbags these days too?!
Would I be better of having no lists at all and just trying to do stuff as it comes up?! What does everyone else do?
Or is this just because we live in such a stressful world where everyone are trying to multitask endlessly rather than forgetting about lists altogether and just living for "now"?
I'm not sure there is an answer to all this but any help appreciated, I am drowning in to do lists here!
Oh, just to give you a laugh; this is my to do list over the Christmas holidays (is this not meant to be for resting?!)
* finish painting kitchen
* paint hallway
* paint dining area
* buy fabric and make curtains for kitchen
* sand down and varnish worktop in kitchen
* put up curtain pole in bedroom and finish painting
* go to ikea
* ebay/freecycle junk (involves taking photographs of everything which takes me ages!!)
* sort out children's toys
and perhaps read a nice book!
its not FAIR!
I thought this sort of behaviour was reserved for stroppy teenagers but it seems not! "Esme can you please wash your hands?" ITS NOT FAIR (Kevin & Perry style), "Esme its time for bed" - ITS NOT FAIR! She then says; Mamma, leave me alone (!), and slams the door on her bedroom and sits and sulks! Does this mean the teenage strops are only going to get worse from here or does it mean I will have a sweet teenager when the time comes?! Or is this really just payback for the strops I no doubt threw around 15 years ago!
spotify and kitchen update
Once again I am probably the last in the universe to log onto the magic of spotify!! So far I have failed to even use the I-pod we bought a few years ago; I have no idea how to download music from the internet; I never even learnt how to record on to videos! (this shows my age!) and I believe it is now possible to record to DVD's! But Spotify I love! Its easy to use and I get music for free! perfect and much recommended so far anyway! Currently sat here listening to Amy Diamond, En Helt ny Jul. Love It! Most probably as its in Swedish which would make me love it whether or not it was any good most probably!
The kitchen is coming on well (I will post more on this no doubt!) and I have just finished painting a second coat of white! Much to the reluctance of the husband we went for high gloss white cupboards with oak worktop and we are now painting the walls white too! Quite scared of doing it as its fairly non-british to have white walls but I just know I will love it (and the husband will love it too!). And if not we can always paint it again I guess!
happy "birth"day blog!!
Well, I am useless with any kind of technology so really it is probably silly for me to start a blog! but I thought I would give it a go! Well really its all thanks to my lovely brother Michael who has set it up for me, as I was moaning I don't know how to do it! As we have family and friends spread out pretty much everywhere in the world I thought it might be a nice way for people to see what we are up to and for me to keep a sort of diary of what is happening in our lives! As I'm getting older I have realised that life is really very short indeed and I would like to be able to look back and see what I've/we've achieved and done.
This first post is really just to see whether I am able to figure out how to do an entry on the blog so I will write more soon!!!
xx
