What to do on cold Winter weekends?

Always a struggle to entertain wild children on wet weekends, particularly more so when all you want to do is stay in, stay warm, and finish your Christmas shopping on line!  This morning is blustery and we've got hail showers.  We've already watched the bestest film of all time, Labrinth, and have run out of cheese.

As I've been spending even more time on my laptop writing business plans and trying to finalise new business ventures and create a highly successful business empire to soften the blow of redundancy, I really owe it to TT to take her out somewhere!

So here's our choice that we're going to meander through....

Dean Castle has a Christmas fair on today with "crafted gifts, toys and food items you will find everything you need for the perfect Christmas celebration" apparently.  I've never been to Dean Castle before, so that's enough of a reason for me to go exploring.  Santa has a grotto there too today, and as TT is only just starting to understand what Santa is, that's just the ticket for today.

Then we might meet Daddy Native on how way home from work at Seamill Hydro which looks like it has plenty to keep a wild toddler entertained for a while, with the choice of Santa in his magical ice palace grotto, a giant bouncy castle in Rudolph’s play room, an outdoor ice skating rink  and more.

It's likely that I'll get lost on way to Dean Castle, so good to know also that Troon's monthly craft fair is on too.  I need to go check it out as part of research for my future business plans in any case!

Hopefully I'll have some nice discoveries and photos to share with you to come....

PS....Thanks to Visit Ayrshire-Arran and Explore AyrshireArran for their suggestions this morning via Twitter!

Wild Apple Tart

A few weeks ago I scrambled up an apple tree on the edge of the road near where I live and gathered these apples.  They were quite sweet, but a bit battered by insects etc so I decided to make an apple tart.

It was easy as pie.  I whipped up some indulgent short crust pastry to my mother's secret recipe.  I swear she'll kill me if I ever share it with anyone.  Suffice to say it's not for the faint hearted or whippet thin.  But sometimes I pick up a packet of ready made in the reduces section at the supermarket and keep in the freezer for such occasions as this.  Then I sliced the apples, chucked them in my Nana's tart dish lined with the pastry, sprinkled some sugar and a pinch of cinnamon over the fruit and topped with the pastry lid.

And then I got a little carried away with decorating it.

Popped it in the oven for about the last 20 minutes of cooking my Sunday chicken keeping a watchful eye on it as I'm rather prone to burning things.

I served it with some ice cream and my elderberry syrup.  And it was really rather good.

And almost free!  Shame it wasn't fat free.

Ouchie!!! When Mastitis strikes!

The blogging hiatus is over!  I have had no time for such indulgences like blogging as I have been super busy with so many things. Firstly I was made redundant, so have been all kinds of busy preparing job applications and going to interviews.  Besides that, I've been working on a business idea with a friend that will hopefully make us multi-millionaires in no time at all.  I've had family over visiting, a battle with a cold that lasted an entire week, and  of course an increasingly obstreperous toddler hurtling towards her second birthday and demanding dancing at every hour of the day.

But now I'm going to try and make a little more effort and get back on the blogging wagon!  And I have so many things I want to ask you about and share with you......

However I'm going to start with the dreaded mastitis.  My best friend and mother of two exquisite twin boys Oscar & Isaac is suffering and I've been looking around the web for any tips that might help her.  She's been rather amazingly I think finding breastfeeding both boys a bit of a breeze until now.  I think she deserves an award for managing to breastfeed twins for so long (about 3 months now I think)!  So I know she isn't going to let a thing like Mastitis beat her either.  I can't speak from personal experience as I never had to suffer it, probably because I only managed 6 weeks of breastfeeding before losing what felt like an unholy battle with my efforts.

So here are my findings for those wanting to avoid antibiotics....

Mastitis affects many, many mothers (one in ten in the UK) and recurrent mastitis is often the demise of breastfeeding early on. It’s not only painful, but causes overall body aches and fever as your body tries to fight it off.  It can come on suddenly without warning with varied symptoms including redness, pain, or warmth in the affected area of the breast, elevated temperature, overall illness & misery, pain while breastfeeding, as well as swelling of the breast.
Just like other illnesses when breastfeeding, many mothers aren't keen to take the antibiotics that you'll get given at the doc's. Despite the worry that it'll be going into baby's bloodstream in your milk, antibiotics can start a cycle of yeast overgrowth leading to recurrent mastitis, thrush, vaginal yeast infections, yeast diaper rashes, digestive issues, and eczema just to name a few. So what's a sore and pissed off mother to do??

