When I was little...

...apparently my grandmother told my mum that I was "her comeuppance".

I suspect that this wee thing may be mine.

I had my anomaly scan on the 7th of February, and got to see lots of a very cute wiggly baby. Lovely close-up view of its mouth and nose (while the sonographer was doing the cleft palate checks), and watching it trying to grab at its feet was very sweet.

But since it was in a breech position, spine to my spine, and very low in my pelvis, the sonographer was unable to get a good shot of the length of its spine and its coccyx. After all the angles I'd been holding myself at in order to try to get a clear shot, it also was no longer in a great position for photographs so we decided not to get any taken.

My second anomaly scan was yesterday, and this time the obliging little bugger was lying head to my left, feet to my right and lying on its stomach.

Perfect spinal viewing. The final check shot took seconds to get.

Then the fun of trying to spot the sex and get a decent picture started.

Thanks to the umbilical cord running down between its legs, and it helpfully squashing the cord against itself while doing a can-can high kick, the sonographer made a guess as to the sex, but couldn't tell for sure.

As for the pictures, the first one was obtained by me rolling onto my left and the sonographer getting a quick screengrab before the little bugger rolled back over. In fact she got it just as it was rolling, hence the slightly strange head! The second shot is a blurry one that she captured just in case - which was a good job as baby really didn't want to pose.

I've got another scan at the beginning of April, when I also have my first Anti-d shot, so hopefully baba will want to pose and let us know if we need to keep on trying to choose a girls name!

Remember...

...this post about the amazingly gorgeous illustrations that tanaudel is doing for The Dalek Game?



Well when I woke up this morning and discovered Neil Gaiman had been tweeting about it, I might have had a little bit of a squee.

Oh yes indeedy.

Check out the hashtag #dalekbooks. I'm in love with this tweet from daibhidc.

Miss you...

...dad.












I hope if there's an afterlife, that they pull a decent pint or three there.
I hope if there isn't an afterlife, that your component atoms have relocated themselves to suitable pints of beer. :-)

Nico and Michael...

...and a little healthy competition.



Reminded me of this one, only ever seen on tv once after a little incident at Spa 2007.

PAD Week 4...

...23/01/11 to 29/01/11.

The Archers at 60 - BBC audio slideshow

This recipe is for...

...the "Northern cupcake fairy".

Oh yes indeed.

Recipe taken straight from the book, notes by me in italics

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream icing from the Primrose Bakery.



Cupcakes

(makes 16 regular/48 mini cupcakes) I can get 20 regular ones out of this usually

• 115g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
• 85g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 175g soft brown sugar
• 2 large eggs (preferably free-range or organic), separated
• 185g plain flour, sifted
• ¾ of a teaspoon of baking powder
• ¾ of a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• Pinch of salt
• 250ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon good quality vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170°C (fan) / 190°C / 375°F / gas mark 5. Put your cupcake cases into the cupcake tins.

Melt the chocolate. You can either use a microwave (30 secs on medium power, stir then repeat) or melt it in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. I use the water method because I've burnt chocolate far too many times in the microwave.

Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale and smooth. This should take about 3-5 minutes with an electric mixer. I actually do this by hand with a trusty wooden spoon as with a mixer I tend to coat the room with bits of mixture.

Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl for several minutes. I use the electric mixer for this instead as you need clean beaters and otherwise I have to stop and wash up!
Slowly add the egg yolks to the creamed mixture and beat well. Then add the melted chocolate and beat well.

Combine the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and salt in a separate bowl. Put the milk into a jug and add the vanilla extract.
Add a third of the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture and beat well. Then add a third of the milk and beat well. Repeat until all combined. This is the point where I call Anthony to come and wash up the bowl that had the flour in it so I can use it for the icing.

In a clean bowl whisk the egg whites until soft peaks start to form. Then carefully fold the egg whites into the batter using a metal spoon.

Fill the cupcake cases about two-thirds full. The batter may be very runny so you may need to put it into a jug to make this easier. I haven't needed to do this, but then I haven't baked for years so the batter didn't seem that runny to me.

Bake for 20-22 minutes (15 minutes for mini-size). Remove from oven and cool in the tins for 10 minutes before putting them on a wire rack or breadboard to finish cooling.

While the cakes are baking, I make the icing!

