Red Velvet Cupcakes

With white chocolate cream cheese frosting:

Yummy!

Tours and Hazards

We have my two nieces staying with us at the moment, Billie (aged 6) and Perrie (aged 12).

Noah was telling Billie about taking her on a tour of his school while they were going to Easter club. The conversation went something like this:

Noah: I'll take you on a tour of my school if you'd like?
Billie: What's a tour?
Noah: Well, it's like if I took you on a tour of my house I'd show you where everything was, like the toilet and stuff, and where all the hazards are.
Billie: Oh
Noah: I can tell you one hazard! NEVER bother my mum at night! Unless you have had a bad dream or there's something wrong.

My Mother's Day (Late Post)

Yes, Mother's day was weeks ago but hey, I'm a mum, I'm busy!

I had one of the most fantastic mother's days ever. But top of my pleasures was the two poems that Noah and Harriet wrote for me. First Harriet's:

Your lots of fun!
Our mum is really cool.
Underestimated love.
Rest today, you rule!
Dangerous, I know, we are.
Always; I shout in the car.
U never get mad.
Go mum!
Happy smiles, laughs and fun
Till we drop down on the floor
Everyone laughs some more.
Ready 2 go.
Loving to show,
Ordinary skill!
Very beautiful,
Everyone adores u!
Still the mum we loved forever!
Your
Our
Understanding mum!

And if you look at the poem the first letters of each line spell out 'YOUR DAUGHTER LOVES YOU' - how cute is that? She also wrote in her card 'I love you, this poem isn't great! It's all I could think of. It's kind of messy and uneat, but I hope you see the love underneath these words!'.

And now for Noah's: (he opens it with the words 'and tada!'

Oh I no my mum is grete
she is not fish bait
and if she was a animale
she would be in a crate.

Hmmmm... not sure what his point is there but hey, it rhymes :D

Lost Generation

This one is courtesy of Katarina who was shown this at a youth event in February. It has really stuck with her, and Richard and I? We think it's pretty cool and clever!

Ouch!

I hurt... everywhere... in fact it would be quicker to point out where I don't hurt... my nose?

It was my brothers inquest on Friday (it went as well as you can expect these things to go and I won't go in to it here) but you can imagine that this has brought our loss to the forefront of our minds again. The last time I saw Matt he gave me something. He gave me one of his kites.

He'd always loved kites and it was one of his 'things' so on Saturday I suggested that we go up to Barbury Castle and fly it. Up until now we hadn't taken it out of the bag he gave it to me in! Mum and my step-dad Richard are also staying with us and it just felt like a good thing to do. Go blow away the cobwebs. Boy, did I blow away the cobwebs!

Now, I have no idea about wind speeds and all that, I'm just thinking "hey, it would great to fly Matt's kite!!". No thoughts beyond that really. Once we get it all untangled, which was a feat in itself, I take the handles and Richard let's it go.... OH MY GOSH!!!!! Terrified would be a drastic understatement!

Normal kites you just sort of gently tug the lines, it slowly, and majestically climbs up in to the sky. Not this one... this one yanks the sockets out of my arms and rapidly starts pulling me across the field... to keep up I am running, yes running, my feet moving so fast that I look like something out of a cartoon. Apparently, when they could stop laughing, laughing so much they were crying, my loving family told me that my face was a picture, a cross between trying to laugh and put on a 'nothing happening here' face and one of sheer and utter 'I'm going to die!' terror!!! Richard describes it as a tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, whumpf!

Whilst this is only taking seconds, I felt my life flash before my eyes and everything felt like it was happening in slow motion. Over the howling, cackling of my beloved ones I heard a voice in my head shout "DROP THE HANDLES!!!!" I did... but my body was already in a forward motion and the only thing I could do was bodily throw myself to the ground. I don't remember much what happened next, it's a bit of a blur, but according to Katarina I skimmed the ground like a flat pebble skimming across a pond. Let me just say - that ground was hard. Very, very hard.

After some time... my darling family decided to 'rush' over and between uncontrollable laughter and comments of 'that was sooooo funny' ask me if was I alright? Was I? Yes I am - just, LOL. I'm bruised, with a swollen knee and my dignity shattered in to a million little pieces but I'm ok.

And the kite? It's fine too and turns out it's a POWER stunt kite. No, before anyone asks they did not get it on video (thank the Lord) but I did find this which will give you a vague idea of what happened, except for the bit at the beginning when she is being dragged, insert me with legs moving like Road Runner. But the bit at the end? The flying leap? That bit is JUST like me!



My name is Jools, I'm 41 and I like extreme sports.

Things I'm Liking Today

1. The Ingrid Michaelson album Be Ok:



2. Starting my new job tomorrow.


3. Baking (gingerbread latte cupcakes: for my first day at work).

New Look - Hooray!

OK, so I've finally gotten around to updating the whole of my website. Yay! No more Christmas home page I hear you cheer :D

So, if you aren't seeing it you might need to refresh your page or clean out your cache.

Hopefully I should be posting more often again now. I had stopped because each time I wanted to post I just couldn't. Knowing my site needed updating just became a mental block and I didn't feel like I could post anything new until such time as I sorted it out. Well. Now I have. So, in theory, there should be no stopping me now.

It still needs a bit of work, tidying up, links sorted etc. but it's getting there.