Category: Cyber Mummy
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You may think it’s as simple as getting your clothes, sun tan lotion and a spare pair of shoes in your luggage case when you’re about to jet off on holiday, yet too many people head abroad without the correct level of planning, leaving themselves without a handful of basic essentials when they end up in their destination of choice. With this little list, you won’t fall into that trap and you’ll save more of your spending money for having fun – not filling the packing void with short-term purchases.
Plug converters
One thing that will cost you a lot of money if you don’t get it in advance is a plug converter, allowing you to charge your phone, laptop or any other electronic device at two- or three-pin sockets, depending on where you go on holiday. On top of this, while most mainstream electronics are dual-voltage, others will need a voltage converter. Check the label on each item you bring you may need special converters to step down wall charges.
First aid kit
Whether you’re a person who needs to sort out an online prescription and take pills every day, or simply someone who wants a back-up should you do yourself an injury while on your travels, you really ought to pack a first aid kit. It’s something that could patch over a scratch or wrap up a heavily-bleeding arm before rushing to the hospital, but one thing’s for sure: you’ll regret not carrying one if you get into an accident, however big or small. You can find out what you should include in a first aid kit here.
Daypack
While you’ll undoubtedly have a carry-on case, it won’t be suitable away from airports and simple streets. If you’re going walking or just a little off the beaten track, it’s well worth packing a daysack in order to store maps, snacks and bottled water while you’re exploring the world around you.
Money belt
There may be no better way to keep your money safe while travelling than to wear it on a money belt. Whether you think you’re immune to them or not, pickpockets are quick and light-handed and will relieve you of your worldly possessions in a heartbeat if they get the chance. A money belt will keep your essentials safe and sound.
Wet weather gear
Unless you’re heading to the Atacama Desert, it’s always worth carrying wet weather items just in case. Think collapsible umbrellas, water-repellent jackets and ponchos.
We’ve been rather inundated with books for review, so here’s a round up of some of the books that K, nearly 3, has enjoyed. 
, but we’re having lots of fun both with this and another Hello kitty book, the Best Friends Activity Book
Now for a couple of books with characters/authors that are new to me. I’ve enjoyed Emma Chichester Clark’s
Finally, a book from a brand new author, Adma Black, perhaps better know to readers of this blog as the founder of Feather and Black. We’ve been sent Adam’s new book, David the Dinosaur, which accompanies the growing range of Feather and Black children’s products. David the Dinosaur eats little boys, and I can just imagine Adam scaring his 4 sons at bedtime with this story before taking the step of getting it illustrated and turned into a fun and funny book. In a nice touch there are quiz questions at the end of the book, asking children to spot chameleons through out the story, find other animals, and including a joke or two.
What books do your small boys like? Let me have some recommendations please as my two are turning in to voracious readers!
Next week I’ll be back with books that D, 10 loves at the moment.
Views through our hedge to more hedges on the landscape. Yes, that's chickenwire in the foreground, put there temporarily to keep the chickens out of my way while I clear the brambles.
Well yes. In the third post of my Week of the Garden on The American Resident I shall tell you some ways in which hedges are interesting. Hold on to your hats!
1. Romans were the first to use hedges in England as field boundaries, with Hawthorn as the predominant shrub/tree used–like an early barbed wire.
2. Hedges seem to be mostly a British thing: beyond Britain, older hedged landscapes are found only in some areas of France, northern Italy and the Austrian Alps, parts of Greece and the Republic of Ireland.
3. Although many of the hedges that remain today can trace their origins back to Anglo Saxon times, the oldest known existing hedge is called “Judith’s Hedge”, in Cambridgeshire. It is estimated to be over 900 years old.
Who was Judith? I have no idea. If you know, please share.
4. The most common hedgerow shrub is Hawthorn (probably because of the thorns). Hawthorn tincture apparently helps strengthen the heart and lower blood pressure. Hawthorn also has magical properties. No, I can’t remember all the magical properties of Hawthorn but Google will happily inform you.
5. As a general rule of thumb, “Hooper’s Law” suggests you can count the number of species of tree or shrub in a 100 ft stretch of hedge. This number (best if averaged over three or more sample stretches) multiplied by 100 gives a rough estimate of the age of the hedge. I found this explanation in the wonderfully niche blog Hedge Britannia.
Regular readers will know my love of history in the English landscape so yes, I pounced on this fact like the hedge anorak I freely confess to being.
6. Probably the one of the oldest and most rare trees found in hedges (and thus dating the hedges containing these trees as ancient) are the Wild Service Trees. At one time these were more common and the little fruits were so sweet they were sold in bunches at markets. The fruit were called Chequers, but it is uncertain whether the abundance of pubs with the name ‘The Chequers’ were named after the fruit or if the fruit were named after the pubs.
