Tuesday 28 February 2012

Spring has sprung.

It feels like spring has arrived. Hallelujah! It is my favourite time of year. From the end of January I am desperate for a glimpse of the bright green of a new leaf or the top-knot of a daffodil. I almost felt like crying when I saw the carpet of snowdrops in a nearby churchyard the other day. I nearly took a photo, but realised that it was a tiny bit dangerous abandoning my baby and car just to get material for a blog. I don't know why spring has such an impact on me, every year I feel grateful to see another one (Drama Queen). This year, my joy at seeing spring arrive has taken on a whole different significance. This year I can introduce my new little one to lovely spring. He had quite an interesting start in life. He had heart surgery at five days old, so every milestone feels more special. Spring is the time to celebrate new life and I am going to do my darnedest to celebrate the life of my baby and his brother.




As this is a blog about places to get a good cuppa and a tasty slice of cake - with a baby in tow - I have some suggestions of places to get a yummy nibble and enjoy the spring sunshine with your family. Firstly, I went along to Wistow Rural Centre. It is set in beautiful countryside near Market Harborough. As you drive along windy roads towards the centre, you pass newly laid hedges, fields, little bridges and locks on the canal. Wistow has a garden centre, an accessories and handbags shop as well as a cafe. There were lots of other customers, including mums and babies, there was a ramp up to the cafe and baby changing facilities. I asked the lady who made the cake what she would recommend and I ended up with a slice of Rocky Road. The sandwiches and breakfast that the couple at the next table were eating looking pretty tasty too.



 I also went to the other side of Leicestershire, to Cattows Farm near Coalville. I had heard about this through Groupon as they offered a half price Champagne High Tea there. We went for Sunday lunch in the end which was one of the tastiest I have had, but while we there we saw some lucky couples having the afternoon tea with added sparkle! There were many home made cakes which looked beautiful and while we were there we tried a chocolate and cream sponge cake which was as light as a feather. We bought a selection of the cupcakes to take home. There was even a spring cupcake to go with the sunshine.


The views over the Leicestershire countryside were lovely and in the spring sunshine it was perfect. They have a farm shop too and they sold a book called 'the Teapot Trail' which has suggestions of other tearooms across the region. I will be trying some of them out!



 Spring is almost here. I can feel my sap rising....ah, that is what got us in the situation in the first place.


Sunday 26 February 2012

Missing the action


My eldest son came first in the front crawl at the local swimming gala. He came second in his heat, so the stage was set for a dramatic final. They all started incredibly strongly, but after the half way point, my big boy started to pull ahead. He remembered everything he had been taught, his breathing was right, his stroke crisp, he didn't look around, he just swam the race of his life. And when he touched the side his supporters went wild. It was amazing.

The only problem was that I wasn't there to see it.

I was at home with the baby. And, although I had wanted to go and surprise him by turning up at the gala, with one thing and another I didn't make it. It was my son's weekend to stay with his dad, so he didn't expect me and I spoke to him before, during and after. I even watched the video of the incredible race, but it has still left me feeling pretty devastated.

After a divorce there will be times when one or other of you will miss milestones. In fact, even if you are together, you will still miss things, whether you are working or looking after other children or even if you have just decided you need some time to yourself, it is just a fact of life. I can be as objective as you like, but my heart still sinks when I think about it. My big boy has no idea how I feel of course, but, it has given me that bad mother feeling I haven't had since I first dropped him off at nursery.

His dad has missed another moment of sporting history, when our son scored his first goal for his football club. He had hit a streak of brilliance - the little star was so stunned by the enormity of it all he just sat in the dressing room afterwards staring at his boots. Now I understand how his dad must have felt.

It's a couple of days since the swimming gala now - I no longer think the world will end or that I will be scarred for life by missing the race or that I will now have to attend every single event that the big boy will ever take part in ever again. I didn't quite reach Norma Desmond levels of drama queening, but it has made me think.

I know I will miss other big events. In fact, I hope to goodness I miss some of them (first kiss, etc), but I will treasure the ones I see all the more. And I will make sure if his dad, my partner, his granny or grandpa, our next door neighbour or even the window cleaner can see them, they do.
I wonder if I will turn into a super clingy mum and that he won't even be able to play on the play station without a mummy sized cheerleader looking over his shoulder. But he is my superstar and I am prouder than I ever thought possible. And I will cry every time I watch the race again - which is filmed in wobblyvision as his dad gets more and more hysterical.

Now, when is the next Olympics?

