Last of the Summer Pants

This summer, after literally years of not quite getting round to it, I finally bought and used the Big Butt Baby Pants pattern that so many of my friends have raved about. And (unsurprisingly) I love it. That said it has taken me the whole summer to succeed in making three pairs of light summer trousers for each of the boys.







However, in spite of increasing interference from a small boy with a fascination for electrical cables, especially that attached to my sewing machine foot control, I finally finished the last pair this week, just in time for the weather to go cold. Better start on some winter ones I guess.*

*My attempts at photography were not helped by the lousy weather and the aforementioned small boy!

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside.

Recently we have been reading Mr Men books with P at bedtime, his particular favourite being Mr Bump.* In the course of the story Mr Bump takes the train and goes to the seaside, and P became determined that we should do the same. So, finding ourselves at a loose end on a suitably sunny Sunday, off we duly went to Weston-super-Mare where we had a lovely time building (and demolishing) sandcastles, splashing in tidal pools under the pier, having donkey rides, and going on the big wheel. And fortunately, unlike Mr Bump, no one fell off a boat into the sea, got their foot stuck in a bucket, or had to spend the night in a hole in the sand.**












*Sadly, P's devotion to Mr Bump extends to emulating his behaviour in other ways too. We recently booked to have some family photos taken, something we've been meaning to do since P was tiny, but even as I was inside making the appointment, P was outside with daddy falling head-first into the wall of the shop and getting himself a nice shiny purple lump on his forehead. He subsequently fell off his scooter onto the same spot - twice - and added a variety of minor cuts and scrapes to other parts of his face in the remaining few days before the sitting itself. He and his brother then also contrived to contract a cough-til-you-vomit style cold, so we must have presented the photographer with something of a challenge, variously covered in cuts, bruises, snot, and dribble, and all with huge bags under our eyes from a sleepless night!

** On the other hand, I suspect Mr Bump didn't have to travel with First Great Western, and that his train therefore wouldn't have been delayed owing to a problem with the track, causing him to miss his connection and spend lunchtime on Bristol station instead of by the sea. He probably also didn't have to stand in the corridor of an unairconditioned carriage just outside the disabled loo all the way back, or carry two buggies, plus children and assorted accoutrements over the footbridge at Weston station, where there is no lift. Still, you can't have everything.

Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails.

I don't know whether it is really true that little girls tend to be cleaner, tidier, and more fastidious than their male counterparts, but in many respects P does appear to be an archetypal little boy. Careering around the house in a seemingly perpetual fog of snot, dribble, and toast crumbs, he is never happier than when causing havoc of one sort or another. Every box must be emptied, anything that can be climbed on must be scaled, and anything squishable or smearable squished and smeared.



This week he brought his inevitable boyness to bear on what is usually considered to be a more feminine pastime - baking. Trying to keep him entertained my mum and I decided we would make some gingerbread men together and get him to decorate them with currants for the eyes, and buttons - or so we thought. P however had other ideas. Having ignored our explanation of what the currants were intended for he scoffed the vast majority of his and then set about very carefully placing the few remaining ones between each gingerbread man's legs. Why? They were all doing a poo, obviously. Appetizing, eh?

Having your cake and not eating it.

Last week P turned two. Since his birthday was on a weekday we had a shop-bought cake on the day itself, which went to nursery with him so he could celebrate with his friends, and a family party the following Saturday. For this second second birthday celebration my brother manfully took on the challenge of helping me make a cake in the shape of Postman Pat's van.

Aiming for a fairly solid loaf cake to use as a base, we hit upon the idea of banana cake. Sadly, the resulting van was not perhaps as tall as it might have been since it took 20 minutes longer to cook than the recipe suggested, and once you have opened my oven door and established that a cake is not done, the only way to shut it again is to slam it hard. However, once it was jammed and marzipanned, and covered in brightly coloured royal icing and then repainted with yet more food colouring*, it began to be fairly recognizably a red van, even if it did look as though someone had slashed the tyres.



Postman Pat himself presented more of a challenge. Unable to buy or create convincingly flesh-coloured royal icing my brother constructed his face and hands from marzipan. This left him looking rather as though he had had a nasty shock,** but we decided it would do. We had reckoned without the effect of holding the party outside on a sunny day, however.



Shortly after being put in pride of place on the table in the sunshine, Pat's already pallid features acquired a sweaty sheen, as if he was suffering from the effects of a really bad hangover. An ill-advised attempt to draw on his glasses with black icing added to the effect by making him look as though he'd put his shades on. An hour or so later and Pat's condition was clearly terminal. Shortly after the lighting of the candle his head lolled to one side and his right hand dropped off.

However P seemed to be pleased with his cake, even if by this time it did appear to be decorated with the decomposing corpse of Greendale's favourite postie. Mercifully he didn't ask to eat any of it.

* Given the less-than-buoyant texture of the central cake, and the alarming number of E numbers in the icing, we established fairly early on that this was to be a cake for looking at and blowing out candles on, and commissioned my mum to make another one that was actually edible.
** Coming out to find his tyres slashed, perhaps.

Round and round the garden.

This time of year always reminds me how much I love having a garden. A few days of sun and the odd shower and suddenly everywhere is full of colour and bees. At the moment the alliums are in full bloom, as are five of my six clematis, the flag iris is out in the pond, and the poppies are ready to pop any minute.

And this year I had an extra surprise. The enormous number of straggly wallflowers my mum gave me a couple of years ago that never came to anything and I had pretty much forgotten about, turned out to be an enormous number of beautiful crimson sweet william, and they're now flowering merrily all over the garden. Just as well I never got round to pulling them out!

Time for bed.

Some time ago P decided he was too old to sleep in a baby sleeping bag any more so we splashed out and got him a cot duvet. However both of us baulked at paying £30+ for a cover with a design we didn't particularly like, so it was decided I would make some instead.





This week (thanks largely to the Royals and their extra bank holiday which meant C was at home and could take both boys out for a long walk) I finally finished the second one, so at last I can change the sheets on P's bed without having to make sure I get them all washed, dried, ironed and back on the bed in the same day.

A bit of fluff.

Our neighbours have a tree in their garden which at this time of year produces clouds of fluffy seeds which collect in great drifts in undisturbed corners of the garden and greenhouse, and indeed in the house if the weather is good enough to have the back door open. This year it has been more than usually productive. The greenhouse, in particular, looks like it's been filled with cotton wool and I have spent a lot more time than I'd have liked chasing fluff round the living-room with the hoover.



Add to this the remarkable number of dandelions that the warm weather has brought out and it's difficult to go anywhere at the moment without coming back covered in fluff.



It also takes an inordinately long time to get anywhere if you have a dedicated dandelion-clock aficionado in tow!