7. The visible hedges on either side of our garden are roughly 30-40 years old, once kept short but now we let them grow to full height. I say ‘visible’ because I keep finding quite large stumps rotting under the brambles that date it well beyond that age. Probably many years ago there was a hedge, it was cut down, then years later planted again, or new growth returned from the cutback stumps and the second hedge allowed to grow to a short height until we came along and encouraged wild abandon. To an extent.
8. Our hedge is filled with oaks, field acer, birch, aspen, holly, rowan, elder, hawthorn, a maple or two, wild roses, wild plums and lots and lots of brambles. The brambles are an Issue for many reasons but one is because they can clear a hedge of other plants as you can see in my photo above–the big gaps were only filled with brambles and dead shrubs a few weeks ago.
9. I live in a former pub. There’s been a pub here since at least 1704 (the earliest map I have found so far), and so my garden is full of history from the pub–including burned wood and bricks from a bonfire a previous owner had after the original pub burned down. The hedge also holds a lot of detritus from over the years. Old bottles, discarded metal things bent and rusted beyond recognition, huge nails, the remains of some collapsed fencing in the road side hedge, generations of rubbish dropped, thrown or hidden there by people who have used the old road. The hedge traps it all. The chickens uncover a lot of it, I uncover some in my hedge maintenance and most will probably never be uncovered.
10. We had a badger start digging in the hedge once. We love wildlife but didn’t want a badger living in our garden so we kept filling in the hole. It moved eventually.
We also have a hedgehog house nestled in the hedge, but sadly no hedgehogs live in it. We do see a lot of wrens, blue tits, a few long tailed tits, other songbirds, which I now forget, some pigeons, a kestrel and an owl in the hedge.
11. A wild hedge that borders a garden needs a lot of work to keep it looking wild without letting it run wild. We had other priorities a few years ago and stopped caring for the hedge as we should and over about three years it grew branches and a few saplings into our garden by almost three metres. Now we keep it trimmed back but we also try to keep the deadwood pulled out (so it doesn’t fall out on someone), and try to keep the brambles to a minimum. Brambles are great for fruit but there are plenty of blackberry brambles in our corner of Essex so I’m not worried about getting rid of the weedy, scrappy looking stuff that invades everywhere too quickly.
Anyway, the very bottom stretch of our wild hedges, down where we have a wildflower meadow, is allowed to live a bit more freely and there are plenty of brambles there, kept for the wildlife.
12. The chickens love scratching at the base of the hedge in the fallen leaves. So all the pretty bulbs (snowdrops, fritillaries, daffodils, bluebells, cyclamen) I had panted there are now scattered and dried out. That’s a bit dramatic. Not all. In the harder soil they’re still growing and if they started growing before the hens started scratching the hens leave them alone.
Each time I complain about it (which is frequently) my husband reminds me how much I love the chickens. It doesn’t really help me to stop feeling irritated though.
13. The hedge is a big job but a huge feature of our garden. We love providing homes for the wildlife, and we also maintain a small meadow at the end of the garden and have restored a wildlife pond in the middle. I also love that the hedge is a feature of the British countryside and I love our role in maintaining a special part of the landscape.
So you can see hedges are fascinating but if you would like to know more about them I found quite an interesting site for the hedge enthusiast during my research called Hedge Britannia.
Anyone else have a love of hedges? Or have I woken you to a new appreciation of the iconic feature of the British landscape?
There is only one February 29th every 4 years. What are you going to do to make today count? Many of us want to make more money, and we’re going to give you a sneak peek into one concept you could adopt today that will help you boost your income, not just for the short term but for the future too:
We are in the midst of a time of change. Traditional manufacturing jobs are in decline, jobs in service industries are harder to find. However there are thousands of new ways to earn. Many of these new ideas for earning can be done part-time, in your spare hours, alongside raising a family or another job. You need to be open to opportunities and ready to learn and persist. If this sounds like something that you would love to do, and you are ready to commit time and effort, read on. There is hard work ahead of you, but the benefits are immense.
