Baking Home Made Courgette Bread!

Hiiiiiii!!! Did you spot the mistake in my last blog? I put Friday 31st September. There are only 30 days. But I couldn't be bothered to change it lol! I see you now going back to check LOL! Any way here we are starting October. I'm quite excited about that as it means i'm now only about 6 weeks behind - Doh! Still we are catching up and that's the main thing! So let's jump back in to a weekend ... Hello October!

Saturday 2nd October: 

Yay it's the weekend! Today I need to sort Jessica's clothes. Summer ones away and winter ones out. So here is an action shot.

After the clothes are done I decide I need to cook something to use up a big remaining courgette I picked from the veggie patch. So I dig out an old recipe my neighbour gave me and make courgette and cheese bread. Sophie wants to help so we set to it

Whilst it was cooking we set about playing monopoly. As you may remember from my last blog entry we set up a game but didn't finish it. So we are back to it ... Sophie is out first. Followed by mummy. This leaves daddy and Jessica to it! And daddy wins ...

The bread is then ready so we try a bit. It's nice but a little too strong on the herb front! We leave half out and freeze the other half.

Sunday 3rd October: 

Today I plan in a relaxing down day. I push hard at the weekends in summer in the garden and in Winter try and aim for the opposite. This is the season of down time, recouping and hibernation! That said ... I didn't clean the chickens out yesterday because it was raining so I need to do it today.

First I start the day with a cup of coffee. This is my Sunday mug as it has "religious" things on it. It's always good to have some positive affirmations/wordings to remind you of your worth!

After being fuelled by caffine I head out into the garden. All the below is washed and drying..

Here is a pic of the tarpaulin. After that torrential rain we pulled it right down to protect this side more. 

We then topped up the run with some new woodchips. 

And I scattered the old bedding on the - what was grass - that is now turning to mud!

Once I was done with the chickens I had some lunch and then it was time to commence with some crafting. I am starting to make some Autumn leaves. The eventual finish will be lots of leaves and some acorns all stringed out on a garland type thing! So I can hang it up - somehow! However this is me and I have such little time for craft so this won't be finished for some years - If at all!!But I need something to keep these fingers busy. Last year or even - the beginning of this year - you may recall I started to learn how to crochet. I should do some of this too as I want to crochet a simple but pretty square to use as a dishcloth. I know, I know - So old lady-ey but gotta start somewhere!! So I might take that up again soon. Any way for now here is the start of my leaf garland. All ready to go with my first pattern. There are 2 types of leaf and I am going to knit both types of mixtures of colours. So here I am snuggled up in my favourite blanket. I love everything about it. The fur edges, the cream chunky knit and the inside is a nice fleece. It's luuush!

Here we are! Leaf one is complete. A nice medium green colour. I timed myself and it took me 17 minutes. May have included some child interruption time but I can't remember! On to leaf number 2 in orange. Whilst listening to some relaxing hymns for Sunday on YouTube. 

Leaf number 2 is finished! I start leaf number 3 on a darker shade of green but stop there as it's tea time.

We have restarted our winter tradition of having candles at the table once again. There is something so nice and homely about it. I do sooo love candles! The light is so calm and relaxing with it's gentle flickery flick of light.

At bedtime Jessica decided to dress up as a ... well ... a "thing"! That is all I can explain it as LOL! Mad child!! I had a quick shower before bed. Usually this is a morning thing for me but got side tracked by rushing out to the chickens! So got showered ready and came out to this notice on my pillow from Jessica. I've never had a congratulations on having a shower before! I've not had that many showers in my life though LOL!!

Right that's the end of another round up! Hope you found it interesting and/or fun. Definately a few odd moments in the weekend! To current times and tomorrow is the Christmas light switch on in town. Both girls will be singing in the choir. They are due on stage at 430pm. Jessica is excited and Sophie is nervous. I'm sure it will be fine though so longs as the weather stays dry! It's meant to so fingers crossed! Friday will be children in need (almost wrote chicken in need then!) and the girls have to go in in non school uniform. Florescent colours. We don't have any! So i'll send them in as bright as we've got! They don't really care so longs they get their £1 donation i'm sure!! Right nothing else new so i'm going to sign off here. Keep looking up! Lots of love to all from The Mad House Xx

Uh oh the chickens are locked out!

