Sunday 31 March 2013

easter goodies

lottie made cinnamon carrot cakes with cream cheese frosting and marzipan carrots

boxed in a barn for john and jess


she also made her own chocolates with an easter mould we got from poundland....white chocolate with a fresh raspberry, milk chocolate with butterscotch nuggets, dark chocolate with a salted pistachio

and boxed them in baby blue egg boxes with easter ribbon

and there was enough leftover to make ellie and lottie a bunny each!

we hope whatever you did, you spent it with family, friends and had good food and good times...happy easter!


brighton cakes

choccywoccydoodah bunny in a bath!

"if you are a sock then i am a shoe"...love this cake, reminds me of kate bush "every old sock needs an old shoe"


cherubs and pink roses...made for me!

lottie also wanted cupcakes from the angel food bakery in meeting house lane as her easter pressie...so she got a box of 6 (2 red velvet - nice...cookies and cream - nice...white chocolate - nice...banoffee - very nice...vanilla? the most disgusting cake and icing we have all ever tasted)

ellie got the lemon meringue which was heavenly (filled with home-made lemon curd) and i got the one with peanut icing and it was like eating reeses butter cups (yummsville!)

so, nice cakes but avoid the vanilla (and hopefully you'll get a chirpier assistant than the grumpy cow that served us)


easter

lottie counted my stuffed bunnies...27

the easter quilt and cushion covers

celebration tree (with lindt chocolaten carroten!)

door wreath

we made hot cross buns (faint crosses but they are there!)

Tuesday 26 March 2013

newhaven incinerator

we were very lucky to go on a homeschool tour of newhaven incinerator where a lot of my questions were answered....they were lovely, accommodating people and if anyone else is curious, they are having an open day on wednesday 17 april

the view from their conference room


mummy all decked out ready for the smelly tour

a little fact


lottie (a bit shy)

the flight simulator chairs that operate the crane

ground control

lottie and lauramay pestering paul

the furnace

doesn't this look like a giant proton pack?

the giant claw

the view from the centre of the plant

the chimneys

the view up from the centre

the base of the chimneys

the fan

the silos for apc

waste is brought to the plant and deposited down chutes where it is grabbed and put into shredding machines...the shredded waste held in bunkers (holding 4000 tonnes) then burnt at 850c in the furnace...the heat it generates goes to heat water tubes to produce steam, this steam is captured and pressurised and sent to the turbine...the turbine converts it to mechanical energy for a generator and then sent onto the national grid...the waste ash is taken by train to a facility that makes aggregate for road building....the nasty gases that come from burning plastics (called apc) are injected with lime (an alkaline) then sent to aldridge and mixed with acid to produce something inert that is then buried in an old salt mine in cheshire (minosis) 3 miles underground...only water vapours are emitted from the chimneys

east sussex is one of the best counties in the uk for waste management...the county produces 400,000 tonnes of waste a year (enough to fill wembley stadium) and newhaven deals with 200, 000 of it producing 16 megawatts of energy which is enough to provide electricity for 25000 homes

the newhaven plant is 27m high and the chimneys are 65m high...the building goes 20m underground at the site of the bunker and furnace (this was achieved by constructing this part of the plant at ground level then dropping it into place 20m down then draining away the river water) otherwise the plant would have been 20m taller and they would not have got building permission...it employs 34 staff to run the plant

veolia are a french company which promotes recycling by providing 14 recycling centres in east sussex...all the materials collected at these sites are taken to the hollingdean facility for sorting and baling and sold on....1300 tonnes are handled every month...they also have a compost facility at woodlands for green waste (collected at recycling centres and in your green bin)...this waste is heated and stored for over 8 weeks to ensure all bugs are killed etc...it is then bagged and sold as Pro-Grow, a soil enhancer

Wednesday 20 March 2013

Sunday 10 March 2013

mothers day

this greeted me when i came downstairs at 3.30am for work!

little notes

pressies

a card

table set for mummy's brekkie with photos of my babies

ellie made me a bunting spelling 'lovely' because i am!






and lottie made me cherub dust!

i gave out 'beautiful mummy' stickers at work and wished all mummies a happy MD

i hope you got the recognition you deserve today (not pressies because that's not what it's about) and that you spent the day knowing you are loved

giant steak slices

i got a pack of puff pastry for 20p and 4 beef steaks for £1 at work

lottie made giant steak slices...2 of the beef steaks were cubed then fried in oil with garlic, herbs, s&p and then she added gravy...put the filling on the rolled out pastry, sealed them then bunged them in the oven for 30mins at 180c

rainbow fudge

lottie made this after watching a youtube tutorial

condensed milk, melted white chocolate and vanilla extract

the library ladies loved it!

Friday 1 March 2013

canine tooth fairy needs to visit!

winston's first baby tooth came out today

wonder what the fairy will leave?

st david's day

we made daffodils (as they are one of the emblems of wales)...yellow foam and the centres from a yellow egg box, pinned together with a windmill pin)

we made a st.david's flag

we coloured in the welsh flag

we made leeks (the other emblem of wales)...rolled up white paper wrapped in green tissue paper 

we learnt welsh words

and i can confirm that today was very cwmylog

translated it means 'happy st david's day!'

we ate leeks with bacon, potatoes and cheese sauce

we made welsh cakes and then ate 6 each

to round off we sang tom jones songs!