Life change starts here
We have three essential concepts that are key to making money. Get these ideas right and you will have taken the first step to changing the way you earn and taking the limits of just how much you can bring in:
Concept 1: Multiple Streams of Income
The first concept that will change the way you think about earning is multiple streams of income. Does the idea that your entire life is dependent on one source of income make you feel uncomfortable? You can end up in dire straits through no fault of your own. Gone are the days when jobs were for life and large establishments like Woolworths could never go down… but imagine this alternative scenario:
Sharon worked on the till at Woolies twenty hours a week, but she also has a number of other incomes. She writes a parenting blog that earns her £300 a month in advertising. She does some freelance writing for £150 per month. Sharon’s also just launched an eBook from a blog in a niche area which earns £75 a month and she’s in the process of launching an eCourse. Woolies go and what does Sharon do? She cuts back and lives off her other incomes. She spends her free time creating that eCourse which grows to earn her around £300 a month and she invested her redundancy money in another business opportunity which she hopes will be a big success.
No matter which of Sharon’s incomes disappear she has others on which to rely, and it is highly unlikely that all her incomes will dry up at the same time. This is the theory behind multiple streams of income.
What does this mean for you?
It means you do not need one big idea or lots of investment to cease being reliant on an employer. If you are a business owner it takes a lot of the risk out of being an entrepreneur as, instead of relying on one idea or one market you have a number of enterprises. You can build up an online income incrementally while still working or alongside your other commitments. This is exactly what we have done: we have built our incomes up gradually to a point where our ‘work’ is flexible and our incomes are multiple.
What do you think of this concept?
If you like this, and want to learn about the two other essential concepts for earning, we share them in the Help! I want to start earning course. This course is available at half the usual price for this week only.
We’re two months into 2012 already – do you feel like the year is flying by? If 2012 was going to be the year when you improved the family budget, are you making good progress? If you need a bit of help to make more money, read on:
Money is tight for many people at the moment, which is why we’re releasing Help! I want to start earning. This short eCourse will help you if:
- You want to make more money but don’t know where to start
- You’ve tried to find work but there’s nothing around
- You only have a few hours to earn in, and want to fit earning round family or even another job
Help! I want to start earning is made up of practical email lessons, videos and exercises. You’ll learn ways to make money even if you are short on time and energy! Everything in the course is tried and tested: we use these methods ourselves.
We guide you step by step through Help! I want to start earning. You’ll learn how real ‘money makers’ think, and how you can change the way you think to attract money too. You’ll learn about practical goal setting, and how to achieve those financial goals that will make a big difference to you and your family. You’ll get over 100 different ways to earn money all included in the course PLUS 5 hours of video training.
Does Help! I want to start earning sound like it could help you make more money? If this course appeals to you, you might be worrying about how much it will cost. Normally the course would cost £39.99, but this week only we’re giving you the chance to get it for just £19.99. Invest this small amount in the course today and you’ll learn how to earn much much more. One of the lessons is even all about earning back your course fees!
This special price is available until Friday this week only, so invest in Help! I want to start earning now.
Running a family friendly business means that it fits in around your family life, but this can also mean that your time can be limited. So prioritising is usually essential to ensure you cover all the important parts of running a business.
One such important aspect of business life is bookkeeping. Now we all know this is not the most favourite part of business but none the less it is a necessity. You need to know how well your business is doing and if you have enough cash to invest in developing your business as well as making the end of year tax return easier to complete.
So if you are looking for something to make it easier to keep on top of your books and not take up too much of your precious time, Intuit has some fantastic software to help you do just that. There are two types of software available from Intuit, QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online.
Each of the two types of software then has three different packages, QuickBooks Desktop has:
- QuickBooks SimpleStart. Create branded invoices and quotes; track sales, expenses and profits and generate key business reports. Great for sole traders with 1 user.
- QuickBooks Pro. All of the above plus, calculate and file VAT returns, essential stock control tools, handle foreign currencies and see your company snap shot. Great for small business as can have 2 users.
- QuickBooks Premier. As with the Pro plus create financial forecasts, place back orders, buy and sell stock in different units, more price and discount offers and create over 135 business reports.
The QuickBooks Online edition has:
- Online Simple Start. Create polished professional invoices; monitor your sales and cash flow plus free support and updates.
- Online Essentials. The same as the Simple Start plus create VAT returns automatically, handle foreign currencies plus see your companies snap shot.
- Online Plus. As with the Essentials plus create budgets for your business, extra business reports and accurately track the costs of a job.
Also with the online accounting software that QuickBooks Online provides, you can access it from anywhere using your mobile phone making it an excellent choice for busy mums and dad’s to keep in touch with their businesses finance.
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- One of the ancient oaks in the old hedgerow on my walk. This oak is around 300 years old, dating the hedge and path to at least that age.
I love the American wilderness. I love that even in the Midwest where I grew up in Oklahoma and Minnesota, there is still wilderness–vast tracks of land largely (or completely) unchanged since before the deluge of international settlers in the past 150-200 years. I love it because I love the authenticity of it; I love that I can look at a landscape and know that I am looking at a scene that has been there long before any of us–even the Native Americans.
