La Creperie - Home of the Hags!

[QueenLush]

Are you all nursing hangovers or just clearing up the post Christmas mess?

Happyadayyou MrsS as ds used to say, have a good one!.
Freezing here too, and latest on house front is they want building regulations approval for the double glazing but more alarmingly there is evidence of damp and they want a damp and timber report so further delays - I am losing the will to live.

Dp saw ds's teacher - needs to focus more, and go to loo at play time and not 10 minutes into the lesson. She also wants us to stop him reading history totally which I was a bit at. BUT he's now top of the class for literacy!!!

BD, sounds like the teacher is as mad as a box of frogs. WTF is wrong with reading about history? Obviously other stuff needed as well, but no need to stop him. And if he is top of his class (do they rank them?), surely she could back off a bit?
FWIW, I am reminding my Y3's A LOT that they should go to the loo at playtime

Happy Birthday MrsS. Have a good one and welcome to the 47 Club

BTW, Turnaround cream makes those of us with sensitive skin look like we've had acid thrown in our faces because that's what the active ingredient is: salicylic acid. Think I saw that in the ingredients list for BB stuff, which is why I gave it a wide berth. Active ingredient in wart/verucca stuff, too.

Ruby, hope the parties go well and heating will be back on soon. Is inner tube to do with new job?

MI, thanks for sizing hint re: Uniqlo. I went for a 12 and they fit v. nicely. Looks like I should have got me some HeatTech too..

BD - good news about ds. Bummer about bad house news - what an awful, long, drawn-out process.

Everyone full of cold and manky here. Loads of work in and not enough time to do it, so dh is all stressy and wants me to remove warring, manky children from the house.

Just got a copy of Home Shopping Selections through the door (you know, they type of catalogue my mother would like) and felt a bit dismayed. Till I saw it was addressed to DH He is 4+ years younger than me!

Happy B day Mrs S! Hope Mr S is pleasant to you.

Got the inlaws coming any second, taking them off to pub lunch, then I'm going to a 50th birthday party ceilidh later. Alone, as DP doesn't like that sort of thing. Go go go!

Mr S is in Geneva. We are going out to dinner tomorrow night en famille. Tonight the girls and I are going to have a takeaway from the local Chinese and a MN friend is coming over later for several bottles of fizz a small glass of sherry. Off out later, to get DD2's birthday present.

On a low note, my mother rang to wish me happy birthday and her dodgy mole looks like it probably is cancerous, but not, they think, melanoma.

Oh have a good weekend MrsS and hope your mum is okay.
BTM that don't rank them as such, but his scores put him at the top which is somewhat better than before Christmas and I am feeling less stressed about it all, which is good because I need all my stress for this house nonsense.

DD1's lovely friend has given her a ghastly Makeover Day voucher . With makeup etc involved. I am trying not to be catsbummy, but really I feel as bummy as bummy can be.

Will she enjoy it, MI? DD1 was invited to a makeover party when she was about 10, and she refused to go to the make-up bit. I went to pick her up afterwards and the girls all looked like mini hookers. DD1 had consented to having her nails painted. Black.

I know. I know

DD1 is very beautiful (I'm utterly objective, obviously), she doesn't need to look like a mini hooker.

Is it DD1's kind of thing? I personally would have run a mile if I had even been given such a present, actually, still would :)
I am cooking lots of dishes for next week (I blame MrsS and her lists of things she has cooked this weekend :)). Snowing here. An evening of Harry Potter and Borgen awaits...

Oh god, I hate the makeover parties, thankfully dd has only been invited to one last year - she was 7 (very spoilt, bad tempered girl hosting just felt all wrong). Anyway, same girl having a party tomorrow - a hot tub party as they have a hot tub, natch - and I am allowing dd to go, but am quite worried about it. Her mother said - don't worry it's lovely and warm, about 40 degrees - but I am concerned about shrieking 8/9 yr old girls, hot water, lax supervision. Dd is very sensible but, but, but... I need to chillax, yes?

Happy Birthday Mrs S - hope you have a bottle of something nice to crack open later!

