Read 100 Books # 24 The Magic Cottage

Another James Herbert book and I have to say it's been a very long time since I've felt scared when reading late at night. Even when I went through my Stephen King phase, I didn't find his books scary, not like watching movies (I can't watch horror movies on my own because I get too scared to upstairs to bed!) but The Magic Cottage really played on the fear I have of someone out in the dark, watching me through a window.

When I went to America to spend a month with my aunt, she lived in a beautiful big house with floor to ceiling windows and no curtains. I loved the house but when night time came, I couldn't relax because it felt like someone was out there, looking in!

The cottage sounds idyllic and it would be our dream to buy a cottage in the woods with a lovely little stream running through the bottom of the garden but I wonder whether I'd always be nervous, worrying about someone hiding in the woods, watching me.

The book really struck a chord with me, as you can tell from this post....I haven't even mentioned what the book is about really, just the effect it had on me!

Here's a little about it -

"We thought we’d found our haven, a cottage deep in the heart of the forest. Charming, maybe a little run down, but so peaceful. That was the first part of the Magic. Midge’s painting and my music soared to new heights of creativity. That was another part of the Magic. Our love for each other – well, that became the supreme Magic. But the cottage had an alternative side. The Bad Magic." "What happened to us there was horrendous beyond belief. The healings, the crazy sect who wanted our home for themselves, the hideous creatures that crawled from the nether regions, and the bats – oh God, the bats! Even now those terrible things seem impossible to me. Yet they happened..."

This another James Herbert book that I really enjoyed and he's fast becoming one of my favourite authors :)

Macro Monday - May 20th

Aquilegia 

Aquilegia

Ant found this acorn that had started to grow so he put it in a pot :)

Acorn growing :)

One of my mother's day fairies that the kids bought me a few years ago

Strawberry plant flower

I know, I know, I've put Bleeding Hearts on before but I just can't resist them!

I used the vivid colours setting on my camera to shoot the following photos. This is a leaf on my Chocolate Tree.

Vivid Colours setting - Another fairy gift from the kids :)

Vivid Colours setting - Azalea

Vivid Colours setting - This one makes my heart happy....my wisteria is getting stronger by the day and I'm so happy it's doing well :)

Vivid Colours - Can't remember what this is but love the bright pink, even without the vivid colours setting!

Vivid Colours setting - Acorn

Vivid Colours setting - Strawberry plant flower

Silent Sunday

Photo Challenge - May 11th - May 17th

11th - I think, although I'm not 100% sure that this a wallflower. I bought a pack of assorted plug plants last year with some birthday money and I forgot to label them all so I totally forgot what these were called. The other day someone mentioned wallflowers on the tv and my first thought was that it sounded familiar and maybe those plants in the garden were wallflowers.
I've Googled them and they do look very similar but for now, that's the only flower I have and it's missing petals now after the strong winds from the other day so it's a bit hard to tell. I'll check again when I get more flowers.

12th - This is another plant that I forgot to label and I planted it 2 or 3 years ago now so I have no chance of remembering what it's called but I love the dark pink colour.

13th - I haven't done any cross stitch for years and started looking for a kit on Amazon the other week after I suddenly had the urge to sew!
I don't remember the kits being so expensive and I decided against it for now but then my mother in law mentioned that she'd had one as a gift and she didn't want to do it so I offered to do it for her.
I've never worked on a printed one before, I've always worked from a chart but I have to admit, it's a lot easier doing it on printed fabric!

14th - I treated myself to a black coffee and some chocolate after losing another 2 and a half pounds at Slimming World today :)

15th - Ella recently started piano lessons on a Friday afternoon at school and here she is practising at home :)

16th - We've got a house guest for a few days and the girls don't want to let her go home....again!
They both love Chi-Chi and always love it when she comes to stay :)

17th - It's my nephew's 6th birthday today and he wanted a pool table cake. I used sweets for the balls because I didn't have time to make lifelike pool balls. Jake didn't complain, he loved it :)

Come Dine With Me - Cooking with kids #FRD2013

Everyone seemed to love our 'Come Dine With Me' dinner last night and I know they're going to want to do it again soon...I just don't know if I can cope again with helping 3 children make 3 different recipes at the same time in our kitchen!

Even though it felt a little stressful, I kept my cool and didn't think about the huge clean up job I was going to be facing when it was all over until I actually had to get on and get it done!
The kids usually have daily chores to help with the cleaning but on Friday evenings they don't have time to do them. Aiden's dad comes to pick them up for the weekend and it takes an hour and a half to get to his house in Derbyshire so they have to be leaving as soon as dinner is done.

Because of this, it was a bit of a rush but everyone had fun so it was worth it :)

Ella cooked the starter.

