Book review: Frank and Teddy make friends

My heart sank when this book arrived from the nice people at Random House. Yet another saccharine tale of how two cuddly toys learn the basics of friendship, I thought.

How wrong could I be? Yes, the title (Frank and Teddy make friends), although descriptive, isn't inspiring. But this is a wonderfully illustrated book, with non-nauseating text.

Professor Frank Mouse is a marvellous inventor - creating bicycles out of pencils and string, a fabulous set of wings, and in a moment of Dr Frankenstein-ness, Teddy. Teddy attempts to help him in his work...but makes a complete mess, and gets sent outside in disgrace. But when Professor Mouse sees Teddy helping others, and them in turn helping him, he realises the value of friendship and working together.

The language is simple and effective (M, who's five, and starting to read for herself was able to read some of it), and the story is set off beautifully by Louise Yates' lovely illustrations. We particularly liked Professor Mouse's experiments, diagrams and doodles set out as if on graph paper, complete with some simple sums.

The verdict: go and buy or borrow from the library. You'll enjoy it. On the strength of this one, we're going on a mission to the library this week to track down one of Louise's previous books, Dog Loves Books, which also looks excellent.

A trip into town

I walked into Newcastle from home earlier on in the week, which is not something I often have time for (it takes about 40 minutes). I'd forgotten just how magnificent the High Level Bridge over the Tyne is...

Ready, steady, go!

Those of you who follow me on twitter might remember that I got rather excited a couple of weeks ago when a cool bag of food arrived from Little Dish for M to try out.

I'm really not one for ready meals, it has to be said. I prefer making my family's food from scratch, day in, day out - that way I know *exactly* what's going in to them. We make our own bread, cakes, biscuits, yoghurt - yeah, I know, muesli-knitting stereotype here we come...

But there are occasions when you just don't have access to your own kitchen - when you're camping, for instance - so I thought it would be interesting to try a ready meal on M, especially as she's never really eaten them. So we tested the Little Dish Beef and Spinach cannelloni (£2.29).

Firstly, the pros: she ate the lot (we had to fight her for a couple of mouthfuls to taste) and said that it tasted pretty good (we also liked the fact that it didn't shy away from using spices like cinnamon). There's no added salt or sugar - and the ingredients are pretty much what you'd use at home. It was quick-ish to heat up (if you use the microwave, much longer in the oven), and more than enough for a 5-6 year-old, with a little bit of salad on the side.

The cons: the plastic film on the packet is very awkward to tear off - I can imagine it being supremely annoying if you don't have scissors or a very sharp knife handy. But I think the main con for us is that we all eat together - so I'd be unlikely to buy a single, child-sized portion of anything (especially at £2.29). Maybe Little Dish should branch out into family-sized meals?

The verdict: as an emergency food to stash in the freezer, or to take away on a camping trip, pretty good. But I don't think I've been converted to ready meals on a regular basis...

Lady Marmalade

I may have got a bit carried away with the marmalade making yesterday. 3kg of Seville oranges is rather a lot to chop up - here's what they looked like after simmering for a couple of hours.

The pan is a rather fabulous Le Creuset jam pot which is on loan from my mum. It weighs an absolute ton (especially when it's got 3kg of oranges in it) but is marvellous. The cat certainly thinks so - she's desperate to sit in it most of the time, so it has to be defended with a cardboard lid on top.


Anyway, several hours later, I am now the proud owner of 12 (count 'em) pots of marmalade. At the current rate of scoffage, that should last us for the rest of the year, just about.

Fridge art

This is M's latest creation that we've just added to IKEA's fridge art page on Flickr, called Your Fridge Door.


I'd not really thought about it before, but a virtual fridge door is a great idea. Ours is completely cluttered up with pictures, which have to be culled on a regular basis. I should really start photographing more of them - it would be a great way to document some of the more transient artworks that could then be gently transported to the recycling!

Anyway, the benefit of uploading to the IKEA page is that you get entered into a competition to win lots of art materials. Given the amount we get through, here's hoping we win...

Sushi!

M has a lovely book called Sushi for Kids by Kaoru Ono, which is designed to introduce kids to sushi by following the story of Atsushi and his cat. It's full of beautiful illustrations, and has some really easy recipes at the end.

So at the weekend, we had a go at making nigirizushi and norimaki, which were great fun. We

• cooked some sushi rice, making sure it was on the al dente side
• made a vinegar dressing to sprinkle over the top (with rice vinegar, sugar and salt)
• sliced up some smoked salmon and cucumber

Here's the results. First of all, the nigirizushi. These were dead easy to make - although the rice does have a tendency to stick to your hands.


Then we had a go at the norimaki - sushi wrapped in a seaweed roll. We found the seaweed wrappers in Sainsbury's (I suspect they will be cheaper in some of the supermarkets in Chinatown in Newcastle).