Friday 24 February 2012

Two children, one hundred miles

Travelling with one child is a challenge. Travelling with TWO is like doing a Rubix cube with one hand tied behind my back. Just packing the car was a feat of engineering. I am glad I paid attention when we did tesselating shapes at school. The main issue was the pushchair. We have a largish pushchair - well it fills most of the boot anyway. If we had been using suitcases, we would have been lost, but as we haven't got enough, I used shopping bags. These were heavy duty shopping bags. One each for us and one for food. They fitted in nicely around the pushchair - see, tesellating shapes. We managed to fit children in and had room for Monopoly and welly boots. What more could we need.

This was the first family holiday with all four of us. Our destination was Norfolk, where we were staying at Weybourne Forest Lodges - A-frame wooden lodges set in a beautiful pinewood, with views of the sea and lovely walks in every direction. You feel like you are in the middle of a film set, so it is perfect for adventure games. The first year we went, we pretended were in the forest of Endor being followed by General Grevious. We were going through a Star Wars phase at the time. Every stick was either a blaster or a lightsabre. There were a lot of sticks.

This year, we were staying with Granny, Grandpa and Uncle. This was great for lots of reasons, but it also meant that there were other people on hand to play Snakes and Ladders and Chess with number one son. And he is such a cheat. He gets it from his Granny. She makes up the questions when we play Trivial Pursuit!

While in Norfolk we visited some lovely cafes and restaurants. There are some nice tea shops in Sheringham and the Lobster Pub did amazing ham, egg and chips. The eggs were all double yolkers!

The next day we went to Deepdale Cafe in Burnham Deepdale on the coastal road from Sheringham to Hunstanton. They do big portions of everything from breakfasts to local seafood. The open kitchens are a great source of entertainment, their home made cakes look amazing and they have cheesecake of the day! I had smoked haddock on mash with spinach and a poached egg.



We shared a portion of the gluten-free fruit crumble, it was passed around the table so we got a mouthful each. Is this what normal families do? Let's face it, we are not normal.



We did tea at Cley bird watching centre. We are regulars here, not just because of the cake (this is Bakewell Victoria Sponge) ......



......but the beautiful views of the marshes.



We had Sunday lunch at a new find - the Crown Inn at East Rudham. It's a beautifully renovated country pub with big wooden tables. The menu was mouthwatering. There was duck three ways (including duck leg bubble and squeak) but we went for the Sunday roast. Big slices of medium rare beef, massive Yorkshires with really yellow middles and parsnips roasted with wholegrain mustard. We will go back.



All of these places had great customer service and baby changing. And if that's not enough, The Lobster pub also had hair straighteners in the ladies loo at a pound a go. A girl always likes to look her best.

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Coffee break

As I am still feeding my baby, I need to keep my energy levels up. This means as I go out and about, I have to make regular pit stops for coffee (or tea) and a nibble of cake. Now, if that sounds like a great big excuse to eat cake and drink coffee, then you would be fairly close to the mark. But, it has made me take notice of the different places I can get a quick snackette.

I thought I would share a few of my recent experiences and recommendations on this blog. These are just a few from Leicester city centre.

CarlucciosHighcross, Leicester
Carluccios offers one of the best cups of coffee around. You can have either a rich or smooth blend. I have the rich latte. It tastes great and comes in a glass cup. It may sound strange, but it adds to the experience, like tea drunk out of a china cup. There are always a selection of cakes on offer and they are displayed by the entrance so you can really check what you are getting. As a chocolate cake lover, I am surprised that I tend to go for their fruit tarts. They have crisp pastry, lots of filling and a the fruit really tastes of fruit.
The only problem is that it is popular and you usually have to queue at peak times. They are good with children and babies. Little ones get breadsticks and a colouring pack when they arrive and have their own menu. There are baby changing facilities too.
This isn't the actual tart we shared. We ate it so quickly that we had to take a picture of one on the display. This is a recurring problem.


The Almanack, Bathhouse Lane, Leicester
The Almanack describes itself as a modern gastropub. As well as going for lunch or dinner, you can go for a coffee during the day or a drink at night. I have been with my parents, with friends, for Christmas parties, with babies and with eight year olds. My son is a big fan of their ham, egg and chips. Their deli boards offer a bit of everything and their roasts are pretty good too. The staff are very helpful, but the young men behind the bar have been a little surly in the past. Their coffee is nicely presented but is fairly milky. The sugar, quirkily, comes in golden syrup tins. You get smarties too!




Eat, Highcross, Leicester
Eat offers no nonsense sandwiches and coffee. My family all love their cheese and ham baguettes. I can only manage half (probably because of all the cake I have eaten elsewhere), but for daddies and big boys who have been playing football, it's just right. The lattes are big and of medium strength.
There aren't any specific facilities for children and you need to use the Shopping Centres toilets and baby changing facilities. Despite that, it is where you will find us having lunch on Saturdays.


