Monday, January 14, 2013

13th of January

 
Sunday morning - so it must be time for haloumi, yes?  Well James had his homemade haloumi  in the fridge of the requisite amount of time, and we were all eagerly awaiting its presentation on our breakfast plate.  Mmm...look at it simmering away in there.  And love-heart shaped too, so cute.

However, in a house first, James failed to make something delicious.  In fact I have become so accustomed to James concocting items of scrumptious delight that I kind of forget that he's only human and may occasionally not live up to the standard he has set himself.  In this particular incident the cheese was just way too salty.  As in get-it-on-the-tongue-and-spit-it-right-out salty.  My disappointment had to be tempered in order to quell James and his own realisation that he hadn't made something totally freaking awesome.  Oh well, onwards and upwards!  I'm sure the next batch will be something to blog about with gusto.

 

Harriet decided upon setting up a science work area.  She wanted to make an experiment that no-one had ever made before.  When James had the temerity to suggest looking through her science experiment book for inspiration, he was cut down with the insistence of how it had to be something NO-ONE had ever done before.  Considering the contents of our house are pretty typical fare, I wa feeling a little uncertain about how she would go about this particular task.

But luckily she happened upon something she deemed 'Ocean'.  In order to make your own ocean, you use a terrifying amount of blue food dye, add some bi carb (where would the home science kit be without it?), orange juice, vinegar and watch as the bubbles create an aquatic effect with their burbles and gurgles.

 

Harriet was also quite devoted to this ginger beer bottle.  It became quite the science experiment over the course of the weekend.   Harriet used it to christen the IKEA icypole makers from the other day, and was interested in how the full and half ices clung on to the 'stick'.  She then froze some water in it overnight and marked how much the water increased in size.  She also discussed the difference in freezing rates of the impurities we could see in there as well, and how that worked.  Interesting stuff! 

 












Meanwhile Ted kept it real out the back.


















 

We also had the arrival of Lisa in the morning, which of course was met with intense love, laughter, and even presents.  The introduction of coloured bubbles to our house had me scrambling around the backyard in a mad rush to hide all clothing hanging out to dry.  Ted was intent on making a splatter painting since the satisfying splatter once the bubbles hit the paper was beautiful to behold. 







And don't you just love Lisa's dress?  I really just posted this shot to show it off, although you can't see the deliciously soft moss green colour so well in here, but believe me, it's gorgeous.
Because we'd all had an unexpectedly smaller breakfast than we had hoped, and we weren't too keen on another all-home day (I have an incredibly low tolerance for them since the pox), it seemed like the entirely sensible (nay, required) action to purchase our favourite tofu burgers and eat them on the rocks at the beach, looking out to the grey horizon and dark blue waves.


 

 
It does seem rather unusual, but it seems as though this trip may have been the first real time that Harriet and Ted experienced the megalomaniac power surge that accompanies feeding seagulls.  Having them all watching you attentively.  Never taking their eyes away from you and your hypnotising power.  Harriet held them all in thrall, knew which ones had taken what percentage of the offered food, and favoured the scabby looking younger gull.  Of course.  Everyone tries to feed the sickest looking bird, don't they?

 

We all then changed into our swimming costumes and pottered around in some rock pools, climbed up into rock caves and examined some marine life (I noticed this enormous shell and went to pick it up.  It seemed wedged between a couple of rocks beneath it, so I tried to gently extricate it out until I realised that the pink toned rock was not actually a rock at all.  It was in fact a huge mollusc body with antennae tucked underneath the outer lip of the shell.).  I left my camera back on the beach in order to be in the moment, but then realised I could be permanently left in the moment if my bag was taken.  Luckily it was not so. But it did start to mist up - at first we weren't too sure if it was sea spray or rain, but then it transformed into distinctive raindrops, which then turned into a downpour with startling speed.  

 

It seemed like a good idea to stop off on the way home to warm up with a hot drink.  Ted was all set, as he settled in to read his book.  The other day I walked past him in the bedroom and peeked in to see him, chest down, legs bent up at the knees, 'reading' his Wonka book.  James walked past and saw the same thing and came over to tell me, and that would have been about fifteen minutes or so later.  Apparently he heard him actually working on the words in there too.  So cute!  

I did forget to mention that on the night of the 12th James laid down to read a book to Ted for bed.  He ended up reading him nearly the entire novel, over the course of an hour and a half.  Yep, he loves it.

1 comment:

Oliando said...

Such a beautiful day. That's the perfect amount of eventfulness.