Icing

(makes enough to ice 15-20 regular or 60 mini cupcakes) Yes, you get more icing than cupcakes but it's all good. Mine goes in a plastic tub in the fridge to eat later ;-)

• 175g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
• 225g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon semi-skimmed milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 250g icing sugar, sifted

Melt the chocolate as before. I just use the same bowl and same simmering saucepan.

Beat together the butter, milk, vanilla and icing sugar until smooth. I use a wooden spoon to start with and then use the electric mixer once all the icing sugar has mixed in. When smooth, add the melted chocolate and beat well.
If the icing looks too runny, just keep beating. Mine is usually thick enough for a spoon to stand upright in it.

Once your cupcakes are cool, ice them!

---------

The cupcakes apparently keep well for three days without icing. I can say with certainty that even with icing they still taste fine after 5 days. Airtight containers required of course.

Chocolate-wise, I've discovered the perfect stuff at Aldi. It comes in a bar of 150g and each bar is split into 6 25g bars. So I buy two and then just use 125g for the cakes. Cuts down on the faffy measuring!

The first time I made these it took me ALL DAY. This is because I was going very slowly and carefully and also because I didn't have enough bowls. I had to keep stopping to wash things up. Now I end up using a cereal bowl for the flour mixture and the separated eggs (and to beat the yolks in), this makes things a bajillion things easier and quicker. When I made the pictured cakes I actually made a double batch and it only took a couple of hours from start to finish (including doing the icing).

I'm sorry for the lack of photographs, but since the man who was supposed to be taking them got distracted by World of Warcraft I'll have to add them in next time I make a batch!

Sometimes...

...I really should know better.

I was Googling Arbor Day at Aston-on-Clun (which I went to twice a few years ago) and stumbled across this blogpost from one of them.

Very cool to remember it all again through someone elses eyes, as it meant I remembered all the fun we had that weekend and not all the crap that came out of it. Unfortunately I just couldn't resist the urge to read some of the other posts and that has made me sad.

Sad for the loss of some good friendships, sad for the amount of spite that some people have, sad for the lass that I was back then before the storms that arrived on that Sunday.

Then I went and played some WoW, which made me a little shocked as I remembered how long I've been playing (5 years at the end of this June).

It made me realise just how much I've changed in that time. Partly from the scarlet-haired supremely confident witch, partly from the naive girl who thought that people always spoke what was in their heart.

But some things never really change, this is why I still have a blog, six years after first starting one. This is why my day off has involved laundry, the computer, reading and cross-stitch. This is why I am still really really me.

Now for 15 minutes on the cross trainer with some very loud rock on the iPhone and then some tv & stitching. Oh, and putting a light on cos I just realised I can't actually see the keyboard.

At 12.34:56 today...

...I fully intended to stop somewhere and take a picture to capture the moment.

But since at 12.34:56 on the 07/08/09 I was attempting to cross the Wolverhampton Ring Road...I did not stop and take a picture.

But I did blog this rather than tweet it!

I'm sorry...

...that I have not been blogging.

I haven't really been doing much to blog about.

We've gone and seen a few more houses, found a couple that we'd quite like to live in and we're in the process of putting in an offer on one/both of them to see where we get to.

I also bought myself an iPhone last week. This means that I spent the whole of last weekend lying on the sofa cross-stitching, tweeting and listening to audio books. It was lovely. However over the course of the two days Anthony went from "hurrah I've got the computer!" to "but I want to doze on the sofa!".

Now I can tweet (faster) from work and I'm going to try out blogging from it too. I might try doing mini-blogs from it, the equivalent of a tweet perhaps.

I'm also going to try doing more timed posts, that way when I do think of something/do something to blog about I can spread it out a little.

Partly it's cos I'm trying to do more things away from the computer and my blogging is the first thing that suffers. I still try and empty my Google Reader every day though!

So apologies, yet again, for me being a bad blogger. I shall just have to attempt to spread my organisation skills back to the computer without getting sidetracked.

I finished...

...my current cross-stitch last night. I really couldn't remember how long I'd been working on it, and I couldn't seem to find any pictures of it in progress. After a little digging about in the depths of my computer I found some work-in-progress photos too (and Flickr has helpfully dated them for me).







These were taken on the 11th of October, the 22nd of December and last night respectively.

