Penny Blogs

An insight into the things in life that make me smile

September – attempts at a fresh start

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September. A month which marks new starts to so many parents. This year saw the youngest start at school full time and as such my life has changed again to fit in with that. It’s felt like I’ve been juggling everything since she was born and the fact that she’s now out of the house for six and a half hours a day makes a huge difference in my daily life. The morning school run and all the after school and weekend extra-curricular activities are still a huge juggle (especially as we have an hour round trip to school!) but for six and a half blissful silent hours I can actually hear myself think and go to the loo in peace. Fellow juggling parents you will know exactly what I mean here and why it is such a big deal! Alongside that her older sister started in Year 9 and her brother kicked off his final year at primary school.

Her start at school also signifies the start of me trying to get my working life back on track somewhat, and catch up with all the jobs that have been sitting on my to do list for the last five years. My list of things I wanted to achieve in September was massive, and unrealistic, but I’m pleased to say that at least some of them have been achieved. I also feel like I’ve got a pit more of a plan of what the weeks and months ahead might look like too. A few curved balls have derailed and delayed plans a little bit, but I’m hoping to get them back on track pretty soon.

So, just what have I been up to?

Well, both my husband and son celebrated birthdays in September. For one we went to a 1940s weekend at the Milton Keynes Museum and managed to see a Lancaster flypast. The other involved taking a bunch of Ten and eleven year olds go karting. Pretty sure you can work out which was which. It was also the month when my husband and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. As we have no childcare around locally it was also the first wedding anniversary where we’ve actually managed to go out and celebrate. A luxurious brunch back where we went for our first date was absolutely perfect and it felt so good to actually be able to have a conversation without interruptions from little people.

A cup of tea in my flask as I sit and look at the Manor House at Bletchley Park.

To fit in with my mum going on a U3A trip there I also managed a day exploring Bletchley Park. Somewhere I’ve been several times before, but never before without children. With my ticket valid for a whole year I plan to go back again and again until I’ve actually had time to explore all of it and take in all the fascinating stories of the code breakers who worked there in the war.

The start of the new academic year has also seen the beginning of another academic year as a school governor. This is my third year as chair of governors at an infant school, and my eleventh year of being a governor overall, and I think it fair to say that I’m in the swing by now. It’s a volunteer role that takes up a lot of time, but is also incredibly rewarding too. As is always the case at the start of an academic year there is plenty of reading to do and just absorbing all the latest edition of Keeping Children Safe in Education and reading all our relevant linked policies has taken a while. I tried to intersperse all that governor reading with a few books though and September saw me finish reading A Knight for a Knave (and watch the film version, Kes) and Death and The Penguin.

A open copy of Keeping Children Safe in education sits next to a can of coke and a copy of Death and The Penguin.

All the kids’ extra-curricular activities have also kept me on the road. I’ve now got two in Scouts as well as one in Squirrels so sewing on badges to a uniform or camp blanket is a regular activity. The youngest is still attending swimming lessons (Swim England Stage 2 at the moment) and my son is doing weekly karate classes (he had his purple belt grading yesterday) in addition to an after school football club. There is a weekly performing arts class for the youngest and the oldest is this week auditioning for her school drama company. I’ve also finally taught the big on to crochet in preparation for a new school crochet club that she’s trying out this week. Despite being left handed so seems to have mastered being able to do chains and last night’s lesson on treble stitches hopefully means she’s on her way to her first granny square. If that isn’t enough there’s also homework for the older two and daily reading for the youngest. All to be squeezed in between sleep and school.

We’ve also been catching up on all things medical this month. Orthodontist appointments, a long-overdue ENT appointment and two of them at regular dental check ups too. One day soon I might even get round to booking the eye test that was due in September last year for me.

I have managed to carve out a bit of me time too – although nowhere near enough. My September WI meeting involved learning all about Special Effects make up and props and model making. Absolutely fascinating and not something I knew anything about beforehand. I’ve also squeezed in coffee with a couple of friends and made a point of actually spending evenings on the sofa with some great TV. Bake Off, Task Master, Celebrity Race Across the World and Only Murders In the Building are my current favourites but I need to get back into the habit of doing more than just sewing on Scouting badges whilst watching. With the exception of crochet lessons for the oldest I’ve not picked up any knitting or other crochet in far too long. I also had a fantastic night out with a friend hearing the wonderful Rev Kate Bottley speak about her new book. She was so utterly lovely and down to earth and it was a delight to hear her speak.