Firstly, enlist some much needed help and relief with babies and house so you can focus all your attention and little strength remaining on healing yourself.  Take some probiotics or lots of natural yogurt to help tackle the yeast and cut out sugary products to back this up.

Secondly boost your immune system.  An obvious one really, but I wanted to share some of things that work for me when I'm feeling rundown.  My immediate go-to product for a vitamin or energy boost is Berrocca.      Boots often does 3for2 offers, but Tesco does it's own version at half the price.  This works pretty good for hangovers too!  As I wasn't sure if this was so good for Baby Wild while I was breastfeeding (or pregnant for that matter) I relied upon Floradix and still swear by it!  You can buy some here.  It's not cheap, but works wonders during pregnancy and after birth.  I shopped at Napier's, which has this great advice leaflet for other natural remedies.

Next up get the garlic into you!  Raw garlic is also highly beneficial in boosting immune function as well as fighting of the mastitis because of it’s anti-bacterial/anti-fungal properties.  Grate garlic over your meals throughout the day.  Or mix finely chopped or minced garlic mixed with a spoonful of honey to drink if you prefer.  Best to take it during meals though as it could upset an empty stomach.

Now that you've gotten some additional help and carers to help you, retreat to bed with the baby and get as much sleep as you can when not breastfeeding.  As you know although it's the last thing you want to do, feeding as much as you can is really the only and best way through the hellishness of mastitis.  If you don't feel that your baby (or babies in this case) are emptying your milk supplies each time then use a pump or hand express the remaining milk yourself.

Drink buckets of water, and massage the inflamed breast to try and unblock the plugged ducts.  Using a heat pad or hot water bottle/lavender bag can help alleviate soreness and keep milk flowing.  If that doesn't work though, then try switching to ice packs instead to reduce inflammation.  Hot showers, going bra less as much as possible and raw potatoes have also been employed for some mothers, and no that's not just the Irishness in me coming through!  Honest - check out this natural treatment advice list for proof!

This mother has Breastfeeding First Aid kit she has drawn up which is rather impressive.  Highly recommended!
If you're big into homemade medicines, you could try this website for some advice.

But in the end, if it goes on for more than a couple of days and none of the ideas above are helping, let's face it - for your own sanity you're gonna need to go to the doctors......

Mrs A, I hope you make a speedy recovery! x

Wish lists of inspiration

Like most females of the species, I'm a great fan of lists.  Lots of them, shopping, To-do Today, To-Do this week (never entirely completed, To-Do this month to help make me rich (never completed at all), Work Task lists (mostly ignored), To Be Done Around the House lists (mostly passed over to Daddy Native).

I'm going to start a new collection of lists here to share with you all.  The fun one - A Wish List.  This will gather together all the beautiful stuff I would long for and ask Daddy Native for if he paid any attention to such wishful lists, and hopefully will give you some ideas too!  The serious one - An Inspiration List.  I'm thinking of changing career. Radically.  So I've been reading a lot about various entrepreneurs looking for inspiration to learn from and thought it might be worth sharing with you and feeding into your ideas too!

We all need good role models to learn from and inspire us to fulfill our own ambitions.  One of mine is Sophie Cornish, MD & co-founder of the rather wonderful notonthehighstreet.com.  Sophie is an obvious role model  for me to start with, as she is a working mother, balancing creativity, running a household and family with an expanding successful self built business.  How on earth does she manage it?  In this week's Stylist magazine she explains that it's all done to lists.  Ha!  Lesson 1 completed and ticked already! Hurrah.

Sophie has previously also written about the constant juggle and up hill climb required to balance raising a family with the desire to succeed in business.  You can read this article here, along with a piece on how the business began here.  I recommend you add both links to this week's Reading List.

A quiet spell

I've been channeling my creative energy into other avenues the past few weeks and haven't had any time for blogging.  Which has given me a chance to reflect on the whole blogging & social media sphere too, and how much of my energy I can give to it.  I do enjoy gathering my thoughts & finds together into a little portal of my own!  So hopefully I'll get a chance to put some of my latest ideas into action over the next few weeks, & post some things that I'd like to stumble across online myself!

After speaking to a beautiful pregnant friend in London last week to share some advice, I started to remember a few more tips which I've added to my growing Top Tips List.  Follow the link for the new additions regarding beating the pregnancy blues, and covering bumps on a budget.

