would have been my brother's 36th birthday. It's hard not to think about you most days but today more so. I'm trying not to think about all the negatives but concentrate on the positives and with that in mind I'm going to post a photo of your beautiful baby girl. I was blessed with being able to spend a whole day with her a few weeks ago when we were in Plymouth for the weekend.
Probably too long and no-one reads my blog at all anymore... I imagine I can hear an echo... echo... echo...
I know, I haven't posted in a long time but the summer holidays have a way of keeping you occupied like no other.
I looked after the daughter of a friend on Tuesday and the children all decided to put on a fashion show. The only slight problem was that they asked if I would video it.
Yes, we do have a camcorder but the problems arose because firstly, I had no idea where it was, secondly, it would definitely have a flat battery and thirdly, did we have any mini-tapes for it?
The problems were all solved very quickly when firstly, I found it within 2 minutes of looking for it, secondly, yes, it was flat but I also found the mains charger within 1 minute of looking for it and thirdly, it had a tape stored next to it, one stored inside it and, whilst looking for the thing itself, I found a brand new unopened mini-tape somewhere else. We were set and ready to go.
The next hurdle I hit was trying to get the video from the handycam (very old now, well, in terms of ne technology) on to my Mac. After much trying I gave up on the Mac, installed the software for the handycam (which I also found - wonders will never cease!) and started to upload it to the old pc. But then, guess what? I found yet another cable and this one was the usb dv cable and lo and behold I connected one end to the handycam, the other to my Mac and voila! Instant movies.
After I had sorted out 'The Fashion Show' I turned my attention to the two other opened and looking used tapes. And I found a veritable treasure chest of memories from the early half of 2005. Wow! How my children have grown. Obviously I do know they are growing but they do it so slowly in front of you. These videos were in your face 'look how much I've changed, mum!'. We were living in Nova Scotia at that time and the videos were such a fab reminder of some of the great times we had. The snow, which I loved, the children quickly developing canadian accents, our home, such a fantastic house.
We've watched these videos over and over since, wallowing in the beauty of their littleness. Especially Noah. Noah was not quite 2 years old when we moved over and the cuteness (and tantrum) factor is off the scale. Here's one little clip I'll share with you:
You will need:
Pare the outer zest from the six lemons and place in a large bowl (large enough to hold 2 1/2 pints of water!). Next squeeze all the juice out of the lemons and add to the zest, don't worry about pips and stuff at this point. Finally add the sugar and then the boiling water. Mix well until all the sugar has dissolved and then cover bowl with a tea towel and leave someplace cool overnight. Put the liquid through a rough sieve, to filter out the zest and the pips but still allow some of the 'fleshy bits' to go through. Voila! Tasty, yummy, full of vitamins, homemade lemonade. Great served with ice on a hot summers day (although probably not today as it is tipping down with rain!).
You can add more or less sugar according to taste, only remember if you try it when it is still hot it will taste quite sweet but by the time it is cool and ready to strain it will be nowhere near as sweet as when it was hot - if you kwim? I've experimented a little and find 200g of sugar, in the words of Goldilocks, to be just right! Not too sour to give you a pucker face, but not too sweet either, just a little bit of a zesty twang.
Oh, and for pink lemonade? Add a splash or two of pomegranate or cranberry or something red juice. Alternatively whizz it up with a few fresh strawberries.
OK, so that may be pushing things a little too far but hey, I can have my little fantasies, can't I?
Anyway, I'm lately I've been feeling like I've just stepped out of an Enid Blyton book - I've been making lashings and lashings of homemade lemonade:
The children are drinking it as fast as I can make it. In fact earlier this week I made a double batch, 5 pints, yes, that's 5 whole pints, and they drank it - all within an hour (maybe less!).
I'm not complaining though. They get a healthy dose of vitamin C and I get to feel like a traditional mum, providing 'old fashioned' homemade treats for her brood and feeling not a little smug!
God gave us this:
I can't believe that my baby is now 6 years old! We took him and 4 friends to see Wall E at the cinema and to PizzaHut afterwards. His verdict? "It was the best day of my life!"