Pea and Ham Soup

We only had one little mishap; Ella lost count of how many teaspoons of the vegetable stock she'd added to the pan and because I was answering a question from Kaycee, I hadn't kept count either so the soup was a little on the salty side.
We all enjoyed it though, except for Kaycee who wasn't very keen and didn't eat much.
She did apologise to Ella and said she felt bad for not liking it because Ella had cooked it but Ella assured her that it was totally fine and she wasn't upset!

Pea and Ham Soup

Aiden cooked the main course of sticky chicken, potatoes and rocket salad.

Sticky Chicken with new potatoes and rocket salad

We were going to have roast potatoes with it but time ran away with us and we ended up just having boiled new potatoes because we didn't have time to roast them.
Aiden wasn't very keen on touching the raw chicken because it felt icky and because he was worried about getting sick! I explained about food hygiene and told him that as long as he followed the rules, he'd be perfectly safe.
He got on with it with no more worrying and I think once he'd got over the initial ickyness (I don't think that's a word but never mind!) he was quite proud of himself :)
While the chicken was marinating in the fridge, he did the salad and potatoes.
When it came to cooking the chicken I ended up helping him because he kept complaining his arm was aching with having to keep stirring it!
Everyone really enjoyed the chicken and wanted seconds, although unfortunately, there wasn't any left!

Sticky Chicken

Kaycee picked the dessert for 2 reasons; she loves giving out pudding and she loves to use the blender!
She made Slimming World's version of Eton Mess and it was delicious!

Eton Mess

She also made a little mistake when she didn't read the recipe properly and whizzed up all but 5 strawberries that she'd saved for decoration when she was only supposed to whizz half of them and chop the other half!
She ended up chopping the 5 she'd saved for the decoration because she said it was better to have the pieces in the pudding and the decoration was as important :)

Eton Mess Recipe

After each meal we all secretly wrote our scores on a piece of paper and at the end I added them up.

Scores:

Pea and Ham soup

Aiden - 10
Ella - 10
Kaycee - 2
Me - 9
Total = 31

Sticky Chicken

Aiden - 10
Ella - 10
Kaycee - 10
Me - 8
Total = 38

Eton Mess

Aiden - 10
Ella - 10
Kaycee - 10
Me - 9
Total = 39 - *WINNER*

I worried that Ella might be upset because she didn't win but she was totally fine and when I explained that I'd given her 9 instead of 10 because it was a little salty, she said, 'yeah, I need to be more careful next time!' and laughed :)

I told Kaycee it would have been a 10 if there were a few more pieces of strawberry and next time she needed to take her time and read the recipe first.
She was fine with that and was very pleased that she'd won!

When I read out my score to Aiden he said, 'awww come on mum, why an 8?!' (he was smiling so wasn't really upset!) and I told him it was because I'd had to stand there for 15 minutes cooking my own blinking tea when he was supposed to be cooking it for me!

We all had a laugh and everyone agreed that it had been a lot of fun :)

Parenting Pin It Party

Cooking with Kids and Food Revolution Day #FRD2013

Ella (5) loves Masterchef and Come Dine With Me. I don't know how she came to find this out because we don't watch either of the shows but one day I was looking at the tv guide and she got excited when she saw that Masterchef was on; she asked if she could watch it and I couldn't refuse after seeing that level of excitement!

As well as her new found love of cooking programmes, she's also very keen to help cook dinner every night and with that in mind I asked if she wanted us to do our own version of Come Dine With Me at home.
She beamed from ear to ear and got very excited at the thought of it :)

After reading about Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Day, I figured what better day to get the kids cooking than Friday May 17th!

Aiden, Kaycee and Ella are each going to cook a dish for a 3 course family dinner for Friday night and we'll be sharing the recipes and photos from the day on the blog.

As Aiden and I are both doing Slimming World, the recipes have to be healthy and low in fat so I used the recipe finder on the Slimming World website and here's our menu for our 3 course family dinner :)

I'll be back over the weekend with photos, recipes and of course, the all important winner results!

The Gallery - New

This is Kaycee in her new Brownie's uniform. She joined a few weeks ago and is loving it.

Next week she makes her Brownie promise and is working really hard to remember it.

The Brownie's are putting on a fun night to celebrate and she was really excited when she gave us the invites and asked if we could go and watch her make the Brownie promise :)

Read 100 Books #19 - Nobody True

I just realised that I forgot to publish this post when I finished the book a few months ago! I now have another book post out of sequence, just to confuse me when I'm trying to keep track of the books I've read for my day zero project!

Anyway, onto my thoughts about the next James Herbert story that I read.

You may have heard me mention that I'm a new James Herbert fan after watching The Secrets Of Crickley Hall last year on ITV.

I'm really enjoying his books and this one didn't disappoint.

James True is able to leave his own body which he unfortunately does on the night someone murders him. We follow him as he tries to come to terms with his murder and to protect the family he left behind. However, he finds that this isn't easily done when you can't touch anyone or anything.

It kept me turning the pages and made me have too many late nights when I just couldn't put it down!