Ironing in the Great Laundry of Life

I was married to my first husband for nearly twenty years and have been with my second for coming up to a decade. There are not many similarities between the two men but they did both choose careers that required them to wear suits. For me, that has meant nearly thirty years of ironing shirts . 

I actually quite like ironing. Don't get me wrong, there's any number of things I'd rather be doing - drinking wine, reading a good book..... - but for a chore that needs to be done, there is a certain amount of pleasure involved. One pleasure these days as I set to work on my current husband's crumpled cotton is seeing the label  that proudly states '2inches longer'. I know it refers to sleeve length (my husband is a tall, long limbed gentleman) but I can't help feeling a bit smug and mildly amused in the knowledge that this applies equally to other body parts. It is good to be reminded of the husband 'upgrade'.

The pleasure I get from ironing, and indeed any task that requires an appliance, is influenced greatly by the quality and design of the equipment used.

I bought a new iron in 2008. 

The purchase wasn't something I had planned but became a necessity following an ironing board repositioning manoeuvre that went badly wrong. My precariously balanced appliance was flung to the ground, smashing rather spectacularly. I persevered and ironed a couple more shirts regardless of the exposed inside iron parts that no housewife should have to see until I concluded that it was probably all a bit dangerous. Having decided that a new iron was a better bet than a repair job with insulating tape, I headed off on an emergency  shopping mission.

 My product selection was based entirely on price rather than features, being seduced by the big red letters announcing HALF PRICE. I really had no idea exactly what I had purchased until I got home and unpacked it. It looked like an ordinary iron until you plugged it in when suddenly the whole thing lit up. It was a 'digital colour select iron' which meant that instead of having a nice sensible dial  to choose the operating temperature, you had a little bippy button that toggled up through all your usual heat settings as the water tank lit up in pretty rainbow shades. There was a certain degree of flashing and beeping that occured during the process which I failed to fathom the purpose of  but it was all good. As luck would have it, the cotton setting which is my temperature of choice as a general rule just happened to light up with one of my favoured wavelengths of the visible spectrum - purple.

 
I had a panic moment as I was ploughing my way through the pile of waiting shirts. As I was ironing, the shirts were getting really wet. Now my old iron used to dribble a bit when it wasn't quite up to temperature but nothing like this. I was pressing buttons, turning the iron upside down, shaking it...but I couldn't work out where all this water was coming from. I was starting to think I must have purchased a faulty one and would need to take it back to the shop (which was a bit embarrassing because my baby girl had chewed a big soggy hole into the cardboard packaging while I was trying to make sense of the instructions). What I hadn't realised at this point (but thankfully did realise before I became 'angry consumer demanding full refund') was that whilst I was shopping, the old iron carelessly left on the ironing board had emptied a nearly full tank of water onto the absorbent material of the ironing board cover. It was absolutely saturated and hence the source of sogginess. That sorted, new iron and I began to forge a happy working relationship.

That relationship was  doomed to failure. The 'bippy button' that toggled through the heat settings was situated inconveniently on the handle so I would inadvertantly toggle it with the palm of my hand as I ironed. This became a major problem when the light that elevated this appliance from 'iron' to 'digital colour select iron' stopped working. Toggling to the wrong setting without the colour change to alert me was a huge annoyance. I would only become aware that it was too hot when I scorched the fabric (too late) or too cool when the creases laughed out loud at my vain attempts to flatten them (much time wasted). I struggled on regardless through the years until such a time that I became convinced that the thermostat mechanism must have given up. The quality of my ironing had deteriorated to the  point that I might as well not have bothered at all.

That all changed with another half price offer. A sexy black iron with no-nonsense, straightforward controls. It was everything I wanted  from an appliance - love at first sight.

I bought it.

My ironing experience was transformed. Gliding effortlessly over even the most crumpled of garments with the gentle hiss of steam, my lovely new iron delivered crisp, crease free results. The clothes rail began to fill with perfectly pressed shirts. 

An upgraded husband and now an upgraded iron. The three of us are still living our happily ever after in the great laundry of life.

This blog post is my  entry into the Tots100/PartSelect ’Love Your Appliance’ competition.

Tots 100 Xmas Party Weekend

In my post All I want for Xmas isn't lettuce , I did have a bit of a moan about the vegetarian food served by Turners restaurant at the Tots 100 Xmas Party. This was not a reflection on the weekend, which was fabulous.

We decided to go the whole hog and stay 3 nights at the Butlins resort and take the opportunity to visit my in-laws in Brighton whilst we were down there on the South Coast. As it turned out, my mother in law's hip replacement operation was scheduled for that same weekend which gave us an even bigger incentive to want to see them and offer whatever support we could.

We arrived quite late on the Friday, settled into our hotel, The Shoreline, which was very nice and went for a little wander around the resort.

