Skip to main content

Monthly Munch: March 2015

Snow.  Solar eclipse.  Spring flowers.  Spotty baby.  Seeds.  Simnel cake.  Showers and sunshine.  Star charts.  Soup.

Toby

Watching the solar eclipse at his preschool
 - likes telling jokes, although they are mostly complete non sequiturs.  And I can't quite tell if he gets the punch line, when I tell him one back!

Admiring aero engines
- announces what he is planning to dream about every night.

- reads every sign we walk past.  We are trying to persuade him that "Caution" is not pronounced "Cuttin".
My booky boys!

- achieved some toilet goals he's been resisting for ages with the help of a star chart.  If I'd known it would only take five stickers and a piece of chocolate, I would have done it months ago!

Quotes

Graham: "What are you thinking about?"

Toby: "I'm thinking dot dot dot.  That's when you're not really thinking about anything."

He fell over and was howling: "Oh!  Oh!  Mummy!"  Then he paused: "Why aren't any tears coming out of my eyes?"  Because that's complete fake crying, little one!

Toby: "I'm sitting here like a lemon."
Me: "Why are you like a lemon?"
Toby: "Because I'm all shivery."
Well, they do live in the fridge, I suppose.

Theo

Fenced in at Elvaston Castle
 - loves sitting by the front door waving at people.

- is a complete toilet fanatic.  He makes a beeline for the bathroom every time you put him down upstairs!  The lid is staying closed rather a lot, now.

- has unfortunately now realised that he doesn't have to lie still when you put him on his changing mat, but can flip over and make a break for it.  To be fair, it did take him a long time, so I'm not complaining (much)!

Mmm, coffee!

- got spots, although not any of the usual diseases involving spots.  The doctor took one look and said, "Antibiotics" - and sure enough, they worked.

- occasionally stands up without holding onto anything, but usually when he's concentrating on something else, so we're not quite sure he realises he can do it!

With a goal in mind.

Thankful for:


- a brief visit from my brother, whom I don't get to see very often.

With Uncle John

- getting to go to a very interesting and informative conference about refugees and asylum seekers.

- a Bollywood film night with friends.  My first Bollywood experience, so I was glad I was watching with people who could fill in some of the references!

- a fun and successful Easter party at the playgroup I help at.  I had recklessly agreed to make chocolate nests, which, amazingly, didn't result in chocolate over a five-metre radius.

Recipe of the Month - Parsnip, Apple and Coconut Soup



I'm sitting here writing this in a sleeveless top, with the patio door wide open to let the sweet springtime air in.  However, most of March was still definitely soup weather.  The coconut milk adds a nice flavour and a velvety creaminess.

1 lb parsnips
1 large apple
vegetable stock
1/2 can (about 200 ml) coconut milk
Desiccated coconut, to serve

Peel and chop the parsnips.  Peel, core and chop the apple.  Put in a large pan and add just enough stock to cover.  Bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the parsnips are soft.
Puree in a blender, adding the coconut milk and seasoning.  Sprinkle a little desiccated coconut over each bowl of soup.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions.  The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?"  This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them.  Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone.  That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of.  Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died.  And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was.  His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...

Compromise

Wearing trousers to church. Carving pumpkins for Hallowe'en. Dancing. Popping to Aldi on a Sunday. Believing that you can be LGBTQ+ and a Christian. Owning multiple electronic devices. Playing cards. Supporting women in church leadership. Drinking alcohol. Paying tax. Thinking that there isn't a "Biblical view of marriage". Eating meat during Lent. Washing clothes on a Sunday. Buying non-Fairtrade chocolate. Not wearing a hat or headscarf to pray. Driving a car. Wearing clothes that were probably produced in a sweatshop. All of these are things that I do. So, which ones do you think suggest that I am compromising my faith by adapting to the culture around me? And, if your answer is not "All of them" or "None of them": how do I tell the difference? We have had a series of sermons at church, from the beginning of the book of Revelation. This is before John gets to all the dragons and horses and lakes of fire. There are seven letters to seven differe...

California: Beside the Sea

What comes to mind when you think of California?  Surfing!  So we strapped Toby to a surfboard and pushed him out to sea... Actually, it's pretty difficult to engage in watersports when holidaying with a toddler.  Sometimes it feels like it's pretty difficult to do anything when holidaying with a toddler!  But one thing they do tend to enjoy is getting lovely and wet and sandy.  So a beach is a good place to be. Toby was delighted to discover an apparently endless sandbox, and amused us by running in circles, rolling around and even acquiring a sand goatee!  His favourite game was for Graham to bury a small ball in the sand so that he could dig it up again. One of the most relaxing afternoons we had was at Goleta Beach Park, just north of Santa Barbara, where we were staying.  The air was cool but the sand was pleasantly warm, and the sky was partly cloudy, helping to mitigate the panicked impulse to slather on as much sunscreen as possi...