I will now make it my mission to explore what is on offer further afield. I am going to head much further out to begin with. To Norfolk.....


Monday 20 February 2012

Half term Indiana Jones

Blogging has been temporarily interrupted due to the half term holidays. During my temporary leave of absence, I have travelled the length and breadth of the area looking for places to occupy a mum, a little baby and, for one week only, a big brother. Kids Play in Kettering is just over the border in Northamptonshire, but was worth the trip. It has the usual indoor play equipment - death slides, climbing walls, rope swings and platforms reaching up to the sky. Hmm, when you write it down, it sounds like I have taken my babies to a Raiders of the Lost Ark simulator... albeit in primary colours. This one has added trampolines and a Costa Coffee! It meant my budding Indiana Jones could spend hours razzing around, leaving me at the coffee shop crèche working on a caffeine high. As an added bonus, there is a specific baby changing room and the toilets do not have that special aroma reserved for some indoor play centres.

It was a good day out. The only problem was that parents from miles around had had the same thought. We got there in the nick of time. When we left, we discovered people had been queuing outside for half an hour. I am not sure I could have waited in the cold for that long. What am I saying? Of course I would. I couldn't disappoint my junior adventurer. I bet Indiana Jones' mum didn't have to say "sorry Indy, the queue is too long, you will have to rescue the ten commandments from the Nazis another day." I would love to have seen that though.

Coffee cards (and cups)

I have discovered a crucial piece of information that I have to share with the coffee drinking world!

Ok, so I may have slightly over-egged that, but it is a bit interesting.

I have had a Starbucks card for a while and have not quite 'got' it. I have used it and not really understood what I get out of it. What you do is pay Starbucks money and they give you a card with the equivalent amount of money on it. You can then use it to pay for your Starbucks purchases. I understood that when you paid for your lunch or coffee or round or whatever, you got a star and when you have 15 stars, you get a free drink. But, I was getting one star for each purchase (which could include three drinks and a couple of paninis and even the kitchen sink) so, I was going to have to spend over £200 to get a free latte. This was not a huge incentive to continue. Today, a lovely lady explained it to me (slowly). Apparently, when you pay with your SB card, you pay for each item separately and that means you rack up the stars much more quickly. Phew!

I know this is not exactly helping with the current economic crisis or addressing the issues within the health service, in fact it is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it cheered me up for a few minutes and if it does the same for you, then even better.

Oh, and today, Starbucks were giving away their old mugs too.


Sunday 12 February 2012

Did I mention cake...?

I think my hobby must be coffee and cake. I wish I could say I have a more impressive hobby, like fell walking, hang gliding or embroidery. Having said that, I used to do quite a lot of embroidery. I used to sew little flowers onto my combat trousers when I as doing my A'levels. In fact, I probably spent more time concentrating on embroidery than I did on my A'levels.
Back to cake....I meet friends for coffee and cake. I meet my mum and dad for tea and cake. Shopping trips must be punctuated by tea and cake. Even if it is just a quick pit stop, there needs to be a mouthful of cake, just to keep the wheels running. I spent one holiday in Cornwall eating chocolate brownie in every cafe I visited. Incidentally, the best was at the cafe at the Minack Theatre. There is a certain etiquette about my style of cake eating, a certain way of doing it. You have to share. The cake has to be cut up into pieces and shared amongst the assembled group. And we don't tend to have big slices of cake.....although, if it looks good enough.... It is the only way to eat cake and not put on gallons of weight and I get to try a larger selection.
Here is an example of one sharing experience.



As it is Valentines Day this week, the selection of cakes and biscuits available have been supplemented with some romantic offerings. John Lewis and Waitrose came up with these two.



The raspberry jam and almond heart was top drawer. Not chocolate, but sublime and great to share with someone lovely.

Happy Valentines Day

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Snow baby

Babies and snow do not mix.
Actually, it's not the babies that are the problem as much as their pushchairs and general luggage. It was almost impossible to push the pram around a snowy park at the weekend. Perhaps that's to be expected, but trying to push down the pavement to school to drop off the big boy was ridiculous! The wheels were jamming, we were sliding down the slopes of the pavements and other parents were dashing to my aid. That was very kind, but a bit embarrassing. And this was a public right of way outside a school.
Then I attempted a supermarket shop. This may have been a moment of madness, but we have to eat and I needed to look at hammers and slippers. Really.We pulled up at Tesco and half the car park was beautifully cleared, however, the other half, which included the parent and child parking, had not been cleared quite so efficiently. Grr. On this occasion, every little would have helped. I put the car seat in one of the small trolleys. What was I thinking?! Trolleys are more difficult to steer than pushchairs - they are more difficult to steer than a cat that really wants to go in the opposite direction whilst wearing rollerskates!
Supermarkets are a bit hit and miss when it comes to looking after parents and babies. As a new mum, I am the perfect target for them. I am around in the day, need supplies on a regular basis and I have a little more time to browse than I used to. However, some supermarket trolleys don't have brakes, the trolleys for babies are kept by the shop not by the parking spaces, so you have to carry the baby and bags across the car park and taking the child in a pushchair is no good either as you can't buy more than a few bits.

