Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

A bauble.
Which I assumed was a ball ball when I was little since it is ball shaped.
Let’s see. Well I could get Easter off my list. Only trouble is I keep mixing up last Easter with the previous one because I don’t think I wrote up the previous one. So expect a lot of “I think it was that one but it might be this one” need to refer to my diary for one detail. Ah. That was this Easter.

Well. I was still occasionally checking Facebook then. I don’t really bother now but I’ll get into why some other time. The last thing I need is to go off on another tangent.
Checked Facebook because I had a thought. One of my second cousins brought his pregnant girlfriend at Christmas and I think she was about 6 months pregnant at the time so she must have had the baby by now. So I went looking for confirmation of Facebook. Yep. She had a little girl. I found this out about 3 days before we were going to my Aunt’s for Easter.
Now after I’d made such a big fuss of baby Simon I couldn’t leave this little one out. So I had a brilliant idea and got some supplies. As it’s for a new-born - 6months (that’s the sizing for the pattern) it should be quite small and so not take too long to knit a little jumper and hat for this little girl. And what with it being Easter I had the prefect idea. Why not make a little yellow chick? The wool is fluffy and I know it comes in yellow and I know chicks are fluffy. Black button eyes like on Simon’s frog hat and something to do a beak. Maybe ribbon? Or felt. And there it was.
I made the hat on the first night but had a little trouble. I’d just come to the end. All I had to do was cast off and it got stuck (because it’s fluffy it can snag a lot) then it knotted and I was tired and angry and rather than taking a moment to calm down I acted on the one thought going through my mind. Revenge. Revenge on the wool that tangled. So I got the scissors and cut it all up. In hindsight that should have been a clue as to what was about to come.
I started again and finished the hat. Next day I did the jumper. Next day I finished it all up and something decided to make itself known to me. Hello slaughter house. Guess what? You’re going to your aunt’s tomorrow to see the family and it’ll be the dreaded day 2, the heavy day, hahaha. That’s basically what my body said to me. It’s evil. But it did explain a lot.
I also worked on an idea I’d had for a while. The Mystery Box. I’d been looking for a way to actually give the kids the Kinder Egg toys I’d been gathering for them. Have no idea why. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. I get the chocolate and get to build the toy but get bored with it instantly so give it to the kids who will love it and play with it. So that was my thought process. So I got a small but plain box and cut out shiny question marks to cover it with and filled it with the little toys. I’d also got a pack of cheap toy dinosaurs and dogs.
Now, since I was expecting there to be three children because the other little girl might be there if her mum and the baby were, and I hoped they would be so I could meet the baby, I put in all of the dinosaurs because I remembered she’d not a girly girl. I also put in all of the chocolate coins I’d gotten for Christmas and forgotten about. Oh. Forgot to tell you her name’s Ava. The baby’s Belle.
I was worried about going and considered staying home because I wasn’t sure how I’d feel and how heavy the day would be. Now the number of females outnumber the males just about so they’d understand and the males have and/or have had female partners so would sort of understand but we’re not a very close family and I’m not comfortable letting every one know my cycle face to face, especially with the children around. Reminds me of my awkward teens but that’s a tangent I’m not going down.
But after all the stuff I’d done I couldn’t not go. So I did. I put on my most absorbent….equipment, made sure it was properly placed and packed a few spares in case of emergency. It ended up being fine and everything just about lasted until I got home without spillage. I was more sluggish in my actions and thoughts than usual but no so that it was noticed.
Before going I made carrot cakes. I’ve always wanted to have a go at one but never got round to it. I found an easy recipe that required some different ingredients because I was following a video of a “healthier” cake and didn’t want to deviate from the recipe. I got a few carrots the week before because I didn’t know when we’d be seeing the family but it was the week later so I got fresher carrots so as not to poison my family. Grating the carrots was annoying because the girl in the video used a food processor, which we don’t have, so we had to grate by hand. Mum did that to save time while I worked on the rest of the cake mix. But she grated it too fine do it ended up kind of mushy. But I didn’t have much of a choice so I went along with it anyway. If it was bad then I just wouldn’t take it.
I was inspired to make carrot cake this year because for Halloween I’d been looking for some sort of cake decorations that I could use for making sweets and they didn’t have any but they did have little sugar carrots. I thought I could cut them up to look like tiny pumpkins maybe. Never did. But I wanted to use them on carrot cake.
Back to Easter.
Made little carrot cupcakes. I had some little fun cases with dinosaurs on to amuse the children (no one noticed them but never mind). The icing wasn’t set. I hoped it would dry on the way there. Unfortunately it never did so the icing was goopy. The cake was okay though. People claimed to like them despite the imperfections so that made me happy.
The new baby was there but the girl was not. I got the date of birth late February and handed over the baby things. Mum had also gone out and got some baby things so we gave her those things and the stuff I knitted in a little bag.
As it’s Easter we also got a little something for Simon, a stuffed bunny. He wasn’t super interested in it, because he was sat on the floor surrounded by his toys and occasionally paying attention to an adult. As I had…you know what going on I was perfectly happy to sit there in the other room and keep an eye on him. When I picked up the bunny and wiggled it saying “it’s Mr Bunny” he leaned in to nuzzle it and sat back up again.
At one point his mum (my cousin) gave him an Argos catalogue to rip because he likes that. They’d been away recently for the weekend or something and he’d got a little bit sunburnt because it was what we call a sun trap. Where the sun and your ability to get burnt it deceptive. So now she’ll try to remember to at least have a hat for him for future excursions.
It reminded me of the day my parents took me to the beach for the day when I was very little. I don’t remember if it was planned or not but it was a surprise to me. At the time I thought I should have sun cream but my parents didn’t seem worried about it. Next day I had a burnt arm and right after that my head teacher did an assembly on taking precautions in the sun and I just started at my sunburn feeling bad about myself even though it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t serious. Just a bit pink and the skin had started to peel just a little bit. One last thing on this little tangent. I think it was that day at the beach that I had a fun little moment with words. There was a fire engine being displayed by some fire fighters I guess. It said Southend on the side and my dad, seeing this as an opportunity asked me what it said. To make it easier for me he covered up the end part with his hand to break it down for me (like you do with little children) but I’d already pieced it together and said Southend? Tiny genius. Well, not genius but I felt very proud of myself.