Penny stood with the Rev Kate Bottley as she holds a chicly toy version of Jesus.

When it comes to work I’ve been plotting behind the scenes trying to get my portfolio of blogs back up to speed. I got to do my first toy review in ages over on Penny Plays and also hosted friend and fellow blogger Becky Goddard-Hill as she launched her new book on Penny Reads. I also wrote about the Andrey Kurkov and Lucy Worsley titles I’ve recently enjoyed and finally got round to re-publishing the recipe for my Gran’s Ginger Biscuits that I make for each month’s WI meeting. I also finally documented the Encanto patchwork quilt that I finished for the youngest’s bed. As well as featuring my trip to Bletchley Park I’ve also featured The University of Oxford Museum of Natural History over on Penny Travels after visiting there in the summer holidays. I also had grand plans of using this site to tell you all about the work we’d done at home this last month, but to do so would need us to have actually done something at home, which we have utterly failed to do!

October will not only feature half term, but also an attempt to start tackling all the jobs that need doing around the house and garden. Watch this space for progress on those…

Disney Encanto Patchwork Quilt

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There hasn’t been anywhere near enough time for crafting of any sort lately. I’m really hoping that as we step into autumn I’ll be able to make some time to spend evenings curled up with some knitting or crochet once more. My hands miss being busy, but at the same time I’m often so exhausted after a busy day that if I sit in front of the TV in an evening I’m most likely to fall asleep.

A completed Disney Encanto themed quilt hung on the washing line. It has a purple boarder all around.

Looking back at the whole of 2023 I have generally been making attempts to actually finish craft projects rather than start new ones. With a couple of exceptions. One being something that I’m justifying to myself on necessity grounds rather than anything else – a Disney Encanto quilt for my youngest’s bed.

Fabric squares laid out on a double bed. Sevela of teh squares have an Encanto theme to them, whilst the others are coordinating plain coloured blocks.

Until now she has normally been sleeping under a patchwork quilt that I originally started for my eldest daughter, Little Miss C. Bearing in mind that said Little Miss is now 13, you probably get a feel for just how long it took me to complete said quilt. My youngest did at least yet to sleep under it for all of last winter and it gave me a lovely warm feeling to know that she was going to sleep at night curled up warm and snug under something I made.

By now though she’s shot up in height and was starting to get cold feet from them sticking out from under her quilt, so I knew it was time to start a new one. A chance trip to The Works for a sketch book for my eldest saw me happen upon an Encanto set of Fat Quarters. The youngest loves the film on Disney plus and so she instantly asked if I could make her something from them. A quilt seemed the obvious answer.

I bulked out the fat quarters with some plain pieces of cotton that I picked up at a local fabric shop in St Albans – Fashion ‘n’ Fabrics – and it wasn’t long at all before I was cutting out squares and working out a layout. The edges and backing fabric came from the same shop, along with the batting inside. The design and sizing was made up as I went. I basically just tried to get as much as I could out of the fat quarters, having accounted for any wastage from fraying once the fat quarters were washed through.

A close up showing one corner of the patchwork quilt with a purple fabric boarder around the patchwork squares.

The edge sizes were again made up based on how much fabric I had and it’s fluke really that it ended up the perfect size for the small cot bed that she sleeps in. I’m delighted with the fabric layout and how it’s all turned out.

A close up of a sewing machine in use as I quilted a diagonal line across an Encanto themes piece of fabric

My sewing machine encountered a few problems when I was doing the final bits of quilting and so I spent hours unpicking and re-sewing right at the end of the make. Luckily my husband takes machines apart for a living and so was able to help take my sewing machine to pieces in an attempt to find out what was causing the problem. I’m not sure we managed to completely get to the bottom of the problem, but we did at least make enough progress to get to the end of making the quilt.

Just yesterday my daughter pointed out just how small the Harry Potter dressing gown I made her back in lockdown now is – so I’m expecting a request for a new mum-made dressing gown before Christmas. I guess I’d better get my machine properly fixed before then!

Gran’s Ginger Biscuits

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It’s nearly 14 years since I first shared this recipe online, but every month when I bake a batch of these for a WI meeting I get people asking for the recipe. As a child these biscuits were a fundamental part of my childhood. Every time that we went to visit my Gran she would produce a tin with some in. It’s over 12 years now since we lost her, but her recipe lives on. Although quite what she would make of the modern day WI I just don’t know!

