Last day of freedom............

........... before the start of a new term


Nick has returned to school today


Nigel has gone back to work after a lovely long Christmas break


The girls and I have a day of relative freedom before Louise and I head back into our respective schools tomorrow - today is a Teacher Training Day at both establishments


Sarah will be taken back to uni by her dad on Thursday ready for going on her first hospital placement next Monday - nerves are bubbling to the surface already


The Christmas hiatus is over and its almost all stations go


I've been busy cooking this morning with my new toy


Nigel had a small slow cooker before we even met and used it regularly


When there were just two of us both out at work all day it saw plenty of use then


But as the family has grown and I mastered the pre-set timing on the oven it fell out of favour and sat unused and unloved in the garage


At the start of the Christmas break we had a lightbulb moment and realised that Sarah could undoubtedly make use of it when she heads back to uni - the pain of having to hang around using up precious spare time in the flat waiting for things to cook could be circumvented by putting it on in the morning and letting it look after itself all day


Once I gave her a quick lesson on how to use it I realised how much we'd missed those lovely tender casseroles


A quick trawl on the net brought up its big brother - a much meatier beast at 6.2litres capacity


The princely sum of £11.99 brought home our new baby - a veritable bargain!


This morning there's a large dose of Pork with Honey and Mustard bubbling quietly away in here - some for dinner tonight, some to freeze for us and a handful of individual portions to go to uni with Sarah


I had the delight of meeting another two new babies yesterday - of the human kind


Here are the quilt recipients - Libby on the left who seems to have arrived with a New Zealand time clock built into her (awake between 12 midnight and 3am) and her elder sister, by 2 minutes, Amy on the right who is working on the more convenient and parental sleep conducive UK time.

They were both just under 6lbs born and seem so tiny - I'd forgotten just how tiny newborns can be - although mine were never that small all weighing in between 7lb 9.5 and 8lb 12 - almost half as big again. Delectable recipients for the quilts.


I've been doing a little more stitching too


Clare needs more blocks for Quilts 4 Leukaemia and asked me before Christmas for some mainly red blocks - - here are the first two - more to come :o)


On another note completely this is my 499th post - it must be time for a giveaway or two, I haven't done one for an age - last year saw me post only 18 times - this is my 4th post this year already - any comments on my next posting will go into the hat for something homemade from Chez Bebbs so call back in again soon to be included in the draw