Foraged Fruit Crumble

I know some of you will scorn, either because you think this should have happened ages ago, or because you think it's maybe a bit minging, but for me this is very, very exciting.

Yesterday the boys and I went to the park with a friend, M and her two girls to feed the ducks and have a play.

While the children were investigating the edge of a field, one of them came rushing back to us proudly clutching a berry.

I was immediately excited simply because it wasn't one the those red/orange things that usually get squished into my car seats.

So the grown ups (me included) went to check them out. We found a tree bursting with sloe berries. Thankfully, because we'd been feeding the ducks using a bag of chicken food my excellent friend had so thoughtfully brought with her, we had an empty carrier bag. So the four kids helped us collect sloe berries as well as some elderberries M had noticed and we filled our bag. My boys were so excited, so proud of themselves bless 'em.

So we rushed back to M's house to make a fruit crumble using the berries we'd collected and some apple & pears from her garden.

I have to be honest, I wasn't very brave when M was picking the bugs out as we washed the fruit. I can't stand earwigs, they freak me out, so watching her let them crawl all over her hands as she collecting them from the fruity water made me squeal like a big girl.

Anyhoo, I bravely de-stalked the fruit as M made the crumble. I like the way M didn't faff with the fruit to make the crumble, she just threw it all in a pan, sprinkled some sugar over, then covered the lot in crumble mix and baked it for an hour.

Man, it was tasty. Especially because it was gluten free, so I could eat it without falling asleep yay!

I could eat crumble all day.

I took a massive bowl full of berries home with me and spent today boiling it down and blitzing it in the juicer. It turned into this rich, thick syrup. I froze it in ice cube trays for adding to fruit smoothies  and the like. Since there was so much juicy pulp left over, I put it back into the pan with some hot water and some sugar, boiled it, then sieved it & added it to gin.

I tested that earlier, and it's a little too feisty to drink over ice, so maybe I'll add more sugar or berries or both. I'll decide later.

Looking forward to throwing some of those fruity ice cubes into a shake in the future....

Silent Sunday

Don't Panic. It's only Facebook.

I am constantly being driven mad (but not driven away it seems) by the shit people post on Facebook.

The constant;

For crying out loud. The fact they are always so unbelievably easy tells me one thing.
Information sharing spam.

The incessant 'police' warnings making women feel unsafe going to the frickin store (that's a rather in depth rant that I'll not get into here, but it had to be mentioned).

The candy crush invites....

These;

Whatever your beliefs might be, the idea that angels or god or whatever is 'challenging' you through Facebook is absurd. I think this shit is nasty for so many reasons. In my humble opinion it is false hope giving lies. This comes from a place of love and care, but if your life is so broken, only you can fix it.

I hate all 'like'/'share'/'ignore' memes. Full stop. Especially the ones that use photos of really poorly children....grrrrrr.

I'm also annoyed by the fact that every other day there is a new 'missing person/dog' spread on Facebook. I usually google them, if I have a moment. The reason I've never shared one is because they have almost always been found. Of course I understand how useful social networking sites can be for sharing information quickly, but it's a useless tool if people become blasé about seeing these things presuming them to be bullshit. If we checked them before we shared them, it would be a far more powerful weapon.

So anyway, now this;

Now we're all terrified of six legged spiders??

Cue the back story which has made me write this today.

Yesterday my boys were playing with a spider, which by the time I caught them and recommended they put it in the bug collector so they could look at it, only had six legs. I presumed they had managed to pull in the off in the unmentionable game they were playing with it before I came to the rescue. But when I saw this on a friend's page, I began googling, fearful that they had in fact been playing with something quite dangerous.

Now I'm going to have to say it.

I didn't want to. 

I didn't want to be a bitch. 

But people, will you please, before you put something on your FB wall, will you please google it? 

Find out for yourself if it's true or not.

This is what I found, after months of being annoyed by the whole 'sudden influx of 10,000,000,000 deadly spiders in the U.K.' thing.

Google was mostly full of cheap newspaper articles about deadly spider bites, but there was also some real information about the species.

Interestingly, this spider the noble false widow, has been in the UK since it came in on some bananas in 1870. 
So no sudden influx. 
Just an increase in numbers and a movement north as our climate became warmer.

Also, it turns out it's not so deadly, since no one as actually died. Ever.

Warning, don't watch this video if your stomach turns at the crawling of a spider over a persons hand. Mine does. I held it in because my boys were watching and I'm trying to be brave.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/false-widows--it-s-probably-a-false-alarm-152131532.html

I learnt a fantastic new fact today. There are 670 species of spider in Britain (blurgh), but only 12 of these are capable of biting a human (yay!).

So, I think we should try to be more responsible about what we throw onto our timelines, and not just click it without thinking.

And let's try not stress people. 

Relax.

Even if you've seen it on Facebook, doesn't mean it's true :)

Life is Better with a Dog

Every Sunday, we go to my Mum's for dinner and a play.

Mum has two big dogs, one of which she has had for years, but the Husky is a new addition to the family.

I came away last Sunday feeling really, really lucky that we have these marvellous creatures in our lives.