I'm also hoping to put together some BabyMama Interviews to show on here.  It was such a relief to me to read other people's experiences and stories when TT first came along, & remains a relief to hear from fellow bloggers such as the side-splittingly hilarious Scary Mommy that I'm not alone in sometimes finding motherhood less than delightful at times! 

And as ever I'll be trawling the interweb to gather together my favourite ideas & bits of advice to share with you here. 
For example - have you ever tried making your own medicine or cold & flu cures?  I've just made some batches of syrup for winter.  The recipes are here on my other more hippy blog!

Couldn't resist showing off one of my dear friend's teeny tiny twins!

This weekend?

Well for those of you following me on Twitter, you'll know I was hoping to take part in some of Scotland's Food & Drink Fortnite.  In particular I was thinking how lovely it would be to take a little trip to EatBute as I've never been there before and it sounds ace.  Mount Stuart looks stunning and a splendid way to spend a Saturday with my girl, and if I'm lucky Daddy Wild might be able to accompany us too.

And then I got distracted by the many, many events on in Dumfries & Galloway for the Food & Drink Fortnight.  Which actually just prompted me into a big sulk, as it's simply too far away for a day trip, and purely underlined the fact that there is simply nothing similar happening near where we happen to live.  Sometimes North Ayrshire sucks.  Sigh.

Then there's Doors Open Days all September, to which I haven't managed to make a single location.  Some nice places to seduce you this weekend, including some of Glasgow's museums.

If you've ever read my other my blog you'll know I'm well into my foraging.  So I'm also torn to go along to Finlaystone Country Estate's Food For Free foraging walk.

If I were in Edinburgh, I'd head to the Edinburgh Mela with an empty tummy so I could eat my way around the day!

Closer to home, I'm probably most excited about taking part in River Cottage's Seven Mushroom Challenge!  I say this because we've had a mammoth amount of rain this week and all of a sudden today the temperature rose again, which I think makes it pretty ideal for a lot of mushrooms?!  I guess there's only one way to find out....

In reality and complete honesty..... if Daddy Wild is off work this weekend, then we'll be making the most of that by finally building the greenhouse I bought about 2 months ago.
Oh joy of joys.

Triple P Parenting

Whilst doing some research for the real day job earlier this afternoon, I came across some NHS advice for parents in the Greater Glasgow Area.  It's called Triple P Parenting, which stands for Positive Parenting Program.  It sounds a bit American, in fact it was developed at the University of Queensland in Australia and describes itself as "a system of easy to implement, proven parenting solutions that helps solve current parenting problems and prevents future problems before they arise" according to the 1990's styled website.  It's a user friendly approach, to help parents who are struggling with any aspect of raising a family.  Whether you just need a simple solution to a particular problem, or are having serious problems and have no idea where to start to look for help, Triple P is being suggested as the place to go.  Advice can come in free group sessions, or in regular organised seminars or podcasts.


I thought I'd share this post as this is all news to me.  I'm not sure whether it's something I'd use myself, but it may be a saviour for many struggling parents out there.  I probably would have run to the nearest seminar on Tantrums a few weeks ago when TT was at her worst!  I just read these tips on toddler taming, nothing new or revolutionary, but maybe just what the doctor ordered on a tired and frazzled day when you just want to run away.  But can't, obviously.  If you want more detail follow any of the links above or see this outrageously outdated leaflet.

Me, I preferred Super Nanny US.  Taught me everything I needed to know whilst simultaneously making me feel like the best mother on earth in comparison to some of the families on the show!  Nasty?  But true.

TT's best friend and neighbour dancing on her birthday - cute! But entirely unrelated to this post!

The Naughty Step

Three cheers for the naughty step!!
I have moaned on here over the past few months about Baby Wild being renamed The Terrorist due to her propensity for throwing earsplitting tantrums at will.  They truly were just awful, emotionally charged, anger fuelled and exhausting for both of us.  But as most things are with young children, they were mostly a phase.  I hate when folk offer advice saying "don't worry - it's just a phase".  Agh!  I know that thanks very much, what I'm asking you to help me with though is dealing with this part of the phase please!  God and it was so much worse in public, I didn't take her out in public for a month or so if it could be helped for fear of the mortification of people observing that I couldn't control such a wild child.

