Tea and Biscuits
6.15pm Friday
I have just come back in from nearly 3 hours of playing taxis and gone straight for the kettle and the biscuit tin. Actually I tell a lie: I went to the biscuit tin first. I proceeded to scoff, in the space of barely five minutes, four McVities digestives (plain), the last Pink Panther finger wafer (actually it was the cheap version from Morrisons) and the last Maryland chocolate chip cookie (Buy One Get One Free). G came along five minutes too late, peered into the tin (now little more than an offering for the bird table), disappointment radiating from the back of her dishevelled blond head, and said, with the best tinge of hope in her voice she could muster and a wry smile for a 7-year old, ‘Can I have cheesy bix and peanuts please?’ (A favourite mix in our house, you should try it.) ‘No’, I say, meanly, through a mouthful of biscuit, ‘we’ve run out of peanuts anyway’. The dear little poppet sighed and picked up one of the last digestives languishing amongst the crumbs.
Now, my mother, when I came in from a long day at school, made me a cup of tea and a slice of toast, regular as clockwork, before I went off to play or do my homework. It was the most marvellous ritual and one which I frequently refer to when harking back to my own childhood and its maternal embrace. I claim that this (along with my mixed education) was fundamental to the grounded [laughter off stage left] character that I am today. Obviously hasn’t helped me with my own maternal embrace. I then proceeded to go into my study and boot G and L off my computer where they were happily watching the webcam from the village school nesting box. For my sins (and my six biscuits) I now feel slightly sick in the way that you always do when you need a sugar fix and then completely overdo it. Even as you stuff, you know that this will be the inevitable result, but until it actually happens it remains a distant reality and one not to concern yourself with for the moment. Well, the moment’s arrived.
Anyway, that’s my problem, so why not go and get yourself a nice cup of tea too and sit down and have a look at a bird being rather more maternal than I am right now by clicking here to see the nesting box and others in Derbyshire too. It’s a nice gentle activity to do at the end of the day. Help you wind down, eh.
Talking of nests, my eldest has taken her first little tumble out of it this weekend. She’s off on her first weekend away with school on a Year 4 trip to an adventure centre. I spent most of yesterday naming everything on the ridiculously long list of things that had to be squeezed into the sort of size bag that your average 9 year old could actually carry. I resorted to the executive trolley dolly look in the end as this was the only viable option. Not very adventure trip, but hey. As I sit here sipping my tea, I’m wondering what she’s up to right now and thinking how it really doesn’t seem THAT long ago that I was off on my own school trips to canoe in Ross-on-Wye. My love of canoeing still stems from shooting the rapids on the Wye with my schoolmates. Then there were the PGL trips in the Brecon Beacons with my mate Kevin. Here I loved the ‘wide game’ (where you’d all go and hide on a bracken coated hillside, crawling through the earthy green undergrowth to try and get to the ‘home’ post without being ambushed and the piece of loo paper on your wrist being torn off by the enemy) and telling an unsuspecting Spanish boy to spread a ludicrous amount of Marmite on his toast at breakfast. Ah yes, those were the days. Now my own daughter is off doing them and I’m stuck looking at a bird webcam. My, oh my, it’s not just birds that fly, but time too…
Talking of which, I’m about to be late again. Meant to be down the pub meeting friends before heading off to the local Italian as a treat for my two other little chicks. Maybe I’m not such a mean old mother after all.
As I finished that sentence G came in and commented on my perfume: 'I feel sick sometimes when I smell that smell' Great! Well, I still feel sick anyway, so we might as well all feel sick together.
Buon appetito!
PS: and if the bird cam (above) is too riveting for you, click here for another weird view of our world today (and pink wafer biscuits)
I have just come back in from nearly 3 hours of playing taxis and gone straight for the kettle and the biscuit tin. Actually I tell a lie: I went to the biscuit tin first. I proceeded to scoff, in the space of barely five minutes, four McVities digestives (plain), the last Pink Panther finger wafer (actually it was the cheap version from Morrisons) and the last Maryland chocolate chip cookie (Buy One Get One Free). G came along five minutes too late, peered into the tin (now little more than an offering for the bird table), disappointment radiating from the back of her dishevelled blond head, and said, with the best tinge of hope in her voice she could muster and a wry smile for a 7-year old, ‘Can I have cheesy bix and peanuts please?’ (A favourite mix in our house, you should try it.) ‘No’, I say, meanly, through a mouthful of biscuit, ‘we’ve run out of peanuts anyway’. The dear little poppet sighed and picked up one of the last digestives languishing amongst the crumbs. Now, my mother, when I came in from a long day at school, made me a cup of tea and a slice of toast, regular as clockwork, before I went off to play or do my homework. It was the most marvellous ritual and one which I frequently refer to when harking back to my own childhood and its maternal embrace. I claim that this (along with my mixed education) was fundamental to the grounded [laughter off stage left] character that I am today. Obviously hasn’t helped me with my own maternal embrace. I then proceeded to go into my study and boot G and L off my computer where they were happily watching the webcam from the village school nesting box. For my sins (and my six biscuits) I now feel slightly sick in the way that you always do when you need a sugar fix and then completely overdo it. Even as you stuff, you know that this will be the inevitable result, but until it actually happens it remains a distant reality and one not to concern yourself with for the moment. Well, the moment’s arrived.
