winding down to summer

Well, MQ#2 didn't really materialise into a Quest at all, although I am not fussed about it.  Oliver started collecting these little beauties:

Trading cards which come in packs, free, and handed over from the reception desks upon request.  There are 56 in all, and show pics and info on various museum exhibits.  Clever huh?  Since this is our local museum, I have plenty of time to think about how we can use these cards and go back many more times over the coming 12 months. 

Oliver's ripple blanket is underway and, hooked on a no 5 hook, this is progress thus far:

I think it a tad garish, but he is choosing colours as we go, and he likes it.  So that's OK then.

I have expressed misgivings about stopping 'work' with Oliver over the summer, as I really don't see this benefitting him greatly.  The complete absence of structure in our days usually leaves us both irritable and with a sense of under-achievement, so, at his suggestion, (oh so joyfully tying in with my unspoken ideas), he wants to do one Museum Quest a week, one maths session per week, and read 'pretty much every day'.  The last one is a bit of a big deal for him, being deeply suspicious of the joys of reading.  He saw the Summer Reading Challenge on Blue Peter (God love 'em) and came to tell me he wanted to take part in it.  So off we trundled to the library (before the last syllable had left his lips), taking out his first book.  Here it is along with my latest passion-ette.

He is over halfway through, and to my delight, he is really making the effort to sit down and read it on a daily basis, chapter by chapter.  At the Docs last week he sat in the waiting room reading, and when I came out he tripped along after me carrying the open book and started reading again in the car saying he just wanted to finish a 'good bit'.  Can't tell you how happy this simple little moment made me. 

Laters.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

I sometimes wish I had set up a 'specialised' blog - that is a blog with a sole purpose.  Like crochet and crafting, cooking, or home-edding, or just ranting and raving about anything which takes my fancy on a daily basis.  Then I could set up some relevant advertising on it, sit back and watch the lolly roll in.  heh heh.  This seems to be what some people have done, and continue to do successfully,  earning squillions doing something they were going to do anyway and enjoy!  It is so right, yet seems so wrong....

My blog does, however, sum up my life as a whole - a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.  In my little mind I have a fuzzy long term aim of getting my blog printed out into a book format for Oliver - a record of his childhood and the pointless ponderings of his frazzled mother.  With this 'goal' shining like a light in the dark (ha ha) I cannot branch out into specialist blogging, or the essence of it will be lost. 

An aside ramble here, I had a strange dream once (one of many, many, strange dreams I have on a regular basis) where there was a phrase used by an anonymous wise person of no age, race or gender.  (probably some creepy manifestation of my subconscious) ;  'For the want of Christmas, a large gift will be lost in between'.  Now this has stuck in my mind for years and I take it to mean that I am so busy looking ahead for the next big thing, that I am not looking right under my nose at the delights that I already have in my hand.  A reasonable interpretation?  Not so much a case of not seeing the wood for the trees, but seeing the wood instead of the trees?

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the daisy ripple was finished a week or so ago.  I have struggled with the end of this blanket, as it is a gift, and I feel it should be 'finished' by a posh edge.  However, in my opinion, edging this type of blanket makes it look like a four year old has hashed together some random stitches for practice:

Here it is finished, and one side edged.

Yuk.  Four times, yes, four times I whipped along an edge with various stitches to try and master it, but it looked so crappy that I am leaving it un-edged.  Sulk.  It is sitting, crossly folded up it has to be said, in my project basket until I can bear to wrap it up and have done with it.  I just don't want to see the edges again and feel that familiar sense of failure. 

On the bright side, Oliver took a shine to it in it's later stages and asked me to make him one.  This has cheered me for three reasons.  1) it is fab to be asked to make something.  2) it means I get to start a new project (could say more about this particular delightful prospect) and 3) I get to buy more yarn.

