Good Friday Quicktakes

1. Much as I adore shooting the breeze here with you, my lovelies, today I don't have much time so I gotta be quick. To start with, the kids are all off school and are high on Easter excitement and thoughts of Easter Sunday's impending chocfest. I've discovered several of the boys just gazing at their impressive stash of eggs with a certain far away look in their eyes-clearly lost in a reverie of unadulterated gluttony. Neil Young must surely have been thinking of Lenten promises when he sang ' Good times are coming, but they're sure coming slow.'

2. Speaking of which, I've been less than exemplar in regards to my own Lenten challenges. One by one they fell by the wayside, EXCEPT my self imposed Facebook ban, which truthfully, was the toughest of the lot for a l'il ol' social network queen like myself!
What can I say? The first week was the worst - I HATED being out of the loop- I mean, I'm still on Twitter obvs, (Sure, the Pope himself is on there!), but it's just not the same. After that tricky first week though, I got used to it and I'm glad that I did it...but no, I' won't be doing an about turn, and preaching on about how I now appreciate real life conversations and the old fashioned telephone so much more, because I don't. Truth is, I probably went on Ebay a bit too much, texted friends a good bit more, and now and again, peered over Loverboy's shoulder when he was on FB, but that's about it. Yes indeed, you can all relax now, because I'll be back again on Sunday with bells on, clogging up your news feed and generally making a nuisance of myself. (I can hear your groans from here!)

3. We're off to the caravilla for the Easter break. Now, I don't know how long we'll stay (possibly only a few hours if its REALLY Baltic), but its the first trip of the season, and that means MAJOR packing. Here's what our sunroom looks like right now AND I'm only halfway through, which is precisely why I'm dilly dallying around here chatting with you.
The real bummer is that even when the car and trailer are packed to the neck, and we set off like Duffy's Circus, the work's only half done. When we arrive, there's the caravilla to be cleaned, the unloading and unpacking to be done AND it'll be feeding time at the zoo again too.
As tempting as that sounds, I've a good mind to load them all up and quietly sneak back into the house- with a bit of luck,  they won't even notice I'm missing until they're over the border and I'm half through a bottle of Oyster Bay and the second series of Dallas.... a girl can dream!

4. Assuming that won't come to pass, I'm packing plenty of books, magazines, a 1000 piece jigsaw and the entire first series of 'The Killing' to bring up with me. Oh, and of course, wine, chocolate and ...my knitting. Or more accurately, my beautiful jewel coloured, Cath Kidston wool, with the metallic red knitting needles, (who knew!), presented in a beautiful 'book' tin.  Unfortunately, there's no actual knitting in there though,'cos I can't actually work out how to 'cast on'. I tried last Saturday night (party on, dude!) and despite reading the 'Knitting for DumbAsses' booklet from cover to cover, and desperately, SOS ing  Mr Google, I simply couldn't do it.After about an hour of trying, the terrible truth dawned- my horrible HE teacher was right all those years ago -I DO have special needs. (Specifically, 'senile' was her word of choice.)
I looked so forlorn that even Loverboy felt sorry for me, so HE asked Mr Google, and even with half a bottle of Cab Sauv in him, managed to cast on and was smugly clickity clacking away within minutes. Ouch! So, last chance saloon, I'm taking it with me to the caravilla, giving it one more go and THATS IT. Maybe I'm just not a knitter? Alternatively, I may start up my own Stitch 'n' Bitch , cos even though I might not be too good at the first bit, I flippin' excel at the other...even if I do say so myself.

5. Finally petals, I just wanted to say thank you for all the votes over the last weeks in the MADS. It's all done and dusted now until the Awards in Septemeber, and don't I have a wee trip to London to look forward to now, thanks to y'all. So, win or lose, thanks to you, I'm feelin' the love.
 Oh, and a very Happy Easter too- whatever you get up to, may chocolate play a major role.(Easter wishes don't come much better than that now, do they!)

6. Finally finally, I'm renaming Luke's 'Boogie in the Car Seat' to 'Booster Seat Boogie', (on account of him reaching this vehicular milestone). Now, I know I've gone a bit 80s on you the last few weeks, and to prove  I was waaaay cooler than that, I was all set to treat you to David Guetta's 'Titanium' (which incidentally I love walking to!)... but then this came on the radio and I was lost-it used to literally gives me goose bumps back in the day. Turns out, I'm not remotely cool after all....but you knew that. Enjoy-you can thank me later. Happy Easter peeps xxx

Just call me Martha!

After our decadent weekend in the fancy schmancy hotel, THIS weekend was it's polar opposite. The yin to last week's yang, if you like. Actually, now I think about it, polar just about nails the weather - I mean snow, FFS? It's almost Easter!! It's just so wrong AND we're supposed to be caravilla bound in a few days. Although looking outside now I feel quite faint just thinking about it...and not in a good 'Can't wait for the holidays' kinda way, a 'What the hell was I thinking? Is there any way out of it?' sorta way. Yikes!

 Anyway where was I? Ah yes, the weekend. Well, I channeled a smidgen of Martha Stewart with a pinch of Mary Berry, and I before I knew it I was rustling up chicken broccoli bakes (one for dinner, one for the freezer), vegetable soup AND the piece de resistance -my very first lemon drizzle cake. Who's the mammy!? If I'd had The Archers on, the transformation would have been complete.

