One week until the packers arrive!

The kids might be getting a little concerned. Yesterday they arrived home and found all their wall stickers had gone. They then proceeded to pack all their teddies into bags to "take to the charity shop". Poor things.

One week to go until we start moving out. You have to be quite organised with all your stuff which is a challenge. We have been in the loft and found all kinds of things but most of it is going to make room for the most iimportant items to be shipped - stuff for kids. Someone asked me what we were taking to Bangladesh - well apart from the bread machine and a few changes of clothes for us, its toys, crafts and more toys!

One week to go. Yeeks .

Duck in a tin anyone?

 Duck in a tin?

It's amazing what you find when you are clearing out the house.

Apparently it's lovely so we shall be giving it a go...stay posted for that one!






Anyway, the house clearance continues.  So far only one third of the contents of the house are on ebay, afterall we don't want to be paying over £1500 to store 3 Ikea bookshelves for 3 years.

Isobel is convinced we are only going for a few days.  She is telling everyone.  How do you really explain that it's for 3 years when she has no proper understanding of what that means?  Even though she will be fine we're sure, it's hard as you worry about how she is going to react and how she will miss her friends.  I've purchased a few small treats to squirrel away to help them feel 'at home' more easily.  The problem with squirrelling away - I forget where things are.  They will probably end up in the storage container and be forgotten for three years!

What else? Well, the car has gone.  We need to get a new car in the Desh but for now we are car-less.  Almost.  We have been lent a car by a very kind friend - a sporty mini! It's brilliant. It actually pulls away from the junction unlike the tank that was the Citroen C4 grand picasso!  Thank you Sally!

Any other items are being moved to their temporary new homes.  We have the BBQ which has gone down the road to get a lot of use, Barty the Bay Tree which, having squeezed in tightly into the car, is now firmly settled in his new home, and we have the sourdough.

Ah, the sourdough.  I'm finally going to give it a name! Though I've not thought of one yet.  Here it is (left), after far too long in our fridge and my frantic efforts to save it, and in it's new home with Barty the Bay Tree in the background (right):

Two posts in one day??? Has the world gone mad?

No, not really.  I'm just thinking of what great joy there is in attempting to eat the contents of the freezer before we move out!

I say joy - that's because I've been eating mince pies and brandy butter this evening. Yum.  One of my favourites.  Who says they have to be eaten in winter? Why not in the garden when it's been 26 degrees?

So I thought I would share the contents of the freezer as we embark on the last few weeks of UK summer before we depart.  We have:

- A never ending supply of pork livers it seems (....my husband, bless him, got into a mini phase of making terrines....he made one - which was lovely - and now we have a lot of pork livers in the freezer);
- Salmon - I was obviously buying it on special.  Smoked salmon, normal salmon, basically lots of salmon;
- Bread - well, I did go on that baking course;
- Fruit cake soaked with brandy (Christmas - I love brandy soaked fruit!);
- Left over Turkey (do you think that is still OK to eat?);
- Frozen Peas;
- Meatballs;
- One mini milk (I sense a fight over that one!); and
- More bread - garlic, pitta, rolls...you name it.

So, balanced it might not be but it has to be eaten! Can't bear food waste - I wonder if the Love Food Hate Waste website will have some recipes for fruit cake with pork livers....

468 cubic feet.....how many sofas is that?

The move progresses. I am saving a massive box of chocolates for the day the packers come to help me with my anxiety. I feel it might be needed. Anxiety levels are already rising. Thinking of the packers packing the bin and its contents and shipping them to Dhaka ought to make me laugh....!

So the packing people came. I hadn't realised they would have expected me to have gone through the house with a fine toothcomb and worked out exactly which pillowcase was staying and which was going. I had must stepped off the Dreamliner back from Addis, celebrating the fact that it hadn't caught fire again.

Which takes me off at a tangent. The Dreamliner. Very strange windows. I kept waking up and everything was green. It was like being on the set of Wicked in the sky.

Anyway, so yes the packers have come. I have prioritised....kids stuff. Basically Peter and I will be taking a book and some underwear each but the kids will be ok. Toys toys and more toys.

However, the packers then said "oh you are over your storage limit by 460 cubic feet" and walked away. 460 cubic feet? How many sofas is that? According to the packers one picture is about 5 cubic feet.....which suggests they use A LOT of bubble wrap. Oh hum. As Peter said, easier if they just put a container outside and let us pack it. Bubble wrap? What's that?

And finally, Isobel ended the day last night with "mummy, how many weeks are we going to Bangladesh for?" and "can Olivia come to my party?". Not sure she quite understands yet. This could be interesting. Poor little thing. I gave her a big cuddle and said "quite a few weeks....".

A slight interlude – gulping the cake down!

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The Gulper!

I’ve been in Tanzania.  ‘How glamorous’ people say.

If only they knew.

This time I was looking at sanitation programmes.  In case I haven’t said before (and I know I have), 2.5 billion people don’t have access to adequate sanitation.  Poor sanitation, hygiene and dirty water contributes not only to diarrhoea, respiratory infections and so on but has also been shown to be linked to stunting in children under 5.

So, anyway, there I was in Tanzania when I came across the Gulper for the first time.  The Gulper.  What a brilliant name.  It’s up there with the arsenator (well, ok, not quite).  The arsenator being a tool to help monitor arsenic levels in water (arsenic is a massive issue in the Desh).  The Gulper is, I think, a WaterAid innovation and in this case we met a bunch of women who had set up a group to try to help improve sanitation provision including by supporting better emptying of the pits!

Moving swiftly on from such a serious note (albeit a very important one), I’ve been contemplating airport cakes.  Contemplating them in terms of their diversity, colour and also my ability to stop my children wanting to eat them all!  It started earlier in the year in Yangon when I saw some delightful bright green cake.  If only I’d taken a picture!

Well, time has passed and my visit to Tanzania has introduced to me to some new delicious looking items.  So, I’m going to start documenting airport cakes!  And then perhaps I can focus down on Isobel and Arty’s favourites – after all, they are about to come widely travelled, so why not widely test the cake varieties!

Below we have some examples:

(a)  Not strictly airport as it was take in a restaurant in Dar Es Salaam.   I think this cake looks OK and quite edible.  No scary colours.  But then again, no pink icing and sparkles!  Not sure it would get the kids vote:

 

(b)  Dar Es Salaam Airport.  It was hard to find cake here.  However, I eventually found a few pieces….not especially appetising it has to be said:

(c)  Addis ‘Bole’ Airport.  Cake was proving hard to find.  At first I thought we would have to make do with a picture of the cake menu but then there it was – cakes, pastries, more cakes.  In fact, a very good selection and one which I thought the kids would enjoy!