More frabjous day.  Said new yarn arrived on Saturday and I had started a-rippling the previous evening with the yarn I already had.  (cheerful black). But, there was a hitch.  A bloody big avoidable hitch.  When I discovered what it was, I could have kicked myself.  No, really, I considered it as an option as payment for my utter stupidity.  I wanted to try a more pronounced ripple for this blanket, and fell upon this pattern on Le Monde du Sucrette's blog.  This is a graphic pattern, which I don't generally use, as I am more of a words gal, but it looked so simple.  HAH!  Again, I forgot my Lack Of Attention To Detail Disorder, printed it out and off I went.  Hours later (and the next day, no less,  it was looking all wrong, I had aching eyes and was getting crosser by the stitch.  It took a few more hours to have the lightbulb moment which thrust my error into glaring, obvious and embarrassing light. 

When I printed off the pattern, I printed it onto A4, portrait size.  This meant that the last third of it was missing.  And I didn't notice!  Bloody hell, really I do worry about myself sometimes.  This wouldn't be too awful if it was just the pictures of the stitches that were missing, but half the words were missing too!!!!!  Oh the shame.  I would call it a schoolboy error but that would be just too insulting to schoolboys, who surely would not have made such a twatty mistake. 

So, a hasty re-print onto A4 landscape resolved the ahem problem, and off I went again.  Here are the colours he has chosen, although I have severe misgivings about the green.  It really doesn't 'go' in my opinion, but he is happy with them, and apparently it will be 'epic'.  Based on current form, I wouldn't hold your breath there my dear. 


The pattern, by the way, is called 'ripples of happiness'.(!)  In my mind, I think of it as ripples of many very bad swear words. 

Anyway, do check back in a couple of days because we have been asked along by friends to the museum tomorrow - oh yes, MQ#2 is afoot - and I will be recounting my tales of gone-awry good intentions and clipboards being stamped on for all to mock. 

I am bloody determined this will be a good one for Oliver.  I am. 

MQ #1 - Buckland Abbey

Hmm, where to begin. 

I knew Oliver had certain reservations about said Quest, but in home-ed world, an expression of reluctance to voluntarily engage and enthuse whilst embarking on a new project is not unexpected, nor strange.  In fact, the heavy sigh and metaphorical dragging of the heels goes hand in hand with the whole ethos, so I decided to gird my loins (again) and once more into the breach, dear friends.

It was bloody hard work and I felt my temper rising on more than one occasion.  Head on into the hurricane saw me throwing a mini tantrum in the treasures room and hissing loudly over Oliver's shoulder whilst he went for the world record in 'deliberately painfully slow writing just to annoy one's mother.'  Mark, to his credit, remained very calm and kindly throughout the day, but he does not have the 'benefit' of my experience with the heel-dragging (Oliver) and subsequent dummy-throwing. (me).  Later he was to tell me that bits of it were boring, (I beg to differ) I should not have expected so much from him (I know) and that I should be aiming to find bits of it that Oliver did find stimulating and focus on them (I know I know I know).  Hindsight is a cruel mistress.  And really, I think by now I should know better.  How we home-ed parents keep falling into the same holes again and again is very depressing.  I have since had a chat with Oliver, agreed my expectations put too much pressure on him and said it would be different next time.  Oh yes, it will be. 

Anyhoo,  Buckland Abbey was very beautiful, steeped in history, and full of interesting things. (I thought so anyway, sulk).  It was the home of Sir Francis Drake and so there was lots of maritime history in evidence.

The Drake coat of arms:

 It means 'greatness from small beginnings' (near enough).  I like this idea.

Drake's drum, beat in battle at sea:

  Interesting:

Also, before the reformation in tudor times, it was home to an order of Cistercian monks.  This (the great barn) is where they stored their foodstuffs:

Bet it blew a hoolie up the cassock in here of a winter.
These are bits Oliver enjoyed the most:

Sic parvis magna indeed.

Museum Quest

I picked up this a while back.

It lists all (I think) the museums in Devon.  There is a little pic and blurb about each, and there are 48 in total in this booklet.

