Friday 23 October 2009

wazzup

So, what have I been up to lately? I've been knitting tiny little hats for chariddy, which is a bit ridiculous considering the fact that I've got three embarassingly late projects still on the needles. I'm not kidding. I still haven't finished a blanket I started knitting when I was pregnant with Mia. I'm hoping that the tiny hats knitting will inspire me to finish the other projects. Now that the weather's gone cold and rainy, knitting indoors doesn't seem like a bad way to spend a little time each day.

Speaking of the weather, I actually enjoy it when it starts to get cooler because it means it's crockpot, stew, and slow roasting time. I love summer food - meats and fish grilled on the BBQ, salads, plates of cold meat and cheese - but there's something so comforting about autumnal foods. Everything slows down, we spend more time at home (or at least I do now that I'm on leave), and what I cook reflects this. Slow roasted shoulder of lamb and pork, beef and Guinness stew, braised beef skirt, chicken curry, a big pot of chilli simmering on the stove. Roasted butternut squash, sauteed kale, roasted carrots. Things made from pumpkin, roast chicken, homemade soup. The sort of food you want to take to bed with you and cuddle under the duvet. Which I don't do, because I'm clumsy and would end up with a bedful of dinner. And it would be a little bit weird.

I took Jack to see "Up" last weekend, and it was wonderful. Very similar to Wall-E with its quieter moments and several scenes without dialogue, and beautifully rendered. It's not quite as innovative as Wall-E in terms of storyline and concept, but it's still a fantastic alternative to the usual mindless kiddie fare. I also recommend "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", which isn't nearly as thought-provoking, but is hilarious and brilliantly animated. Thank the gods that children's films are often bearable and even enjoyable for adults these days.

And we've all had a stomach bug (minus Jack.) That is all.

Thursday 15 October 2009

october 15


Lighting a candle tonight for "Squeak" and all the other little ones lost, at 7pm tonight. For more info, see http://www.october15th.com/.

Tuesday 13 October 2009

where's this blog going? (and will it send me a postcard?)

Okay, so here I am finally updating this woefully out of date blog. Hi. How have you been? Great, me too.

I've come to realise that this blog was becoming a "what are my kids up to now" type of thing, which isn't interesting to that many people and was getting more difficult to update. I'm going to keep track of all the milestones and funny/cute/interesting things my kids are saying and doing, but probably not on this blog. I don't particularly want to maintain an electronic baby book. The day-to-day funnies tend to get included with my Facebook statuses (statii?), and I think I'll keep it that way. This isn't to say that I won't ever talk about my kids on this blog - that would be impossible - but it's not the only thing I want to talk about and I don't really want this to specifically be a "mummy blog".

This will be a more general blog about whatever's drifting around my addled brain. It might be mummy-related, it might be food-related (most likely), or it could be about a more general issue like why the hell those Irish twins made it to the final three on "X Factor". Seriously, what was Louis thinking?! It's a joke; surely some genuinely talented groups didn't make it through as a result. What was I talking about? Oh, yes. The blog.

It's nothing too earth-shattering, really. I just wanted to let anyone who's still reading this know what's up and that I will indeed still blog. Ithankyew.

boo!

You may have noticed that my usual link now points to my revamped blog on Blogger. This is fine. Don't panic. I've just decided to transfer everything to Blogger to keep life simple and to reduce the bandwidth/data storage on my main server (which costs me money). The wittydomainname domain will live on, and I may do something with it one day, but for now everything will be here on Blogger. Old links will point to this page, so no need to update bookmarks unless you want to be extra tidy.

More blogging to come as soon as I'm done feeding Isla. One-handed typing is such a pain!