But one of the things I love the most about living in England (especially my part of England) is the very opposite–I love walking through a landscape that has been very determinedly shaped and contrived and put to use for at least 2000 years, leaving very little of the original landscape. I don’t mean the interesting if sometimes cryptic archaeological remains of settlements. And I don’t mean the oldest castles, palaces and churches. I mean the shape of fields, the run of hedges, the paths and the views and even the way we use the land as a result of these alterations.
I love seeing clear evidence in a hedgerow or in the layout of a village that people have been living regular lives, just like me, in this same spot for over 2000 years. There’s something reassuring, possibly inspiring about it. It shows we have the ability to endure, I suppose.
And I continue to carry on about this over on my regular column at Expat Focus if you would like to know more about what I think of history in the landscape! I also mention a great book if you’re interested in learning more about the making of the English landscape.
My favourite still from Carnage, Christolph Waltz (Alan) with Kate Winslet (Nancy, his wife) in the background.
Along with Jen and Susanna of BritMums I recently attended a screening of the movie Carnage ahead of its February 3 release date. Carnage is relevant to BritMums (and other mums/moms and dads) because it covers issues many parents and couples face–even if not exactly the same way the couples in this film do. It was interesting watching this film then comparing it to our personal experiences!
Although this movie is about a conflict between two sets of parents that arises out of a brief argument between two boys, leads to open warfare between married partners and finally ends with personal epiphanies, you don’t have to have experienced any of this in order to understand what is going on and walk away feeling satisfied that you’ve just watched a good movie.
One thing I really liked about this play-turned-film is that it did not try to be all film. Instead, it made great use of both mediums. Apart from a shot of children mucking around in a park at the beginning and at the end, the whole of the film took place in one apartment–as if it were one stage. The cast placement and movement around the apartment was borrowed from the direction of a play, but I was struck by how every scene was a carefully composed image, deliberately layered in meaning, so that each scene could be stopped in a beautiful still (i.e. an image of a man on a phone arguing with a client, facing off stage, and behind him his angry wife reflected in the mirror). This is one of the beautiful techniques from the art of film making that a play cannot replicate.
Another interesting thing about Carnage is that the whole 90 minutes of the action in the apartment was filmed in real-time, without breaks–not a single ellipsis. Apart from admiration for the skill of the cast and crew to create a film like this, this technique helped the audience feel even more drawn in and involved with the action.
Criticisms? I suppose the characters bordered on being stereotyped, as if the scriptwriters were people who had heard about conflicts between school parents but had never experienced any first hand. However, the actors did a magnificent job keeping their roles from becoming a pastiche so it’s not really a criticism after all.
Favourite parts? When Kate Winslet revisits her cobbler (fruit pie), all over the coffee table and rare art catalogues. It is the most impressive display of regurgitation I have ever seen on film–far outdoing any teen flick. I liked that moment because of the surprise element, because it took the characters in a different direction and because of the outrageous use of symbolism. But then there were several parts through the film that reflected these features. I also liked the skilful way the writers arranged four characters that took themselves very seriously and led them on a path that would eventually lead to exposing how ridiculous they were. A reminder to us all to live a bit more lightly.
Parenting is one of those things that has a direct line to the most sensitive parts of our psyche. It’s where we combine instinctive protectiveness with personal integrity, then throw in a dash of decision making (and the anxieties that some have about that) and you have a place where only the most confident, relaxed people are capable of letting the slights (real or imagined) roll off.
The two couples in this film do not know each other. At the beginning they try to be patient and polite. When things start to get tense, one couple tries to leave. Something draws them back in and potential resolution approaches before tensions flare higher. Again they try to escape, and again something draws them back. It’s true that you have to suspend disbelief while you watch the couple return to the apartment again and again to put themselves through more anxiety–although it makes for an entertaining film, who would do this in real life?
Carnage indeed, but only if you let it be so.
Entertainment? Yes, definitely. Film buffs and parents alike will enjoy this film. And it will give many of you some food for thought, as it did me.
* * *
Carnage is based on the play ‘Le Dieu du Carnage’ by Yasmina Reza.
Screenplay by Yasmina Reza and Roman Polanski.
Directed by Roman Polanski.
Cast: Kate Winslet (Nancy), Christolph Waltz (Alan), Jodie Foster (Penelope) and John C. Reilly (Michael).
I have no idea why I chose to show this cake on a pristine plate with a shiny fork–this cake is made to be held in the hand and eaten while running around the garden.
