My Ideas Can't All Be Winners

I blame Ms. Stafford ( I stole this photo from Facebook!)

She taught Megan at Meersbrook Bank School in Sheffield for year 2 and she was FABULOUS! By the end of the year Megan had decided she wanted to be a teacher like her and I wanted to look like her! But despite that, one of the topics she taught was the great fire of london and Megan loved everything she learned about.

Then we moved to Danbury and Sam also learned about the great fire of london, so I've been meaning to take them to see Pudding Lane now we live so close to London. So on Sunday I made some whooping noises and we all jumped into the car for a trip to tower hill via Nanny Pat's.

TomTom told us it would take 32 minutes to get from Nanny Pat's in Dagenham to Pudding Lane and I believed him.

Unfortunately I hadn't checked the news and so didn't know that it was the London Triathalon that day...so all the traffic from central London had been redirected to the east end. To make it worse, it POURED with rain so we couldn't even open the window during the almost 2 hours it took to get there.

You reach the point of no return and have to keep going forward. But this is what we did to keep entertained:I realise Megan will hate me for posting this one day, but I took hundreds of photos of them to keep them from climbing the walls! Megan and Sam thought it was hilarious to be cheeky to the camera!

When we evenually arrived, we did manage to find a parking spot on Pudding Lane - they both knew that the fire had started in the bakers shop, but Sam even remembered that his name was Thomas. We were impressed when we found this plaque to show us what clever-clog children we have. Obviously Liam and I had no idea!

We decided we needed to sightsee even though it was still raining on and off - we marched to London Bridge...and then up to St Pauls (stopping in door ways to hide from the heaviest rain!)...just enough to tick them off our to-do list!Photo in front of the Pudding Lane sign - tick

All the way there, Liam was muttering about how it had been MY great idea to nip into London - this was while the kids were moaning, the car was steaming, the rain was pouring, the traffic was heaving...but I blame Ms Stafford. And her pesky, interesting lessons from 2 years ago!

Sunflower Success

We may have a green house that looks like a tomato jungle, but the sunflowers are more of a success!

We planted 9 sunflower seeds in pots (3 for each child) and despite some little hiccups along the way, 5 or six of them made it out into the front garden!

Megan's was the tallest, and its HUGE! Liam is 6'1 so it must be at least 8 foot tall. Get us and our green fingers! We're gonna harvest the seeds from the tallest one ready for next year so there's no stopping us now.

Annual Stamner Park Road Gathering

I'm very lucky to have university friends that are born organisers. This is why 17 years after we first met in halls of residence in Brighton, we're still meeting to catch up on each others news.

Jo's train brought her into London in time for us to meet at 11am, but as Lou and I live nearer, we arranged to meet at 10. Within seconds of meeting Louise, she had fallen in a drainage ditch at the Tower of London viewing platform and twisted her ankle! And it really hurt! Not so good when you're at the start of a day out in London!

Luckily, Jo is a pharmacist and Louise had COMPLETE confidence that she would know what to do...and she did! We marched (well some of us did, others hobbled) to Boots and bought a stretchy sock bandage and a box of suitable painkillers! Good job Jo was on hand to apply the bandage - I'm not much good at putting tights on little girls so I fear Louise would have had a Nora Batty bandage if it had been down to me and she wouldn't have put up with that!

From there we headed to Planet Hollywood for a drink - I had a FANTASTIC smoothie - and then headed to covent garden to do some shopping. It absolutely poured with rain all day - typical of this summer - but it doesn't much matter if you're happy to spend your day shopping and eating! So we ran from Covent Garden to the nearest restaurant for a lovely lunch.

Then a bit more shopping before we headed back towards Leicester Square for dessert ( I wasn't joking when I said all we did was shop and eat!). Of course while Louise and Joanna indulged in these delicious desserts, I just had a healthy apple... and as I was taking the photos, there's no evidence otherwise!

