Happy Eastes Sunday /Gardening against the odds

Happy Easter Sunday! Whaddya think of my biscuit then? masterpiece eh! well the girls, their friend and I had fun doing those yesterday afternoon, kept us entertained. This morning however I have been doing other things.

The morning started with my lovley REM sleep being disturbed by a very excited daughter wielding an Easter Egg, all good, the Easter bunny has done his job well. REM 0, Kids 1. So dh distracted the kids by letting them eat an egg each and I got half way through my friends 'Kick Ass' Graphic, before an almighty crash signaled the end of 'A's plantpot and stand (very sad as inherited from his deceased mother) and one very upset dd1, as she realised the significance of what her dancing had done........

Fastforward a few hours, graphic finished (yay) and breakfast out of the way, I decide to pot on a few of our attempts at the growing of veg and flowers for the year.

Above are our lettuce seedlings, nestling in garden fleece, in a hope they may survive.

This is when I discover that a) its blooming freezing outside, despite a mixture of sunshine and showers and b) that dd2 has been attempting to kill several of the plants all by herself....it's enough to drive you to chocolate (and more coffee) I tell you!

Below is a picture of a surviving sunflower, dd2 has discovered that you can happily kill them by slotting your finger nails through the stems.......she's also re-discovered the naughty step and an unhappy mummy, I'm hoping she's learned her lesson?

So in the end I managed to pot on the remaining few Sunflowers, (shame dd2 killed the best 3, sob, sob) 6 Tomatoes and 6 Sweetcorn as well. The results are displayed on our dining room table below, with a variety of other flower seedlings still waiting to grow. I've dragged the table in front of the window in the hope that this will assist the growth, should the sun every escape the cloud for 5 mins?

Easter Weekend

Sorry my posts have been missing for a while, I was rather poorly last week, unanticipated as these things always are, a quick two days in bed with the worst case of D&V I've had in years.....not recommended during your kids Easter holidays.........but I was better just in time for the chocolate and had obviously a huge excuse to eat my fill and gain the weight I'd lost being poorly!

However Easter came and went with a calculated lack of chocolate in our household. I'd anticipated the possibility of chocolate overdose, and worked around it, so the kids only ended up with one egg and a few mini eggs each, hurrah, a less fattening Easter all round. The pictures below show a few painted
eggs by dd2.
This one is by dd1.

On Easter Monday we managed a day out at Papplewick Pumping Station (with the Grandparents) as they were having an open day, which also involved Egg Rolling. dd1 a surprising hit there, she got the hang of it and came 3rd, much to her and our surprise! The Pumping Station itself is a fantastic grand venue and I'm sorry I only had my phone with me, so my photos are still on it! It opens its door to the public every now and again, and they had the old Victorian steam driven workings pumping away for all to see, quite a sight, when you consider the effort put into building such a structure in the first place. I think it took 6 boilers to keep it stoked enough in the days when steam did the trick on a local level, rather than the huge power stations and the grid that does the trick now. A great little site for the kids to see though, and it had some nice play areas, both park and science based, so the girls now know a bit more about the water cycle, getting water out of underground reservoir's, to houses etc.

Our back garden looking slightly more spring like.

Ok so here I attempted to show the Cherry Blossom in full swing, but the photo sure doesn't do the view from our garden justice. What a week its been in the garden......RAT is the main cry, we'll actually it went 'mummy, is that a squirrel hanging off the bird feeder?' to which I replied, yuk, no.......and thus the catcher man from the council is coming around tomorrow sometime to sort out our lovely row of houses, as it appears that our neighbour has the actual nest, whilst the rest of us, have a run through our gardens......shudder....it put paid to me doing an egg hunt in the garden let me tell you........

Is lent over then?

Has lent finished yet? was the enquiry of one of my dinner guests on Thursday night, as she eyed up the chocolates, she'd brought round to have with coffee. I think the rest of us were tempted to say no, but it was agreed, as she'd brought them round, she really ought to have one!

Due to the diet factor on Thursday as well, I made Ratatouille, which I figured is veg, so diet worthy. It would also suit any vegetarian guests, although our resident Vegi, couldn't make it this time, due to Easter weekend going away commitments. I also did plain chicken breasts and pasta to complement, with Parmesan as an optional extra.
Meridian took care of starter, lovely organic bread, olives, dipping oil of her own design and a cheesy dip, courtesy of M&S Foods, yummy. We chucked in a few random tortilla chips, just for the mix factor as well. S, provided desert, on behalf of L, whose poorly child kept her away too. So that was Mulled Plum and Almond Pudding, with Custard, again all supplied by M&S and lovely they were too. I'd been due to host dinner for a while, but with the dining chairs taking a while to repair, it had taken me longer than it should, so we just managed to squeeze this girly meet up in, before Meridian heads back to the USA for the whole of April. So it'll be May before I see anyone again by the looks of it.

Eeek, have just looked out the window and seen the snow, brrrrrrr, shiver.

The kids have enjoyed today. Mainly due to the free chocolate Easter eggs and free Easter biscuits being handed out at the garden centre, where we met my folk's for lunch. I did buy some biscuits as felt guilty at the amount my kids we're eating. I know, sucker eh! My mother, kindly brought me a door mat too, as the one outside our back patio door, is a bit shoddy. So I now have a nice new rubber one, replacing it. Will take a photo when its not snowing!

So have a happy Easter everyone. If it carries on like this we may get some sledging done soon!