Anyone for apple chutney?

It seemed such a good idea. The mother in law had even rewritten the apple chutney recipe for me and brought it with her the last time she came to stay, alongside a carrier bag full of apples.
Every time I've gone in the garage the last few weeks the growing smell of ripe apples has hit me as soon as I've opened the door. On Friday the nagging sense that if I didn't do something with the apples soon it would be too late was confirmed when the smell of over ripe and fermenting apples finally overpowered the normal garage smells.

I decided Saturday would be the day to get round to making the chutney. With happy husband, who loves his mum's home made chutney, and children at an age where they can get a bus to town to amuse themselves, I set about chopping and preparing the ingredients.

I'm not really your mother earth, homely type of person and, in an effort to cut the preparation time, I decided to try my new gizmo, onion chopper! After the first onion there were problems. With tears streaming from my eyes I peered at the 14 other onions waiting to chopped and realised that in my effort to cut corners I had in fact added to the difficulty equation by having to wash out said 'gizmo' following every onion. 2 hours in and virtually blind with the constant flow of tears I was finally onto....... THE APPLES. I have a confession..... it was only at this stage that I began to fully appreciate the seriousness of the fermentation process that had begun. Discarding the black, the fly ridden and the obviously squishy, I was left with a sad and manky collection which barely made up the weight I needed! Hey ho.......... I had started so I was going to finish!

Onions and apples finally prepared I looked, aghast, to realise that the pan I was using was FAR too small for the ammount of ingredients I'd prepared. It was THEN that I noticed the small print on the mother in laws recipe card, IF NO PRESERVING PAN HALVE THE INGREDIENTS!

By 10 oclock at night I had finally completed TWO separate batches of apple chutney. Needless to say we had, at a very critical moment, run out of jam jars and were frantically emptying and combining every half empty jar in the house in an effort not to waste the precious chutney. As we turned into bed late that night my dearly beloved turned to me and said innocently, 'I had no idea it was so much effort to make chutney'.

And if per chance any one of you reading this ends up with a jar of chutney for Christmas, please appreciate the sentiment and the high cost!

When angels guard handbags.

Train tickets - you try and be organised and buy them in advance, you buy return tickets but then can't remember where you put them. When the day of travel arrives you're a nervous wreck, and all before you've even set foot on the train.

Last week I travelled to London for a few days to attend a conference. I confess to hesitating when making the decision as to where I should store the return part of the ticket. I remember being quite intentional about putting it somwhere 'safe' for fear that the ticket might get lost amongst the array of ticket stubs and receipts which seem to so easily accumilate in the depths of my handbag. Imagine my dilhema when on the day of return I had totally forgotten where the 'safe' place was!

It was nowhere obvious! The contents of my handbag, suitcase and pockets were strewn all over the back row of conference chairs along with all my dirty washing. No sign! I found numerous tickets dating back to last year which though totally worthless seem to invisibly stick there when one has a bag clear out!

The kind conference organiser happened to be standing there and offered to help me buy another one. Grateful but refusing his offer, intent on finding the lost one, I started rummaging again! He was then inspired to offer to pray. Well...... nothing ventured nothing gained!

I said a loud AMEN to the forthcoming prayer which was poured out with such compassion and tenderness, reminding God that he was a loving father and didn't want any of His children to lose money. Angels were declared to have been over my ticket and by the end of the prayer I was so full of confidence that I would find the ticket that I set off for the train station!

Have you ever been to Marble Arch in rush hour?
Have you ever tried to stand still in the middle of rush hour?
Have you ever tried to find a place where you wouldn't be knocked, bashed or walked upon in rush hour?
You'll agree with me then that it was a miracle that I found a tiny space protected by machines and barriers, cordoned off from the rest of humanity in which to search once more for the lost ticket! and there it was...nestled amongst the credit cards I had searched through seemingly a million times already!

I travelled home cherishing the thought there is a God in heaven who just gave me a whaking big kiss!

From A- Zebra before breakfast

As any working mother will know the early morning juggle of children, housework and getting everything done on time, every time, is a constant and daily miracle. It's good to pause and ponder sometimes the hilarity of life in the midst of this crazy pace. Having now had space to take stock of last week I realise the humour of one particular morning.
I had been woken by my 10 year old informing me she was going to school as a zebra. (Don't ask!) We ransacked the house trying to find every stripy piece of clothing. The girls were convinced daddy had a stripy t shirt and mummy tried hard to hide under the bed covers when they insisted, after 10 minutes of searching, that they were SURE he DID have a striped T shirt and what could have happened to it? Mummy finally confessed that she had binned the aforementioned t shirt a good few months ago, having got tired of sleeping with a husband who looked like a zebra 7 nights in a row!
Alternative stripy clothing found, the next phase of preparation was the face painting. Critical to the overall look and to compensate for lack of the authentic stripy t shirt, mummy was tasked with:
a) Finding the face paint, which involved a rummage in the garage! (Don't go there!) b)Finding a picture of a zebra so that we could face paint an EXACT representation! and c) Doing an outline on child's face so that daddy, who is artistically and creatively challenged, could complete the face in time for the school run because mummy had to rush to drop other daughter at bus stop!

I have a feeling all this happened the same day as the car journey I blogged but I'll never know 'cos life tends to blur at times!

PS. Daughter had a good day as a zebra but decided not to take it up for a living!

If you haven't got a sense of direction you need a sense of humour!

Today, for the second time in a few weeks I found myself driving someone to an unknown address. The first time was a hotel near Heathrow! (Need I say more.) If you've ever ventured off the motorways to get anywhere near an address in this area then you know what I mean!
Traffic never flows slow enough to allow for dithering!
Today, armed with pages of printed out maps of various magnifications my travel companion took her job seriously, even pausing in conversation when we came to junctions to check they weren't the ones we needed to turn off. I could sense her tension and the pressure she felt to not go wrong! A stark contrast to the last (Aussie) companion who informed me within a brush of a junction that we should have gone off! My response to both companions having taken wrong junctions, was one of calm and collected humour verging on hysteria. Having driven more years than I care to recall and having taken more wrong turns and missed junctions than I dare admit, I am now of the disposition when faced with unknown journeys to consider each route an adventure to be discovered. There's always something round the corner. Whether miles of country road without a house in sight and no turning space or a spaghetti type junction with speeding cars, when faced with either scenario I can somehow dig deep for humour thus lightening the pressure so many of my companions obviously feel.
As we returned from our destination, still with a sense of euphoria at having arrived and retunred in one piece before midnight, my companion turned to me and commented how laid back I was and totally unstressed or phased by the challenge. Me? I enjoyed every hysterical moment.

Humour of life

Mel started a new school in September and it's been the making of her! Everyday she comes in with some funny story. It's bringing out the best in her.

When asked to find a picture of a desert...Mel doesn't just find any old desert picture....oh no...she finds the most interetsing one with largest nose of camel in the foreground! 'Ickle Pickle' was introduced to the class and has amused the teacher no end. Mel sure must brighten up their day!

It's cold for a costa rican

Welcome to the weekly ramblings of the Wilkinson household.
A lot goes on......

Alfredo our Costa Rican friend left this morning. (The one Brian climbed Chirripo with.) He couldn't believe the English weather.

The grandparents looked after the children and Brian and I took him to Lynton a typically English sea side town. It was a lovely end to a busy week. 3.30 this morning we heard him rustling around getting showered ready to catch the coach to the airport at 4 am. We're still recovering from the early start! Sleep now beckons.