Old MacDonald's Farm.

Yesterday I took Mimi and her little friend M out to Badgers Hill Farm or as Mimi referred to it Old MacDonald's farm.  It is great for little ones.  A working farm and cidery it has a wide selection of animals for the children to look at and feed.  You can buy bags of bird feed and carrots from their country shop.  There are plenty of picnic tables dotted around allowing you to take in your surroundings whilst enjoying a coffee and slice of cake from their coffee shop.  It is an eclectic mix of animals, wind chimes and garden ornaments with plenty to keep the children occupied.  There is even a witches hut which is set up with a sofa and table should it be raining.  Even better it is free - so for the cost of a cup of coffee it's a great outing for the children.

Cute minature houses.

Donkeys and goats which you can feed carrots.

Enjoying a drink at one of the picnic tables

Lots of chickens and ducks which you can feed.

Trip to a real ZOO!!

Yesterday I took Mimi to Wingham Wildlife Park.  We last visited when Mimi was about 6 months old and I thought it was a bit ropey but since then the park has changed hands and has improved hugely.  They have peacocks and chickens which run wild around the park.  A lot of the enclosures have been designed so that you can walk through them and touch the animals.  They have got everything from penguins and flamingos to tigers, lions and snakes.  I felt that for a one off it was a bit pricey; for me and Mimi it would have been£20.00 (children 2-12 are £9.00!) so I decided to shell out for a years pass which was £58.00 that way I can pop in and out as and when we feel like it.  A few of our friends have passes and outside of school holidays its will make for a good coffee stop.  However if it has been raining I have now learnt that wellie boots are a good bet as it was seriously muddy in places.

One crazy baby ready for the zoo -
Luckily she decided to leave her crash helmet and glasses in the car!

Penguins at feeding time.

Mimi pretending to be a penguin.

The very cute prairie dogs which kept popping up
from their tunnels. 

Ever since going Mimi keeps telling everyone she went to a REAL Zoo!  She was funny when she walked past the lions - she said they were too scary and covered her eyes with Mr Doggie and proceeded to ask where the snakes were!!

  

A day at the Zoo

We thought that we would take advantage of the gorgeous weather and spend the afternoon at the Zoo.    

We went straight from music with my friend M and her two children.  I think a good time was had by all - what is even better is that because I used my Howletts passport I spent a total of 95p on an ice lolly!  Talk about good value for money!  The girls played beautifully together and were really cute.  I haven't really seen Mimi playing like that before although I am sure she does at playschool.
I can not believe how fab the weather has been today.  We had a picnic and it felt like T-shirt weather, the sun at this time of year is good for the girls, it is such a valuable source of vitamin D.  We had home-made jelly jam things (jam tarts) and cheese hearts which we made last night.  
I am on an economy drive (now that I have given up work I have to look willing!) so having gone to Sainsburys to buy packed lunch treats I decided that it was considerably cheaper and far more fun to make our own hence the home-made jam tarts, cheese straws and bread rolls.
My Howletts Passport runs out soon but I will definitely be renewing it.
    

1st down 100 to go.

One of my goals on my 101 list was to resign from my job.  You know when something isn't right and this Monday I handed in my notice.

1. Resign from my job.  Finish date February half term.

I am fairly nervous as it will mean that I will be skint, however sometimes you just need to put trust in fate and see where it takes you.  All I know is that I am not destined to be a Home Economics Teacher!!

What a bugger, we are sitting here waiting for our dinner when I went to check on it I have discovered that the dam cooker has decided to pack up 3 weeks before Christmas!!!  GREAT!  The nice bottle of wine we just brought as a Christmas Present is looking rather appealing!

Cooker aside I have completed some of my Christmas shopping and I have made two of my Christmas Cakes- good job I decided not to cook the other two this evening otherwise I would have been really hacked off.

This week I went out with my friend K for the day and we stopped in at Poinsettia Walk.  I would never have gone there if K hadn't suggested it.  It was a really random place.  They supply trade and have lots of green houses just full to brimming with Poinsettias.  I always thought that there were only Red Poinsettias, but they had different shades of Red, White ones, Pink ones, you name it they had it.

Here we go - the first round of winter bugs have arrived.  We came back from Venice two weeks ago to a poorly Mimi, which I caught then Mike caught (obviously this has turned into "man flu"), my Dad caught it then came down with another cold which has since been passed onto us and then last night I had a message from playschool to say that there is a sickness bug doing the rounds.  Great!!!  It is always at this time of the year that I develop the wonder lust - I was definitely designed for warmer sunnier climes.

Ooo if only I could go back in time! - Aitutaki Lagoon, Cook Islands
Aitutaki was part of our round the world trip 03-04

I feel washed out at the moment.  Work is stressing me out and I have tonnes to do, the house is a tip, there is washing every where and we all have colds.

I had to take cakes into work the other week because it was my birthday over half term.  I found this trick on pin-interest and decided to try it out.  I was quite pleased with them although the icing was a bit too warm.

Multi-coloured swirls.