And Turnaround Cream - yes terrible, pinched some from a friend, thank god I hadn't bought a whole tube, I'd have had to take it back. Should be renamed Turnaround-And-Face-The-Wall Cream.

DD has not got the kind of friends who have makeover parties , or hot tub parties - where do they think they live/ Wagsville?

On the cooking front, I have made
malt loaf
rocky road
millionaires shortbread
tropical fruit salad
cauliflower and tomato curry - prepared
kebabs - prepared
some chutneys /raita
and I am doing rubys spinach and chickpea curry and flatbreads later - got friends coming

What's on your menu's?

Oh for goodness sake BTM. I feel utterly inadequate. We had a pub lunch, just about made some coffee afterwards, and am eating out tonight.

The cat just drank some of the milk from the coffee tray, then sicked it up into the centre of DS's pop-up tunnel. Cleaning that up was FUN.

Swooning Iman (aubergine dish)
Chickpea, fennel, carrot number (Ottolenghi can't remember it's real name)
Courgette and chilli pasta with fried spinach balls (carluccio signature dish)
Paella (veg one)

Thats it for now!

Fishfingers, mash, broccoli for kids (not sure this is anyone's signature dish )
Going out tonight (when did going to a 40th start to make me feel young?) so will have a sandwich, or maybe just toast, before I go. That is the sum total of my cooking today, although dh made blueberry cheesecake.

I am in awe of the spreads that seem to be piling up at others' houses. From more than one cookbook too. I make one thing and have to go and have a lie down.

Pop-up tnnel tent..... I think we have one of those somewhere

Mmmm, Sounds yummy. Love the swooning Iman name - recipe???

Going out is good though. Will there be dancing wilbur?

Oh, and Herbs has a ceilidh to go to too - hope there'll be lots of men in kilts

It's not even a party, it's a session/day at some ghastly place . I think the thing is that the little girl who gave it to her - who is not even remotely WAGgy, she's lovely, quite quiet and very well-behaved - was given one herself and loves the idea of it.

Ho well. If it's the worst that happens to us in the next few years I'll have got off VERY lightly . DP is already despairing at hemlines (on shorts worn over respectable thick red cotton tights, ffs), I am constantly harping on about vests...

They've all been quite lovely, though, DP took them to the cinema (ignoring my suggestions to take water/crisps, etc, so he's spent about £20 on popcorn ) and they enjoyed their tea, and have been quite low-maintenance.

Two are going home soon and one - the quiet nonWAGgy one - is staying the night, and DP and I will crack open the cava.

And dig out stuff FROM THE FREEZER to eat for supper, which I suspect means a slightly weird combo of chilli con carne and chicken curry

Wardrobe crisis re ceilidh - the weather suggests jeans (plus gold sparkly trainers), but all my jeans fall down during vigorous movement. A skirt would be pleasingly swirly, but I lack suitable footwear. Boots would be too clumpy to dance in.

It's going to be bloody parky. It's a 'village hall' (in Walthamstow), with those leaky steel-framed windows and no visible insulation twixt ceiling and roof. I'm keeping my Heat tech on!

Happy Birthday to Inferiorette 1, MI - is she feeling super grown up?

And hemlines - yes, dh was goggle-eyed at some of the secondary visits (torn between disapporoval and the usual masculine inability to tear his eyes away) regarding the skool skirt lengths. Or lack of lengths. But my gosh, those 15 yr olds have got some legs on them...

Yes, bigtilly, there should be dancing, as long as the husband of the birthday girl has ignored his own iPod and put some things people have heard of on the playlist. And the party's about 5 mins walk from our house, which is a total result.

And it's just started to snow, so I may have to rethink my footwear for the totter up the road.

Have you any shortish skirts suitable to wear with gold sparkly trainers ?

I don't really do short skirts, due to having knees like flabby hams. They're all knee-length, which might look a bit 'lame' with lamé trainers.

Current outfit jeans, black heat tech top!, sequinned shrug (from charity shop) and gold sparkly trainers. May swap jeans for skinny cargoes.