A selection of home baked Gran's ginger biscuits fresh out off the oven laying on a piece of greaseproof paper

Ingredients

  • 4 oz self raising flour
  • 2 oz margarine
  • 2 1/2 oz sugar
  • 1 level teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 tablespoon golden syrup

What to do

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Melt the margarine and golden syrup very gently in a pan.
Once all liquid, pour into the dry ingredients and mix to make a dough.
Use your hands to make into small balls.
Place the balls on a lined baking tray and press each one down slightly with the back of a fork or spoon.
Bake for 10 – 15 minutes at 180 degrees C / Gas Mark 4.

A baking tray of round mounds of biscuit dough with a fork pressing one of them down before they go in the oven

This recipe makes between 10-12 biscuits. You can easily double up the quantities to make twice as many, but if you use two baking trays on different shelves in the oven, swap them over half way through the baking time to get an even bake.

Why we love Gran’s Ginger Biscuits so much

Not only are these biscuits incredibly tasty, but they’re also very simple to make. I can easily knock up a batch in less than ten minutes, and if you you want to bake with children they love getting their hands in the dough to make the balls.

Dragging our bathrooms out of the 1980s

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I promised you all an update on the house and I’m a woman to keep my promises. Although we’ve been so busy that I can’t deny it’s taken me a lot longer than I planned to get round to writing this.

Let’s start by talking about bathrooms. This house has two. A downstairs loo and then an upstairs “family bathroom” which has a bath in it, with a shower over the bath.

The Downstairs Loo

The downstairs loo was a pretty simple affair. A rectangular the room with the door on one side of it. As you go in to your left is the toilet and to your right a washbasin. The basin that we ended up having to replace unexpectedly a few years back.

A modern looking washbasin. White with a white built in cupboard underneath it. Around teh sink are some petrol blue metro style tiles.

I realise that I never actually got round to sharing what we’d done in there though so this time round I actually have pictures. It’s all relatively simple with some petrol blue metro style tiles around the sink, and a built in cupboard underneath it.

A close up of a white washbasin with petrol blue metro style tiles around it.

This isn’t the most attractive room at all and with no heating in there it can also be cold, especially in winter. There’s an outside wall (which actually goes to our neighbours garage as these are link-detached houses) and a small window which looks out onto a dead bit of space to the side of our porch.

Dream plans

If money were no object what we’d like to do would be to extend out of the front of the property and a new downstairs bathroom would be part of those plans. The porch is something that the previous owner handbuilt in the 1970s and it’s an incredibly useful space for shoes, boots, coats etc, but it is just stuck on the front of the house and leaves loads of wasted space either side of it. If we could build out properly and use all this space we could enlarge the downstairs bathroom and maybe even extend the kitchen too. That is also at the front of the house sticking out somewhat from the main building. Bringing all this area together would be a large piece of work and completely transform the downstairs of the whole house, but for now budget doesn’t allow us that at all.

Practical plans

What is possibly more in budget is trying to move the toilet to the opposite end of our downstairs bathroom and try to squeeze in a shower where it currently is. We’ve done some measuring and think it should just work. A small handbasin could I think fit on the wall opposite the door (possible as the door actually opens outwards at present) and that would make it usable as a full mini-bathroom. On a practical level, as a family of five this would be so handy, especially as our eldest has a downstairs bedroom.

Now we’ve found a plumber locally that we trust (more on him in a moment) it’s much more of a possibility we just need to save up – and get the other bathroom finished.

Upstairs Family Bathroom

The upstairs bathroom was functional when we moved in so we’ve really just made do with it since then. The tiles were a pale blue with some floral bits, but the sanitary wear was just plain white. At some point the main toilet pan cracked alarmingly so we found someone to replace that with just a simple cheap unit from B&Q. It did the job, but was nothing really to write home about.

The electric shower seized up – probably due to all our hard water clogging it up – and we replaced it with a like for like one from Screwfix with B replacing it himself. It was still quite pathetic as a shower goes, but at least kept everyone clean.