M enjoyed layering up the rice and fillings. We don't have a rolling mat, but found that greaseproof paper works just as well. Here's the finished product:


M took the leftovers to school yesterday for her packed lunch, which flummoxed the dinner ladies somewhat...

Maker Faire here we come

We had a fabulous time at the Maker Faire event at the Centre for Life last year - constructing drawing robots, baking lollipop pies, and generally playing around with all sorts of technology.

This year, we're taking part in the pinhole sunrise camera project. We have to put the camera (handily disguised as a beer can) outside for three months to capture the path of the sun across the sky as spring arrives, and then develop it at the event in March. Can you spot it below?



We'll post the results when we develop them!

Christmas Day in Saltwell Park

Christmas Eve

It's become a tradition on Christmas Eve to set up some landing lights (tea lights in glass jars) down the front path, so Father Christmas can see where he's going. We also scatter some glittery reindeer food...

...and inside there's also a glass of whisky and a mince pie, to reward Father Christmas for coming down our non-existent chimney. He really is rather good at getting past the gas flue and the chipboard.

Christmas!

As is traditional, we've made our gingerbread house (when I say made, I don't mean I made the whole thing - I cheated and bought the sides/roof/chimney in IKEA). We used royal icing to stick it together, and then attached a whole load of sweeties to the roof. The girl liked that bit very much.

It does seem to be listing slightly, and a week on, the smarties on the roof have turned suspiciously white. I suspect the cat, who has a record of previous offences.

In other news, M's also written a letter to Santa. Apparently she wants some shoes for her (Barbie-sized) riders. Bless.

On breakfast

Breakfast in our house tends to be a speedy affair, sandwiched in between waking up, slinging on some clothes and heading out on the school run. At the weekend we're a bit more leisurely, but most of the time it's a hit-and-run.

I've tried making breakfast exciting, with offers of eggs on toast, baked beans or porridge, but what the troops really seem to want is cereal, muesli and yoghurt or toast and something. (Actually, what they really want is croissants, chocolate muesli or pain au chocolat, but that's strictly a weekend treat).

The toast-and-something tastes are clear:

Orb: peanut butter, marmalade, honey
Me: homemade jam (currently working my way through a jar of blackberry and apple), Marmite, marmalade
M: Marmite, marmalade, strawberry jam or Nutella

Usually, it's never the twain shall meet. I don't go near peanut butter, Orb wouldn't dream of letting Marmite touch his knife. None of us have ever tried peanut butter and jelly. I suggested it, but the chorus of boos was overwhelming.

This week, however, we've had a bit of a taste test. The nice people at Whole Earth sent us a couple of jars of peanut butter - crunchy and smooth. So we thought we'd give them a go. Orb's been spreading it on his toast with wild abandon as you'd expect, and M has nicked several bits of his slices, which I think means the crunchy stuff has been a hit. I had a go...but for breakfast, it just wasn't me. Too sticky. However, in a sandwich with either cheese or banana for lunch - now you're talking.

As we say in our house, "two thumbs up good".

The Collings go to Denmark

You might remember back in August we disappeared off to Denmark for a holiday - as guinea pigs for VisitDenmark. Here's a video we made about our trip!



If you want to follow what happened in more detail, here's the links to the blogposts we wrote at the time:

12 August 2010: The packing begins
15 August 2010: Ferry-tastic
15 August 2010: Denmark! (Grenaa Strand campsite)
16 August 2010: Denmark day 2 (Grenaa)
17 August 2010: Denmark day 3 (Kattegatcentret)
18 August 2010: Denmark day 4 (Dansk Landbrugsmuseum)
19 August 2010: Denmark day 5 (Jambo Feriepark)
20 August 2010: Denmark day 6 (Saltum Strand, Aalborg)
21 August 2010: Denmark day 7 (Aalborg Zoo)
22 August 2010: Denmark day 8 (Faarup Sommerland)
26 August 2010: Denmark - the verdict

Too much snow

I may have had enough of the snow now. I've got Christmas cards to write, presents to wrap, and a small girl to shoehorn into a costume for next week's nativity play at school. Enough with the snowflakes!

Other things I haven't had chance to do yet (mostly food-related):

• an exciting peanut butter taste text (the nice people over at Whole Earth have sent us some to review...but the sledging has kind of got in the way a bit)
• make our Christmas cake (I'm going back to the 2008 version)
• build the annual IKEA gingerbread house (learning from previous years, we won't be putting smarties on the roof, as the cat likes to lick them!)
• make mince pies (we did the mincemeat on stir up Sunday)
• make some crafty crackers (although this year, we'll be using tissue paper - it took superhuman levels of strength to pull last year's lot)

Eek. That's quite a lot to get done over the next couple of weeks...

Snow! (part 3)

So far this week, we've gone sledging:



...built a snow cat:



...and spent quite a while excavating the car and attempting the school run. M went to school by sledge on Monday, which was jolly hard work. I don't think I was a husky in a previous life.

