Back in the UK!

This is the end of our first week back in the UK.  It has been spent buying school uniforms, shoes, school bags, and a cat flap and not a lot of time for blogging.

Why the cat flap?

After losing our last cat in 2007 we finally are taking the plunge again and re-homing this lovely lady by the name of Bessie.  I contacted the CPL just one week ago to put our name down if they had any cats that might be suitable for a 3 kid family, we were lucky, they already had Bessie in their care.  We went to visit her on Wednesday and got the thumbs up as her prospective family. She is 6 years old and living at the Cats Protection League until next Tuesday when she will be dropped off at our house whilst the kids are at school.

Big week next week, new school, new pet (and for B first-time pet); unpacking can wait!

Cooking: Blueberry Ice-cream

Inspired by the discovery of a punnet of blueberries in the freezer and temperatures around 25 degrees.

200 ml double cream
200 ml milk
3-4 tbsp of sugar
1 punnet blueberries (150g)

Since we are in the middle of packing up to move (again!) this was a fast and furious method that consisted of throwing everything into a blender and whizzing until smooth,  The mixture was then poured into our icecream maker and switched on - easy peasy.  Of course if you don't have an icecream maker (I spent YEARS asking for one!) you can make it by pouring into a container in the freezer and stirring every half an hour to break up the bigger ice crystals.  Very fragrant and a beautiful purple colour, perfect for a hot day.

Cooking: English Shortbread

In honour of the Mongolian mum of one of our friends from the International School who loves all things English; easy peasy cook it in the microwave in ten minutes flat shortbread.

100 g / 4 oz plain flour
50 g / 2 oz cornflour
100 g / 4 oz butter
50 g / 2 oz sugar

Prepare a microwave-safe cake tin by lining with greased baking parchment - I use the lid of a Pyrex casserole.
Pour all the ingredients into a bowl and knead together with a spoon until mixture is evenly mixed.  The mixture will be quite dry - don't worry.
Tip into the dish and press down firmly.  Mark the top into segments and sprinkle with sugar.
Cook on HIGH for 3 - 3 1/2 minutes.
Whilst still warm divide into segments (when it cool is goes crispy and is more likely to crack).
Leave to cool and enjoy with a cup of tea.
VARIATIONS:
Substitute the following for all or part of the cornflour.
Ground rice (gives a "crunchy" texture)
ground almonds
semolina
cocoa powder
Also good drizzled with melted chocolate.

Spelling:shape wordsearch

Apologies that April was such a light month posting-wise.  We had several things happening here which included not only all the bank holiday/Easter stuff but a visit to the UK for 5 days in the middle.  Combine this with A having been asked in a very polite Dutch way to leave the International School because he cannot stay there now the verdict is in from the Dutch Ed Psych and the result is that we are returning to the UK minus OH, so packing and cleaning our 6 bedroom house has had priority over blogging at the mo and will do for May as well I suspect.
I did however find time to create this word search for A and R to do - I think that I had shapes on my mind since now B has colours off pat shapes are next on my list.

As always here is the download link for the pdf file.

cutting and gluing for kids-under water fabric picture

This is R.  Here is a picture I made using felt and glue.

Italy via the scenic route

Not Italy the country.   Recently I came across this article by someone who described what it is like to have a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this…

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland. 

Written by Emily Perl Kingsley  


Not everyone flies to Italy - the scenic route can be good too - see you there!

Paper Craft: Big Ben

A has been studying buildings at school and brought home this model to make.  It is free to download here from papertoys.com.

The original is in colour or black and white but the copy supplied by the school was A3 and black and white so we ended up with a rainbow coloured "Big Ben".  It was not that easy for a 7 year old to make (lots of fiddly cutting and sticking tabs) but with mum and dads help he did it, I'm impressed that it stands up so well when it is just printer paper.

BTW Big Ben is actually the name of the bell inside the clock tower - not the tower itself which is called St Stephens tower and is part of the Palace of Westminster which houses the Houses of Parliament but round the world it is known as Big Ben so we will call it that too:)