It was great catching up - we're all full-time mums now - eight kids between us, so we did a lot of comparing stories! I love that (in my eyes) they look exactly the same as they did in Brighton! And I love that they're exactly the same as when we were Brighton and we all adopt the same roles - when there's a decision to make, Lou and I look to Jo to make it! She'll always be the mum of the group even though we're all mums now!

We missed Rachel who couldn't make it, but hopefully we'll see her next time.

And by some strange coincedence, look who we bumped into in Leicester square:Mum and HER university friends were having their annual trip to London! Its a small world!

Get Me - QVC

I realise this isn't really my story to write, but its not every day that I get to spend the afternoon at QVC!

I haven't actually ever bought anything from QVC or any other shopping channel, but I know people who have (**Hilary!!**), but I've certainly flicked through the channels enough to get excited when Becks told me she was going for a screen test there. And when she said "Why don't you come with me tomorrow?" my mind immediately started thinking about logistics, it being the school holidays.

My one chance to escape from the kids was if Lorraine could have my 3 kids along with her own 3 kids for the afternoon. It was a big ask, but she's a great sister in law and I knew that if she could, she would. And with out much thought, she agreed. I did emphasise to her that this was purely pleasure - no practical or financial reasons - just an afternoon out, but that made her all the happier to have them.

So my kids were duely dumped and Becks and I set out for Vauxhall.

I always get excited driving into London, and despite the TomTom taking us backwards and forwards over the river 3 times, we still got there in good time - plenty of time to sit and people watch from the cafe balcony.

Ideally I was gonna see Paul Mckenna or Joan Rivers or maybe even Lulu - I know they're all regulars on QVC - but despite us both scrutinising EVERY person to walk through the reception, the best we could do was spot a few of the regular presenters.

One of them was showbiz enough to come into the reception with her dressing gown and curlers! I was horrified when Becks whispered for me to get my camera out! What if she spotted the flash and flounced over in a Naomi Campbell style strop, demanding I delete the pictures?! Its happened to me before in pastry shop of all places, so it could easily happen at a TV studio! It could ruin Becks chances - they might not let her do her screen test?!

Becks is too bold for her own good and whipped the camera from me just in time to snap Showbiz Debbie as she left with her entourage. Luckily, in this instance, we weren't frog-marched from the premises and Becks was safe to go for her screen test! I don't think I'm ready for a career as a paparazzi yet!

I already loved seeing the "On Air" sign in the recording studio...... so it was even weirder going into one of the studios for the screen test.Of course Becks took it all in her stride. It was slightly comforting for me see that she was slightly nervous! But despite some nerves, she was fantastic and they LOVED her! They gushed about how good she was and how good she looked on screen! Especially when they found out she has 4 kids!

So watch out for her doing a two hour show in October!

Laura Meets Elephant...and Giraffe...and hippo

She's obviously had a deprived childhood (and adulthood for that matter), but how can Laura reach THIS age without being taken to a zoo - shame on you Mr and Mrs Cobain and Mr Stringer. So we jumped at the chance to go with Laura and Jim to Colchester zoo - I don't what her miss out any longer! Its just not right for a 40-something year old never to have seen an elephant in real life. And would you believe it, before too long, she had her hand stuck up an elephants trunk??! She's so bold! (That boy didn't look very impressed, but I was).

Whenever I see pictures from Colchester zoo, they're always taken in the seal lion tunnel - its just such a lovely colour blue, you can't help yourself and today was no exception!Another reason we love Colchester zoo is for the play areas - we didn't need the indoor ball park this trip 'cause the weather was nice, but its nice to intersperse the animals with a trip to a park.


NB It may look like Jim's doing all the work with the kids in these photos, but I'm sure Laura and I were carrying out some equally important roll at the time. Monitoring from a distance or something!

Although I love watching the animals......I prefer watching the wildlife closer to home, watching the animals!
...and there was one cheeky monkey that was too cute to leave at the zoo.

We loved having the Stringers stay with us this week - they're great company and easy to entertain...although I'm not sure I could cope with many more 2am bed times! Its just too tempting to stay up and chat when Laura's here!