Hello Worldlings! Welcome to blogland! Here we talk about a load of random every day tosh! Today we have a week full of standard fare. Shall we dive in? LETS! ... 

Monday 27th September:

Well here we are on a Monday again. My least favourite day of the week! I am sooo not a morning person and there is something hard knowing there are 5 of these early mornings ahead. But we plod on!

Nothing of note happened today except when Sophie let the chickens out Peachy decided to jump/fly! up on to the food bin. Well this is a new one! They haven't been flyer upper-ers until now! I guess she wants something aye??!

Tuesday 28th September:

Today is another day of standard fair with an interesting ending! This is the life of mummy with a hubby that works from home in the bedroom. Anything that needs to go in must be pilled by the door to dash in quick when the door opens!

Today is attack Jessica's room day. I'm a day behind as I usually do her room Mondays and Fridays and Sophie's the days in between. I am wondering whether to change it though as Jess seems on the whole to be messier than Soph! So here's the before and afters.

Now the excitement of the day comes from a torrential rain shower. It was mad! It went literally black as night in the day time and absolutely threw it down! Here is a video of it: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ye3LgHfBMsdTgXRs6

The street lights came on and everything. Our patio was well flooded.

If you watched the video above you would see that the chickens were all huddled up under the middle to try and keep dry. The rain was blowing in. I think we need to amend the tarp so that it covers the other side which is the western side to stop that as much. We looked at the cam later when we thought the chickens should be in bed by now. Wondering what on earth they were all doing. They had gone up on the bar of wood. We have never seen them up there before so something was up. I donned my wellies and raincoat with a brolly to battle the elements. (This is when I took the above photos). I then realised that the coop door was already closed and they had been shut out! Now our door is set to auto close based on daylight settings. So here we have our first fail! Oops! We have now amended it so that it closes 30 minutes after the light goes! So I had to press a few buttons - say hey presto - and open the door. Then crawled into the run and lifted them into the coop for the night then shut the door!

Wednesday 29th September:

The only excitement in the mad house family today is ... A game of Monopoly after tea time. Jess dragged it out and has been wanting to play it for a while so we start the game. We left by taking some photos so we would remember who was where ready to restart the game. None of the houses are mine! They are all hubbys and Jessica's!

Thursday 30th September:

Sophie invented her own magic trick. See here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/vSNQ6auD6otsGt8f6

As you can see she stuck it on with sellotape LOL! She is so inventative? Is that a word? Creative - I love it!

Friday 31st September:

Weee it's the end of the week! My favourite day! Friday always has such a happy feeling about it!

I have no photos stored up to show you all so it must have been a standard fare type of day! Oh I must tell you ... We have booked in a long weekend trip next month. This is in honour of my 40th birthday. It won't be on my birthday but will be on the 2nd weekend of half term week off. We have booked it Friday - Monday. So the plan is the girls will return to school Monday lunch time as it's only in the New Forest so not far!

Right that rounds up another update! Quite exciting we are knocking on the door to October now! That means my blog is only 6 weeks behind ... Ha! Back to current real time and I've had a nightmare of an evening! Trying to work out what to feed Jessica who seems to be becoming increasingly difficult to feed! So thought pasta and fish fingers with the obviously to be ignored veg. Well apparently she no longer likes fish fingers?! Since when! Last time she asked for more! ARGH! Ah well ... And then they wouldn't sleep. Took 2 hours to get Sophie to drop off. She is my nightmare sleeper. Has been since day dot! One of the ran into the others bedroom. There was a lot of faffing, stamping and moving around. Went up to find they had both moved all their bedding and were trying to sleep on the landing! I would have found it very cute if I wasn't in such a bad mood from I-won't-eat-my-tea-gate! Just been reading up on my weather forums and lots of people are getting excited about the impending cold next week. Going to get very cold with frosts and ice. But the golden question is always ... Will it snow?! I'm guessing not but either way will be nice to see some seasonal temps to help one get more in the mood for Christmas! I'm still putting off getting the folder out. Maybe at the weekend! Right i'm off to beddies once again! Keep looking up. Lots of love to all! From The Mad House Xx

Camera robber! And more tidying for Winter

Hello and welcome to another round up of Autumn action in the Mad House household! I'm going to dive right on in ...

