The Gallery: Action

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And so the theme on The Galllery this week is:

So with the Olympics and Wimbledon on the horizon here in the UK, and the fact that I'm a very big supporter of kids getting involved in sport for all the benefits it can bring, this week's theme is: Action.

As ever, interpret the theme any way you like. It can be sport, playtime, learning to ride a bike, you taking a fitness class (!), running, skipping, skydiving, whatever.

I've thought and I've thunked. I considered posting this picture, or even this, but they're quite fresh in my blog history and so I went against them.

Then I remembered this shot from my archives and so I'm breaking my self-imposed rule of 'no school talk on my blog'.

There's so much going on in this photo, so much action and also inaction. But more so for me is the story behind it.

The photo was taken nearly eight years ago now and all children in it are now, or soon to be, eighteen. They were my third class that I taught in Reading, and they were little buggers characters, the entire lot of them. So much so, that I couldn't get a supply teacher to cover my class at all; they made every single teacher's lives hell.

And I loved them for it.

It took me until the Christmas term to 'break them in', all gently like ponies. And I did it through love and care. Many of the class didn't have any love or positive attention in their lives, we're talking about children with extremely deprived or tumultuous backgrounds: broken homes, poverty, physical abuse, prostitution, foster care, drugs, sexual abuse, school refusers, and generally badly behaved. I went home every single night from September to December and sobbed my heart out because I felt that I didn't have the skills to care for them or educate them.

And then I spent the entirety of July crying in the evenings because I didn't want to leave them to move back home.

I didn't have lunchbreaks because I was outside running lunchtime clubs renovating the conservation club or taking them off onto the school field to run a rounders club away from the other children. If I did have a ten minute lunchbreak I was invariably called out of the staffroom within two minutes because, "We don't like dealing with the dinner ladies, they just shout at us. You do too sometimes, but at least you listen first!"

When I look at that picture I see a boy who has rebuilt his life and his family from the most horrendous thing to happen to him. I see a lad who lived in fear of his father. And I see a young man who has spent the last seven years overcoming childhood leukaemia.

When I look at that picture I see more than just action, I see survivors.

—

The Big Toddle for Barnardo's

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One of The Boy's favourite brands of ready-made foods is Little Dish; the meals are nutritious and tasty and I like the ethos behind the company. When they e-mailed to tell me about the Little Dish Big Toddle on behalf of Barnardo's, I was more than happy to share the information.

Little Dish has partnered with Barnardo’s in support of the Barnardo’s Big Toddle 2012. Barnardo’s is a fantastic charity whose projects transform the lives of vulnerable children across the UK. Little Dish are running lots of exciting activities to promote the Big Toddle and are looking for your help.

The Barnardo’s Big Toddle is the UK’s biggest fundraising event for under 5’s. It is a ‘mini’ sponsored walk for children, it can be as short or long as you like, but the emphasis is on having fun, getting together with your friends and raising money for a really worthwhile cause. The Toddle attracts more than half a million children every year and all the money raised goes towards helping some of the UK’s most vulnerable children under 5.

This year the theme is Superheroes, so your children can have lots of fun dressing up and helping to ‘save the day.’

Little Dish are giving away 10 toddle starter kits to the readers of the TheBoyandMe to help you set up your own Barnardo’s Big Toddle. These include more information about the event, two day menus to suggest some activities to do with your group of toddlers, as well as some balloons and stickers too.

If you'd like to be in with a chance of receiving one, just pop a comment below by Friday 4th May and I'll pick ten at random and let you know over twitter (so make sure you're following me!)

For more information on the Big Toddle visit here

Free Top That! Apps & E-Books

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I'm not being paid to write this or given anything in exchange, I just thought you'd be interested to know that Top That! Publishing (who do send me books to review every so often) are very kindly making all their apps and e-books free to download until midnight tonight to help celebrate World Book Night.

I've downloaded most of the apps as The Boy loves the Mixed-Up Monsters/Animals that we were playing with the other day, and I've downloaded all of the picture books into the iBooks app on my new iPad (did I mention I had one of those?).

There's not just pre-schoolers picture books available, there's a whole load of fiction and non-fiction books for children up to about ten years of age, especially engaging for reluctant boys!

To download the apps click here and the ebooks here.

HURRY!

Drip!

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I'm quite a proactive person and don't particularly like burying my head in the sand when it comes to problems. Like the time my oven broke down three days before Christmas when I was due to be entertaining my entire family over the two day period. Oh and it snowed six inches within a day so I had difficulties getting a repairman out. That was fun.

However, occasionally I do a very good impression of an ostrich. Like with the fridge-freezer.

I am actually ignoring the fact that it's leaking. Apart from when I stand in the puddle of water which is creeping its way across the floor from the base of the two metre tall monolith in the corner of the kitchen. Then I put down a sheet of kitchen towel and carry on regardless.

We've had it repaired once. I say 'repaired' but the man took the inside plate off and used my hairdryer to defrost it. Then he screwed it back on and charged me £60. Hece my reluctance to address the tsunami in my kitchen.

My fridge-freezer is supposed to be one of those new-fangled (although it's seven years old) ones that doesn't ice-up and doesn't need defrosting. Therefore when my husband tells me that it is leaking because it needs defrosting, I point him in the direction of the words on the front of it that say 'frost-free'. Only I put my wellies on before attempting to point to it because the evidence proves he is right, which is something that I don't like.

Therefore, sooner or later I am going to have to address the fact that I need a home appliances repair service and warranty, and bite the bullet. I wouldn't be quite so voluntarily ignorant of the entire process, had we not cancelled our warranty two years ago (because we'd never used it) in order to save money.

How much are new fridge-freezers?