The Skyline Pavilion from our Hotel window

Things have changed a lot at Butlins since I used to spend family holidays at Barry Island as a child some forty years ago. Back then it was all row upon row of slightly shabby looking chalets and a very 'school dinner' approach to the catering. Now it is clean hotels with much attention to detail (I particularly appreciated the fluffy white towels folded to look like various animals [we had a crab, a dog and an elephant] which made my feeble attempts at napkin folding seem quite insignificant) and eateries to suit a variety of tastes and budgets.

The schedule of entertainment was very impressive and although I usually prefer my holidays to be more about the natural beauty and attractions of the location, I was happy to throw myself into the Butlins way of life and 'be entertained'. My kids loved the fairground rides for little people and the soft adventure play areas and I had an amazingly good time on the first night watching A Beautiful World perform their set in celebration of the music of Take That. Marvellous! I had packed swimming costumes to try out their Splash Waterworld but after two separate people told me that the water tempertaure was uncomfortably cold, we decided to give that a miss. We were already struggling to fight off the winter colds without being reckless!

Enjoying a book with Grandma

On the Saturday, my husband took both children to Brighton for the day to see Grandma before she went into hospital and to catch up with some of his old friends. It felt very strange for me to be in such a family orientated environment without my little ones but I spent some time time with my sister, Wendy, who was also there for the party and enjoyed some rare me time. At two o'clock we met up with the Tots 100 bloggers for coffee and mince pies and a rather bizarre competitive christmas tree decorating hour. My team won, mostly thanks to the painstaking efforts of Squidgyboo to thread fresh cranberries onto cotton to make a fairly juicy garland, but I like to think the friendly face I made out of baubles, a cracker and a santa hat contributed in some small way to the overall effect. I touched base briefly with my family before heading off for Christmas cocktails and dinner at Turners restaurant. It was lovely to get dressed up (although the heels I planned to wear stayed in my suitcase as I opted to stick with my trusty Doc Martens),  meet fellow bloggers, enjoy some kid free time and be thoroughly looked after. Heartfelt thanks to Sally Whittle for making it all possible.

We spent some time enjoying the resort on Sunday morning before heading off to Brighton again for lunch with Grandpa and then to Haywards Heath to visit Grandma who was recovering nicely from her operation. I am so glad that we had booked the extra night at Butlins because we had already spent a lot of time in the car and I, for one, was feeling shattered. Takeaway pizza and a lazy evening in our hotel room was just what I needed.

We made the most of our last few hours of holiday on Monday morning. When we normally would have been on our way to school, we were on our way to the Skyline Pavilion for some fun. It was relatively quiet meaning very little queueing for rides which equates to LOTS of riding.

Taking the teacup ride very seriously

I had one heart-stoppingly horrible moment. Adrian was playing in the soft adventure play area. I was sat in sight of the entrance with a cup of Costa coffee while my husband and Dylan were watching Fireman Sam and an enthusiastic red coat entertain the masses. I was enjoying just sitting and watching the world go by with regular glances into the labyrinth of padded obstacles to reassure myself with a flash of Addy's blonde hair or a glimpse of her stripy jumper. She was having a wonderful time exploring and clambering. As time went by, I felt a growing sense of unease that I hadn't seen her for a while. I had sickening visions of her lying injured, out of sight in the deepest bowels of the soft play area or lured away by some predatory monster. Was it possible that she could have just slipped out unnoticed? I kept thinking that I would spot her smiling face at any moment but when that moment didn't come, the panic began to set in. Maybe by some telepathic link or coincidence, my husband turned up. I explained the situation and he set off in search of her. I stayed where I was in case she was still playing happily in a dark corner.

The whole episode probably lasted no more than five minutes but they were five impossibly long minutes before the sight of my husband returning with my baby girl, unperturbed, held high in his arms, allowed time to pass normally again. She had indeed slipped out of the play area in search of new thrills. She was sitting in a coin operated vehicle pressing buttons without a care in the world when he found her. It was a sobering reminder that life can take unexpected horrifying turns.

By now it was time for our visit to see Santa. Santa's Grotto, set in an enchanted forest, was quite magical. Addy took one look at the rosy cheeked, white bearded gentleman and fled in terror!

It was a great weekend and the Christmassy-ness of it all with fake snow, lights, bauble clad trees, festive songs and the man himself (even if he did frighten the life out of Addy) has been a delight. Back home now to a mountain of laundry and a Christmas day to prepare for.

All I want for Xmas isn't lettuce

I love food.

I am a vegetarian.

I don't think it should be necessary to have to join those two sentences with the connective "but".

I take a lot of time and trouble when planning and preparing my veggie Xmas dinner to ensure that it is well balanced, delicious, festive and impressive, even without the bronzed, stuffed bird to take centre stage. I only wish this were true of all restauranteurs and caterers.

This weekend I was lucky enough to attend the Tots 100 Christmas Party organised by Sally Whittle, woman of great resourcefulness and boundless energy. The venue was Butlins, Bognor Regis and we were treated to a three course evening meal at their flagship restaurant, Turners, which promised a mouthwatering dining experience from the culinary vision of top chef Brian Turner.