To be fair though, this time it WASN'T Lady Mary who inspired me to dust off my Kenwood, it was in fact my fellow blogger Sarah Miles, who writes the fabulous blog Hello Wall, and if that wasn't enough, she pens the award winning foodie blog 'What would Nigella do?' as well. (Honestly, some people! If I didn't love her, I'd hate her.)

Despite the fact that it wasn't Lady Mary's recipe for Lemon Drizzle Cake, (it's her Bake Off chum Paul Hollywood's), she made it look so easy and the pictures were so yummy that I was dying to give it a whirl. Also, it just so happens that the Mothership is very partial to a slice of lemon cake, so I made two - one for us, and one for Herself-and they were both hoovered up in no time at all- okay, mostly by my greedy offspring, but even so.

Tah-dah!

Now, before you examine MY less than stellar pictures, and then compare them unfavourably to Sarah's (I KNOW you're going to-don't deny it), I've a couple of disclaimers. First of all, I'd no actual real life lemon, waxed or otherwise, on the premises, and it was so Baltic outside there was NO WAY I was going out specially, so I just used lemon juice instead. And hey, there's lemon curd in there too, so I reasoned, what's a bit of lemon zest between friends?
Secondly, I baked them in too big a tin- which means they look as if they'd been sat on but they hadn't....not on my watch anyway. (Note to self- you clearly CAN'T gauge the tin size just by looking, so just bloody measure it.)

Later on that evening, carried away with all this domestication, and heady with my baking success (yes I AM deeming it that), I cracked open the Villa Maria and my new Cath Kidston knitting set.....but tragically that all ended in  tears.... but there's another story for another day.
Happy Monday peeps and chin up, Lents nearly over, Emma  xxx

PS Final Call!!! Tomorrow is the very last day that you can vote in the MAD Blog Awards 2013- I'm a finalist in the Family Life category and I'm shamelessly hoping you'll consider taking a wee minute and voting for me- I'd be so grateful. (If you have already-thank you so much!)


PPS-I've joined up with Sarah Miles at Hello Wall today-go on over and take a peek at the rest! 

Getting Down to the Knitty Gritty..

I've always been rubbish at sewing and knitting. As in really, really  bad, totally dreadful, worst in the class. I think that I'm missing that gene- my Granny could  'run up ' a pair of curtains in an afternoon and always had her bag of knitting at hand. I think she despaired of me, and, on reflection, it's really quite possible she quietly blamed my mum who isn't exactly gifted in that area herself.

My first memories of struggling were aged about eight or nine in primary school. Last thing on Thursday afternoons, the boys did football - we could see them playing outside in the playground-whilst we learned how to knit. (Clearly it was important to get those gender roles entrenched good and early!)

We'd done the whole 'in the wee bunny hole, round the big tree...' thing for a good bit, and while I'd noticed that my knitting was a bit straggly and grubby looking compared to the perfect neat rows around me, it was only when the others graduated to gloves (using plain  AND purl stitch in multicoloured wools), and I was instructed to make a plain stitch sorry looking teddy bear with a square head, that I realized I was 'special'. Luckily for me, my mate Aislinn was a knitting prodigy, and she patiently picked up my dropped stitches, showing me how to 'cast on' when the teacher turned her back.

Things didn't improve in Home Economics class in secondary school. Rows of my untidy sewing had to be ripped out over and over,  and once after an entire afternoon working on my 'dress' ( a shapeless blue bag with a hole for the head,  I stood up to go and realized I'd sewed the stupid thing to my school skirt.
The following year brought the thrill of making a babydoll nightie with  matching knickers, (Inappropriate, anyone?), but unfortunately the knicker elastic was so tight, that the one time I wore it my legs gradually turned purple as they cut the circulation off.

Sewing machines were hellish too- I just couldn't seem to work out the complexities of threading it, or the  bobbin's purpose, and yet again friends stepped in to help when the HE teacher turned her back. I remember one time she stubbornly refused to disappear into the sewing room for a sneaky fag, so in desperation I had to thread it myself, but when I eventually put my foot on the accelerator, ( or whatever it's called). amidst all the gentle whirring around me, my machine up started up like a tractor. Unsurprisingly, after that little episode, she lost it a bit and told me I was senile.

Needless to say, I dropped the hideous subject as soon as I could, and apart from the unavoidable necessities of replacing buttons and hemming school trousers, I haven't lifted a needle of any type since......until now. It's taken me almost 30 years but my scars have healed and I think I'm ready to dip my toe in again. Several friends have often told me how relaxing knitting is, others swear by it as a weight loss aid (apparently it keeps greedy hands out of the biscuit barrel!), and then when I read that Julia Roberts whips out her knitting between film takes I thought, 'well, if its good enough for Erin Brockovitch, its good enough for me!'

So I did a bit of searching online and found me a starter kit by Cath Kidston. Check it out, laydees- never mind the gorgeous wool inside- I fell in love with the 'fake book' tin! No manky old plastic bags down the back of the sofa for my knitting, thanks very much! And mark my words, before 2013 is out yours truly will not only be *ambistitcherous*, but I'll also be sporting  my very own Cath Kidson scarf! (Yes, I know it's ages but I'm giving myself PLENTY of time!)

(* ambistitcherous-Check me out getting the lingo down already! And no, I didn't make it up-it actually means being able to knit in two different styles....dontcha just love it!)



I've joined up with Sarah Miles at Hello Wall today-go on over and take a peek at the rest!