Meal Planning Monday #7

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Last week's meal plan by and large was stuck to with the exception of Saturday night's Chinese takeaway. We decided to go into Cardiff during the late afternoon and buy an iPad (as you do) and took our Tesco vouchers with us so we could have a meal at Pizza Express afterwards. Therefore, I moved the Chinese to Sunday because we don't like to miss it!

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  • Sunday: Chinese (home-made deep-fried tofu/takeaway chicken balls, sweet and sour sauce, crispy seaweed, egg fried rice, spring rolls and chips. Because I'm Welsh and that's how we roll around here!)
  • Monday: Dauphinoise potatoes, blue cheese and asparagus tartlets and salad.
  • Tuesday: freezer left-over Pizza Hut pizza and spicy potato wedges
  • Wednesday: Pasta and salad
  • Thursday: slow-cooked vegetable pasta (not tried this before, it will be a cheese/cream based pasta because I dislike tomato sauces on pasta)
  • Friday: Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagne (my brother, the chef, was supposed to be coming over last Friday and I cooked this for him, but mid-afternoon he had to cancel. He's coming this Friday instead so I shall cook it again)
  • Saturday: Mango and coconut paneer

Quite a few repetitive meals in this week's plan that make up our staple diet, but after two weeks off work for Easter and working an extra day due to INSET, I know I'm going to be knackered and need easy food. I'll get back on track with my imagination next week!

—

I'm linking this up to Meal Planning Monday at Mrs. M's

The Things He Says And Does

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The Boy has a little song at the moment that he sings, 'A cuddle and a kiss and a walking stick'. As a result when I saw a plastic one filled with sweets recently I bought it for him so he could sing the song properly. I removed the sweets and binned them because they were foul and I may as well just have poured E numbers down his throat. He was slightly disgruntled so I put a few mini eggs in to appease the situation. Over the course of the past fortnight he's eaten them gradually.

The other day he said, "Please could I have one because (with a cheeky smile on his face) I'm greedy?" and so I opened it up and three broken bits (the remaining pieces fell out). He put one in his mouth, I asked if I could have one and he put another in his mouth. I asked again and he looked at me and put the last one in his mouth.

Astounded I pointed out that I'd asked to share them with him and looked at him open mouthed. He promptly took one out of his mouth and put it in my open and disgruntled mouth. Nice hey? At least he shared.

—

I've linked this up to Thinly Spread's 'The Funny Things Children Say and Do'

Fun With Friends On The Farm

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Today we met up in Somerset with Jenny, Burton and Jenson from Mummy Mishaps. We'd both really wanted to go to the Warner Bros event earlier in the week but were unable to make it, so we decided to meet at Puxton Park, just off junction 21 of the M5.

The weather was typical April with brilliant sunshine one minute and lashing rain the next. However it didn't deter us from having fun both indoors in the massive soft play, and outdoors in the digging sand pit, adventure park, climbing fort and having a quick look at the animals before the deluge.

[slickr-flickr tag='Funwithfriends']

The boys had a great time together, and even though the weather cut our time short I suspect we'll be meeting the Mummy Mishaps mob again there. Worth a visit!

—

I've added this to Coombe Mill's Country Kids

I Might Be Going MAD

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I've previously written on the TOTS100 that I don't agree with asking for nominations for awards ceremonies, and I maintain that. I personally feel that people should nominate a blog based on the fact that it clearly speaks to you about that subject.

However, I would like to acknowledge that some kind souls have thought my little corner of cyberspace worthy of an award and have therefore nominated me in a few of the categories:

  • Best writer
  • Blog of the year
  • Best family life
  • Best family fun
  • Most helpful
  • Best photography

It means a lot that my tales of life with The Boy and Mr. TBaM have made an impression on some of you. And after my lonesome 365 project last year, and the success of this year's 366, I'm overwhelmed that people have nominated me for Best Photography blog. We have a big discussion group on Facebook for this project, and I'm guessing it's from that that the nomination for Most Helpful Blogger has come. As a primary school teacher, my job is to help, to have people recognise that is humbling. Thank you so very much.

If you'd like to nominate anyone else for the MADs, or if you agree with these above and would like to reinforce that vote, click the badge below to register your vote. But hurry, you have until Friday.

MAD Blog Awards 2012

Thank you!

Halloumi Salad & Herby Yoghurt Dressing

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I was recently sent some products from the Rachel's Organics range to try out some of their new Spring recipes. The Rachel's Organics website has some amazing and inventive recipes using their yoghurts, and there was me thinking that pouring it over banana in the morning was adventurous.

I've adapted the following recipe because I didn't have some of the ingredients, but the main ones are the same.

Halloumi Salad & Herby Yoghurt Dressing

For the salad:

  • 1 bag of mixed salad leaves
  • 1/2 cucumber, de-seeded
  • 1 orange pepper, de-seeded and finely sliced
  • 1 x 250g halloumi block, sliced thickly
  • Virgin olive oil

For the dressing:

  • 100g Rachel's Natural yogurt
  • 1tbsp of dill (they recommend a handful of coriander)
  • 1tbsp chopped mint
  • (recommended 1/2 red onion finely chopped and a garlic clove chopped, but I didn't have any)
  1. Begin by making the dressing, mix all the ingredients together and reserve in a bowl until ready to dress your salad. If you like your salad dressing smooth use a food processor to blitz.
  2. Toss together the salad leaves and cucumber in your serving dish.
  3. Grill/fry the halloumi until golden and slightly squidgy to touch.
  4. Lightly stir fry the orange pepper. Lay the halloumi and orange pepper over the salad leaves.
  5. Drizzle over the salad dressing and serve immediately.

I was sent some Rachel's Organics yoghurts for the purpose of testing the recipes. I wasn't asked to blog about them, I chose to.

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