I have decided that we are going to visit each and every one of these museums over the course of the coming year, which means roughly one a week.  The idea is that it feels like a bit of a quest, and for Oliver to treat these visits as mini field trips.  He seems to loathe reading and writing, and this is a constant source of angst for me, as I love both and am pretty damn sure it has made my 'educational journey' through life a million times easier and more enjoyable.  I am hoping that this quest will appeal to his sense of adventure and interest in history, whilst enabling us to get out and about more, like we used to.  I am also looking to free us up a little from the constraints of an 'at home timetable' which we succumbed to at the beginning of the year.  Although it has worked a treat, I am loathe to abandon the whole 'work ethic' for the summer during the school hols and want to keep ticking over with this. 

Fully charged with enthusiasm for 'The Quest' I have been out on Oliver's behalf and bought a clipboard and ring binder to house the reams of paper he will be filling with historical and interesting facts (!) and re-joined the National Trust.  (some of the museums are NT places). 

I am not yet sure what to be looking for in a finished piece for Oliver - chose an artefact and write 3 interesting facts about it?  Give him the camera to take a few snaps of things he likes and write down something (anything) about them?  Sketch a little pic and label it?  When Oliver does write, he has wonderful control over a pen, and writes beautifully. (spelling is a bit of a work in progress though, I have to say).  He can read fluently and with nice intonation - when he wants to.  Sigh.  His mouth drooped a little when I floated The Quest idea last week and he muttered 'oh no' with great heavy gusto.  It doesn't bode well, but he fully understands and appreciates that a large part of educating him at home depends on (among other things) his co-operation, so I am at least confident he will give it a good go.  I am also pretty confident he will grow in enthusiasm with this once it is underway and we plan our weekly trips. 

There are some museums a little out of reach - namely those in north Devon, and I reckon there are about 9 or so which will give me a little trouble in terms of extra time and effort getting there, but we can make proper trips out of those, or fit them in on family breaks.  I intend to leave the awkward ones til the end of the year, when putting in the extra effort will seem more worth it in order to complete our Quest.  Mark seems pretty keen on this idea too, which always gives things a bit more of a boost.  He has suggested that we go to Buckland Abbey today, in Yelverton, so hopefully, MQ #1 will be underway!  I think the NT places will be a little easier to work on, as they usually produce a quiz of some sort, and the reading and writing elements I want Oliver to do are a little more 'guided' without me needing to prompt.  We'll see.

Laters!

stuff

You kind people said nice things about my cooking in the last post, and Kathi asked about the 'falafel' recipe.  Thmy lazy adaptation from the student cookbook (which I think is bloody excellent btw):

Falafel

tin chick peas
finely chopped onion
crushed clove garlic
tbsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp baking powder
salt/pepper to your taste
1-2 tsp curry powder
breadcrumbs

Use a particularly useless stick blender to get all the chick peas onion and garlic to cling stubbornly together in one gloopy blob and clog up the blade.

Scrape it all off whilst swearing copiously.  Then stir in seasonings/baking powder. 

I left it to 'rest' (?) for half an hour, shaped it into quenelles (yes - really!) and left them in the fridge for a further half hour.  Then I formed them into little patties, (I made 9) covered them in breadcrumbs and plopped (that's the best word I can think of to describe their consistency by now) on a baking tray and cooked for 10-12 mins per side. 

They were alright actually.  Quite good in wraps with something rich/tangy/saucy like roasted tomatoes.

And also for you Kathi - try this recipe for banana bread, which is easy and been pretty successful for me several times. 

Mrs T asked about the banana muffin recipe, which I used from here, although I only had small bananas.  And if I'd had vanilla extract in the cupboard, I would deffo have bunged that in too.  And yes please Mrs T, I would love you to email your blueberry muffin recipe as I (unbelievably) have some mouldering away in the fridge right now!

And so to crochet.  The daisy ripple is nearing completion (how many times have I said that?), and I am not sure what to do.....