Saturday 25th September:

Well despite this being the month that keeps giving the weather has turned now. Today is cloudy and showery. I get up and do my usual chicken cleaning. And then take a wander around the garden to see how things are at. Things are still growing albeit slower now.

I found some photos on my camera I never took! So looks like Sophie had had my phone and went picturing the chickens ...!

Sophie wanted to escape the rain so went in the run with her brolly. Yes I also want to see that brolly filled with rain and her opening it onto her head LOL!! Cruel mother ...

I have a quick look around the garden and this is the state of play. This is likely to be my last garden update of the year. To return on March 1st!

Sweetcorn well and truly gone over.

Potatoes still awaiting digging up! A) I keep forgetting and B) No one eats a lot of potatoes except me!

A couple of signs of green from the strawberries that I thought were dead but most of all these have gone. I have some spare potted ones so i'll just transplant them come Spring.

Cucumber is still going! This is where pot luck worked well. I seeded really late band at the end of the season and Autumn has been so warm they have kept going. Lucky, lucky me!

Carrots still ready to be picked. I've had a few. Going by this year they will be good until June. That's when they started going rubbery. So i've plenty of time yet.

Courgette I thought had given up the ghost seems to be putting out another small one!

And the sprouting brocalli is well done.

Sunday 26th September:

I'm in 2 minds! I'm ready for my winter hibernate and the slowing down of weekends. But the weather is a bit better today and the sun comes out again! So I immediately want to get out and do stuff!

Well the front garden has long been neglected and the bush is HUGE so must cut that I guess!

Hubby starts the day by sweeping up all the mess that the chickens have deweeded from our borders for us! It was all over the path and the step so it's been swept into one big pile. Only he had a big fail as he swept it to a neat pile then left it. Didn't tidy it into a bag and the chickens were in it and scattered it around again looking for bugs.

Our old hose pipe system was leaking like mad and had holes in various places in the pipe so needed replacing. This is the new one. You are meant to give the pipe a slight tug and it will roll itself right up. Now these things always look better in the adverts. And I can testify to that. It gets to a certain point then stops rolling up. Meh I leave it there I cba to fight with that!

Now to the front garden this is the over grown area. In there there is a flower planter!

Whilst cutting it all down we invite some little friends out to join us. Here is a video of peachy: https://photos.app.goo.gl/3e2VWWVzYRRMq1Kn6

We start with Peachy who is sensible and won't run away. Then it kinda goes down hill as hubby wants to bring them all out. So have to have eyes in all directions! 

I bring the hedgehog box out to see if anyone has taken up residence ... but no ... I spend £50 on a posh blinking box and the only thing living in it is spiders and woodlice! Still they made a nice lunch for the chickens ...

AFTER!

I sort out all the winter stuff and put my "shed things" under the blue tarp for winter. I know it's not going to last but meh! At least i'm trying!

In the evening before bed me and the girls settle down for a spot of relaxing colouring

Here endeth another blog update! Things are going well this end. It is hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner. What with the warm (for the time of year!) weather it is somewhat hard to believe that it is winter in 2 weeks. It feels more like Spring really. Very strange! This Autumn has just been so warm that I feel like i've missed out on a whole season. So many leaves are still on the trees too. Nature is behind and I feel behind too! Any way I really must dig my A4 lever arch file out this week and start planning. Need to write my Christmas card list and start writing what I'm buying for presents. Need to actually get in the cupboard of doom too and see what I actually have stashed in there already and for whom! I've ordered school photos tonight. The cut off date for orders is tomorrow so nothing like leaving it to lastminute.com! But that's another job done. Our microwave has given up the ghost. We have been microwave free for about 3 weeks or so now. So need to get a new one of those too at some point. It's quite tiresome to remember to get bread out to defrost over night for sandwiches! Another mental load of remembering I have to do! All I want to do is hibernate like a hedgehog lol! 

Any way on that note ... I'm off to temporarily hibernate under the duvet!! Lots of love to all. Keep looking to the skies. Lots of pretty, clear, sparkling stars out there tonight! Love The Mad House Xx