The Perils of Lemon Curd

The conversation at tea time tonight went a bit like this.

Georgina: "Was Lemon curd really dangerous in the olden days ??"

Me - a bit confused whilst eating pasta: " Lemon curd?"

Georgina: " Yes, you know the stuff that the Tudors used for building their houses and walls a long time ago"

Me - digging deep into my historical knowledge and trying to get the image of a tudor builder wiping sticky lemon curd / jam up the walls of his house much to the annoyance of his Tudor wife.: " Do you mean wattle and daub?"

Georgina: "No, it was definitely Lemon curd or something a bit like that and I think it was poisonous."

After a few more mouthfuls of food and much thinking about the construction process of days gone by, Malc said: " Do you mean Lime plaster ?".

Georgina, eyes rolling up to the ceiling in an authorative tone of an eight year old : " Daddy , I do wish you would listen properly sometimes , that's what I said at the beginning !"

This was almost as good as last nights question - "Who was God's dad?"

Week of Eternity at Eeyores Place !!

I haven't blogged for ages and thought it was about time that I put pen to paper - well digits to dusty keyboard any way.

For the past week or so I have been living in Eeyores gloomy place ( you know from Winnie the Pooh!!). I have really been in the doldrums and have spent most of the week crying at any opportune moment at the most ridiculous things including crappy day time TV!

Life has been fairly manic and very stressful for a few reasons - work , work and more work and all the issues that it normally brings, my sister had a major Op which aged us all over the week and on Friday my first born child left primary school.

Now , usually I am a very rational person and fairly easy going, being able to deal with crisis and trauma in my stride and having the ability to multi task at the drop of a hat.

This week I have been "Gibbering psycho woman".

I think the crux of it all has been the worry about my sister who is thankfully now recouperating but also my son.

He has been at the most wonderful school for the past 8 years of his life. It's a small school where all the teachers treat the children like their own. It is a wonderfully happy , bright cheery place which is full of love and sunshine.

Both of my children have been very happy there and have done really well.

In order to celebrate the end of the term we have been to a leavers mass and an awards ceremony. The mass was beautiful, the children all did readings and at the end sang a song that the music teacher had created - there was not a dry eye in the house - it was really emotional.

There was a party at the end which was great fun. The head teacher took us aside and advised us that Sam had been nominated for an award by all of his year group for the child that has lived out the school mission statement by always being kind, helpful, a good friend to all etc and that he was to be presented with the school shield at the end of the week in a surprise assembly.

I went to the assembly having just got over the mass and watched my boy be cheered and applauded by the whole school as he made his way up to the headmaster to collect his prize - it was wonderful and I was so proud !!

The children sang their song again in front of the whole school and again tears were running free - the school bell rang out for the last time and all of the classes were dismissed out into the playground where children were hugging each other, parents were saying cheerio for the last time and teachers were collecting armfuls of handmade gifts and flowers by sobbing children.

We all walked out the school gate , Sam by this time decorated in his autographed school shirt proudly carrying his trophy.

I've not slept well for the past week building up to his last day, it's crazy I know and I'm not sure why it has affected me so much but it has. My husband thinks I've gone a bit loopy - well more loopy than normal !

My emotions have been all over the place - from sobbing to laughter to sobbing again.I feel shattered as though part of me has died - when it hasn't. It's stupid as I should feel happy that Sam is growing into a fine young man - but I want him to be little for ever and for the clock to just stop !!

Having spoken to my very good friend Lyzzy dee who has also had a horrific week and a lot worse than mine still has a leavers assembly to go for her daughter Beth as well as the funeral of a friend - thinking of you this week xx

I know that I'm over the worst of my "grief" as yesterday I challenged the manager of an " Accessorise shop ".

I've blogged about it before - but I have a real dislike of anyone ( mainly shop workers) who lick their fingers and then open a store carrier bag and gives it me. In the past I have not said anything but yesterday I advised the woman in the shop that I wanted another bag in a really loud voice as she had covered it in "lick" and that I didn't want to carry her bodily fluids around with me.

It's a bit like licking your hand before you give a handshake to someone !!

Lyzzy thinks that I've become paranoid !! Perhaps I have - What a week !!


Hopefully normal service will return very soon


Perhaps I'm having my Mid life crisis 28 days too soon (before my 40th !!


Roll on the holidays !!!

Answers on a post card please

This week has been a challenging one - I feel like the Oracle - the Mastermind genius extraordinaire - and I'm not !

My daughter who is 8 yrs old comes up with the most amazing questions - and often I don't know the answers to them.

In the past we have had;

Do Blackbirds have ears ?

Do Hamsters have knee caps? to name but a few.

Today so far I have been asked the following.

Can Sea horses swim upside down?

Do our belly buttons stay in the same place when we get older and does everyone have the same shape belly button picture? ( She is convinced that hers is a rosebud - which it is!) Why does Daddy have belly button fluff and you don't ? ( Good question - why is it always blue fluff!)

I wish I could remember some of the other wonderful questions that she asks - I must start to write them down.

I haven't googled the answers yet - but answers on a post card please!!

Tin Tin was never Blonde !

I've posted on my Blog before about my darling husband and the " interesting - bordering on the insane" life that we have as a family. Life is never dull and he is entirely to blame!

He will often come out with stuff and sometimes I have to do a double take as to whether or not he is actually on the same planet as me and the rest of the human race !

