Goldy (by sarah)

This is a rubbish photo of the fish but until he becomes a bit more accustomed to things it is probably all we are going to get - his name is Goldy the Goldfish and Jean won him at the Fair. We were a bit alarmed to see that this was still going on and the more we explained why it wasn't a good idea to get one of the fish the more determined she became to get one as they looked so sad :/

So to cut a long story short she had a set budget for the Fair - she got a goldfish - we all went home to sort the gold fish out - she insisted on carrying him home herself and fretted about weather he could breath and showed him to any and all other children we passed along the way.

I told of my carnival fish Sandy and Shelly that I had at her age and Daddy spoke of how he and his mother used to win as many of them as they could in order to save them when he was little.

Alaric turns out to be a fish expert (at least as far as goldfish are concerned) and we had wanted to get fish as the New House Pets as there had been fish here when we came to look around.

Once home Alaric and Jean set about equalising temperatures of water with the bag in a bowl - so that the poor thing wouldn't get shocked being put in new water. Then we zoomed out to buy supplies. Which being a bank holiday wasn't that easy!

It is only a small tank for now as we just don't have the money but hopefully say next month we can get a larger one - Goldy seems abit worried about the space to be honest and has mainly hidden behind the plastic plant and dug himself a little whole in the gravel.

Today we went to the Aquatic Habitate to get a real plant and a snail - Jean wanted a shrimp but apparently Goldy would eat it (it was not much smaller than Goldy!). Anyway Jeany has named the snail Slimy and is now obsessed with alliteration :/

Again Jean insisted on carrying the snail and has been very militant about feeding the fish and has even taken to remembering to feed her rabbit without being reminded.

I'm glad we have the fish and we are all looking forward to establishing an ecosystem but we were not happy to find them at the Fair and worse than that - in rescuing Goldy we are supporting the trade :/ But Goldy actually came out to see us today when we came in which we think is a good sign 🙂

Jubilee Cakes (by sarah)

So Jean wanted to celebrate the Queen's Day so we have been 🙂 We have been to lots of fantastic events and I've even done a poetry reading at the Stroud Water Festival which was lovely. But before I write all that lot up here are the cakes Jean baked and I decorated 🙂

This was my first attempt at these sort of cupcakes 🙂 Technique learnt from The Baking Bird and Lakeland Youtube videos. It was also my first attempt at using cooky cutters for making the decorations something inspired by my friends at Centre Arts in Cheltenham. The big cake is a rich fruit cake with brandy soaked fruit.

As an aside The Baking Bird is doing deliveries throughout the UK and she is giving a chunk of her profits in June to Shelter Box. If they do a big bake again next year I may take part 🙂

Write up on cake making will appear on Salaric Cooking shortly. Also just click the photos if you want to see a bigger image 🙂

Music Corner (by sarah)

So this is music corner in the house - off course there is also the hammond organ as well. I love having the instruments there and accesible. The only sad this is that a few weeks back I dropped contessa and she is not really repairable at least not for the sort of money we can pay out 🙁

This had actually been more of an issue for my guitar playing than it should be - basically I am now being a little worried about picking up the electric and playing it incase the guitar strap gives way on it (which is what happened to Contessa).

But after watching some hot guitar playing today I am psyched to get going with the guitar again.

I think having the instruments as part of the room rather than a thing that is put away and hidden has made a huge difference. I feel I am developing musically - I know I'll never be a professional person or anything like that but it means I can do little twiddly things for my poetry collections - like the recorder for the Easter Collection and the Organ for Shy.

The girls also love the instruments especially Mary who plays with them probably more than the baby toys we have for her!

Even Alaric has been caught playing cords on the organ 🙂

Captain Jean Sparra (by sarah)

Today Alaric had to go to London to deal with servers - origonally we were going to go with him and me and the girls were going to head to the Natural History Museum but with the weather being so nice and hot I didn't want to risk having the kids stuck in a car in traffic for like half the day so we stayed here.

We inflated the pirate ship paddling pool Jean got for her forth birthday and spent a good chunk of the morning playing Pirates of the Carrabian with Jean as Captain Jack Sparrow, Mary as Will (as she is the new baby captain) and me as ever other character out of the first three films.

Then I made up stories from the the characters Mary got given as bath toys as a christening present last weekend. So we had Gianty the Giant Squid from the deepest sea trench who went on an adventure to visit a coral reef.

I offered Jean the chance to go to the park and then to Pizza Hut for lunch but she stated she wanted a picnic as Pizza Hut do not have sorrel in their salad. So I made them a picnic with home grown salad 🙂

Which the rabbit instantly joined in with!

I had to take photos before removing and washing salad (I gave him some carrots I'm not mean!)

We then had to come inside as it was too hot and we watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and then Shaun the Sheep. Then it was back to the pool and bubble blowing and then colouring in!

Mary wanted to help Jean so I had to get one of Jean's old exercise books and some of the scrubbed out felt tip pens for the baby so she could colour in too 🙂

We then had dinner in the garden, followed by another paddle and then The Wizard of Oz and pop cakes.

Today scores high on the goodness scale 🙂

Cake Pops (by sarah)

This is our first batch of cake pops - made as a family for a delayed May Day celebration.

I had wanted to get this machine at christmas but with house moving and stuff I couldn't.

We all had fun making the cake pops 🙂

I think they looked good as the table centre piece 🙂

Here are Jean's cake pops

Here are Alaric's Goth Pops 🙂

Out of mine there were only two good designs - black icing with purple edible glitter which I could not get a good photograph of and my topary cake pop.

I wasn't sure about the thickness of icing etc... so we had made up different thicknesses to try and we decorated some then and there and others we left to dry and decorated with icing pens and things later on!

Alaric and Jean had fun making cake pop pals for me which I filmed and will be making wiggly pet e-comic type things with the still photos 🙂

There will be more cake pops and cake pop pals 🙂 My big project is a cake pop bucky ball 🙂