Snow! (part 2)

Dusty Springfield lion (left by the house's previous owner, I hasten to add):


The icicles are still growing...

Snow!

Knitted decorations!

Not content with making Captain Jack a knitted stocking (and finding some chocolate mice to go in it), I've also knitted a star. This might not sound much, but it's very exciting - it means I have finally learned how to increase and decrease stitches properly!


Anyway, I'm very glad it's finished, as the small girl is desperate to put her Christmas tree up on December 1. We've already made little paper birds to hang from the branches - and if the weather stays cold and snowy this weekend, I suspect there might be some craft/glitter work going on (as well as some sledging).

A-ha!

No, nothing to do with Alan Partridge. Think 80s synth-pop instead...

After many, many years of waiting (so that'll be *mumble* years since I was 10), I finally got to see A-ha in concert on Tuesday, at the Newcastle Arena, before they retire for good. Here's the Arena beforehand (can't you just smell the anticipation of hordes of middle-aged folk?)


I don't think there was anyone under the age of 30 in the audience, but there were a surprising number of blokes (several of whom knew all the words, and were dancing and waving their arms about). Lots of leather jackets, but not many leather wrist bands (a la Morten circa 1987).

And here's the band onstage, complete with a rather snazzy video wall, which they made good use of:


I think it was probably one of the best gigs I've been to - for a start, I knew all the words to every song, and there was the added bonus of the soundtrack to my teenage years being played in front of me. I'd not heard some of the songs for years (I have the albums on cassette, which isn't wildly practical these days) - and had forgotten how magic things like Manhattan Skyline were.

Knit one, purloin several

I'm definitely at the simple end of the knitting spectrum. Over the last couple of years I've managed to make two bags, a ballet wrap (which took *ages* due to the increasing/decreasing stitches nonsense), a hat and a baby blanket. I can cast on, cast off, knit and purl - and that's about it. Anything more complicated than knitting two stitches together has me scratching my head and reaching for the manual.

So I was really pleased to be sent one of the latest books by Quadrille: Simple Knitting, by Erika Knight. Finally, I thought, I might have something to help me decipher those evil knitting patterns, and give me some nice ideas for projects that are not blanket-shaped. (My last project was a cot blanket for my baby niece, who arrived three weeks early...cue some late night knitting sessions).

The book is beautifully photographed, and has some excellent (large and clear) line drawings which illustrate the techniques required. My favourite bit is definitely the stitch library, which shows you in detail what the different stitches look like when worked up into a test square. As I never really know what moss stitch or whatever should look like when I'm making it, that's going to be very useful. I also love the glossary of knitting pattern terms and abbreviations - there's no way I'll ever remember what k2tog tbl means when I come across it. I thoroughly recommend the first half of the book - it's ideal for people like me who know a little bit, but really could do with some help.

Where the book falls down for me, though, is in the projects section. There's just not much there I'd like to make - frankly, life's too short to knit a dishcloth, even if it is in moss stitch. My other gripe is that quite a lot of the projects tend towards the expensive, even if you do ignore the yarn suggestions - one of the cushion covers, for example, uses 6 balls of wool. Even if you do find them in the charity shop at £3 a time or on ebay, it's still not particularly cheap. I dread to think how much 28 balls of Rowan Classic Baby Alpaca for the stripe throw would cost.

However, I do like the rag bag (made with strips of fabric) - it's at least (a) cheap and (b) not in ecru or beige, the dominant colours of the book. And it's one of the simpler patterns - there's 10 that are relatively easy or for beginners - the rest rapidly get more complicated, involving socks, cabling and fair isle (but not all at once!). I might get that far by 2020...

The verdict? Well, I like it, but with reservations. I suspect there are better books out there to inspire people who have never knitted before - but for those like me who have a vague idea what they're doing but need a bit of help along the way (and who love ecru cushion covers), this would be quite a good place to start.

Scary

I've been trying to do lots of new, exciting (and/or terrifying) things over the last couple of months. I figured now that M was at school, I'd have a bit more space to give some new things a go. So far that's included:

• playing netball again for the first time since I was 15 (sadly, it now takes rather longer to recover from a training session than it did then)
• buying a mountain bike, and zooming along some very level forest paths
• going to see a couple of radio shows recorded for the Radio 3 Free Thinking festival
• going to a speedmatching event run by the lovely people at the Media Trust, and meeting some amazing local charities
  

Coming up over the next month:

• I'm going to the Newcastle Arena to see A-ha play their farewell tour (they'd better be good - I've been dying to see them live since I was 10)
• on Friday, I'll be giving a seminar to a group of academics about editing and proofreading journal articles
• I'm heading to a workshop to learn how to make knitted Christmas decorations
  

Phew. I'll be either thoroughly exhilarated, or completely terrified by Christmas...