Steph and G Day 10

There's got to be something you can do with wooden coffee stirrers. This is a start, we arranged them in different ways, in the cafe after swimming, G decided on stars, at first we were trying six pointers like 2 triangles on top of one another, but then we became determined to manage 5 points which was much harder to arrange.  They are attached together with micropore tape, it is brill it is papery, you can tear it without scissors, you can paint it, it moulds a bit with hand heat. It is usually for holding gauze or whatever dressing on a cut or wound, but when it is in the pound shop, buy it, it rocks. Gold paint, red string.

Steph and G Day 9

G planted 3 rosemary plants in our tiny front strip of soil when she was a toddler, and now they are out of control, we decided to make a Christmas wreath out of it.  I had it all worked out,,. we got 3 coat hangers and taped them together, we cut lengths of the rosemary, it turned out to have got very woody so it became my job to try and cut through the trunk like stems, when I came back in the house, G had got tinsel and wound it round, I was getting sandwich ties, and string, when I returned, G had fashioned a complete wreath, I am not sure how it is holding together but it is, G says she just tucked it all in, it is kind of rustic, it looks good.

Steph and G Day 8

 

Christmas Biscuits
These are for the school Christmas disco, experience shows no matter how subtly you may flavour the bakes, selling wise, it is all about the icing.  ready to roll black, green and red icing and mix it with water in a bowl white icing for background.  G needed 2 shots to get the white icing right, disbelieving such little water would mix with the powdery icing sugar . My nanna famously made Christmas cakes every year with the icing puddled round the plate and nothing left on top.  G perfected 'coating a spoon' and then it was all systems go, bit like play dough really  and silver balls for extra christmassy bling.

Steph and G Day 7

Put up our decos, but they seemed a bit scant, age old favourites must have finally gone to the recycling last year.  G made some paperchains from wrapping paper which look great up, and we decided to decorate the fabric flags bought just because they were cheap after the jubilee was done, with no set purpose in mind.  Those fabric pens are years old but to my surprise still giving good, always put the tops back on! It pays.  Great fun with friend over, in between showing each other dance moves and cartwheels,( that will bring your tinsel down!)  I am particularly fond of the gingerbread man who morphed into a gingerbread angel, and the jolly snowmen.

Steph and G Day 6

Shepherd's lunchpacks.  Pack of filo pastry on a whoops, seemed a bit of a must. We have made samosa a couple of times, and they looked good but childers balked at the spinach and cheese filling, preferring the standard bolognese we always have every other day as a filling, which was a bit prone to leaking. Out of ideas i left it completely to G, lamb mince, no onions, no not even if I cut then really small, black pepper, paprika, chilli powder, bit of a chicken stock cube.

 Mantra being 'take control of the pan, control your body!'  G announced half way through, "I love frying!" not really the lesson we were hoping for, can you steam lamb mince? G retained good pastry sheet painting with olive oil, and folding skills, mine were well ropey, and not pictured,( I was rushing it ,I was informed.)

 As a nod to the one of five, I cut down the edges of a carrot to make the shapes suggested by G , then she was able to chop off tree shaped carrot slices and star shaped cucumber pieces.

Steph and G Day 5

 

Bulbs in festive pots for family pressies.
We have done this previously for 12 days, but I feel disappointed if spring begins and we've no bulbs coming up, we planted quite a few in the garden, amazed at the number and juiciness of the worms abounding, we had to filter them out of the compost for our indoor versions, and if we are honest, G was more interested in playing with the worms then carrying on with the planting, she reckoned they were making numeral shapes, so to test them we put them on the spot with a few times table questions, they weren't as reliable as a calculator but did have a decent success rate for invertebrates.  We used outdoor paint on our cardboard containers to hopefully give them the strength and waterproofness to make it through to flowers, then G decorated with some enamel paints and carefully made drainage holes with an old screwdriver, another of the best bits.



Steph and G Day 4

Rudolph's carrot soup and Christmas toast,
slow cookers rock! I cut up the onion, because I think they are slimy and slippy, G was able to do the carrots, rule being 'if you are not cutting straight down on the board, Stop!' Everything else G could assemble herself because everything is cold, stock, lentils, pepper, water, happy few minutes stirring it around like a cauldron then lid on and turn the knob to low, forget about it for a day, yay!   My experience is that soup is deemed more fun if you have a little ladle to serve it out with, and something to dip, occasional reminders to actually eat the good, good soup can be required however.
We read a book where the child detectives made secret messages with milk which when the paper was ironed, revealed what they had written. This inspired us to try milk inked Rudolphs on white bread expecting to toast it and see the brown reindeer appear, bit of food colouring for nose.  On toasting, Rudolph stayed pale while the rest of the toast browned! Who knew. We were pleased, although appreciating others may find Rudolph a bit turin shroudesque in the picking out.

Steph and G Day 3

 

 

G is in a little Christmas show, requiring costuming as a woodland deer, we talked about it over a few days, and made our plan.  Success with painting a plain cheapy t-shirt in previous years got us started, and we are well known deer stalkers, often scrambling through the mud and rhodedendrons in Margam Park to catch a glimpse of a little female deer being natural, rather than coming down to the road for the landrover dispensed food.  We found a real antler this way, but have also come across a stag a little closer than we expected.  We backed off pretty quick, they can really stare you out.  A pop sock was deftly stuffed with old material for a little tail, and brown leggings found then G set to work mixing the perfect fallow deer colour amazingly twice! How did she do that? I kept harping on about trying to make sure she mixed a big enough volume because we would never get the same shade twice.  G assured me she could, well, she could!

Steph and G Day 2

Bonbons!

No really, we followed the recipe for fudge to the letter.  G had been wanting to try making it for ages, and was hoping to make sweets for presents this Christmas, so this was a practice. I was scared, frankly. I know nothing of making sweets, even the kids recipe from a book I had when I was little had a speech bubble warning from a helpful elf like chef, saying hot sugar is dangerous.  We read it carefully and gave each other plenty of health warnings, we knew we would have to do it as a relay, stirring hot butter, sugar and milk for half an hour till we could drop little blobs into a bowl of cold water to make 'soft balls'. Its just an experiment, I kept saying doubtfully, it did feel like science, I wouldn't have minded a protective screen and goggles for the both of us.

Actually it was a bit boring, I took on a big stint of stirring while spellings were learned on a chair nearby, times tables practiced, and convoluted stories about who said what, and whether that was nice to say were discussed.  G kept breaking from this to drop sad looking drops into the water bowl to no avail.  40 minutes later, we thought we had it, into a tray it went and off to Saint Fagans for a misty walk and well earned cheesy bun, also to stop us poking at it every 2 seconds to see if it had set.

7 hours, yes hours! Later it hadn't really set. Rubbish!

We turned it out like a sticky bendy sheet onto a board, rolled it in icing sugar and into balls and called it bonbons.