I’m not a terrible cook, I can generally knock up the basics so when E and I decided to have a go at a jelly I was feeling quite confident. The MiL had sent us some fabby jelly moulds so I had visions of a beautiful jelly tower to wow you all with. E got some fruit ready while I dissolved the gelatin in a bit of boiling water and topped it up to a pint with orange juice. E stuck all the fruit into the mould and then made a mini orange tsunami stirring up the orange and gelatin mix. We poured the mixture over the fruit and, because the fridge was full, I took it out to the utility room to set. Luckily, the utility room is not much warmer than the fridge so I was sure it would do the job.

At tea time I fetched the jelly which was looking nice and, you know, jellyish and with much fanfare it was inverted onto the cake plate and…nothing. It did not budge a millimetre. No problem I thought, I’m not afraid to give it a bit of a jiggle, it looks wonderfully solid after all. Cue ten minutes of tapping, shaking, running under hot water and generally looking a bit stupid. Finally there was a gratifying slurp noise and this is what we got:

Not sure it was worth the effort!

I spy with my

little eye something

beginning with…

So what’s this ? I haven’t really given you much of a challenge this week but it was Valentine’s Day.

1. The Happiness Project – What makes you happy? 

A lovely idea from Kate Takes 5 and you can get the kids involved as well.

2. Va-va-voom

Motherventing’s bringing sexy back.

3. The Positives of the Husband Working Away

Melksham Mum tries to be a bit ‘glass half full’ about her husband commuting to the Midlands.

4. …and relax

Chilling out with Mum of One, sort of.

5. How to trick your partner into thinking your amazing.

Jess from The Perfect Romance Experiment has impressed me with her sneakiness this week.

6. How to…Take Great Shots Without a Big Girl’s Camera (Part 2)

This was a guest post by Spud from Spudballoo on the Red Ted Art’s Blog from a while ago but I’ve only just found it. I’m rubbish at taking photos and this post (along with it’s predecessor) has really made me want to get snapping.

7. The Cybher Meet and Greet

I’m very much looking forward to Cybher in May so I was delighted to see that Sian at Geek is the New Chic has set up a meet and greet bloghop so we can all see who else is going and check out their blogs before hand.

So there’s my seven post choices, now I have to treat you to some more fascinating facts about yours truly.

• I won’t turn the heating thermostat over 16 degrees. That’s what jumpers are for.
• I’ve foolishly agreed to take part in the Race for Life this year and will be getting my arse kick by a friend’s mum. The shame! But it’s all in a good cause.
• I have mastered the mental gymnastics required to make it ok to eat giant airport toblerone while on a diet.
• I’ve never been remotely upset by the death of any celebrity except Patrick Swayze.
• I have to use both an iphone and a blackberry and as a result am incompetent on both.
• Erm…I’ve had my car for nearly seven years and only put 16000 miles on it.
• Ok, really struggling now…My favourite vegetables are Brussel Sprouts.

Now, who to pass this on to? It’s got to be….

Mum of One

Footballs (Photo credit: beefy_n1)

I’ve been a bit surprised by the flaring up of the ‘Racism in Football’ issue this week. Not that it wasn’t horrible, it’s just that it doesn’t come as a surprise to me. Time after time these over grown, over paid schoolboys behave atrociously and there’s a little outcry, a slap on the wrist and then everything goes back to normal. It’s not just racism though. You get stories of them cheating on their wives, hitting their girlfriends, sleeping with hookers, speeding, drink driving and getting in fights. That’s just the stuff we hear about. What about all the rumors of even worse behaviour that the huge fortunes involved seem to make disappear?

Are these the kind of men that should become sporting heroes to our kids? I don’t expect them to be paragons of virtue but you’d think ‘no breaking the law or overt racism/sexism/homophobia’ would be an easy enough minimum standard to maintain.

I think much of the ‘unfamily friendly’ behaviour that we see on the terraces is a consequence of the terrible examples that fans see the professionals setting on and off the pitch and the atmosphere it causes. We live in the middle of Birmingham so have both Aston Villa and Birmingham City on our doorstep but I would never take E to see a match live because, even assuming nothing kicks off, I think the kind of language and aggression on display is completely inappropriate for a young child. I don’t have the same problem with rugby or tennis or swimming or rowing or actually any sport I can think of except maybe boxing/cage fighting. Football is supposed to be our national sport so isn’t that sad? I’m no expert but you don’t seem to get that at other types of events. We lived close to the Millenium Stadium for years and the difference in atmosphere surrounding a rugby game and a football match was striking.

I realise not all footballers are terrible but then why are the rest of them letting their colleagues get away with acting like this? Money, of course. If they help the team win, bring in sponsorship and sell merchandise they can do what they like. So, unfortunately, I think these sorts of things are inevitable as long as they are never held to account and never see any serious consequences for their actions. 

On the up side though the fact that there is so much money involved does mean there is something we can do about this. It’s easy. Stop giving them our money! By this I mean not just avoiding buying the ridiculously overpriced t-shirts but considering their sponsors and advertisers as well. From now on I am resolved to hold the people financing the thuggish behaviour to account and I hope other mums will do the same.

Please forgive my ridiculous encouraging mum voice. I really don’t speak like that under normal circumstances.

I spy with my

little eye something

beginning with…

So what’s this then? I have to admit it is the only thing I think of when you say X. E calls it his ‘bash’ although that is more indicative of how he uses it than its actual name.

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• I Spy… (catsyellowdays.wordpress.com)
• I Spy… (catsyellowdays.wordpress.com)

• When every week he refuses to take the first full bin bag out mid week and just keeps squishing everything in even though it clearly WILL NOT LAST UNTIL BIN DAY!
• When he just ‘pops out’ to get something at the weekend and doesn’t come back for two hours
• When he tidys up by taking something out to the utility room so it’s out of sight and then just leaves it blocking the washing machine door
• When he tells me we have run out of stuff rather than letting me know we are about to run out of stuff (like I should be monitoring his shower gel usage)

These are not big things I grant you, he does not cheat on me or beat me with sticks, but still they can be enough to drive even someone as saintly and even tempered as me to plot his grizzly demise.

At this point, before I had the chance to start moaning about his job or music taste, I got an email from NEXT reminding me that Valentine’s Day is coming up. Many years ago when we were first together Hubs returned home on Valentine’s Day with a card and a rose which he handed to me with the romantic words ‘WHSmiths were giving away a free rose if you bought a card’ and that has pretty much set the tone for Valentine’s Day since then. We just don’t do it very well.

Even so there are the odd occasions when I remember why I keep him around.

• When I stagger out to the car in the morning carrying a toddler, two school bags and coats, my handbag and a laptop and realise he has scraped the ice off my windscreen for me.
• When he struggles down from the loft with the huge Christmas tree and all the decorations even though he doesn’t like Christmas.
• When he spends hours in the park so E can play on his bike while I’m all warm at home fiddling about on my blog.

Bugger, I suppose he’s not so bad really. Now I’m going to have to get him a Valentine’s Day present after all. Luckily NEXT have come up with a fun Gift Selector to help me out so I can legitimately spend the rest of the day browsing without feeling guilty.

[Disclosure - This is not a sponsored post, NEXT just happened to email me mid-rant and make me feel guilty.]