Terms and Conditions Apply

I blogged about bear demanding mayonnaise so I bought a cartload from Approved Food, then bear deciding he didn't like it after all.  It's okay, the mayo is steadily going down as we all like it.  Besides, bear has just complained that we don't give him enough mayonnaise and it isn't fair.

Today bear has requested a sandwich with the crusts on.  I nearly fell over after years of cutting off crusts.  It worked out that he ate more if he didn't have the crusts as I trimmed closer to the crust than his teeth did.

This hasn't helped with the looming shadow of School Lunch Box.  If he hadn't come back half starved last time then I would be tempted to put him back on school dinners.  His most recent request is pasta salad, like his friend.  I have no idea the form the pasta salad takes, so I shall be in touch with the mum and try it out.  Bear does currently like pasta.  As he has complained bitterly about every form of sandwich in his lunchbox it is at least a way of getting some necessary carbs into him.  Until he invokes Terms and Conditions and changes his mind about that.

School are quite liberal about lunches, taking the view that it is better for the child to have something before they return to learning.  One of bear's friend has, according to the mum, chocolate spread sandwiches, a chocolate bar and chocolate milk.  He looks a bit pale.  However according to his mum he now likes to have dry crackers as well.

Bear is pretty good.  He often eats cucumber, cherry tomatoes, celery sticks, apples, soft peel citrus and sometimes I even stretch to berries.  I always include something fresh.  The big problem I am now facing is protein.  Bear is currently rejecting ham.  He is also rejecting cheese except on pizza or at my brother's.  I tried Fridge Raiders which are over processed and designed to appeal to children bits of chicken.  He liked those until the Terms and Conditions kicked in.  He will sometimes take a small lump of cooked chicken, but we rarely have cooked chicken hanging around.  Besides, it is not something I can rely on.  Tuna has been utterly rejected.

I think he will start the new term with just salad bits, his drink and a slice of cold pizza.  He will at least eat the salad.

When will I learn?

It was never my idea to start with.  The freezer needed defrosting.  It has needed defrosting for many months.  I have been putting it off and 'running down the freezer', especially after the last time the freezer door was left open.  I have not been in a hurry about it.  It is a job I loathe and detest.  Then the freezer is currently surrounded by clutter which is quite far down the 'to do' list as I need to do x y and z first.  Then I am looking at the grim corners of the freezer at the things I ought to do stuff with and thinking I'll get to those before I start.  I can think of lots of reasons not to defrost the freezer now.

Action has been forced upon me.  Tomorrow we are going to my brother's for a barbecue.  They have everything set up for barbecues and we have gone several times over the summer.  This time we insist that it is our turn to take the meat.

The best place to get the meat for the barbecue for us is a farm shop which has a splendid meat counter.  What is on the counter is what was in the field.  There are also sacks of local veg as well and some lovely home made cakes and buns.  If we go to the farm shop for meat for the barbecue then we may as well get the meat to stock us up for Autumn.  And if we stock up for Autumn I need to defrost the freezer first.

So I froze some water in bags, DF brought some cheap £1.41 for 20 nappies back from town and I unplugged the freezer.  I put the few bits that I was willing to keep in a cool bag with the ice, stuffed the freezer with nappies and threw out the bits of food in the freezer that I had been avoiding for so long - in some case I think it may be years.  If I was going to actually use them, I would have used them by now.  I regretted the money wasted and took it as a lesson learned.  They were certainly not fit to pass on for next door's pets.

Then I forgot all about it.  I tootled around, helped DH with bear's routine, browsed the net and then, just as I was ready for bed at 10pm I remembered.  Thanks to the nappies there wasn't a flood, but the ice was still firmly attached.

So I have spent the last two hours wrestling with swollen nappies (they are wonderfully absorbent) and towels and lumps of ice.  I finally got a drawer back in that hasn't fitted since before last Christmas and I think I have done something interesting to my shoulder.  I didn't do a perfect job, but it was good enough.  Tomorrow I have room to stock up!

Tomorrow I will also finish clearing up a stack of cloths, nappies, rags and damp patches.  For now I am winding down after the battle with a hot chocolate and a grumble on the internet.  Next time I will be better organised.  I shall also start saving for a frost free freezer.

Angela - thank you for the comment.  I shall grin and bear it and use the money saved to pay for the salt and rinse aid.  I'm still getting the hang of the dratted machine.  Though it has been a blessing!

Suckered

I gambled on getting some dishwasher tablets from Approved Food which were Finish Classic, £9.99 for 90 so within a sneeze of my aim of 10p per tablet and they came with £5.25 off delivery.  I wanted some bits anyway as I seem to be feeding the entire street a constant stream of sweets so it seemed like a good idea.