Back to Easter.

A bit later the kids arrived and my little cousin started showing Simon how to play with his toys. It was actually very sweet because he tried to copy her. He also liked throwing things because his coordination had developed to that point.

The kids had brought their Nintendo Switch with them and started playing it later on. Apparently they’d had an Easter egg hunt earlier in the week and found them real quick. So they’d already had enough chocolate. Hahaha. Then I got involved.

I decided to bring out the Mystery Box but wasn’t sure how to introduce it. So I started putting it to my ear and pretending it was talking to me. It didn’t take long. They were thrilled by the idea. But it wasn’t without it’s issues. The boy spent most of his time hunting for the chocolate coins and collected them all while the girl decided she’d already had enough chocolate. I worried that would change by the next day. After a while she spent most of her time stirring around the contents of the Mystery Box because she wanted something pretty. *sigh* I did the best I could to put in a varied mix of things but not varied enough. She was still happy with what she got. And I have since acquired some “pretty” things especially for this situation next time. I’m thinking Christmas because I still have toys from last year. It’s only a little box after all.

This information was very useful though because I figured she’d love shiny plastic gems on her birthday card. Apparently she loved it.

We’d also got Easter eggs for the kids. Two dinosaurs and one unicorn.

When it was time to start getting ready to go (because you have to start prepping to leave early with young children) the boy said “where should I put these?” referring to his haul of chocolate coins and his granddad (my cousin) jokingly said stick them in your pocket, let them melt. To which the mother objected. At another point he was stood behind his uncle (one of my other second cousins) and asked what that was on the back of his head. To which the reply was that’s where I got bottled by a Hells Angel and my cousin (kid’s granddad) said tell him about that to which the mother objected again. It seems that being a grandparent means you can mess with your kids through their kids. Sounds like fun. (also you get to see them going through the same Hell they put you through as a parent. It must be sweet revenge).

Lastly for Easter there was a sad moment. The girlfriend of my second cousin (mother of the new baby) had a sick pet. I think it was a cat. It was either at the vet for tests or the tests came back. It was bad news which meant the cat needed to be put down. This was clearly a much loved family pet and she was devastated and started crying and had to go home to sort things out (also feeling uncomfortable making a scene in front of people she barely knows.) I followed her to the hall and offered a hug. She seemed to feel a bit better. My cousin and his wife (the grandparents) agreed to have the baby for the night and take her home tomorrow, because they didn’t want to disturb her and it’s fiddly to get everything into the car and home.


Oh. Just remembered the previous Easter. Just snippets.
The kids mum (my second cousin) wanted to entertain them with TV but there was nothing on for children so found Jurassic Park 2. Dinosaurs. They like dinosaurs. Unfortunately this was just before the dinosaurs attack and people die. I wasn’t sure this was suitable for children but my concerns appeared invalid because they didn’t really watch it anyway.
We’d gotten them a little egg each that came with a little toy. An orange tiger striped egg and a white chocolate panda egg. I asked their mum beforehand which one she’d think would prefer which egg. She said tiger for the boy and panda for the girl. But the girl said she wanted the tiger so the boy swapped eggs with her. He got about half way through his panda before deciding that it hurt his teeth (because he’d already eaten too many sweets as it was).

Well I think that’ll do.