So we started using the naughty step, which in our house is just the door mat at the front door.  And it worked! Almost immediately!  I realise that it isn't going to work for every kid, but it is worth a try.  As long as you stick to the basic rules and follow through to completion every time as it's all about consistency. 
It starts with a warning that if the child continues to misbehave they will go to the step (wherever that may be in your house).  Explain why their behaviour is unacceptable, and make sure that there are no other issues at play here which could easily solve the problem immediately such as hunger, pain or sickness, tiredness etc.  If they still continue to act up, take them to the step, get down to their height & explain again why they are there, and how long they will have to wait it out there.  Amazingly, Baby Wild has always obeyed and stayed put on the step, despite a few violent kicking and wailing tantrums on the step in the early days!  We only make her stay there for one or two minutes as she's so little, but despite her age she understands why she's there and our reasoning.  After the time is up, and the child has calmed down, repeat the type of behavior you would prefer and again explain why she was there before offering hugs and kisses to show there's no bad feeling and all is well.  Oh, and try to get them to apologize - easier said than done with a child as stubborn as mine!  For more on the naughty step technique see Super Nanny's advice.

After employing the step for about 2 months now, we need to use it less and less.  There are days where TT just seems to be in a foul mood, and I'm too busy to take us both out and about as a distraction and the naughty step looms more threateningly on such days!  But mostly, when she starts to act up now, I ask her if she would like to go to the naughty step, for if not she must change her behavior instantly.  Cue a moment of sulking, but mostly she understands and stops the misbehaviour.  Makes life a hell of a lot easier for all of us, and we're all much happier as a result.

Of course, I also have to factor in that every day she is learning new words and starting to build bigger sentances so the sheer frustration of not being able to communicate what she wants is dissipating and which is a huge contributing factor to toddler tantrums.  You could argue that she's just growing out of 'the phase', but I know that cheeky mischievous gleam in her eye when she knows that what she's scheming might get her into trouble, and I know that the step will sort it out!

Does the naughty step work in your house?  I'd love to hear if you have any other tricks!

The vikings have landed!

We made it to Kelburn and we weren't disappointed!  The Vikings were battling and the weather was kind.  We spent a long time wandering through the Walled Garden, playing in the play fort and walking beside the waterfalls before we spent some time with the Vikings.  If you're interested in the gardens, I'll be posting on that on my other blog when I find a chance tomorrow.

Why the Vikings, you ask?  Well the Largs Viking Festival has just kicked off this weekend... Didn't you know?

They were really rather good, and nearly  succeeded in frightening TT.  Nearly.  She's made of sterner stuff however.

My favourite shots are these though - modern day Viking checking his Tweets on his mobile?  (Shame I ruin the shot in my haste by appearing in the background!)

Anyways, we had a ball as ever at Kelburn.  TT loved her special treat of lunch out and told everyone in the cafe just how good her sausage, beans & ships were.  Definitely deserved on a Viking battle ground on the first days on Autumn.

Well done yet again Kelburn folk, and well done to the Vikings for their spirit and entertainment!  See you next weekend at The Pencil!

What are you doing this weekend?

There's so much to choose from this weekend.  Daddy Native has a Saturday off for once, so we shall be sticking close to home & working on projects in the garden then.  Mostly I shall probably be avoiding the heavy lifting by playing with my new D90 so look out for some stunning photography to follow! No pressure here then!
Then we are torn on Sunday between Largs & Glasgow.  Kelburn Castle is awash with Vikings this weekend so we'll be paying them a visit at some stage.  I can't work out whether it'll just be TT & I, or whether we'll borrow some cousins to join us too for the added exhaustion. 
Sunday is also my chance to see if any of the items on my wish list at The Forgotten Island are leftover and available to the public.  I am desperately seeking tyres and some of the wooden items for my new garden plans, so fingers crossed!

Other options this weekend...

• If you're in need of new baby bits and bobs, the Glasgow Baby Booty Sale is on this weekend at Kelvin Hall International Sports Arena from 10.30am.
• If I were in Glasgow's West End I would like to go to Byres Road Makers Market and sample some beautiful crafts.
• If TT were a tiny bit older I'd be galloping to the free Saturday Art Club on Saturday morning in GOMA, perfect way to spend a wet morning!

Of course I shall also come back with daring adventure stories to tell you all, as I try to never let the boring truth get in the way of a good story - read this for similar. Happy weekend! x