Beetrootgate

Oh dear I had a nightmare last night. I dreamt that I spilled beetroot on my auntie's brilliant white table cloth and then just sat and watched the deep purple juice stain away.

Oh dear I had a nightmare experience last night. I actually did spill beetroot onto my auntie's nice clean tablecloth. I had been so strict with my children, serving them the beetroot and instilling in them the need to be careful that a slice did not slip slowly off their plate onto the tablecloth. And what did I do.......forked too many beetroot slices at one time and they splurged quickly and deliberately onto the white cloth.

A gosh, an uncontrollable giggle, a swear word and we all stared at the purple splodge on the cloth. Up we all got spontaneously and took all the plates, cutlery and etceteras off the table while my auntie whipped the cloth off and into soak.

Then we reset the table, sat down and laughed a lot about the beetroot incident.

Food hatch

Let us talk hatches.....food hatches to be precise. Now that's a bit of a blast from the past. The children and I have just been to visit my auntie. She has a food hatch between her kitchen and dining room and the children love it. It's about 45cm wide by 30cm high with a narrow ledge and two little doors. It is for handing food through to the table from the kitchen instead of taking it round on foot and for popping the empties back through but it is really so much more.

You can play peep-po; you can play shops; you can play restaurants; you can play knocking and then running; you can simply open and shut it; you can chat; you can even try to get your entire nine year old body through from one side to the next.

Believe me we had to stay for an extra few hours to get another lunch in so it was fair that both children had had the equal number of opportunities to sit by the hatch.

My brother used to have a hatch in his old house but it was very big and had no doors and thus lost it's appeal somehow. You need it smallish and it has to have miniature doors with little knobs on so that again the nine year old can pull them to and fling them open.

Now I was thinking that I had missed the opportunity to construct a walk-in wardrobe as part of our extension last year but my children probably think otherwise.

Ice cream boat

Had a long weekend in Poole visiting my niece. They have ice cream boats down there, you know, which play a tune to announce their approach. Mega expensive ice creams but I needed no persuasion to paddle out and partake.

Ice creams just leaving