The meal started promisingly with a delicious, creamy parsnip soup with roasted hazelnuts. The fact that the serving staff were uncertain as to whether is was actually suitable for vegetarians did not inspire confidence but I enjoyed it nonetheless and did not find so much as a microscopic piece of chicken looking at me from my soup spoon.

As the main course was served to the meat eating guests, I started to get excited about what might be on offer as the vegetarian alternative. Their turkey with all the trimmings looked lovely. I couldn't help but feel disappointed when presented with a plate of two large, grey, triangular wedges of something and some salad leaves. Where were my roast potatoes? My red cabbage? My brussel sprouts? My french beans? Surely the vegetable components of the turkey dinner could be served to meat eaters and vegetarians alike?

The grey wedges, I believe, were roast chestnut and wild mushroom rice cake. The taste was quite nice but, oh, it was stodgy. It was a lot more starchy rice than chestnut and mushroom and I could feel my poor palate struggling to cope with it. The salad leaves would have been a lovely accompaniment to a light meal on a summer day but, call me old fashioned, it is not what I want for winter dining.

The meat eaters were brought round extra gravy. We had to make do with the smear of sauce that made the plate look pretty but did nothing to ease the digestion of the rice cake which by now, in my over active imagination, had grown to the size of triangular house bricks (do such things exist?) and were taunting my inability to produce enough saliva to do the job.

At least there was still dessert to look forward to.

Dessert consisted of poached winter fruits and cinnamon ice cream. That sounds much nicer than the reality which was a handful of prunes, dried apricots and half a pear. It looked like the sort of food I torture myself with when trying to lose weight. It's Christmas! I want to indulge my taste buds! At least this was not the exclusive domain of the vegetarian. If the meat eaters had been served a decadently rich Christmas pud with creamy custard I would have begun to suspect a Brian Turner conspiracy to drive vegetarians into an insanely jealous meat frenzy rage.

The disappointment of the food did not spoil a lovely evening spent with good company and a rather nice red wine but if you were to ask me what I was most looking forward to on Christmas day, I can guarantee that my answer would NOT be lettuce with my Christmas dinner.

Learning Through Play

It never ceases to amaze me how, to a child, the whole world is an adventure playground and the most mundane and ordinary of objects can become wondrous treasures through their eyes. Watching children play is a joy. Seeing them making discoveries and learning through the completely natural process of play is a beautiful thing to witness.

My daughter, not yet three years old, has developed a recent interest in letters and writing. She shows a strong preference for her left hand which I know, through experience, can make things more difficult. I like to make sure she always has access to writing materials, although she will happily find them for herself if I am neglectful.

A door becomes a blank canvas to a little artist

I gave her an educational early reading and writing Activity Set to see if it interested her. It came with little foam letters, letter stencils and a variety of exercises in a pad. I was amazed to see her immediately begin matching the foam letters to the corresponding letters on the stencil. She didn't know she was doing anything clever. She was just playing.

She was happy entertaining herself but was even more delighted to share her game with me. Her little face lit up as she passed me a letter and declared it to be "Mimi's turn". Sometimes the distractions of my other children, the household chores and blogging (to name a few) mean I  don't spend as much quality time with my daughter as I'd like. It is so important to achieve a balance and that is something I continually strive for.

My daughter's attention turned away from the matching game as she investigated the writing implements. Unfortunately from a mess point of view, the thick felt tipped black pen was far more interesting to her than the coloured pencils. Luckily for her, I am not afraid of a bit of mess. I think it is so important for learning through play to have freedom. If uninhibited actions equate to the necessity for a big post play clear up - so be it. It is a small price to pay.

A first adventure with paint

The black pen made satisfyingly thick marks that contrasted strongly against the white paper. She alternated between carefully tracing different letter shapes, swirling and zigzagging and colouring in her own hands!

Fierce concentration

The Activity Set was clearly aimed at an older child and had detailed guidelines as to the proper use. I did for a moment consider taking it away from her until she was older and could obey the instructions but watching her flitting from page to page, delighting in new discoveries and totally engaged made me convinced that there was no better time than now. I watched her gain control over the pen through improved grip, I watched her immerse herself completely in the idea of writing, I watched her laugh and I watched her making the decisions in her head about what to do next.

It was a great learning experience.

She asked me for 'ticky tape'. It took me a while to realise exactly what it was she wanted. She had not learned the phrase sticky tape from me. It is quite possible that Cbeebies' Mr Maker may have been responsible but that belongs in a different (and more controversial) post entitled "Learning through Watching TV".

I gave her a roll of sticky tape and watched as she embarked on a game of discovery.

There are a great many toys on the market that boast of educational benefits to your developing child but sometimes all they need is a roll of sticky tape and a free rein!

A Tots100 Blog Hop