It's really not that big a design and shouldn't have taken so long but with Anthony working nights I've been on the computer rather than stitching.

Now I just have to choose what I want to stitch next. It's either going to be the Moonlight Cats or the Morning Rooster.




I've got all the threads for the rooster and I'm fairly sure I've got all the ones for the cats, but I'm lacking fabric for both. I shall probably buy the fabric and then decide.

Your rainbow is intensely shaded white, pink, and yellow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is says about you: You are a joyful person. You appreciate quiet moments. People depend on you to make them feel secure. You are a good listener and your friends are glad to have you around in difficult times.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

I completely intended...

...to blog yesterday, and then suddenly it was bedtime and I realised I hadn't. Bad me.

Right then.

On Sunday (after the Grand Prix) I cooked Chicken in Garlic Sauce, which was flipping gorgeous!

It looked like this:


The recipe suggests serving it with boiled new potatoes and green beans, but since I did my usual thing of forgetting to do anything to go with it until five minutes before it was ready to serve, so we had lots of peas and sweetcorn instead.

Apart from the fact there seemed to be gallons of sauce left (the recipe is for 4 and I didn't cut any quantities down) it was absolutely perfect. It's definitely going to be made again, although next time I think I shall try reducing the sauce a lot more!

Lovely Twitter is not only keeping me informed about all the latest F1 shenanigans (Lewis, Lewis, Lewis...cheats never prosper!) but it also won me a prize!
The folks at the Naxos Music Library had run a Twitter competition to win a free months subscription as part of their 30th birthday celebrations. All you had had to do was DM @naxosrecords for a chance to win.

They contacted me on Wednesday to say I'd won it but then Anthony promptly brought me back down to earth by asking me if I'd noticed the date...
Luckily he was very wrong and so I now have a whole month of picking myself some music to listen to. I don't know much about classical music so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

*Anthony has just phoned me so I have completely lost my train of thought*

Um.

Erm.

Here, have a cat picture.



In fact, have two.


(I love the fact Foley seems to have too many legs in this one)

It's been...

...a very strange two weeks.

Center Parcs was bloody brilliant. Lots of chilling out in the spa, lots of reading, far too much wine consumed on a couple of occasions - thoroughly good fun.

Anthony spent quite a lot of time playing with his new fancy camera, Brychan liberated Paris (Blazing Angels on the Wii), Emily had an argument with Professor Layton ("I put in 5 AGES ago and it told me it was wrong, BLOODY GAME!") and Mum got us all hooked on Tyrrell's crisps.

This week I have had a migraine. And that's about it. It started as a headache on Monday afternoon and progressed on Wednesday to me not being able to see out of my left eye and being sent home from work. Yesterday I slept pretty much all day and then today I've alternated between dozing on the sofa and sharing various woes with my lovely Twitter peeps.

The only thing that's been a constant for both weeks was an attack of the green eyed monster.

Well not really a monster, more a stab in the heart and lots of tears kind of monster.

The only problem with going to Center Parcs when it's not a school holiday is the other people who take that opportunity. Like the 17 million couples with babies/toddlers who seemed to make up the rest of the guests there. Oh there were a few older couples there too...but they all seemed to be there with their kids and grandchildren.

Babies are bloody everywhere at the moment and it's really bloody hard.

I was supposed to have had a doctors appointment last Tuesday to discuss my miscarriage. About a week after I got the original letter I got another one to say they had to change the appointment to April instead. At the time I was just glad that I was getting seen, now I'm sad that this means no baby for me in 2009.

I am looking after myself though. Any blogs I've been reading that have unbelievably adorable new babies on I have deleted from Google reader (not you Keris, for some reason reading about Joe is ok), I'm trying to avoid the updates on Facebook from the 8-9 old school friends who are either expecting or have just produced, and I've been avoiding watching anything on TV that could get to me.

CSI:NY clobbered me though. I knew there was an episode coming up where Lindsay told Danny she was pregnant, I didn't expect her to whip out an ultrasound photo to prove it.

My brain seems determined to protect me by making me feel that it didn't really happen. Same as with my dad I guess. Silly coping mechanisms. The one thing I wish I had done was get the ultrasound photo. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it would be proof that I got to that point for the first time.

Gonna stop now cos none of this is making any sense. Thank you for listening.

This time of year...

