Wordless Wednesday - There go my plans for the Weekend.

Milton Keynes: Where I live and why I love it

A few weeks before my seventh birthday my parents moved with my sister and I from Garston (just outside of Watford) in Hertfordshire, to a town called Linslade in Bedfordshire. Linslade is right next door to a town called Leighton Buzzard, in fact if you wanted to go shopping you had to go to Leighton Buzzard as that is where the high street is.

Leighton-Linslade (as it is known colloquially) is one of those places that is brilliant to live but really rubbish to visit. Unless you are on a canal trip, into WW1 aircraft the Vimey Bombers, interested where Mary Norton who wrote The Borrowers lived or want to see where The Great Train Robbery happened. For those in to popular music Kajagoogoo and The Barron Knights were formed in the area (and I use to live two doors up from Stuart from Kajagoogoo and I use to speak with one of the Barron Knights when I was a credit controller!) and if you want something a little more scary The Fox was in the area and caused a big todo in the summer of 1984.

Okay so maybe it isn't that bad.

Of course there were times when you wanted something a bit more exciting, like a trip to McDonald's or a trip to the cinema or even a trip to C&A's and for that you would have to go to Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes was shiny and exciting and where I moved to when I got married to Daddy, in 2001.
Milton Keynes has been the butt of many jokes in the past due to the impression that it is a concrete city with an extraordinary number of roundabouts, but this is not the real Milton Keynes. That is not the Milton Keynes that I have fallen in love with. Did you know that here in Milton Keynes there are more than 22 million trees? For a town that is 34.1 square miles that's not bad going!

Of course we do have concrete cows, a concrete snowman and lots of roundabouts, but we also have a fantastic shopping Centre, which is so fantastic that Cliff Richard recorded a music video there. I would of put the video into this post, but for some reason Cliff doesn't want me to share the worlds greatest music video in my blog post, so you will have to go and see it at YouTube. Go on go watch it, I'll wait.

Cliff is to Tennis as Strawberries are to Cream.

Did you watch the video? Speed Boats, sports cars and roller skates. Tell me its not the best music video ever and I shall give you your crazy certificate ;) The best bit (IMHO) is the skating up and down past trees and a big brown wall, which is actually the external wall of the Milton Keynes John Lewis! If you look you can actually see that the wall tiles spell out John Lewis!.

Oh and the shopping centre doesn't have a C&A anymore, but it does have banana trees!

As you saw in the Cliff video, there is a lake in Milton Keynes. Actually there is more than one, there are several and each lake is great for walking or running or cycling round. In fact the whole of Milton Keynes is great for walking or running or cycling round. Then are a number of redways (the local cycling routes) that criss cross the city with over 280km covered and a lot of paths that mean walking from the local Hospital to Ikea (as I did once with Top Ender and Baby Boy) doesn't take that long and can be done without crossing a major road. This is because of the number of underpasses and bridges (more bridges in Milton Keynes than there are in Venice you know) and the fantastic grid road system.

An underpass, makes it safe to cross a major road

Of course you don't have to walk as Milton Keynes was designed for the car, (as the grid system proves) but with being green and environmentally friendly so important we have a fantastic public transport service, with all parts of the city being accessible by bus (well there are some disputes about that, but I can get where I want by bus if I need to) and by train. There are five train stations in the Milton Keynes area (six if you include Woburn Sands, but technically it is just out of the area) and if you think that the train station at Central Milton Keynes looks familiar you might be pleased to know that it was the UN Building in Superman IV... (and I saw a bit of it being filmed on a day out!)

The Roads in Central Milton Keynes all numbered too, and referenced as either a "V" or a "H" road. That's right there are vertical and horizontal roads. It makes it very easy to not get lost and to work out where you are and is why you will often here locals talking about not being on the H8 at rush hour. The rather brilliant thing about Milton Keynes being set on a grid system if you ever take a wrong turn it is very easy to get back to where you were a few moments before! All we need now is an underground service and we would be set!

Not really an underground system, but a map of Milton Keynes!