I wanted to tell you how I came to make Crazy Cake one summer in Oklahoma.
I stayed with my grandparents for much of the summer from an early age, my summer home in the South. I spent my days dressing up Brownie, the Border Collie in my outgrown clothes, brushing her till she purred (dogs purr silently and smile loudly), running with her across the 40 acre farm, climbing trees and quietly discovering nests full of eggs, carefully stepping through the patch of grass on the path where I knew sandburs grew, avoiding the horned toads, but pausing to watch Brownie poke her nose at them, ears forward until they squirt blood up at her and I had to drag her away.
We ran across the sharp quarry gravel driveway (I liked to practice this in bare feet because I thought it made me tough–it worked), through the orchard to the big grey wooden gate where I climbed, Brownie slipped through a hole, and we ran into the field with oaks till we found the goats. Most of them ran away from us apart from George and his gang. We raised George from a small kid when a coyote killed his mama. He lived in a little box cushioned with grandpa’s old work clothes in a warm spot next to the stove, fed with a bottle until big enough to join the rest of the herd. In the field with the oaks I pulled down a branch of richly green oak leaves and George ate them.
Then we ran back to the house again, sometimes past my grandpa who was ploughing a field of sweet potatoes, or sometimes past my grandma who was choosing vegetables for dinner. Green beans, maybe. She was a good cook. When I was back in the house, tracking in sand on my bare feet across the pebble patterned linoleum, the radio was on and grandma was doing kitchen things.
Do little kids ever remember what their mothers and grandmothers did in the kitchen or is it just with our grown up experience that we know? She would have been washing dishes, cleaning vegetables, getting lunch ready for grandpa, sweeping the floor, having a break and sitting in the rocking chair by the phone, talking to her older sister who lived in town. And I would see her on the phone and know I could start getting snacks and things out of the cupboards that are usually restricted. Grandma had to keep covering the mouthpiece on the phone to tell me to go outside and play.
But at a certain time each day–probably nine o’clock, Grandma listened to the radio while she did her kitchen things. She had a notebook or scraps of paper on the countertop because she was listening to a radio show called Kitchen Klatter and it was frequently a note-taking event. Kitchen Klatter was a Midwestern homemaking show, where a mother and daughter talked about recipes, tips for cleaning and sewing I think. I figure it was mostly recipes because that’s the part I benefited the most from. I didn’t hang around to listen any longer than it took to get the pitcher of lemonade out of the fridge, pour a drink, drink it, and put the sweating pitcher back in the fridge. The house was warm enough for a cold pitcher of lemonade to start sweating almost immediately, because warm breezes and shade from the big old trees cooled the house, not air conditioning.
Anyway, Grandma often wrote down recipes from the Kitchen Klatter radio show. I only have two that she copied down, both for different versions of ginger cake. That cake will appear on here at some point. But for now, I will share another with you that for some reason I don’t have her handwritten copy of. It was the first cake I ever made and we made it together, she was marvelling at the ingredients and I was marvelling at the taste of the batter. Don’t try it. You’ll never have enough left for the cake.
We waited till the heat of the day had passed and the warm breezes coming in through the big screened windows had cooled enough that putting the oven on didn’t matter. The lights in the house on, Grandpa cleaning the field dust off, an episode of All Creatures Great and Small about to start—our favourite series, and sounds from Brownie outside on the porch as she circled and curled up again in her favourite spot under the old bench. I stood on a stool next to Grandma, both with our aprons on, making cake in the summer evening.
I cannot one hundred per cent guarantee this is a cake from Kitchen Klatter, but I guess there’s a pretty good chance that’s where Grandma got the recipe. This is another dairy free cake, for those of you interested. Just like the angel food cake I made in November for my birthday. And egg free. I suppose that’s why it’s called a Crazy Cake. Try it for the pleasantly unusual tangy chocolate taste, if nothing else!
You can convert this to cupcakes I suppose but I just use it as a super quick and easy table cake recipe. Nothing fancy, but pretty tasty and pleases most people. Don’t bother with icing or you may as well have made a regular chocolate cake because you’ll lose the unique flavour.
Yep, that's an old cake pan. Perfect for Crazy Cake.
Crazy Cake
Ingredients
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoons vinegar
6 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup cold water.
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Sift the dry ingredients directly into an 8×8 inch square cake pan. Stir them around the make sure they’re well mixed.
Make three holes in these dry ingredients. In the first hole pour the vanilla, then the vinegar in the next, then the oil in the third. Pour the cold water over all.
Stir it all together with a fork. When the batter is smooth, it’s ready to go in the oven! Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.