Not Kevin and Perry but Jean and Teddy (by sarah)

So Jean is now two - at the time of writing this post whcih will probably be vastly different to the time of posting it on the actually blog, she has been two for under 24 hours and her behavour today has been attrocias.

I will not reiterate every single thing but just the main one - there she was looking all angelic on a park bench when an elderly lady came over to coo as they have a habit of doing - the result?

Jean through her bekker at the woman then hit me when I intially told her off, the old woman retreated rapidly looking scandalised and Jean dived off the bench and tried to run away from me. I caught her, which she wriggled and protested about, forced her back into the puchchair and straps with an explanation of what she had done wronge. She was still going, 'Nononono.' and scouling at me so I crouched down and told her off in a more structured way where upon she grabed the finger I was waggling at her and made chopping actions at me, I told her she better not bit me and she hesitated, I told her I'd trust her - at this point she bit me.

She got a light tap on the back of her hand and told that she had hurt mummy at which point she said, 'No!' I showed her the teeth marks which she then proceeded to look upset about and kissed the finger repeatedly.

I have never seen her behave so badly before 🙁 Once she realised she'd actually upset and hurt me she was much better but still! Of course it probably didnt help that I had lost track of time and it was about an hour after she normally goes down for her nap 🙁 Also if she has the cold I have then she is probably feeling really really grumpy but I cant let her get away with it. :'( Terrible Twos here we come 🙁

A Flaffle Disappointment (by sarah)

I discovered a new food that was YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY last week - me and Alaric were taken to Goldersgreen for dinner and there we discovered the delight of flaffles in a sort of cross between a pitta bread and tortia with some with some really nice humous and other sort of aubagine dip thing.

So yesturday imagine my joy when looking for food for me an Jean I come across a chickpea flaffle, in a medaterrian style flatebread in the first I came across that I could get into easily with the pushchiar (Happened to be a Starbucks so things werent exactly cheap!). Now I knew it wouldn't be as good but I was severlly disappointed with it so now I'm thinking I have two options - a) hunt around for the best flaffle there is or... b) find out how to make them myself and get good at it? Oh well looks like it'll be about ten yrs before I get the yummy again 🙁

Still the flaffle tasted very familiar to me which has been puzzling me since I first tasted (Well actually since the second time I tasted it as the first time I'd accidently got Alarics and therefore could taste nothing but chillis!). I think it is a taste remaniscant of something that my nan used to make but I really don't have a clue.

I'm also awear that I have probably spelt stuff wrong as I'm running on phonetics here!

Moff! (by alaric)

We picked Jean up on Saturday, and she's staying with us again now. Since we have the van, we can manage her and her stuff, even though we're still staying with friends in London...

Apparently when she saw the van appear outside Sarah's parents' house, she was all excited and was asking if we were there, since she associates the van with us, then was sad that we weren't. But we turned up a bit later!

However, we were puzzled that, when she disapproved of something (an inedible stone or stalk inside a bit of fruit, for example) she's scowl and shout "Moff! Moff!"...

But then Sarah's parents explained that Jean had been upset by a big moth that had landed on her foot and scared her, and ever since then, anything nasty has been referred to as "Moff" 🙂

Nice Bank, Bad Bank (by sarah)

We came back to the Bajery for a day to sort out the insurance stuff and oick up post and what have you - now I had warned the bank Lloyds that money would be going in late but they are still being mean and I now have a £74 account in the arease fine becuase obviously I hadn't got the warning letters becuase we aren't at home becuase of all the flood stuff 🙁

Then to the credit card bills - Barclay really nice - we realise you may have been affectected by flooding don't worry if you missed the last payment and don't worry about this one either we will not fine you. MBNA nice too don't worry if you missed the last payment due to adverse weather conditions (I'm paraphrasing by the way) - excilant - great - fantastic - I think I did pay the last bills but the thats really nice of them. Then back to good old Lloyds - who recon that I didnt pay the last bill (I definatly sent a cheque off for the last bill I recieved but then I suppose one might have been part of the big soggy after the flood and I wasnt really thinking too far ahead at the time.) and rar rar rar - pay now you swine dog - type letter.

Yes they should have all been payed on time and things but I had warned the bank we were flooded 🙁 It just seems so bizar that the other two are being so nice about things. I'm now going to have to spend a large fraction of the day phoning people up to try and sort this out especially as vodafone arent exactly being helpful either - but thats another story (p.s. as many have noticed my phones been cut off and I'm having a few problems getting it back mainly due to the bank trouble and stupid people in the shops).

Yeah ok I do realise that most of this is my own fualt for not having been on the ball enough-sigh.

Boat Race (by sarah)

I actually wrote this ages ago but what with the house being flooded I never got around to posting it!

This weekend as always we were busy busy busy, between Al working about 14 hrs on Saturday and visiting family, before Sunday which started with Alaric getting up at stupid o'clock to go and meet anyone who wanted to go on the Walk the District from our Cubs and Scouts - it was raining and early in the morning - no one turned up so a disheartened Al returned to the house were he work some more until it was time to go and start setting up the Paper Boat Race which was joint between the Scouts and the Village Feast comitee, both of which we abvoisly belong too.

We went down to the scout campsite in the village and set up tables and lit barbecues - this was an impressive affair with a home made sturdy stand, the actual bit of the barby being a modified oil drum! It arrived on the back of a tactor that was blasting music.

Also due to the rain we hastily assembled a tent thing over the tables with the paper for paper boat folding on. I ended up in charge of the prize table which the kids loved.

Quiet a few of the cubs turned up to this as did alot more of the village than we thought would have considering the weather!

We've been getting the kids to make their boats for weeks at our meetings so we had several different types which I've posted about on Salaric!

For the big race at the end there was a prize of a trip in a speed boat - I made dad enter as this used to be something we did when I was little but unfortunatly his Bad Luck Field as always was heightneded by my presance and his boat and Jeans were the only ones to get stranded a hands bredth from the starting line!

Jean loved paddling in the stream as she is obsessed with water at the moment - infact at this very moment she is attempting to mop the carpet with cries of torta!

It was quiet an exhusting weekend realy but as always fun!