It has been said that Milton Keynes has no culture. This really annoys me because people don't look at Milton Keynes more than seeing that it has a grid system and houses which at first glance all look the same and that it is a "new Town" built for people to move to who lived in London. We have an Art Gallery and a Theatre, we have art trails, sculptures in public places, buildings which are beautiful to look at (the Art Gallery won an Architectural award in 2008), Churches with history (St Marys in Bletchley for example has what looks like a Wine Glass in the external wall, but its is really part of a tomb that was reused), there are places to go to to listen to live music such as The Stables ( Dame Cleo Laine and the late and great Sir John Dankworth set it up) and there is even an international festival planned for July 2010.

To you Milton Keynes might just be a place on a map, but to me its home and I love it. And if you ever want a tour just let me know!

Play-Doh Fun Factory review

When I was little my sister and I would often play with Play-Doh. One of our favourite games was to pretend we worked in a Play-Doh Cake Factory, where we would make cakes and then put them in our shop window (bottom of our wardrobe) whilst we got on with serving the customers at the counter (the long desk we had in front of our bedroom window). Had we have had the Play-Doh Fun Factory, it would of been so much quicker on the cake production line!

These days Play-Doh is still a big favourite in our house. I do insist that whenever we play that we do so on a tray just like I was always told to do as a child. I think my Mum was sick of us treading Play-Doh into the carpet. Anyway when the opportunity came up to review the Fun Factory which is being made extra special because Play-Doh turns 50 this year (I know, doesn't look a day over 21 does it?) , I knew that if I said No Top Ender would of disowned me.

Now I know that Play-Doh is supposed to be for Children over three (or at least this product is) but I don't let Baby Boy eat it anymore and so I let him join in with the fun with Top Ender and I. Look you can see his foot in this picture of the Fun Factory.

Baby Boy, Top Ender and I played with this for at least an hour, making all the different shapes and then making various other things from the shapes we made. It was great, with Baby Boy and Top Ender taking it in turns to choose a shape and then to squeeze down the purple handle to make the shape. They let me have a few goes too which was nice, although not as much fun as when I played with it on my own that evening!

The red dial on the front was soon removed by Baby Boy, so that he could clean off bits of escaping Play-Doh and when he did that he discovered a secret little storage area underneath the red dial to store the Play-Doh pots in, which I thought was a great little touch! Although you don't need to remove the dial to find this.

The best bit of the play session was when Top Ender made some earrings from the red Play-Doh (Baby Boy got the blue Play-Doh because that is a boy colour you know) and Baby Boy cracked up at my impression of Roy Evans (you know from Eastenders)

"I don't like your Earrings..."

We got to keep the Fun Factory, but if we hadn't had fun with it then I would of told you!

First Strawberries of the Season

Whilst I was taking a time out (okay I was skiving off the hard work), Daddy took the Top Ender and Baby Boy out into the garden. He was going to mow the lawn and the plan was that Top Ender and Baby Boy would play in the play house and move the play things in the garden as and when Daddy needed them to be moved.

I had just closed my eyes when Top Ender came bouncing in and asked if she could pick a strawberry from the Garden. Daddy had already looked and confirmed that some were ready for us to pick and so I agreed.

Baby Boy got in on the act too and they both appeared a few minutes later to show me their first picks. Top Ender took the crop and gave it a quick wash before they both reappeared to show me the reactions to the first taste. As you can guess Top Ender thought they were beautiful and sweet as her grin proves it!

As you can see however Baby Boy wasn't as impressed to start with as his Snape sneer shows through with his first bite.

I didn't take a picture of me eating my first one, (because I am just not as cute as Top Ender and Baby Boy) but believe me it was tasty!

Top Ender Giggles - The gift that keeps on giving

As we were walking through the car park of the Airshow on Fathers Day, Top Ender suddenly stopped, bent down and picked up a shiny £1 coin.

We congratulated her as we carried on walking to the air show as we were in a nice long line of people and promptly forgot all about it in a discussion over if we should have chips or ice-cream first.

Later on that day we were digging on the beach, when suddenly Top Ender found another £1 coin!

"Its your lucky day Top Ender!" I told her
"Yes it is, will you look after it?" she asked
"Of course, you get back to your digging!" I prompted hoping she might find some more money

When Daddy came back from the waters edge with Baby Boy I showed him the £1 coin that Top Ender had found and explained she had found it in the sand.

"Top Ender?" called Daddy
"Yes Daddy?" answered Top Ender
"Where is the £1 you found earlier today?" he asked with a grin
"In my pocket... oh!" she answered as she couldn't find the coin
"Top Ender, you found your own money in the hole!" answered a laughing Daddy

Wordless Wednesday - Wet Wet Wet!