...there are lots of biographies about with incredibly cheesy covers.

Yesterday I saw the worst one ever. It made me laugh so hard I almost wet myself.

So for your amusement I present to you, the current F1 World Champion (you know, the one who can't tell the difference between a green light and a red one)...

Mr Lewis Hamilton


*rolls on floor in fits of laughter all over again*

Although I have to admit that the picture on the inside front cover is worse. In that one he's taken the racing suit off and is standing there in a shiny suit, adjusting his tie with the hand wearing a big blingy ring and looking like a pimp.

A cheap pimp.

On this occasion however, I hope that this does sell. Mainly because if it doesn't (and we haven't sold a single book about Spewis since he won his Championship) then I will be spending the next 4 weeks shifting 96 copies of it to various places around the shop.

One of the...

...many lovely new blogs I discovered due to that nifty Black Boxes widget is Windmill Watching. At least I think I found it via the widget...it might have been via cJane instead.

Anyhoo.

Yesterday she posted up some pictures illustrating the high high prices of petrol in the USA.

As a Brit I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Then I did some Googling and some Maths.

With the help of PetrolPrices.com, the X-rates currency calculator and Google itself, I discovered the conversion rates.

Prices are UK averages from 12/11/08 (that's the 12th of November or 11/12/08 for the Americans)

Type / Pence per litre / Pounds per gallon / Dollar conversion

Unleaded = 95.4p / £4.34 / $6.42
Diesel = 109.1p / £4.96 / $7.34
LRP = 102.9p / £4.69 / $6.93
Super Unleaded = 102.5p / £4.66 / $6.90

While I do feel sorry for the Americans who have never had to deal with such high fuel prices before...this goes a little way to explain just why any British friends laugh hysterically when you complain about high fuel costs.

My week...

...was pretty good really.

Yes, the event was hellish in parts (I forget how rude teachers and librarians can be), the changeover was complicated by the staff shortages and the fact that half of my colleagues have a really nasty cold meant that we've all been flagging a bit.

But I have been extra kind to myself in the evenings, doing daring things like leaving the electric blanket on low all night (so that I don't wake up freezing cold) and not doing any washing-up again (which sounds terrible unless you realise that this means dirty plates/forks/knives/glasses x 4, and that's it).

Today I also finally got the affidavit for my divorce signed! I've been ringing the solicitors across the street ever day for the last few weeks and there's never been a solicitor in. (Always in court, says a lot about Wolverhampton). Today the receptionist went "Hi, there's someone here today! Will you be straight over?" (we've become quite chatty). So that is done and now just needs to be sent back to the courts and in 4/6 weeks I should get my decree nisi! The reason it's all taken so flipping long is that the Yeti took months to reply to it, I suspect his mother took her own sweet time about forwarding his mail.
Anyway, step 4 is now completed, not too much further to go!

I'm looking forward to this weekend. Anthony's car is still playing silly buggers, but he's being dropped off here later after work. Tomorrow we have plans for a lovely lie-in and then a day of doing who-knows-what. I have to get to bed early though, it's the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday - race start time, 13.30 local time, 05.30 BST.

Now I do actually quite enjoy the early morning races, once I manage to haul myself out of bed. The one thing that always throws me is when I decide I want a beer about mid-way through the race. I walk though to the kitchen, get a bottle from the fridge, open it, turn to walk back through the dining room and spot the time on the clock on the bookshelf - 6am. Yeah...
Never gonna be as bad as when I was tipsy by 8am after watching one of England's World Cup games back in 2002. That was the day I got together with the Yeti, think the match drinking might have been a factor?

Atishoo...

...meh.

I have got the horrible lurgy.

I hope it is not transmissible by widget because it is so nice meeting all these new people and I would hate to make everybody ill.

*sniff*

In an attempt to feel better for tomorrow (when I will hopefully see my man since he has been on night shifts and had car problems all week), I shall be spending this evening in a hot bath.

A hot bath with a Blackberry Bath Bomb in it.

With a mug of Lemsip, and possibly a large mug of an Instant Tea too.

Also a relaxing lovely book, haven't quite decided which one yet though.

Of course, I might well be really lazy and just stick the audiobook of I Capture the Castle (read by the lovely Jenny Agutter) on.

*sniff*

I shall try and post later, possibly about soup.