Shopping # The Range

Today with the weather being so pants I decided we would take a trip over to our nearest Range.  I have NEVER seen a shop which managed to cram such a large amount of unnecessary (but necessary at the same time) stuff into it.  It reminded me of Walmart or Big W.  As soon as I walked in my mind went totally blank and I could not for the life of me remember what I had gone in for.  They had everything from soft furnishings to camping equipment.  I did however pick up a new washing basket and peg bag both things that I have been meaning to replace for a while in the end I managed to spend £30 on "unnecessary" stuff!

Mimi had a lovely time checking out all the stuff.  They had a craft bench where children could draw and colour in which I thought was great idea.

Taking it easy watching the world go by.

Ooooo WE SO wanted this peppa pig chair!!

Bargains

GAP:  Red Heart Leggings £3.20; Stripy Top £5.97;
Skirt £3.97; Grey Leggings with Puff Skirt £3.99; 

Earlier this week we met my friend J and her little girl I for lunch and a spot of shopping.  J is heavily pregnant with No2 and both girls played up in typical toddler style!  Mimi managed to destroy the window display in the "orange shop" or in adult language Ted Baker.  (However she is quite right the lights in Ted Baker are Orange!)  

We lunched at the newly opened but hugely popular Pizza Express, which is great as they are fairly child friendly and even better they quite often run offers on Money Saving Expert and you can exchange your Tesco Vouchers.  We both love shopping at the Ashford Outlet as there are always bargains to be found for the girls especially in GAP.  Only problem is the girls often end up looking like twins wearing matching outfits.  

Finally here comes winter!!!

I think that February is going to be payback for our recent exceptionally warm weather.  Early January I walked home from town with just my body warmer and a light weight jumper, now our house is so blimming chilly I am contemplating sleeping in my body warmer.

However I do love the snow and it was great to watch Mimi playing in it.  She was very cute, when she went out the front door she kept saying "Crazy", "This is really Crazy", "Help me help me I'm really stuck".  Bless some of the snow drifts up here were up to her waist.

Yesterday was the first time in a week that the temperature has risen above freezing however the wind chill makes it feel considerably colder.  Between us and France is the English Channel the beach and a field so when the wind blows from the East or North East it howls in.  Our kitchen is currently about 11 degrees.  Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

All this snow is great but with it being so cold outside for little ones means that you have to think of indoor entertainment.

So we made "Pink" (our favourite colour at the moment) butterfly cakes. 

Then we made a cardboard monster and guess what??
We painted it "Pink"!

Our obsession with dresses and tights continues and is continuing to stress me out especially when the weather is so cold.  I took Mimi to have her feet measured yesterday for new slippers and ended up buying slippers and shoes.  We ended up choosing the most hideous coloured pair of Kicker Boots ever.  We have had Kicker Boots before and they were great, so its not the choice of shoe just the colour.  The thing was they were in the sale (probably for good reason) however for little feet you just want something warm and waterproof.  Slippers were much easier as there was a limited choice but we decided to go for a lovely pair of pink flowery ones by Startrite.  We have had a pair before and I having tried others I have concluded that the little Startrite ones are good value for money.  They have a firm sole with tread which means if they go outside its not the end of the world and much more importantly they have support around the heel to prevent them from walking on the side of their foot.

New Slippers - Guess What?
They are Pink!

    

New Shoes - Check out those cool colour!!!

At least they go with the dress.
Jury's out on leggings and socks!

 Yippeee I have one day left at work.  For the first time ever I am hoping that we don't get more snow tonight as we are planning on going out tomorrow night for a few drinks and I would quite like the school to be open.


 

What a busy day - Music, Shopping, Baking!

We have had a busy few days.  Music started again today after the Christmas break, it really is hard to think that Christmas was only a matter of weeks ago, it truly feels like months!!! 

We took George Bear with us.  This week we learnt how to play the guitar.

We had an exhausting trip around Sainsbury's.  People were looking at me as if I was some crazed woman.  Mimi was being a horror.  It started when I tried to get her out of the car she told me she wasn't coming and wanted to wait in the car, she refused to sit in the trolley seat so against my better judgement I let her sit in the trolley however she took this to mean that she could stamp on everything that went into the trolley, after a while when my blueberries got stamped on I got really hacked off with this and tried to make her sit in the seat.  This resulted in her screaming the shop down and a complete melt down.  So in a moment of madness I marched her to the large mat just inside the front door of Sainsbury's and made her do her time on the naughty mat.  It did the trick and the remainder of the trip round Sainsbury's went relatively incident free.  I think I am going to have to go shopping without her for a while as I don't know if my nerves can take it.  Just recounting the story now is making me want to have a glass of wine!  You know what its like, you only have 30mins left on the car, you only need a couple of things and you think the shops wont be too busy but they are always filled with old women with walking sticks who seem to follow you round the whole store giving you "The Glare".

Having finally got our shopping we made it home in one piece.  After both of us having a well needed afternoon nap I decided that we would bake some biscuits.  We looked through the books and Mimi chose to make these Chocolate Wheaten Biscuits.

This is what they should have looked like!
Ours didn't look too much like these.

But we had fun making them.
The only problem was Mimi eating more than we cooked.
I caught her licking one of the chocolate drops which she then put on top of the biscuit to be baked!  Yum!

We made Annabel Karmels chicken curry for tea but Mimi wasn't too keen on it.  I think I might have added a bit too much Korma paste for her.  But she did get what she said was the best pudding ever!!!

The "Best Pudding" ever.
Ice Cream, Smarties, Sprinkles and Toffee Sauce.

Somehow before bed she managed to hurt her nose.  I am not quite too sure how she managed it but she poked herself up the nose with an alice band (you know the headbands which are made from plastic).  Bless it must have really hurt.