Problematic layout

The bathroom layout is far from perfect. As you go in it’s a square-ish room. Immediately opposite the door is the toilet. To the right of that is a washbasin and to the right of that is the tap end of the bath. The bath is across the wall with the only window in it – at right angles to the wall with the door in it. Between the foot of the bath and the door is a small Ikea storage shelf that we’ve squeezed in. The shower is actually at the foot end of the bath.

A view of a very 80s style bathroom with pale blue floral tiles and a sad shower curtain in shot. You can see the sink and taps end of the bath and also the shelf that runs along that wall of the bathroom and also teh mirrored cabinets. Poor lighting makes not look even more miserable than it was.

The wall with the toilet, sink and tap end of the bath on it has a built in shelf running the whole length of the wall just above all these and some of the pipework is hidden behind the wall that’s below this shelf. Higher up on the wall are some mirror fronted cupboard that the previous owner built to fit.

This layout means that you need a way of keeping the water off the bathroom window when you have a shower. At the moment we do that by having two shower curtains – one either side of the bath. Again, not perfect, but workable.

Upgrading the shower

For ages we’ve been wanting a better shower and just kept putting it off as we couldn’t work out how we’d manage without a bathroom whilst the work was done. We finally decided that there was never going to be a good time to get this done so just went for it. Replacing the whole bath wasn’t an option due to both cost and convenience.

The old electric shower with some blue and floral tiles still visible around it, but a few tiles already removed. The whole situation looks very sad, not helped by the poor lighting conditions for the photo.

We stripped off the tiles on the wall where the shower is and then got a plumber in to decommission the old one and put in plumbing for a new shower and accompanying pump in the next door airing cupboard. We then tiled that wall ourselves and got the plumber back to actually install the new shower. This plan meant a week without a shower, but with some careful use of plastic sheets we could still use the bath.

A wall with dodgy looking plastering but showing two capped off pipes sticking out of it.

We’re now at the stage where the new shower is installed, but we’re still plodding on with re-tiling the rest of the room and it’s very much a project that’s been worked on in dribs and drabs as time allows. The shower curtain over the window side means that we can still shower whilst the rest of the work is ongoing, although on the flip side that does remove some of the pressure on us to get the job finished.

What we used

The decor choices that we’ve made so far are relatively simple, but the amount it’s changed the look of the bathroom is unbelievable. Like in the downstairs loo we went for metro style tiles, but this time in white and combined with black grout. The tiles came from B&Q as they worked out cheapest compared to other places we found locally. For things like the tile adhesive and black grout we actually bought these from Amazon as they were cheaper than the high street DIY places and there was the added advantage that it was delivered. Some of the other smaller bits we needed like rubble bags etc where also cheapest on Amazon. I know prices change regularly, but it’s definitely worth shopping around to get the best price on things.

A wall tiled in white metro tiles with black grout and showing a shiny new shower with both a handheld he'd and a rainfall head. The adjacent wall still has the 1980s style blue tiles on it.

The shower were chose was a Triton one with two heads – a rainfall head and a handheld one. Absolute luxury compared to the dribble that we’d put up with for five years! This is the Triton Benito bar mixer shower. We saw it originally in B&Q but when we bought it saved about £20 by going to Screwfix. Looking today Screwfix (which is the same parent company as B&Q) is actually a whole £40 cheaper – so again definitely worth working out what you want to buy and then finding where has it cheapest.

A close up of the new shower and the white metro tiles with black grout in the background. A million miles away from the previous bathroom pictures.

There’s so much still to do and I haven’t yet touched upon what we’re planning for the wall with all the cupboards on at the moment. First though – we need to finish tiling around the bath area. Hopefully all these bank holidays in May will help us get it finished sooner.

Finding bargains

As well as doing the work to buy everything new as cheaply as possible we’ve been putting in some more work to see what we can buy secondhand. Facebook marketplace is full of things that people have bought and then changed their mind about. We’ve acquired a heated towel rail that we plan to use in the bathroom this way and last week’s bargain was a guy selling off seven (yes 7!) interior doors for the grand total of £50. All still wrapped in the original plastic and we think costing about £60 each. It means our garage is currently full of doors, but we have an absolute bargain there. We need to get hinges and handles for them all, but bearing in mind we were planning to buy new handles for all the doors anyway and paint them all this should save both time and money in the long run.

It’s also worth not throwing anything away immediately when you do work like this. Our old electric shower unit made over £30 on eBay, and as anyone doing renovations knows every little bit of money counts!

