Small Things {1}

This post is totally ripped off inspired by Mummy Limited who from time to time writes a Small Things post. All about the small pleasures in life, the things you don’t notice or make a fuss about. I loved her post this week and got me thinking that I need to blog more about life.  It’s all been about reviews and commercial content which works well for Parent Panel but it’s been a while since I have dug deep and I need to get back there.

So here are my small things from the past few months.

Having a park a three minute walk away so you and your girls can blow the cobwebs away. 

Swapping apples from your neighbours garden for cucumbers from yours. Growing cucumber in our garden. Baking apple crumble with the apples from your neighbour.  

Growing pumpkins. Twitter friends pointing out pumpkin recipes for you.

Making Jamie Oliver’s Dim Sum Pork Dumplings, they turning out perfect and everyone including your fussy daughter eating them. 

Dinners around a proper kitchen table. 

Vanilla Lattes.

Learning to crochet properly after spending 4 years trying to and it finally clicks. Having your daughter demand you crochet her a blanket to snuggle under and her choosing the order the colours go in. Having time to crochet.

Re-reading Jilly Coopers Riders and Rivals books.  Reading a book that is not a children’s book.  Staying up late to read one more chapter.

Finding a new TV channel full of trashy programmes. Filling my sky + box with trashy programmes and then watching them with a big cup of tea while the baby is napping.

My daughter starting school and loving it. One on one time with my baby. The school run as it means I get out of the house each day and go for a walk.

Central heating after living in a house for 6 years with storage heaters. A real fire.  Purple Moccasins slippers.   

New winter boots. New scarves. New leather satchel. Being able to buy new things that are just for me.

Maternity leave. Having a client to go back to after maternity leave. The possibilities ahead of me.

New friends. Old friends. Family.

What small things have you noticed?

Look What I Made! Sugar Free Banana Muffins

I saw Purple Mum tweet a link to this recipe for Sugar Free Banana Muffins and knew we had to try them. My OH has diabetes and I have impaired glucose so we have to be careful with sugar plus I don't want the girls to have too much.

I used half white and half wholemeal flour in mine. They tasted really good and both the girls demolished theirs. Next time I might pop some blueberries in them. 

Growing Pumpkins

One of the many things I love about our new home is the garden. Not only is it huge but the old owners already had a veg patch ready to be planted and they left a big green house behind. This has meant we have been attempting to grow our own veg. 

We have been quite success with peas and mange tout. We have been very successful with cucumber and have started to give them away as we have grown so many (note to self stagger sowing the cucumber seeds next year).

The crop that has impressed me the most is our pumpkins. I bought a cheap pot and seed set and hoped that we would get at least one for our daughter to take to our local pumpkin parade. 

To start with only one seed seemed to germinate but we were happy with that. Then about 3 weeks later the other caught up. Once they were stronger enough we planted them straight out in the garden and they have flourished.  

There are currently six pumpkins growing in our garden. Two are already going orange the others are still green but that's fine. We have a few small ones and some huge ones and they are all glorious. The only problem is they are taking over the garden!