Adventures pt1

Since we last chatted a fair bit has happened our way.  Smallest Boy has started school with great success (phew!), we’ve had a couple of birthdays, more sporting achievements and sporting injuries (resulting in husband having 4 hours of surgery on a badly fractured collar bone) and most recently I’m just back from a trip to Scotland  BY MYSELF!

The trip had been discussed back in January when I took my brother back to the airport in Sydney.  He told me in no uncertain terms that not only was I a bad sister for removing his nephews and niece to the other side of the world, but also a bad daughter for not coming home in 4 years.  I did remind him that it’s not just 1 air fare we’re talking about.  He informed me that it was my duty to come home for our mother’s 70^th birthday in May and I replied that I would love to but doubted my ability to save enough for even 1 fare that quickly.  To cut a long story short, without discussing it with each other, I had a phone call from my father a couple of weeks later to say “Come home for Mother’s birthday, I’m paying”.  Well it would have been churlish to say no!

In the meantime, my oh so sensible husband was playing football for 2 different teams, while coaching one of the boy’s teams.  We all knew it was just a matter of time and sure enough, week 1 of the season, he tackled someone who then landed on him, leaving him with a collar bone that was smashed to smithereens.  Surgery to try and pull all the pieces together and inserting a metal plate (that disappointingly doesn’t set off any alarms) meant no driving for at least 6 weeks, overlapping with when I was due to be away.  We live in a lovely suburb but everywhere is a drive away.  Thankfully the kids can get buses to school and he was able to get buses to work, but I had to arrange lifts to football training, matches, youth group etc before going away.  We are surrounded by some fabulous people who have fetched, dropped off, brought groceries, and gone above and beyond the call of duty.  This made going away, which was always going to be hard leaving 5 kids, hubby and Dog behind, that bit easier.

Flying into Glasgow

So I left Sydney in autumn and arrived in Glasgow to a beautiful spring day.  I'd never actually seen my parents' house as they only moved back to Scotland 3 years ago, after 35 years in England, so it was great to finally be able to picture where they were.  I know the town very well as my Dad grew up there, we spent many spring half terms there as kids and I used to visit my granny during university holidays.  I knew where they were but it was lovely to see it for myself.  

Jetlag meant that I was awake at 5.30am for the first week or so, which sounds awful, but due to the sun being up it was actually fantastic to have the house to myself for a couple of hours, breakfast in peace, no-one needing me for anything - bliss in fact!

Day 1 required shopping - urgh.  I had tried to find an outfit for all the socialising before I left but failed, despite the valiant efforts of a good friend and her mum!  To say I dislike shopping would be an understatement while to say my mother likes it ok would also be an understament.  So we hit Braehead just outside Glasgow.  Hours of trawling (well at least 1 and a half) unsuccessfully we finally tried Monsoon.  Why we didn't just go straight there, I'm not quite sure.  Top, tousers and a cute cardi, done, done and done in record quick time.  All ready to hit the town to celebrate Ma's Big Birthday.  

We got home with about 1/2 hour to change and head back to Glasgow to Blythswood Square Hotel where we had cocktails and a fabulous meal, just the 4 of us.  We think the last time it was just the 4 of us must have been before John came on the scene full-time, 20 years ago!

The outfit

The Birthday Girl!

Brother and me

Mother and Brother and me

Mother and Faither

The food was a bit good

It was very strange to leave at 11pm in daylight!

 There was a party planned for the weekend, so we did some prep the following day then I was allowed some time off to go play in Glasgow with my brother on the Friday. The schools were closed for the long weekend so he was glad to have a day to just chill out.  The weather was glorious.  We wandered around the West End, had the best soup and pizza in Firebird on Argyle Street, walked around the university, through the Botanics and down Byres Rd where we were obliged to sit outside a cafe (Kember and Jones) drinking coffee and eating cake in the sunshine.  

Far too many photos were taken, many were instagrammed.

The day of the party arrived along with the top temps in the UK and enough sunshine to eat our canapes in the garden.  

The Birthday Girl looked lovely!

with her younger sister

oh dear...

 

That's better!

 Another nice one of the 4 of us.

16 for lunch

Cake and sparkler,

(I thought my brother was saying "Calm down Mother" but apparently it was more a case of  "Ooooooh, sparkly...!")

She had a lovely weekend with more people for lunch the next day, loads of flowers and gorgeous gifts and the sun split the heavens.

The same can not be said for the next day!

We hit Glasgow again to do a spot of Very Important Shopping of the undergarment variety.  I had an hour and a half fitting at Bravissimo before having to rush off to meet my lovely friend Claire (Godmother of the kids) for lunch.  So good to meet up with very special friends and pick up where you left off!  She headed back to work and we headed off to Buchanan St for a spot more shopping at one of my favourite shops, FatFace, and then we met up with one of my uni flatmates who I've not seen in 14 years, but have been in Twitter contact with.  There were many laughs and lots to catch up on.