I haven't really started this off wide enough, so if I carry on with the pattern until it exactly mirror images from the middle, it will be long and thin.  I think I will have to edge this one to help with the width problem anyhow, and give it a neater finish.  Looking at it, I don't think it matters too much about the exact mirror image anyhow, so am thinking about edging in black, then cream and then doing a shell in a light purple.  That would work wouldn't it?  Mark has suggested pulling some of the pattern off from the bottom (beginning) of the blanket to make the pattern mirror image without increasing the length, and I really don't know if you can do this - surely, logically you can, can't you?!

Babette bits:

Liking the colours in this.

Ooh, and I am going scrapbooking at the end of the month!!!  I just suddenly really fancy it.  Think I will scrap one of these pics:

Happy days.


ADDENDUM: Er, no, you cannot unravel from the other end.  Luckily I had the (unusual) foresight to run up a little practice piece and try it before attacking my nearly finished blanket with the scissors..... all the stitches are locked together and must be unpicked one by one.  A little logic and thought should have led me to this conclusion I suppose.  I scare myself sometimes with my lack of thinking things through.  Hey ho.

something's cooking in the kitchen

Following on from this post, I (again) joined a local Rosemary Conley class in order to have 'a little give' with my clothes.  I hate feeling podgy.  I intend to do about 8 weeks, and tonight is my halfway weigh in.  I want to lose 7-10lb (depending on how hard it ends up being) and so far I have lost 5lb.  That's not as good as I'd hoped at this stage, but two weekends away have been a slight diet setback and I have worked hard on the remaining days to not gain any weight.  I absolutely refuse to calorie count and be careful with food and drink on the rare weekends away I have with my nearest and dearest.  This said, being careful and being stoooopid are poles apart and one needs to keep within the not stoooopid realms of greediness.

Inspired by the good-good feeling I have been getting from eating 'better', I have ventured once more into the kitchen for some gastronomic experimentations.  A couple of nights ago I tried homemade pesto, which I haven't made before. 

It started so well.

Then the wine came out.

This is why stick blenders are RUBBISH sometimes.

But it was edible (but quite high in fat) and quite bland, weirdly.  I never salt anything, but in something that I usually consume from the supermarket, I suppose the lack of salt is going to stand out like a sore thumb in a homemade version. 

Then I gave falafels a go.  I decided to a) use curry powder instead of ground cumin and ground coriander (neither of which I have at the moment), and b) not to deep fry them, but cover them in breadcrumbs and bake them in the oven.  The result was less falafel and more bean burger, but hey - they are about 30 calories each and taste spicy and foreign enough to satisfy my needs.

Driven on by my success, and I use this term loosely, I made banana muffins.  I don't know if I have blogged previously on my chronically pathetic attempts at muffins, but they are always completely crap.  These, however, were OK.  In fact, on my sliding scale of muffin-ness, they were shit hot.

And finally, to celebrate my kitchen prowess, I popped along to Waitrose and purchased this little lot for a feast on Saturday night. 

I think this represents excellent value for a special meal, with minimal poncing about in the kitchen.  It is their version of the ubiquitous dine in for £10.  Well, there are three of us who like to dine in quite frequently, so I usually buy 2 lots (as above) and everyone gets a treat.  Oliver and Mark get a posh pudding each, Oliver gets some snazzy meat number, Mark gets a fancy vegetarian option and I get two bottles of decent wine.  Luverly.  Not to be consumed all in one sitting,  you understand.  If you haven't yet tried the dine in for a tenner lark, I strongly recommend you give all the supermarkets a go - it's very exciting.

If you're not into Pokemon, this post will be kind of boring for you....

Yesterday we were in Kettering for the Pokemon Nationals.  For those not in the know, and for those who want to bother to read on,  this is the pivotal event in the UK calendar for the Trading Card Game using Pokemon cards.  Oliver has been playing this game competitively for some years, and this is the first time he has taken part in this competition.  To give you some idea of how 'big' it really is, the winners of this over 3 age groups get an invitation (and paid for travel) to play in 'The Worlds', which takes place in Hawaii in August.  It is a far bigger deal in Japan (where the game originated about 15 years ago) and the US, and to be fair, Oliver was in with a chance of placing in this.  This nugget of knowledge made the whole day a hugely nerve-racking affair for Mark and I who didn't watch a single game and hid away at the back of the hall chewing our fingers and wishing Oliver good luck through telepathy.  (Oliver was happy with this arrangement btw, we were not just laming it out as rubbish parents).