I am also considering making Christmas Hampers for some people this year and thought I would have a trial run making a Dundee Cake and some Mince Pies - or as Mimi calls them Wince Pies.  Mince Pies were ok but I think I over cooked the Dundee Cake so its quite dry.  Maybe I should feed it with some Brandy.

However its not all been bad.  Mimi is being very cute - although I wish she would stop licking her chin as she has made it sore with a nasty sore rash.  If you had asked me yesterday it may have been a different story.  The potty training seems to be regressing.  She keeps hiding and doing number two's in her knickers.  This happened yesterday, I am trying to stay calm about it as I don't want it to become an issue which manifests itself into something more than it is.  However I struggled to keep it together yesterday and burst into tears.  I stood her up and pulled down her knickers but she decided she wanted to sit down so slid down me and landed on the floor, you can imagine the rest!  Her response was "don't worry, your daddy will be her soon"  "daddy will make it better".  Hence we all needed clean clothes.

She does not like going to playschool, she is like an octopus that clings to you and has to be peeled off however she comes out 3 hours later with a huge grin on her face, covered in paint, a fist full of paintings and proceeds to tell you what a nice time she has had.  I was sitting with her at lunch time today when she said to me "I was a naughty girl at playschool".  I asked her what she had done and apparently she had been told off for standing on her chair at lunch time. 

The other day I met a very old friend of mine and her little girl at the Ashford Outlet Centre for a couple of hours.  The two girls are so cute together, however because we meet their quite often and we both like a bargain both of the girls were dressed in almost identical clothes.  This time they got matching boots from Clarks.

Mimi & her little friend with their matching coats & umbrellas.

Yesterday morning we were going to take Mimi on the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Miniature Railway but its not running at the moment so instead we took her to Dover Castle.  The weather was beautiful.  It was lovely and warm and virtually no wind at all so we were able to go right to the top of the Great Tower without being blown away.

Mimi on the little land train which takes you around the Castle's grounds

Mimi decided to tell everyone very loudly on the train that Mummy & Daddy had both been to the toilet.  She then proceeded to tell them that she wasn't having a very nice time.  When I asked her if she wanted to go back another day she said No.

What has everyone else been up to?  Weather was great again today.  Mike went sailing first thing this morning then this afternoon we took a walk around the field.  Mimi (I wish I had taken a photo) decided that she would wear her bike helmet the wrong way round for the entirety of the walk.  Crazy baby!!!  I did try and remove it but she became fairly hysterical about it so we left her!

Well it has been almost a week since my last post, I am sure quite a bit has happened since last writing but a large chunk seems to have disappeared from my memory.

Work has been a real struggle so far this week, the joys of being a secondary school teacher!!!

Saturday we travelled up to see my sister via Bluewater (to buy a present) for my nephews first birthday. We visited this great garden centre which had lots of farm animals which Mimi just loved and a minature steam engine.  She wasn't so keen on the train and kept telling us that she likes the big bus with pa better than the train.  (My dad usually takes her on a double decker bus to the next town once a week).  Bless her she was really under the weather, I think she has got her molars coming through.

 After all of the excitement we went back to my sisters house for a lovely afternoon tea.  My sister put on a lovely spread.  We had sandwiches, crisps, and the most amazing cake.  A proper children's afternoon tea party.

Check out this cake.

Sunday the weather wasn't looking too good so instead of Mike going sailing we decided to pop over to Mama Feelgoods for coffee.

Mimi has become a bit feral.  When we are in the garden she keeps dropping her trousers and doing a wee on the grass.  Part of the problem with this is that although she squats she hasn't mastered the art of pushing her little bottom backwards and so keeps weeing in her shoes.  As you can imagine a small pair of baby converse filled with wee on a regular basis start to take on a nice odour.

Today we have had a bit of a lazy day, drinking coffee, I popped in to town for some new knitting needles and some wool and up to B&Q for some compost.  I think the weather is still looking good for tomorrow so hopefully we will be able to get out in to the garden.  Mimi can help me plant some onions.

3 weeks today we are off to Venice.  Yippeee I am very excited.  I wonder if my birthday present will arrive before we go?!?!  If the birthday fairies are listening I would quite like one of the new Kindles.

An action packed week.

This week has seen:

• Mimi's first week at pre-school
• My first full week back to work after the summer holidays
• The completion of our blackboard wall in the kitchen
• A trip to London on the train with Mimi
• Me spend WAY too much money on various things such as makeup, shoes, boots.  All necessary items.

This week Mimi started at the little pre-school in the village. She is going to go Monday and Friday mornings.  When I got home from work on Monday I asked her how playschool went and all she could say was "I cried, big tears, in my eyes".  Mike had to hang around for a while.  Each time he went towards the door she would apparently grab him.  However by Friday she seemed happier and came home with some pictures.

The lovely ladies from the group rang me to tell me that Mimi was ok and was playing with the playdoh.  However as a teacher at a secondary school where mobile phones are banned I found it difficult to speak to the nice lady on the end of the  phones as the kids were all shouting "Miss your'e not supposed to have phones in lessons".  

I was a little upset that I missed Mimi's first day at playschool. 