Five years and what do we have to show for it?

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Oh how I just laughed looking back at some old posts on this blog.

Just over five years ago we moved into our new house. I know clearly that that is how long it is as we’ve just been through the whole painful process of re-mortgaging as our initial (incredibly low) fixed rate period has come to an end. Needless to say that our monthly repayments have gone up. As have everyone else’s.

Nearly four years ago I looked back at how much we’d achieved in our first year of living here and (validly) pointed out that we hadn’t really done all that much as we’d had a baby in that time. A few days later and a burst of enthusiasm had me writing about our unplanned renovation of the downstairs loo, although it seems I never actually got round to showing you the final result. A shame, because we did indeed finish that particular project and it still looks pretty good.

Then we moved into 2020 and we all know what happened next… The blog posts about progress dried up and so did everyone’s social lives.

A two year old child sat on the floor of a newly decorated bedroom looking at books. The carpet on the floor looks very new and on the grey wall is a sticker picture of a large tree with colourful leaves and moneys and owls in it.

Some things have progressed though – albeit slowly. The youngest finally moved out of our bedroom and into the box room – which we redecorated for her during lockdown conditions. The eldest moved downstairs into the room that my step-daughter had previously used and there was a Harry Potter makeover that included having to source pretty much everything online and making great use of the then newly set up street WhatsApp group to borrow practical things like a pasting table. The living room has been re-jigged and now works so much better for us as a family, but there are plenty of finishing touches in there that still need to happen.

All this has been done on a pretty tight budget with lots of learning new skills. YouTube and the DIY bible my late father recommended dad years ago have both been worth their weight in gold!

The years have also seen us become regular customers of a local roofing company – ironic when you consider that the roof was pretty much the only thing flagged as “green” in the survey we had done when we bought the house. Apart from that, and having to install a new loo when the old one suddenly cracked in two and started leaking(!), the only other thing we’ve paid anyone external to do is fit a carpet. But even then as it was an offcut being used to carpet a box room it only cost me a total of £100 and was another complete bargain.

Other things have stayed the same though. We’re still cooking meals on the “interim” gas cooker that we installed when we moved in. We always said that we’d get the kitchen done soon as we needed a bigger oven and the existing space only gave us 55cm to fit on into. Needless to say I’m still putting in oven trays at an angle to cook a Sunday roast as they’re too wide for the oven otherwise. Roast potatoes cooked “on the wonk” is now a bit of a speciality of mine. My son also still has the thin and sun-bleached carpet in his room that made the removal men laugh when they first saw it. Sorting out his bedroom is still high on the never ending to do list.

As we came to remortgage we knew that despite the new baby and global pandemic excuses our progress on the house has been pretty pathetic really. That’s why we’ve declared 2023 the year of “making things happen” when it comes to the house. I’m pleased to say that we’ve started as we mean to go on with huge steps already taken to make the main family bathroom more usable and at present the whole family is enjoying the benefits of finally having a decent shower, rather than just a pathetic dribble!

What I need to do now though is get back to actually recording what we’re up to in the hope that doing so will help us see how far we’ve come and encourage us to keep pushing it all further. It feels a bit like we’ve failed over the last five years in really turning this house into a home, and I’m determined to use this year to turn that around.

Standby for a series of updates and progress stories!

Easy Firework Painting Activity

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With Diwali just gone and Bonfire Night fast approaching fireworks can be heard most nights round here and it seemed the perfect time to dust off a simple firework painting activity that we used to do with the kids at playgroup at this time of year. It’s easy enough for toddlers to do with a bit of help, or pre-schoolers independently.

What you need

Three toilet roll tubes and a pair of scissors

How to create your fireworks

Use your scissors to cut lines into one end of the toilet roll tube so that you can then fan them out to create your firework shape.

You could let older kids do this themselves for scissor practice, but if you do I’d recommend having some pre-made fireworks too – just in case they don’t like the final effect of theirs!

Put your paint into some plastic trays, or onto paper plates, and let children pop their toilet roll fireworks in them before using them to paint fireworks in the night sky.

Go create some fireworks

It’s all incredibly simple and easy to do with what you are likely to already have at home. Kids also really like creating their pictures and it’s usually an activity accompanied by shouts of “bang!”, “flash!” and “whizz!” as children practice some of their firework vocabulary whilst painting.