I did, however, sneak in this shot of his first game:

The lad he was playing against here is wearing a World's t-shirt from last year, which meant he actually played there last year, which meant he actually qualified to play there, which meant he was a bit good.  Gulp.  Turns out he was the reigning National Junior Champion, and Oliver beat him.  Yay!  A nice confidence boost early on.  Then it transpires that winning your first game places you against other first-game winners, and then if you win your second game, you are placed against other kids who have won their second games, and so on, and so forth.  Clearly a pattern emerges, and in the end, the kids who win at least 5 out of 6 games will go through to the 'final cut' (8 kids in total).  Winning games early on means a tougher route to the final cut, but a better win percentage if push comes to shove in the end results, but losing early on gives you an easier route playing against weaker players.  Wow.  So gamey.  Oliver narrowly lost his third game, no worries, won his fourth, then had an 'auto-loss' against him in the fifth.  It is basically a disqualification from that particular game.  In this case, Oliver's opponent played a card down which signified certain other cards could not be played.  Oliver did not spot this, played a certain card, and upon shuffling his deck ensured that the mistake could not be rectified, which would have meant a warning instead of an auto-loss.  Seemingly this kid was waiting for Oliver to make just such a mistake, summoned the referee and it was, literally, game over.  He was understandably upset, and worried we would be angry.  We weren't, (not with him anyway), but sooooo disappointed for him.  His game play is too fast sometimes, and I suppose, under current (bloody harsh) rules, he was expected to spot the abilities in an opponent's cards.

That game done and dusted, his last game was a bit of a disaster for him, only pulling out a weak first card and not getting the first turn meant his Pokemon was knocked out immediately, ending the game.  What upset Oliver the most in this was that his opponent had, within the short space of this game, two warnings against him for quite big mistakes he'd made, but still had the game awarded to him without Oliver being allowed a turn.  This frustration and sense of unfairness caused tears, which in turn caused me to spend the next 15 minutes railing against the referee and the organiser.  They were very good, and I kept my temper which is a first, and they completely agreed that it was an unfair situation.  It is seemingly a flaw in the game and game rules that this can happen, and it must be accepted.  It has apparently caused many tears and tantrums over the years for other players, and that's that. 

On the plus side, he still wants to play next year, and also yesterday they handed out the trophies from the regional tournaments which took place earlier this year, and Oliver had one to collect for runner up. 

He finished 16th overall (out of 38), won some booster packs and seemed happy with that.  His friend (who travelled up with us) came 19th, and the boy who beat Oliver despite his two warnings finished 13th, which meant Oliver would not have made final cut anyhow.  This was a small comfort to him (and me I can tell you).

It was quite an intimidating event, taking place at Wicksteed Park in the Pavillion:

There were Juniors (Oliver's age group), Seniors (up to age 15 I think) and Masters (there was someone older than Mark and I competing in this age group!).  We left at about 6pm - the organiser reckoned he had another 5 hours ahead of him to finish the final rounds with everyone else.  Bloody hell.  Apparently last year they got kicked out of the venue before the Masters finished and so played out the final the following day in Burger King with an interested crowd in attendance.  How bizarre.

During our chat following my bitter complaining over Oliver's last game, the (very kind and very lovely) organiser was telling me that his son (in the Masters) had lost two games that day in similar circumstances, and consequently not qualified.  This was a huge blow considering that he is apparently a) a very skilful player, b) was expecting/ed to do well that day, c) was autistic and struggling to come to terms with the unfairness of what had happened in the games and d) already had his plane ticket to the states booked and paid for.  Fuckarooney.  Made my upset seem positively trite.  And I said so.  And he was still very kind, and still very lovely.  And he still had to endure another 5 hours or so of the tournament bearing his son's disappointment and hurt. 

Further evidence that bad things happen to good people.  And they shouldn't.