My first week back at work has already provided me with shed loads of marking, performance management, tracking and endless meetings.  Somewhere I am supposed to find time to plan my lessons!  Why is it when you work part time you end up working almost as hard as a full time member of staff but on less money?

My days have changed from Tues, Weds, Thurs to Mon, Tues, Fri.  I was a little bit unsure about these new days as I now no longer have a 4 day weekend, however I think I prefer the changes as I feel like I have a midweek weekend. 

We popped over for tea to Mikes parents in the week and Mimi was allowed to go up into their folly.  Don't you all just wish you grew up in a house with a folly.  I would have been in my element. 

Then on Friday evening we had my Mum, Dad and youngest brother up for dinner which was very pleasant and highly amusing.  Sometimes I wonder if a comedy should be made about some of the conversations that go on in my family. 

Amazingly the blackberries are still going so we popped out to collect some more and had blackberry and apple crumble with extra thick cream for desert. Yum!

A couple of weeks ago I was walking though our kitchen when I decided to do something about the wall of photos that were really starting to bug me.  Over time we have accumulated a large selection of photos which had been put upon the wall using Blue-Tack.  As most people know Blue-Tack either sticks forever and leaves a blue grease mark or it continuously looses it's stick.  This is what had happened with my photos, I was constantly re-sticking them and they were annoying me as all the edges had curved and looked generally messy.

BEFORE

I remembered that ages ago I had brought some magnetic black board paint for a project I was planning on doing at school.  A project that never materialised - hence the paint was still sitting on the shelf in the garage.

I carefully removed all of the photos and cleaned the wall, I then masking taped off the area and got to work with the paint.  It took 3 coats and several days to complete as I had to fit it in when Mimi was sleeping.

OUR LOVELY NEW BLACKBOARD WALL.

I am really pleased with the outcome, it has given us a great place to keep our shopping list which we can all add to as I was always writing one and loosing it and Mimi can draw on it.

So that we were able to add some of our favourite pictures and letters/notes I then made some groovy magnets using buttons.  Only problem is that the magnetics need to be quite strong as the magnetic strips I tried to make using washi tape wouldn't hold.  I got the idea for the Washi tape from How about an Orange. 

This weekend we decided to take Mimi on the train into London for the day.  

We had a fairly good day although I think that because we forget how busy it will be Mimi was confined to the buggy for most of the day so obviously she was getting fretful about it.  We also didn't really have a plan of action.  As adults it's not too traumatic wandering about but I hadn't really thought about the consequences of having a toddler in tow.  I have realised that London is not very child friendly.  I also had never realised how loud the tube is.  We wanted to go to Big Ben as Mimi is obsessed with clocks and the Big Ben at 6, but the weather didn't hold out and now I think about it I am not too sure why we didn't go and take a look.  We did however go to Harrods somewhere I have been meaning to go to for ages. 

On our way up to Picaddily Circus Mimi was excited to see the horses at Marble Arch

We then met my brother and his girlfriend for lunch and an afternoon of wandering around Covent Garden mainly taking in the sights of all the shoe shops much to Mikes annoyance although he wasn't going to say so.  

I brought some cool boots from Duo Boots who measure your calf so that the fit you.  This I find really exciting as I have seriously skinny legs (sorry) and I have never found pair to fit before.  They then post them out within 7 days.  Which is even better as I didn't have to carry them around town for the rest of the day.

When we got home Mimi did her first wee wee on the toilet.  Yippee!!!  Additionally when we were out yesterday I think Mimi is finally getting over the toilet phobia.  Yay I think we have sorted the potty training!!!  

  

New school year

This last week saw the return to school after the summer break.  It is amazing how quickly you fall back into the swing of things. In a relatively short space of time you feel like the holidays were a distant memory.

My days have changed so I now don't work on a Wednesday or a Thursday which in a way may be quite good as it will feel like we have two weekends.

Last Thursday we spent  the day at the Zoo with one of our friends and her children and then lunch at this great little place called Mama feelgoods.  We will definitely be going back soon.

Mimi Playing at the park in the Zoo

Friday I had to work until 2.30pm, Mike was really busy with work so Mimi spent the morning over at Mikes parents and I picked her up on the way home.  Isn't it typical we all go back to work and the sun comes out.  

RHDR - The worlds smallest public railway.

Yesterday we were planning on going on the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway but the weather was just so glorious we decided that was something we could do another time and instead went to the beach in the morning.

Then Mike took part in a sailing race which went from the sailing club up to the  Quay in Sandwich.  So we went over in the car to watch him come up the river.

Whilst we were out I experienced my first awfully embarrassing toddler statement.  As we were walking along the tow path towards the park we passed a coloured man, to which Mimi said "Chocolate man" and pointed.  I was just so embarrassed.  I don't think he heard and if he did he didn't turn around.  What do you do in situations like this?

When Mike came in off the water we loaded the boat onto the roof of the car and then I went for a drink with my friend.  We ended up popping into town and having a few more glasses of wine and a lovely Thai meal before walking home in the rain.

Drinks on a lovely calm evening overlooking the pier.