H is For ....

"Hardening off" in this case some lettuce that is on my windowsill by night and outside by day. 

While I was outside I spotted these "Hellebores" looking magnificent.

We are not doing much in the way of vegetables in our garden this year as most of the edible produce will be grown down at the allotment or lottery as Pete calls it.    We are doing early potatoes which are peeking out ready to be covered over again later today.

Finally the Elephant Garlic is starting to look garlicky, I can't wait for them to flower!

PAGE C

So this is it the end of the C's 

and then we move on to the D's which I am finding a lot more difficult then any of the other letters so far.

We watched Kevin Costner in the film 'Dragonfly' at the weekend which was watchable, not brilliant but certainly not bad. 

Then last night we watched 'Drag Me To Hell' which was a pitiful excuse for a horror film.  The only thing it had going for it was some extremely good jumpy bits in it.  At one point, I am ashamed to admit, I actually screamed out loud.  In my defence Pete had put the surround sound right up and I was sat right next to the speakers.  It did give everyone a really good laugh though! 

 

At the moment I am sat listening to this

Now I am out of ideas for D so I am going to have to get my thinking cap on otherwise my D collage is going to be very empty!

THE WASP FACTORY BY IAIN (B)ANKS

Jim recommended this book to me and gave me his copy to read. I found the book a bit hard going in places but I am glad I continued and finished the book as it had a surprising twist at the end.

I'M STILL HERE.....

....just not doing very well on the blogging front. A to Z 2010 has now moved on to the letter C and so far we have had this for tea

watched this

which both Pete and I thoroughly enjoyed. I have listened to Coldplay's X&Y album today whilst chatting to Mima on the phone.

Now for a quick catch up with B
We made some of these delicious Brownies

and some of this equally delicious Bread

I ordered a couple of DVD's the other day for us to watch 2 for C and 1 for D. Tonight though I think it has to be "The Vampire Diaries" and we aren't going to wait until V to watch it either!

BORED - NO CHANCE!

I thought I might have got bored of the AtoZ by now but to my utter amazement I'm not. In fact I am thoroughly enjoying looking for B's and Pete and the boys seem to be getting more and more into it too. They have even suggested some things for B today - Burger King, Bon Bons and some ideas for other letters too - Frankie and Benny's, Macdonald's, Chiquito's ......

As it was not snowing or raining today we decided to visit Brereton Heath country park which is relatively close to my Dad's house.

Before we went into the park I decided we would go and find a geocache that was very close by and began with B. On the way we spotted this sign on a barn wall can't you see how the boys love me taking their picture.

A bit further down the path we found "Brereton Scout Group - Green Lane" hiding next to a telegraph pole covered with very prickly brambles. Despite the facial expressions they did actually enjoy themselves. Not sure I am very happy though I look like a midget next to my boys now. :o(

After a very muddy walk around the mere at Brereton we drove to my Dad's where we spent a very pleasant couple of hours before coming home via Byley.

Last night we watched Bruno which Matt's friend had left at our house by accident last week. I think I watched most of it thorough my cardigan it was so cringy. I honestly don't know how he gets away with it without someone beating him to a pulp. Got to admit that I did find some of it funny though.

BLACK FOREST FLOP

I had been looking forward to making a Black Forest Sundae since I first decided to do AtoZ 2010. Pete and I went down to Asda to get the ingredients, we managed the meringues and the low fat chocolate ice cream (apart from the fat we decided to ignore the low fat bit) but we couldn't get the tinned black cherries in syrup so substituted them with frozen cherries instead. All I can say is next time I will make sure I get tinned cherries as it wasn't sweet or sticky enough as the sauce turned out all runny due to the lack of syrup. That said they all got eaten and there were no complaints.

Yesterday I went round to Mima's for a diet coke and some Biscuits with her and Sue and while I was there I mentioned we wanted to play Backgammon for B but didn't have the game so needed to ask my Mum. Mima came to the rescue and has lent me this rather splendid set she has. Last night Pete and I played three games with a score of 2/1 to me! Yay We will be teaching Kyle and Matt to play over the next 2 weeks.

Tonight was home-made Burgers night and they were delicious, we used a Colemans burger mix for the first time, which was 50p from Morrisons, mixed in with some minced beef. Usually I would make my own burgers from scratch with bread crumbs, eggs, herbs but now I have found this mix I don't think I will bother in the future as this was sooo easy and tasty.

LETS TRY AGAIN!

This is my second attempt at this post as I was a day ahead of myself with the letters and did it yesterday! DoH!

We bought one of these a couple of weeks back in the sales for all of us to use. On Wednesday night Matt managed 1hr 20 mins on it which really impressed me even when he informed me that he had rigged up the XBox to the TV in the spare room so he could play and exercise at the same time. I am going to claim this for one of my "B's" as I have (B)iked for 15 minutes this morning on the very lowest setting now all I have to do is wait and see what my knee is like later on today if it's OK I will go up and setting and do 5 minutes tomorrow. The GP had said that going on the bike was a good idea to strengthen the muscles around the damaged knee so who am I to argue.

Yesterday morning I have sorted out all the (B)edding into piles and cleared space in my wardrobe to store it all neatly. I have been intending to take the bedding out of the boys wardrobes and store it all together in one place for ages but never got round to it. As the boys have more & more sleepovers I need to have it all easily accessible and close to the spare duvets and pillows which saves me running around hunting in every room to find all the bits I need.

(B)logging daily for at least the next 2 weeks is also on my list of B's but I am not holding my breathe for that one!

A IS FOR......

.....food! These Apple & Sultana Squares were sooo easy to make and as an added bonus are a Weight Watchers recipe so kind to the hips too! They don't taste too bad either.



One of my favourite snacks ever is baby asparagus lightly griddled or grilled with parmesan cheese and a generous drizzle of yummy Balsamico Creme.



Tomorrow we are on to the letter "B" which is for Best Ever Burgers, Black Forest Sundae and Blackberry & Apple Cake - can't wait!

ABOVE SUSPICION

This is not the type of thing we would normally watch, I'm not sure why as I love crime books and films. The only reason we watched it is because it began with "A" and I am glad we did as I really enjoyed it.