Motherhood Gallery Post

These two photos to me represent Motherhood, giving the support and the love that each child needs in order that they can fly high.

Little Dish Purees Review

As you may remember once a month we have a cheat night for dinner, which normally involves a walk round one of the local Supermarkets and us picking up a prepacked meal. Top Ender and Baby Boy are quite fond of the Little Dish meals and will chose a favourite meal out of the range (see The Little Dish Review if you want to know about them) and everyone will be quite happy.

The other week though I noticed a new addition to the range, a puree in a pouch and I thought that it must be aimed at the weaning market. A smart idea in my opinion because the purees are the sort of thing that I made for Top Ender and Baby Boy when they were both learning to eat solid food, and because they are fresh they are a good alternative when you realise that you have run out of ice cubes of mashed butternut squash or potato and parsnip which my two were very fond of.

I didn't think much more of it, even when my sister mentioned that she had seen them and that they do fruit flavours too.

The Little Dish asked if we would like to try some. Even though Top Ender and Baby Boy are well past weaning it was suggested that these would be good as a snack or a dessert because the pouches make them easily transportable and they can be out of the fridge for up to four hours.

When the package arrived I was just about to go on the school run, so I quickly signed for the package ran up to school and let Top Ender open it when we got back.

They sent them to me in a lovely little cooler backpack which Baby Boy has obtained from Top Ender!

Top Ender having a check of what it contains

Theres more!

She pulled out six pouches;

• Butternut Squash, Carrots and Apples,
• Sweet Potatoes, Parsnip and Leek,
• Peas, Pears and Apples
• Strawberries and Apples
• Blueberries and Apples
• Mangos and Bananas

I could of been an artistic director, look at how I arranged these!

The three savory pouches were passed over and she and Baby Boy tucked into the three fruit pouches. Baby Boy was expecting something less thick I think, but he was very pleased with the taste and kept telling me it tasted of Strawberry (he had the strawberry one!) and Top Ender really liked the Blueberries and Apple one. I was left with the Mango and Bananas one (which was fine by me as I like both fruits) and it was very strong so probably not a good one for my two to taste.

I didn't want to waste the savoury pouches and so I passed them to a friend who is a few weeks into weaning her little one. She let her little one try all three and there wasn't a drop left if the bowl that she squeezed them into! They of course passed the Mummy taste test too, with my friend commenting that if she got hungry later in the evening she might end up just sucking on one of the pouches herself!

The three fruit pouches are something that I would consider buying again for snacks when we are on our adventures, as the packets are quite robust and the price (£1.19 for one or two for £2) is reasonable for a healthy on the go snack of this sort and style.

Yummy yummy yummy, food for my tummy!

So if you want to try these head for your nearest chilled foods aisle in your nearest Tesco's!

Wordless Wednesday - Vox Pop (The Family) by John Clinch and me.

I know this is wordless, but just pretend you can't see this. In Milton Keynes shopping Centre there is a lot of Art including these Bronze statues by John Clinch,This multi-racial ‘family’ walk a dog, cycle and push a baby buggy following a circular path, encouraging visitors to walk round them and examine the detail of the sculpture... or in Baby Boys case work out which one was him.

Oh and yes you have my permission to not laugh at Daddy's T-Shirt.

Baby Boy Giggles - BEANS!

"Who do you love Baby Boy?" I asked

"I love Mummum and Daddad and Top Ender" he answered
"Who do you love Top Ender?" I asked
"I love Mummum and Daddad and Baby Boy she answered
"Who do you love Daddy?" I asked
"I love BEANS!" answered Daddy
"BEANS!" I exclaimed
"I love Daddad and Daddad loves beans!" laughed Baby Boy

Now whenever we ask Baby Boy who he loves he just laughs and answers

"BEANS!"

One face covered in bean juice.

Top Ender Giggles - But it's shiny!

In Tesco, the staff are giving out Topps Match Attax cards when you spend over a certain amount (I think it is £25) and as such Top Ender has been collecting them (anything that's free is welcome) and spent the car journey home marvelling at her newest additions.