Ok, I feel better now. And despite ranting, I still love a supermarket.

I sound like I am not a big fan of the snow, but, there are some upsides. Since the snow came, our family has doubled in size, temporarily anyway.




Sunday 5 February 2012

Cake sale.

My chocolate cornflake cakes went on sale at Rushcliffe Country Park in Ruddington near Nottingham. There is tea and cake on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month and all the cake is homemade, it's like my cake heaven! We had a piece of lemon drizzle;



It had been snowing and there were loads of people. Tea and cake was obviously just the job for post-sledging relaxation. The cake sold like, erm, hot cakes.





It's a lovely place to take a family. There are nice walks, nature trails and a big playground. The only problem was the snow... It was great for snowballing and is obviously a popular place to go sledging, but it is almost impossible to push a pushchair on snow, a fact that I had been unaware of in the past. The place looked beautiful though.




I have got the cake-bake bug. It takes hold every now and again. I may have to create some more masterpieces for another cake Sunday. My role could be 'cakes for kids'. Cornflake cakes are definitely easier than fruit loaf or apple and cinnamon cake. I could try a rocky road style concoction. (I admit it, I am going to be cooking these for myself).

Oh, one last thing. Thinking of cakes for kids (and big kids), my mother in law made us some phenomenal cakes. They are dalek cakes! And they are supreme. (There is a geeky Doctor Who joke in there). I love them.....how can I possibly eat them?! Oh, and there were four, that is the Cult of Skaro.




Friday 3 February 2012

Cake and more cake.

The initial reason for writing this blog is to suggest suitable destinations for mums and dads with babies and the paraphernalia that goes with them. One of my favourite haunts is Thurmaston Shopping Centre. Oh yes, life doesn't get better than this! It isn't Oxford Street or even Meadowhall, but it is close and has car parking, an M&S, Boots, Next and a Starbucks. As a self confessed coffee addict, I need a fix every day. Starbucks does a good skinny latte and I have recently become a big fan of their Classic Cake Doughnut. Thurmaston has free parking, which is a massive bonus. There is baby changing in M&S (right at the back of the shop) and Starbucks. And if you need a pint of milk, which I invariably do, there is a huge Asda next door. Not tried Asda with a baby yet. I haven't braved the crazily busy road you have to cross to get there. It's a bit daunting with a pushchair. Having said that, Asda has its own massive car park.

 As well as suggesting where you can sample the best cakes in Leicestershire, I have made some baby steps into creating my own. Bearing in mind my incredible prowess is the kitchen (there is a large helping of sarcasm here) I thought I would start with something really complicated......chocolate cornflake cakes. I googled the recipe and came up with James Martins version. I substituted dark chocolate for milk chocolate as my eldest son would not give dark chocolate the time of day. I understand this is some people's definition of sacrilege, but I am not making cake that won't get eaten.

 They are sooo easy to make.

 You need;
100g of butter
200g of chocolate (in this case milk chocolate)
5 tbl spoons of golden syrup
160g of cornflakes

Melt the butter, chocolate and syrup in a pan on a low heat. When it is all melted and looks even, add the cornflakes and mix them in. Put the mix in little cake cases and put in the fridge to set. Makes 24 (as long as you don't eat the mix as you go along).



They are going on sale at a cake bake organised by my mother in law, so I will see if other people appreciate them as much as number one son.

This could be the beginning and the end of my cake baking. In real life, I don't get time to cook much, but while I am on maternity leave, I will try and be more of an earth mother.

I got a calendar for Christmas with a cupcake recipe for every day of the year. I was thinking of just looking at the pictures of the delicious lovelies (ricotta and lime cheesecake cupcake for example). Maybe I could go crazy and make them!

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Blimey!

Eight years ago I had my first baby and faced the adventure that was finding the best places for feeding, changing and pushing my new friend. Now, I have another little one and am going through the same process again. While I am going through this voyage of discovery, it seems like a good idea to share these insights with other mums, dads, granny's and grandpas who are facing similar challenges. Having a baby is a very time consuming state, so if anyone can learn from my experience all the better. And while I am going through this arduous research, I will force myself to try out cake and coffee from across the East Midlands. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.