The other evening we were in the kitchen. I was cooking the tea and husband was wandering around " meddling".

He has a very annoying habit which drives me insane - he will fiddle with the knobs on the gas hob when I am cooking , adjusting the heat to his own specification. He will then get a sharp knife and prod cooking vegetables. He won't just prod potatoes he will actually cut them into micro size pieces.

I have asked him not to do this probably a million times over during our life time together - but it goes in one ear and out the other!

After chastising him for the one and a millionth time for potato destruction he came out with the quote of the week, " I think I'm going to dye my hair blonde!"

"What !??"

Now - husband is a 6ft 4 " real version of "TIN TIN" - complete with quiff. He doesn't have a squeeky voice and we don't own a dog - but he does look like him!




"Have you finally cracked??" I said.

The reply , " Well I've always had a secret urge to dye my hair since I was a kid , my Mum would never let me do it and if I don't do it soon I won't have enough hair left to dye"

Now it is true to say that his hair is starting to go a bit thin -so he has a point but he's 47 years old - I'm the one who's meant to be on the verge of having a mid life crisis as it's now only 46 days until I'm 40 and I'm being overshadowed by the husband !!

Any way after much teasing and hilarity I thought I would call his bluff - "OK let's do it" I said.

"We'll do it when we're on holiday - if you don't like it we'll shave it off or re dye it . We're going to Holland so you'll fit in well. It's a shame we're not going to Sweden and we could change your name to "Berk" the 5th member of Abba or may be even you could double for Dolph Lundgren".

Thinking that he would get the hint that I was not overly impressed he replied, "That's great - it will be fun !!!"

So in the next month I will enter my 4th decade of life with a cross between an Abba clone crossed with a balding Tin Tin Dolph Lundgren wanna be as a sole mate!

The only good thing that I found on a Dolph Lundgren web site when looking for a photo of him was the following entry which made me laugh! Perhaps it won't be so bad after all !!!



Mr. Lundgren's genitalia are actually much larger than pictured, but had to be digitally reduced in size in order to fit your computer.

Another My Town Monday

This week ( again I'm a bit late) I thought I would write about a lovely shop called Boardmans in the town.

Boardmans is a stationary / book shop which also sells art and craft materials and office supplies. I love to spend time browsing in there. It reminds me of my transition from primary school to secondary school as at the time it was the place to go to buy all of the recommended books and equipment such as the dreaded geometry set in a metal tin ,Oxford English dictionary and of course a Good news Bible ( great for pressing flowers and bashing fellow students over the head with!).

The smell of the shop is unique too. It's a mixture of oldy worldy moth eaten cardbard, old lady's perfume and printers ink crossed with the aroma of brand new shiny books still in their wrappers.

I also bought my first ink pen from the shop, which at the age of 11 yrs was a very special occasion.I still have the pen ( somewhere!), it was a silver coloured Shaeffer with scrolls around the edge and I loved it.Before my Mum paid for it, the lady in the shop who was about 82yrs insisted that I try it out and kindly gave me a whole sheet of blotting paper on which to write. I felt very grown up. The pen had a beautiful box with blue silk lining and I loved it!



Boardmans itself is a magnificent double-fronted building, originally built as a private house. It stands on the former site of the Falcon public house, itself demolished in the 1750s as a result of a local road-widening scheme.

Arthur Boardman was a well-respected figure in Stortford and a man of many parts. He supported lectures at the Corn Exchange, promoted literacy in the town by arranging essay and poetry competitions, and put his considerable talent as an artist to good use by drawing political cartoons.In fact, it was his love of literature that eventually led him to convert part of his home into a bookshop. When he finally bought the property in 1900 he expanded the bookshop to the whole of the ground floor and lived in the rooms above.



The stone carvings mounted on the brick pillars supporting the shop’s large window frames are all representations of various herbs used in medicine. These date from 1885 when the building was being restored, each carving created on the pavement outside the shop by Italian workmen, primarily engaged to add mosaics to the altar of St Michael’s church. Wrought iron railings were a feature of the shop’s windowsills up until 1914, at which time they were taken down for salvage to aid the war effort.

A regular town event at the turn of the 20th century was the parade of work horses in Causeway, after which they were brought to North Street for judging and sale by auction.

The worn stone steps at the shop’s entrance ( still there today) were the auctioneer's platform. Sir Walter Gilbey, when he lived at Elsenham would often bring part of his harvest of peppermint and lavender to Speechly & Milbank's for distilling, the fragrant end product later used as gifts for his family and friends.

Prominent above the shop’s entrance stands the original White Hart emblem of the 1st Herts Light Horse regiment ( and also the symbol for the county of Hertfordshire) especially made in 1862 for the regiment’s barracks at Silver Leys .

When the regiment disbanded in 1868, Major William Holland rescued the stag and later mounted it on the fascia above his grocery shop at the corner of Barrett Lane. And there it stood until 1983 when the grocery store was demolished and replaced by the present building, owned by HSBC.

The bank paid for restoration of the 'weathered' stag that took three years to complete, and on its return in 1986 was placed above Boardman’s entrance.

As a little girl, my Mum used to live in the Greengrocers opposite Boardmans . She used to tell me how she would sit on her window sill talking to the "Hart" and telling it stories before she went to bed every night.


This September my son Sam goes to secondary school. I have a list of books to buy and I'm sure that I'll be paying another visit to the shop again very soon.