Cat and me - just a little soggy...

The Pencil Monument taken from the train

After all the excitement of the birthday celebrations, Mother had decided that we would need a day to recover so booked us in for a spa day at The Marine Hotel in Troon - what a treat!  We swanned around in bath robes, had champagne with lunch, were massaged and smoothed, swam, steamed and sauna-ed.  It was tough to have to leave and drive home!

 

I'll leave it there for now and post the rest later.  Pics of Dalgety Bay, Edinburgh, Largs and Cumbrae to follow!

xx

ps if you fancy having a nosey, you can find the instagrammed versions at sandramcdowell.

Still here!

Well hello!  It's been a wee while, hasn't it?

It's been a busy couple of months, the run up to Christmas is always mental, my brother came to visit for 2 weeks, then we've been enjoying record-breaking temperatures and trying to keep 5 kids between 4 and 14 amused and occupied.

School is about to go back with two back on Wednesday, two more on Thursday and then Smallest Boy will start next Monday.  Slightly mixed feelings as this will be a first having everyone at school.

I have managed to do a spot of creating and a whole lot of reading (read neglecting-of-parental-duties-and-letting-husband-do-it), met up with some "Newy Tweeps" and wrote about it here, got a bit into Instagram (I'm sandramcdowell if you fancy following) and am planning some exciting stuff for 2013.

I'll be back soon, but for now, some pics!

3 weeks, 3 cakes

So I failed to share with you Archie's birthday a couple of weeks ago.  My first-born is now 14, a proper teenager who, while apparently not growing much in height, is starting to look very different physically.  My 14th birthday always sticks out in my memory as my worst birthday ever and I wanted to make sure that his wasn't.  Mine was that way all due to my own teenage, hormonal grumpiness but all my main memories and influences came from that time.  My early teens are when I became 'me' and so I want so much for these to be happy, positive, exciting and challenging times for him.  So far he's doing great.  There was a moment on the Sunday before his birthday when I suggested that if the nonsense continued I'd be happy to 'postpone' his birthday, but it was all over and done with pretty quickly!

The child loves comic books, has just acted as a research assistant (acknowledged in the footnotes) for John in a paper on The Avengers that will be published in a book on Joss Whedon and Religion in 2013, and is Batman obsessed.  Recently John and his PhD students were having a lively debate about the recent Batman movies, when John recounted to Archie what they had said, he replied "You're all wrong" and proceeded to point out something very inciteful that they had all missed!  Anyway, the cake had to be Batman themed.

I used my old faithful vanilla cake recipe, and decided to try and make it a bit grey.  I added a few drops of paste to achieve this

 It was only when I was trimming the finished cakes that I realised how intense the colour was!  I bought some black fondant from Cupids and trawled google for inspiration.  I wanted to keep it simple so just went for a black bat then used a lustre and a damp brush to paint the edges.  I also used my finger to smudge the lustre across the silhouette.  I managed to spill some if it and tried to blow it off which gave a rather nice effect, so spilt some more!

He was very pleased with it.

6 days later we had a bit of a party with some of John's students and their familes to celebrate a significant birthday, and to say goodbye to one of "the boys" who is off back to Canada to complete writing up his PhD thesis.  It was lovely to have him and his wife here for a while but it's now back to supervisions and chats via skype.

Such a celebration would not be complete without cake.  Hanlie had ordered cake for Ashley but I was fairly confident she wouldn't have got one for herself!  Lisa and I decided on a rainbow cake which turned out just right, although next time I think I will only tint 3 layers and leave one as is.

I was glad that after the disaster of the butter icing on Archie's rainbow cake last year, it worked perfectly this time!

Then on Saturday some good friends came for dinner.  They had just moved house on Tuesday, Rachel is 7 1/2 months pregnant, and in the middle she had had her birthday!  We thought they might be glad to have a break from unpacking and unfamiliar ovens, so I had great intentions.  As it happened I got as far as baking the cake, then we spent so much time chatting that the cake ended up being very simple.  

Pale pink buttercream with sprinkles and candles did the trick!  Enough cake for 11 of us and leftovers for breakfast!!

I think that's it for cakes for a while now.  I don't bother with Christmas cakes here as it's too hot to have the oven on for ages and no one except me eats it anyway!

Elijah's Elephant

John's sister, Nic, had her first baby recently.  My lot were delighted to have a cousin and began thinking about what we could give as a "Welcome to the Family" present.  After I made my Scottie Dog, Robert suggested making an elephant which, knowing how much Nic likes elephants, I thought was a great idea.

So we used the same blanket and method.  I took lots of pics in case any one might be interested in having a go themselves.  Hopefully they are pretty self-explanatory.  

