A Theme Park, a CCC-2 and a Filthy Cold

Well, the half term break came and went. It went very well.  The Boy, my Partner and I had a great time visiting Nickelodeon Land at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, accompanied by my Partner’s Mum.

The Boy was thrilled to meet his current heroes of the small screen, Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick Star.  The park was great, very good value for money and we were very lucky with the weather. Cold, but thankfully dry. I lost count of how many times we were on the various rides.

I got into trouble on The Nickelodeon Streak for filming!  This could have been disastrous, as The Boy doesn’t like breaking the rules.  I tried a quick chat about how, sometimes, it’s ok to break the rules, and how it would be nice to look back at a video of how much fun we had, hoping it would do the trick.  It was clear he was having none of this, but thankfully, there was plenty to distract him.  I may get him to watch it one day, but at the minute it’s a flagrant breach of the regulations and he still wants me to delete it.

I love that The Boy is as much a thrill-seeker as I am.  I was dragged on to all the rides, height permitting, without any hesitation.  Happy to go back time and time again.

We also squeezed in a visit to the Sealife Centre, the highlight of which was a closely run race between the turtles and the very precocious rays. I was dizzier here, following The Boy around, than I had been the day before at the theme park. This may have been due to the filthy cold that was brewing, and has been ever present since we got home.

We got home to a formal report from the Speech and Language Therapist.  A large part of this was based on a Children’s Communication Checklist, or CCC-2.  A rather lengthy questionnaire The Boy’s Mum and I completed a few weeks ago as part on the ongoing assessment to diagnose (or rule out) ASD.  There were no real surprises in this, just another piece in the jigsaw puzzle confirming what we already know.  More scores ‘indicative of an Autistic Spectrum Disorder.’

We finished off the week with a visit to friends’ with lots of Japanese food and my entry for the Weekly Bake off.

Mid-term Break

We’re off to the seaside for our mid-term break! I know, it’s February, but we’re killing half a dozen birds with one stone. Three busy days and two nights of theme parks, visiting family and friends, trams, donkeys and kiss-me-quick hats!

Bags packed, camera charged, car cleaned (sort of), oil checked, screen wash topped up, snacks bought for the journey. I’ve been awake for ages. I think I may be even more excited and looking forward to this than the boy.

Weekly Bake Off

I’ve been a bit frazzled since my last post. As a treat I bought Mary Berry’s 100 cakes and bakes. I needed some time in the kitchen to de-stress.

This fantastic little book is being used by The Weekly Bake Off and it arrived through the post, just in the nick of time for me to have my first attempt at one of the cakes.

I liked the sound of the Farmhouse Orange Victoria Sandwich and decided to set to work right away. Amy states on the site that she follows the recipes to the letter. This was an ‘all in one’ method. I’ve never really had much luck making sponge this way, so being a creature of habit I decided to cream the butter and sugar the way my auld ma’ taught me to.

I also weighed the eggs to 150g exactly, as I’ve consistantly had much better results after listening to a podcast last year where the advice given for a perfect sponge was to be absolutely exact, weighing all the ingredients out to equal quantities.

The recipe states to mix the marmalade into the buttercream. Rather than do this, I spread the cake with marmalade and the buttercream.

It was slightly rushed between work and the school run, but I was really pleased with the results. It tasted even better on the second day, after all the orange flavour had a chance to infuse.