Anyway, that’s my problem, so why not go and get yourself a nice cup of tea too and sit down and have a look at a bird being rather more maternal than I am right now by clicking here to see the nesting box and others in Derbyshire too. It’s a nice gentle activity to do at the end of the day. Help you wind down, eh.
Talking of nests, my eldest has taken her first little tumble out of it this weekend. She’s off on her first weekend away with school on a Year 4 trip to an adventure centre. I spent most of yesterday naming everything on the ridiculously long list of things that had to be squeezed into the sort of size bag that your average 9 year old could actually carry. I resorted to the executive trolley dolly look in the end as this was the only viable option. Not very adventure trip, but hey. As I sit here sipping my tea, I’m wondering what she’s up to right now and thinking how it really doesn’t seem THAT long ago that I was off on my own school trips to canoe in Ross-on-Wye. My love of canoeing still stems from shooting the rapids on the Wye with my schoolmates. Then there were the PGL trips in the Brecon Beacons with my mate Kevin. Here I loved the ‘wide game’ (where you’d all go and hide on a bracken coated hillside, crawling through the earthy green undergrowth to try and get to the ‘home’ post without being ambushed and the piece of loo paper on your wrist being torn off by the enemy) and telling an unsuspecting Spanish boy to spread a ludicrous amount of Marmite on his toast at breakfast. Ah yes, those were the days. Now my own daughter is off doing them and I’m stuck looking at a bird webcam. My, oh my, it’s not just birds that fly, but time too…
Talking of which, I’m about to be late again. Meant to be down the pub meeting friends before heading off to the local Italian as a treat for my two other little chicks. Maybe I’m not such a mean old mother after all.
As I finished that sentence G came in and commented on my perfume: 'I feel sick sometimes when I smell that smell' Great! Well, I still feel sick anyway, so we might as well all feel sick together.
Buon appetito!
PS: and if the bird cam (above) is too riveting for you, click here for another weird view of our world today (and pink wafer biscuits)
Comments
Found your blob via Westerwitch via BlossomCottage which are both new to me.......
I'll be back to scroll down and read some more, but first I need a cuppa tea ;)
x
Eeeek when I sprawled on the sofa to read your blog I had a modest three biscuits to chomp through . . .but all this talk of biscuits and I had to go and have another three.
Ooooo no now I feel sick and it is all your fault.
You would think that we would share the same like and dislikes of smells with our children - same genes - but I bought Wildchild a perfume she asked for one Xmas . . . and really hated it . . .
Don't dare look at the webcam....been hanging out round the blogs for too long already.
jxx
Marmitetoasty - I have nothing more to say re the hencam! Assume you enjoyed the marmite link and pressed the 'love it' button - quite a video followed which required strong stomach, but guess all marmite lovers already have that...(it was the thing I missed most in Italy - marmite on toast I mean)
WW - yes, and since my oh so delicate nose and head can't support perfumes packed with chemicals (i.e most perfumes), the one I wear is a PARTICULARLY elegant little Italian number, so I am doubly upset about it!
Jane - thanks, and good to know I'm not alone!
Milla - ashamed to say school that older girls go to is private. Does that make a difference to trustworthiness? And, of course, we had to pay, but not absurd amounts. And yes, she had a wonderful time - abseiling, canoeing, kayaking, crawling through wet muddy tunnels...I'm SO jealous! (I mean that literally, not ironically). But now she's got a terrible cold since the weather was, predictably, bad.
Sally - you're right of course, being married to an accountant does have its advantages :) Figures bore me to death, so it's a good job someone round here pays attention...
Pip - Boasters? Wow, that's a new one on me. Sound rather yummy though. My weakness was alwasy for a finger of fudge ('...is just enough to give your kids a treat' La, la).
Crystal xx