Draw your choice of animal onto large paper, remember it will be a bit smaller once you take your margins into account.  Cut out and trace onto old blanket, don't forget to cut out ear shapes if you want flappy ears!

I blanket stitched around the ears...

Stitched the eyes...

Everything in the right place...

I sewed the ears on so that they flapped over his eyes, then ironed them back into place and topstitched, catching in all the ends of the blanket stitch.

His tail is just a length of a foundation chain.  All stitched up I realized his trunk got a bit skinny, will need rectify that next time I make one...

We also made some bunting for his room.  Hopefully it will be the right colours...

As modeled by Elijah's biggest cousin!

We had a lot of fun thinking and making, hope Elijah enjoys his welcome to the family!

To dye or not to dye...

My Mother has been white haired for as long as I can remember.  She is a very sensible woman who used to give me advice about buying good shoes, always making sure you wear a well-fitted bra and moisturising your neck.  And then she talked about growing old gracefully, all of which I absorbed as a teenager.  It was only relatively recently that she said "I wish I'd dyed my hair years ago".  Well, I nearly fell off my chair and felt my whole world had been turned upside down!  Here was this woman that I had listened to (she might fall off her own chair at that revelation...!) suddenly wishing she'd done things differently.  I was all prepared to do the "growing old gracefully" thing when it happened but then I started to wonder if I would have regrets in years to come too? I've only started to get some greys in the last couple of years (I used to pluck them but I think the whole "pluck them and they come back with 10 of their mates" thing might have some truth to it, so I have given up!) and have begun to wonder if I should start down the road of dyeing my hair...

When we first came to Australia I found the magazine I'd spent years looking for.  Notebook was a mag for grown ups who like a bit of this and a bit of that, not too many glossy ads, lots of helpful hints and tips.  Sadly it is no longer published.  But in Feb 2010 there was a great article by Susan Johnson about grey hair and how it affects women.  The opening paragraph reads "When day begins to turn to night on our heads, our most common response is to run for cover.  Instinctively we recognise the first grey hairs indicate the light within us is slowly fading".  I'm not sure I feel that strongly but certainly I am learning to accept that I am no longer 18, or even in my twenties, or thirties for that matter!  I'm not sure it really bothers me all that much, in fact I think I might be more bothered about having to fit in regular appointments with a colourist and the amount of money it will cost.

A friend, and local 'journo', wrote this great article recently and I managed to find it today.  I have been very impressed with how she went from almost black to grey, and she looks fantastic.  I too have had conversations with the kids about whether or not I should dye my hair and I was very surprised by the responses.  It was a unanimous NO.  The main reason given being that if I did it would mean that I was too concerned about my appearance...  Hmmm.  I wasn't entirely sure how to take that one, I'm not a total scarecrow!  Apparently it was meant in a nice way and the kids like that (unlike Dad - heehee!) I'm not always preening and fussing in front of the mirror.  I asked if they thought it would make me look old, to which they replied "You are."  Nice.

I have enquired about doing something when I got my hair cut a couple of weeks ago (another emergency appointment after attempting to cut it myself again, I never learn), the lovely hairdresser had some helpful and reasonably priced suggestions, but I'm still not entirely sure I want to go down that route.

What do you do?  Any tips, sage advice, funny stories?

I MADE A SKIRT!!

Now I know all you expert seamstresses do this all the time and are thinking "Yeah, so what?" but for me this is a big deal!  The last time I made a skirt was 1987, from a rectangle of fabric with a piece of elastic through the waistband, no pattern and lots of help from my 'bestie' (the lovely Helen) who was very proficient.   I bought this pattern over a year ago and have been too chicken to try it out until now.  It's the McCall's 5430 which seems to have flikr and web pages devoted to it.  It claims to be a 1 hr pattern but I managed to make it over the space of 3 days.  Bearing in mind there are 5 children at home on holiday, I think that is pretty good going.

I hadn't intended to buy fabric but those crafty types in Spotlight ( see what I did there?) had cunningly placed this right at the entrance in full view.  I couldn't resist, didn't really try very hard, if I'm honest.   I figure it will make a fun skirt for Spring and Summer when it's too warm for trousers and shorts just won't cut it.  I went for option C, never one for frills and flounces.

 
I am delighted to say that I made no mistakes!  No cutting disasters (just as well, as I guessed how much fabric was required and guessed wrong...), no unpicking, no sewing upside down - thank goodness for the tip on someone's blog!  It is a little snug, but with Summer on it's way I will be dropping some of my hibernation weight so should be perfect.

My next plan is to attempt a semi-circle skirt with some other gorgeous summery fabric, got to make the most of this weather, not sure how much longer we'll be able to enjoy it... ;)

Picking mandarins

And this is how all photo shoots end up in this house.

I won.