Author: granniesaltcrafts@gmail.com

Overworked grandmother, carer, compulsive crafter, with far too many things to do and not nearly enough time to do them!
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Natural History Museum holiday day trip

Two days into the Easter holidays and the kids were already driving me crazy! The first day was spent out, shopping for birthday presents for my youngest, which in fact ended up as a day of moaning children who just wanted to go home so they could go out to play. So on Tuesday a friend of mine (whose kids were also driving her crazy) and I got together and took all six children up to South Kensington to the Natural History Museum (http://www.nhm.ac.uk).

I love taking the kids to a museum for a day out for lots of reasons. To start with, most London museums have free entry which, for a mum on a tight budget, is a god send. Secondly, I am lucky that all three of my children love to learn and so love to go and explore and see lots of different things. Thirdly, the Natural History Museum, in particular, happens to be somewhere I really enjoy going. I must have taken my children to this museum at least half a dozen times over the years, but it seems like they learn something new every time we go (because I certainly seem to). That’s the beauty of it really, there is just so much to see that you can never really take it all in, in just one trip.

Of course, the fact that we had other children with us this time meant they had more fun, and it actually made life easier. For once, my son had another boy around to talk to, even though he’s the same age as my youngest, but they all got on well together. And my older daughter had a girl closer to her own age to talk to, so for once they were all happy. It felt just that little bit safer to let them wander off slightly to explore on their own because there is safety in numbers after all.

My son is dinosaur mad, so he would probably be happy to just visit the dinosaur section. My younger daughter loves all animals (with her dreams of being a vet one day) and she does tend to get very over excited in the stuffed mammal section. I find it very sad, personally, that some of the specimens are now so old that they are very faded, but at the same time I think it is wonderful that they are not prepared to source new specimens for taxidermy purposes. It kind of shows the children that although they are faded, if they were to be replaced, a potentially endangered species would have to die, just to provide a body to be looked at through glass. And my animal loving daughter is absolutely heartbroken at the thought of any animal dying. I personally just love seeing the polar bear (being my favourite animal). I could genuinely stand and stare at that polar bear through that glass case for hours. I just find looking at the big fluffy bear very soothing and relaxing. The children found it fascinating just how big their feet are and working out why!

I always take a packed lunch with us, which I usually make myself. This trip, however, I went to make sandwiches and found out too late that the kids had eaten all the bread and there wasn’t really anything in the fridge to go in sandwiches anyway. But even buying some sausage rolls, chicken bites and a sandwich on the way to the train station was cheaper than considering lunch in the café at the museum. As much as I like to do my bit to support the museum, I am not prepared to pay for what I consider to be ridiculously overpriced food that, to be honest, my kids probably wouldn’t want to eat anyway.

I much prefer (and by I, I mean my children) to support the museum by spending a small fortune in the gift shop!! For once, they had all been really keen to do jobs around the house and earn some pocket money to take with them. And even though they brought their own money with them I still spent over £50 in the gift shop (I sigh). Still cheaper than some days out and other gift shops we’ve been to though!

By the time we got home I had three very tired, but very happy children. They spent the whole train ride home talking about what their favourite things had been, what they didn’t like and what they want to see again. They all sounded ever so intellectual and I couldn’t have been prouder…no matter how tired I was!

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Museum of London holiday day trip

The Fire of London

Another day, so another day trip for bored children during the holidays. Today, Mum and I took the kids to the Museum of London. Aimee and Liam have both learned about the Great Fire of London at school and Cerys has recently finished learning about it, very enthusiastically too! So, when I found out there was an exhibition at the museum ending soon to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire, we just had to go!

Now as I have often been heard to say, one reason I like museums for days out is that they are free, and the Museum of London (https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london) is no exception. But, for this special exhibition, we did have to pay. Thank God for the bank of Mum because I couldn’t have afforded that exhibition without her.

They had it all laid out so we were almost walking through a narrow, 17th century London alleyway. The children were fascinated with the big wooden brackets that held up the upper levels of the buildings and got a real sense for just how narrow those streets were. We walked through the walled timeline which detailed just how long the fire raged and how it had spread.

Around the corner, was the main room of the exhibit. The children were in awe of all the items on display that had been saved from the flames, the massive trunks in which people had tried to carry away their most treasured possessions, and written accounts of fleeing the fire. They got to feel the difference between normal roof tiles and ones that had been burned and destroyed. Liam particularly liked the interactive computer game, to show what tools they had to fight the fire with and get them to experiment with how they would have fought the fire and if they’d have been able to save more buildings.

Across the back of this room they had a huge projection of burning buildings and set up in the middle was old fashioned firefighting equipment, leather fire helmets and even 17th century style clothing. The kids loved dressing up but realised they could hardly move in this incredibly heavy clothing. Even I tried on a leather helmet and was shocked at just how heavy it was. Imagine trying to fight a fire, wearing these ridiculously heavy clothes and the even heavier helmet! Take my word for it, it would have been seriously hard, and very hot, work!! The leather buckets weighed a lot on their own, even without being full of water, so you can imagine how much effort it would have taken to fight this fire. It really gave the children an idea of just how hard London was hit by this fire, but also of the spirit of Londoners to overcome such a disaster and rebuild their lives and homes.