She passed me a card to look at that had an attack score of 100. Looking at the card I realised that knew who the player was and said to Daddy

"Oh look its the naughty John Terry"

Top Ender took the card back and asked why he was naughty.

"Well he went on a date with a lady even though he was married, and the lady was married, and even worse the lady was married to his friend!" I answered
"Well he's still shiny!" answered Top Ender

Wordless Wednesday - If you see a big tree you have to explore inside of it!

Baby Boy Giggles - Is anybody there?!

Happy Birthday Maw

When my Gran died Top Ender was quite upset and would often ask if she could call her. She knew that she couldn't really speak with my Gran, but she liked me to pretend to talk to her on her hand phone, by having me pretend to be my Gran (in my fake heavy Scottish accent) and tell her that I (as my Gran) loved her and missed her and had been watching her on my special Heaven TV.

Yeah you get to watch people on earth on your TV in Heaven. You can also watch any other TV channel that you like and there are no advert breaks; There is a channel of adverts that you liked or would of liked had you seen them. God is clever he knows how to sort things like this out.

Anyway the other week, whilst we were all in the Car, Top Ender realised that she hadn't spoken about my Gran for a while and that it would of been her birthday in a few short weeks (it would of been her 80th Birthday the day that Smallest Cousin was born) and so decided to call her on her hand phone.

"I'm going to phone Nanny Maw" said Top Ender holding her hand phone to her ear

She dialled a few buttons and waited for the connection to be made and just before she spoke we heard

"Hullo?!" in a very deep almost Scottish voice
"Hello Nanny Maw, its me...." answered Top Ender

Daddy and I looked at each other, eyes wide (and I was ready to change my under wear) before we realised that it was Baby Boy talking and Top Ender wasn't really talking to my dead Grandmother!

Family Fun on a Phineas and Ferb Scale!

In our house we love Disney, we especially love watching Phineas and Ferb together as a family. We love the crazy schemes that the boys get up to, the ways in which the days activities are magically cleared up by Doofenshmirtz's latest "-inator" and it has inspired us to have some family fun on a Phineas and Ferb scale. Well it inspired Top Ender first...

You see in the theme song to the cartoon it is stated that the boys have 104 days of Summer Vacation and Top Ender was inspired to tell me that we (as a family) should do something fun every day for 104 days. Now this would be really easy if we were a cartoon family (I know that in the header we are, but its pretend, we don't really look like that!) and if we had 104 days for a Summer Holiday.

Top Ender understands that she only gets 40 days for her Summer Holidays (and doesn't mind this) so we figured that we had better start doing fun things before the Summer Holidays starts. We thought that May 28th would be a good start, seeing as that was the first day of the half term and so we started doing fun things...

We can't doing anything as grand as the boys, as we are pretty sure there isn't any evil scientist near by who could accidentally use an "-inator" of his to tidy everything up! We soon figured out that it is the fun that should be on a grand scale and our schemes don't need to be on a grand scale. So this is what we are up to...

28th May - Picnic Day
29th May - Ponyo Lunch
30th May - Book Day
31st May - Brand New Bike Day
1st June  - Pajama Day
2nd June - Visit London for The Elephant Parade part two.
3rd June - Arts and Crafts Day
4th June - Flag making Day
5th June - Cinema Day
6th June - Party Day
7th June - Frog jumping Evening
8th June - Food Tasting Night
9th June - South African Food Night
10th June - Deep Sea Diving Night

As we go through our 104 days we will add blog posts explaining what we did and we will also add links to this blog post...which if I can work out how to I will make stay on the front page of the blog!

A new addition

Just a couple of days ago my sister was starting to think that her third daughter was never going to be born. She had grown weary of curry and pineapple, her legs were tired from the hours of walking she had undertaken and the cobbles near her house are almost flat from the wear and tear caused by driving over them for hours on end.

And then it happened and it happened fast (which bodes well for me, but more about that another day!)

We were lucky that Daddy had the day off work yesterday, which meant that we were able to go over and visit with my sister and her three daughters as we had the car and I got my first hug with my newest family member.

So it is my pleasure to introduce you to Smallest Cousin;

Smallest Cousin with her Mummy

Top Ender welcoming Smallest Cousin to the World whilst Little Cousin looks on

A kiss from Big Sister and Top Ender

Big Cousin and Little Cousin saying goodbye with Granny

Wordless Wednesday - Concrete cows