First of all the instructions are in foreign.  I think the instructions are in a Scandinavian language and are at least in an alphabet I can recognise but apart from that I have no idea.  I may try typing some instructions into Babelfish and working my way around the Baltic languages.

I also have had a dishwasher for less than a year and I have never added things like salt or rinse aid.  We were advised to always get the 'absolutely everything in one tablet' type stuff and we have for the last ten months.  Apparently I need to add things like salt etc, though it is hard to tell.  I am going by the pictures. I am not even sure where to put things like salt as I can't find the dishwasher instruction manual.

I feel like I've been suckered.  However I will just bung the tablets in and see how they go.

I found them!!!!

Poor DH, his birthday has come and gone and his presents had been so well hidden that he missed his them.  Again.  On the bright side, he is used to it.  I am carrying on a tradition that his mother started.  She would regularly appear months after the event with a toy or book and a slightly embarrassed expression.

I now need to wrap them (yeurk!) and practice a cheerful smile.  He did have other stuff to open on the day as I have a scatter approach to presents.  People usually get lots of little ones.

I already have the single September Birthday present, and I know the inexpensive present I will be getting for the November birthday.  As for Christmas, that is almost sorted.

I can't get too smug about Christmas.  It has just sort of happened.  DF gets the Daily Mail every day.  His father got the very first one in 1922 and he carries on the tradition.  I probably won't.  However until then I will carry on collecting the codes and the points that go with them.  I currently have over 13,000 points.   £35 of M&S vouchers need 14,400 which I should have by November and in time to cash in for Christmas.  I may go for the Morrisons vouchers or Tescos which are roughly the same points for spends depending on how I jiggle things around.  If I get the Christmas and New Year joints from the farm shop then the £35 will more than cover most of the extras.

I should add that the points are only worth collecting if you read the paper anyway.  If DF stopped getting his paper then I would find other ways to save.

I currently have just over £30 in Nectar points.  By the time Christmas comes it will pay (or nearly) for three 40% proof presents in Sainsburys.  I pick up Nectar points when I shop on ebay.  It is only ever worth collecting points if you are going there, buying it or doing it anyway.  As ebay is my friend the odd point here and there is an added bonus.

I must get back to doing surveys.  If I can get some Amazon vouchers then that will help.

Money is being stashed monthly for presents.  Bear will, of course, be ridiculously indulged, but I am keen on limiting his presents.  Once again he doesn't really need much, so I will go with the flow.  I know I have the really big costs to come.

I woke up before Bear!

It was amazing!  I woke up before bear and then hung on with my legs crossed until he woke.  I can't tell  you how odd it feels.  He didn't wake until 8am!

He then spoiled it a bit because he wanted a chicken sandwich for breakfast and we didn't have any chicken in.  Bear utterly rejected any breakfast product that wasn't Haribo and I was not caving in on that.  I think at a low point bear has had fruit in jelly for breakfast, but I few the line at this.  The negotiations that went on would have shaken Mr Cameron.  In the end we settled for porridge (with honey and raisins) and then one of the very small packets of haribo you get in multipacks.  It took about ninety minutes to reach this point.

Bear has a great future in sales.

Bear is not happy

The trip to the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff has been hanging over me like the Sword of Damocles.  It is coming up to the fiftieth anniversary, bear adores Doctor Who and this Experience is supposed to be the best thing ever.  We would be mad to miss it.

So I'm considering and plotting and thinking about how to juggle all the costs and whether to go by car or train and where to stay.  Today bear broke down in tears as he didn't want to go.  At first his main objection was that he was going to be away from home on Halloween.  However when it comes down to it bear doesn't want to go away from home at all.

We go through this every time!  It needs dynamite to get bear further than the end of the street.  I am so fed up of having to drag bear to anything more than the computer.  I could cry sometimes.

I am torn.  On the one hand it will be really good for bear to go away.  We can't just leave him at home all the time.  On the other hand it is a long way to go for a lot of money when we could be physically pulling bear from train to hotel to attraction to train.  Bear has had a brilliant summer with the out of hours school holiday club.  He has gone to the seaside, parks, museums, attractions and generally had the opportunity to do all sorts.  He has objected mightily.  If he goes to the after school club due to emergencies or to cover for me having some time out then it is on the school premises and within sight of the house.  In the holidays he has to leave the postcode!  In fact he has been forced to go as far as leaving the county and travelling as far as fifty miles!  He objected to the backwards day when they did everything backwards and wore pyjamas because it was five miles away.

I am not sure that going to the Doctor Who Experience (which has some really awesome reviews) is a good idea.  I am, however, fairly sure that not going is sending the wrong signal.  I wish being a mum came with a handbook.