I am thrilled to bits to see how well she has settled in and how well she treats my boys.

She's only a young dog at no more than a year old (she's a rescue and no-one is sure how old she is), so she's full of beans and feist, but once again Mum has managed to find a dog who can put up with small children.

Bean in particular loves all creatures great and small. He's a cuddler, which often means typical four year old type strangulation and 'over-loving'. He'll learn in time to be more gentle, but for now I'm just grateful we have dogs that won't give him the nip he probably deserves.

This is Bean snuggling with Cassie. The most marvellous thing I've noticed about Huskies is the love of snuggles.

This is the boys trying to make the dogs sit for a treat. It's difficult with two kids who are learning how to speak to a dog and two dogs who are the same size as said children...

Bean and Cassie a few weeks after she moved in.

This is our lovely little Milly.

Our lives are so enriched by these dogs.

It's hard to put it into words without getting a bit too soppy.

It's clear, not matter what kind of dog you have whether it's a handbag dog, or a great big horse of a thing, it makes your life better. However crap my day has been, spending a few milliseconds giving Milly a little chin scratch cheers up right up. A sofa cuddle with a blanket and a Milly puts me in a better mood than a whole tub of Ben & Jerry's (the lack of eater's guilt obviously helps too haha). In fact, nowadays, even though it doesn't happen very often, if I ever throw a blanket over myself while I'm sat on the sofa, Milly knows her place and joins me immediately.

It's these moments that I forget what's been chewed....

This is Ed when he was a bit poorly. She always seems to know who's feeling pants and loiters until she's invited for a snuggle. Although I think on this occasion cheeky Milly is simply enjoying the opportunity to lay on someone's pillow...she does not like cold floors haha. I'm sure she's not alone in this, but if there is ever anything fabric or cosy on the floor, she'll be asleep on it before you can blink.

Milly playing in the snow last winter.

My Miley Rant

It's time.

It was guaranteed to happen eventually.

Here is my Miley Cyrus rant.

I've watched from afar.

My formative years weren't spent with pop music.

Mummy brought us up on Madonna, Meatloaf and the occasional classical music CD. Actually thinking back, it was mostly 80's rock. When it became my choice as to what tape to put in, it was usually Bon Jovi or Bryan Adams, which somehow led me to Metallica and other rock music. I spent my late teens surrounded by metal.

So I am not in the pop scene. I've only a vague idea of who's who.

I see snippets thanks to X factor, YouTube and Facebook but I don't usually like what I see (still watch X factor though, car crash telly at it's best).

But there are two things that make me mad. Rihanna & Miley.

Dirty bitches. That's the first phrase to come to mind.

But those bitches can siiiiiiiiing.

It's a crying shame.

It makes me glad I don't have daughters.

And I hope that my boys will grow up to become men who turn away when a chick lifts her skirt for anything less than mutual love behind closed doors.

Oh god, I sound like a prude. I am so not. But dude, that doesn't need to be on my TV.

I do not need to see Miley's ass crack. Ever.

I'm happy to hear the girl sing, but I don't need to see her tits.

I YouTubed Miley's VMA performance after everyone ranted about it the day after.
Then I watched the 'we cant stop' & the 'wrecking ball' video so I could form my own opinion.

Wow.

The first thing that popped into my mind when this shot came up was what I'd look like in this pose....how did she manage to contain those tiny nipples? Mine would be round my neck hahaha.

On a more serious note, I did notice the similarity between the crying scenes & Sinead O'Conners video & I personally thought it a cheap shot at adding 'depth' to the vapid, shallow, nastiness that is that video.

I love that Sinead o'Conner stuck up for what it right & true. It's so predictable that Miley responded with that immature twittering.

My baby sister used to watch Hannah Montana, so obviously I've ended up watching a few episodes & I'm vaguely familiar with her on screen/off screen Daddy. 
Man, I feel sorry for Billy.

role model? really?

I think these days, artists really do need to understand the importance of being a good role model, and that this is not OK. By all means, enjoy your youth, go out and party. But it's not OK to brag about your need for chemical help to enjoy yourself, it's not OK to take your clothes off in public, it's not OK to encourage little girls to look like little boys in that awfully gangly, anorexic way. And it's definitely not OK to prostitute yourself and lessen your actual talent. Please excuse my bluntness, but I believe humans are so much more than 'where I can shove that in'.
I find her claim that she shaved her head, inspired by Sinead, to gain a little control over her image disturbing (obviously I think people can do what they like with their hair/bodies, but in this context, it seems an odd thing to do).

"I just cut my hair and then it really changed my life. There’s something about having no hair that screams being confident. And I think especially because people like to put people in a box — I mean, the names I’ve been called since I cut my hair......I’m at a point where it’s like I know who I am, but I know that I’m not finished figuring that out and I won’t be finished until I’m in the dirt.'   taken from; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2442749/Miley-Cyrus-simulates-sex-Terry-Richardson-shoot-swipes-Sinead-OConnor.html
Let's hope that in time, she delves a little deeper and finds herself some actual self esteem.