Work tomorrow, but only four weeks left!!!  It looks like we might get a child free evening on Saturday.  We have been invited to a party and I think that we are going to leave Mimi at my Mums for the night.  

  

 

One lovely new pair of shoes......................................
One lovely new pair of shoes which are now soaking wet and smelling of wee wee!  GREAT!!!

Today we have spent another beautiful day in the garden running between the house and the garden.  Who can believe that we have got such glorious weather so late in September?!
I do truly believe that this is the calm before the storm and that this winter will be another harsh one.  Only this morning at music one of the ladies was telling us that someone she knows has got the long range fishing forecast and they reckon that late October early November will be bitterly cold.  Somehow they can tell what the weather will be doing based on the fish.  Only time will tell, however at the moment it seems a little unbelievable that potentially we could be plunged into the middle of winter in under a month!

What did we see in the garden today?

I think that this is a solitary bee.

Blackberries.  They are still going but are nearing the end of the season.

Ewwww check this whopper out.  A common UK earwig.

A giant spiders web.

Mimi trying to tell the time with a dandelion.

Mimi taking tea in the garden.

We also found some Beech Tree nut shells and saw a very tame little bird in the shrubs which I am struggling to identify.  I originally thought it may have been a tree sparrow but the colours were wrong.  I think it may have been a Dunnock.  Anyway it was very cute and Mimi was very impressed with her find.

A Dunnock

If I am totally honest I am really struggling at work at the moment.  So to keep my spirits up I have been plugging away on a number of little projects.  One of which is my beautiful quilt for Mimi's bed.  I am so proud of my progress.

First panel completed

This is what the end result should look like

Pattern came from Material Obsession

In amongst all of the chaos we also managed to pop to the shops to pick a few bits up and a pocket money visit to Poundland where Mimi got a Peppa Pig Recorder (Not sure what I was thinking off when I brought this!) and some ladybird wings.  One very happy buzzy bee!!!

Bargain of the week.

Yesterday Mimi and I met up with one of my oldest friends and her little girl.  We went to the Tented Village in Ashford.  This is a retail outlet centre.  It is usually full of a load of old rubbish, however it is a great place to pick up good stuff for Mimi.  And this trip was no exception.

This week right up until the 26th Gap have a 30% off voucher which you just need to print off from their website. This combined with their standard discount meant that I managed to get a whopping 55% off a beautiful coat and a bundle of other bits and bobs for Mimi.  The coat went from £32.00 down to less than £15 - What a bargain!!!!

Mimi trying out her new clothes at the Tented Village.

Every Thursday we go to music for an hour in one of the outlying villages.  Mimi loves it and comes home singing all of her little songs.  Its really quite cute.  We all sit in a big circle and join in.  The class isn't very big - probably about 6-10 children and it is quite structured.  We sing a few songs, learn about a different musical instrument each week which we all get to try and then we finish with sleeping bunnies which seems to be a favourite.

This afternoon Mimi spent some of her time painting with some water colours I had forgotten I had.  She was sitting quite happily in the high chair in the kitchen whilst I was cooking the tea.  I was turned for about a min and when I looked back she had tried to paint herself as a tiger.

I think we will go and get some proper face paints at the weekend.

 She then proceeded to sit Mr Doggy at the table and feed him some of the rabbits lettuce in an upturned Frisbee.

CUTE.

We have also taken to dressing up all the time and pretending to be a princess.  She is becoming quite obsessed with it.

Check out this crazy baby.

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!!!  

  

Where has the summer gone?

Yesterday we woke up to shining sun and a beautiful clear blue sky.  Having checked the weather forecast I decided that Monday was the day to spend in the garden catching up with my weeding and potting the fab terracotta planters Mike managed to pick up on ebay.  A steal at £10 for the three.

Unfortunately things didn't go to plan.  We set off early to Tesco & B&Q to pick up a few bits a bag of compost and some plants.  When we went into Tesco the sun was still shining by the time we came out 20mins later the sun had all but disappeared.  By the time we got home it was raining.  Our plants are still sitting on the table outside well watered and waiting to be planted.

So instead of spending time in the garden Mimi helped me with some baking.  We made a great Coffee & Walnut Cake using the Nigel Slater recipe I found on the internet.

We haven't faired much better with the weather today either.  We had originally planned to go into London with Mike.  Mike had a meeting and we were going to meet him afterwards.  I really want to take Mimi on a train as she hasn't been on one before.  I also want to go and see the Miro exhibition at the Tate Modern before it finishes in September.  The Miro exhibition is the first one in the UK for 50 years. 

                                       

Needless to say having looked at the torrential rain that was forecast and the fact that I would have a toddler and a buggy in London I decided we would try and go another day and instead we went to Bluewater with Kate.  We didn't buy very much and the journey was pretty horrid with all of the spray on the road.  I did however managed to get some concealer and an eye liner from Space NK.  I really like Space NK but our nearest store outside of London is Bluewater.  I know you can order online, but unless you know exactly what you want it is difficult to see the correct colours on a computer.

1. Terry Touch-Expert Advanced Multi-Corrective Concealer Brush
2. Laura Mercier Tightline Cake Eye Liner 

Mimi had fun jumping around in Hobbs.  I am not sure that I will be taking her to Bluewater again any-time soon. 

We had a lovely lunch at Leon.

We had the Chicken Curry, Falafel Lunch Box and Hummus and Flat Bread.  I was introduced by one of my really good friends from work and it quickly became one of my favourite places to eat.  They have also produced the most amazing cookbook.  Not only does it have some great in-store recipes but it is beautifully designed.

Finally we have Mimi modelling her new "Cat" PJ's from John Lewis.

Now for something I meant to show you the other day but totally forgot.  Check out these wild Poppies I found on the beach at the weekend.