The rest of the Museum

After the Great Fire exhibit, we had a wander around the rest of the museum. Starting with London back way before the stone age! The kids were fascinated by all the arrow and spear heads that had been found in the London area from hundreds of thousands of years ago, especially when they realised that a lot of them had been from around where we live. Moving through the stone age, and into the Roman era, Saxon and into Medieval the children were enthralled by all the different objects on show and the ways people had lived in the past, in the city we live in. Aimee particularly liked seeing a model of how St. Paul’s Cathedral had looked before burning down in the Great Fire of London, and even more interested to learn how long it had taken to rebuild, with some of the original design sketches on show.

Unfortunately, we only made it through to the English Revolution before the kids were moaning about being tired and wanting to go home and, to be honest, my back was starting to scream at me by that point so going home was a great idea to me. Even though there was still quite a bit we didn’t see, it will make for another great day out in the summer holidays!!!

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Lasagne

I was 12 or 13 when my Dad called me into the kitchen to teach me how to make lasagne. Mum had taught me her Bolognese when I was 10 and I was already fairly proficient at it by the time Dad suggested lasagne. At that age, I already loved food and was enjoying learning to cook, but it was a new concept for me to turn one dish into another one. I’d always loved lasagne so learning to cook it was always going to happen.

Fast forward almost 20 years, to when I met my now ex-partner. When I first met him and we started talking about food it became apparent that I had a lot of work to do in broadening the horizons of his palate and persuading him to try new things. Upon declaring he liked lasagne I had my chance to show him proper food. While Italians would probably turn their noses up at what I call lasagne, I have never served it to anyone who didn’t absolutely love it! The Bolognese element is not a traditional Italian Bolognese. I make a fairly rich cheese sauce instead of a traditional Béchamel style sauce and I have NEVER made it with fresh lasagne sheets or even par-boiled dried lasagne sheets, but what I make is tasty.

It may surprise you now to hear, I have not made a lasagne in over 5 years. Actually, I did make a turkey and spinach one as a healthy eating experiment a couple of years back but that’s another story! My ex was so in love with my lasagne that he insisted we had it AT LEAST once a week… I very quickly not only got sick of cooking it but also of eating it! It got to the point where just the thought of lasagne made me feel physically sick. My ex and I split in February 2012 and apart from the aforementioned experiment, I have not made a lasagne again since. Until this week.

I was watching something the other day and they were eating lasagne… and for the first time in how long I got a real craving for lasagne. I made a HUGE pot of Bolognese (some for lasagne and some for the freezer, which I’ll explain another time), and the smell of that cooking almost made me give up on lasagne and just cook some spaghetti to go with it!! Next step was the cheese sauce… I had forgotten how much hard work was involved in whisking a cheese sauce. My arms have had a good workout, but I can’t complain, it’s cheaper (and tastier) than going to the gym! Just the layering left and by this point my belly was growling like a monster.

So, over 5 years without eating lasagne… it’s true what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder, because WOW!! I didn’t realise just how much I missed it. Ok so I didn’t have as much cheese as I thought I had, so the cheese sauce wasn’t as cheesy as I’d have liked. And my impatience got the better of me, making me take it out of the oven a little sooner than I’d intended so the pasta was still quite al dente (which I personally don’t like much), but for the first time in ages my children produced 3 clean plates and, more importantly, I have once again fallen in love with lasagne! DELICIOUS

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Juggling Time

Between doing school runs, housework and more or less running a restaurant for 3 kids (who couldn’t possibly eat the same thing as each other for every meal), time is often in short supply. Finding a few minutes to listen to each one read every day (or every other day) and then assist with homework when the inevitable “I can’t do it” comes, even though I know they are more than capable, can be more than just a little frustrating.

None of them wants to do homework until another is doing it, which of course makes helping them even harder. There are times when I just want to tell them all to bugger off and leave me alone or just run and hide in my bedroom.

And then, of course, there comes the struggle of trying to have ‘quality’ but non-homework time with each child. There’s my 10-year-old daughter Aimee who has two ideas of ‘quality’ time. There’s either going shopping and spending money buying more stuff that she doesn’t need, or there is deciding she wants to stay at home the weekend she’s supposed to go to her dad’s. Now as much as I love my kids, I must admit I do look forward to my weekend off, once a fortnight. Even if I don’t go anywhere or see anyone, it is necessary to have a bit of quiet time to be able to hear the voices in my head instead of little voices constantly asking for something, Ok, so I don’t really have voices in my head but I do like to talk to myself… sometimes I just need an expert opinion!!

My 7-year-old son Liam is actually a lot easier to please. It doesn’t matter what we do, he’s just happy to be around me. Whether it’s a quiet cuddle, watching over me cooking or just being in the same room while he’s drawing. And then there’s my baby girl Cerys, 5 years old but still struggling with the fact she’s not actually a baby anymore. She just constantly wants cuddles… I suppose I should be grateful, because I know she’ll be wanting to go shopping and spending money like her sister soon enough!

My biggest problem at the moment is the fact that the sun has started to appear again after school. Homework, reading, even cuddles have gone straight out of the window. One day recently I spent all day doing my laundry and a bit of housework, went to pick the kids up from school… I spent 10 minutes with my little darlings before they all went out to play in the park. I’m not sure if I should be glad for the peace and quiet or concerned that they don’t want to spend any time with their mum!!