Craft Day

When Laura and Jim were on their way here on Sunday, Sam was sat for the afternoon with a pen and paper in his hand, waiting for Laura to arrive and start drawing for him. Leah and Sam both brought the picture she'd drawn for them downstairs to greet her and they were all amazed when she did start drawing, on demand - they'd tell her, and she'd draw it! Imagine that!

So when Jim and Frances went to London for the day, and the weather in Danbury was awful, that else could the rest of us do but have a craft day!

Laura was keen to see my Cricut Machine, and I was keen to show it off! So while Laura and I huddled round the Cricut end of the table, the 4 kids huddled round the lollipop stick-glue-sequin-glitter end of the table.

I gave Laura a few sheets of paper and a cricut machine, and she knocked up a few christmas cards for me to reproduce in good time for Christmas!

Then an evening with Becks produced a few more!

She made it look easy - we'll see how I get on without her expertise!

West Ham v Ipswich

Its a big night for Liam and Sam - Sam's first West Ham match!

Megan, Sam and Liam went to Ipswich (equipped with a DS in case it was too boring for Sam) and enjoyed a 5:3 win!

It was Megans third game, so she already knew a lot of the songs that Liam LOVES, although I'm not sure I'm happy about them learning football songs! Sams came home singing about "Big fat Frankie Lampard!"

They took bubble machines to use when the crowd sang "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" and over all it was a successful trip! It was a good job they took the DS cause I think it got plenty of use, but I think Sam will look forward to his next match.

House Guests

We may not be the best hosts (not being a tea drinker, I REALLY struggle to remember that I've switched the kettle on - guests usually do get their drink, but it may be hours after they asked), and we may not have the best set up (usually one of the guests ends up on the floor!) but we LOVE having people to stay.

So we were thrilled when Laura and Jim said they were coming to stay.

The weather forecast told us that the best day would be Monday so we decided to go to Southend. There are nicer beaches around, but Jim's Grandma lived in Dagenham and they used to catch the train to Southend when they visited her. I love Southend, as do my kids (although that's mostly to do with Adventureland!) so we were pleased to go.

Since we only moved here last September, I'm just starting to experience the summer during peak times and I could really see how much busier it is now. In recent trips, we were able to park near the pier, but today, we were down next to the casino. Doesn't matter though - its just a quick walk down to the three shells beach where we settled ourselves.

I think it took about 1 whole minute for all children to strip off and put costumes on...except Phoebe who refused a costume! Is great to see kids playing on a beach - I love it.

Frances suits the beach - we couldn't take enough photos of her!

The grownups relaxed on a blanket with a picnic...
...and took a few pictures!

Laura and I were impressed with Jim's builders bum until we realised it was his undies! Its a great impression of a builders bum - I think I'm seeing an "Occupations" theme for the next Meersbrook party!
Phoebe, Frances and Leah (and Jim!) were happy to tiptoe in the shallow waves...

...but Megan and Sam were both straight in, up to their necks!
And others on the beach couldn't resist getting into the sea - the water was so warm and inviting, although I don't envy them having to drip dry for the rest of the day. These two were literally upto their necks eventually, fully clothed!

There's a viewing tower at the head of the pier that is great to get a good view of the sea front - we didn't realise how windy it was until we saw some of the huge hair photos! I don't know why we decided to do the posing photos in the billowing wind!

Here's a before the gust of wind photo...

...and then the wind blew!

There were calmer moments, and of course it didn't matter to Jim what the wind did!

Jim had to coax Frances to come and look out from the top of the tower after I scared her to death. When we got out of the lift, Frances ran up to me, excited to be at the top and I reached down to pick her up to show her the view. She couldn't back away quick enough! I think she thought I was going to toss her off the top! I'll have to work on our trust a bit more, although maybe the top of a tall tower isn't the right place to do that! After a bit of counselling from her dad, she was brave enough to run around with the others!

The Hastings:

The Stringers:

A Stringer and a Hastings:

What better way to end the day than with a Rossi's icecream - my favorite!