Double Yoker

I had one of ExerciseNic's eggs for my breakfast. I chose the biggest one and it was a double yoke. Yummy.

Once again it was quite warm and the boys weren't interested in doing too much. Smallest did say he would come shopping with me but when the time came for me to go, he decided to stay at home. They played on their tablets until I got back and then helped to put it all away. I was obviously feeling nostalgic for 'home' today as I purchased United Kingdom Cheese and Onion Crisps, Canadian video for these here. English Style Cream Crackers, Heinz Baked Beans, Haribo Cola Bottles, Starmix and Tangtastic (probably not British but we know them from there) and English Style Ginger Snaps. The sweets for for my three boys and they happily swapped some with each other.

This afternoon I sent the boys out for some exercise. They did five minutes of basketball, a bit of swingball and then came in to play table tennis because it was too hot. I attempted some gardening and managed to move a plant, dig a small piece of ground and dead head but that's it. I was too warm also. Instead I made two quiches as we have an abundance of eggs presently though I used supermarket ones as the free range organic ones have only just arrived. I spring (summer) cleaned the fridge while waiting for them to cook.

House League football is now finished until the Winter season so tonight we had nothing on at all. We took full advantage of this and all went for a 6.5km walk through the Hamlet and around the countryside and back. It was very nice. Huffle hatched two Pokemon eggs and Smallest tried three different apples off different wild trees (not yet ripe). It was a good walk with perfect temperature but our feet ached when we got back.

Smallest and I discussed what we would do in a Bear attack (basically I would scream and he would come and save me, or he would trump and run away and the bear would follow it...........), and about kissing girls. He said that he will not kiss girls until college and he would definitely tell me, well probably, actually he wasn't sure!

This evening we introduced Smallest to The Great British Bake Off. He saw the first round before bed and said he will watch the rest tomorrow morning. I particularly liked the gingerbread part as I have constructed many a gingerbread house and failed at many too. It is not an easy thing to do. Can't believe they didn't use any egg cups - they are instrumental to making the best structures!!! Small watched it with us to the end. I might have to make some this week. I would also like to have a go at making the Viennese whirls - ummmmm.

 

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Beets, Potatoes and Eggs

Last night Small, Huffle and I finished another Bourne film. I had terrible dreams of being chased, being shot at and having to kill a man with my bare hands. It was horrific. No more Bourne films for me for a while!

The boys didn't want to do much today. They would happily play on their gadgets all day if I let them. They played in the morning after a chore each and I Facetimed Moo and gave her some recipes for Courgettes as she is looking after and harvesting her friends allotment. I got inspired by my bread book and decided to make a Beetroot Bread with two of the huge ones I just harvested from our garden. It was a lovely pink with bits of red inside. Very nice.

The boys had lunch together watching their TV and Huffle and I sat on the porch watching First Dates.

This afternoon, the boys and I went to the pool. Small and Smallest didn't take long to fall out and Smallest grumped off and wouldn't come in with us. The pool has turned a lovely shade of green again due to hot weather and not enough chlorine so I vacuumed, Small swept and Smallest sponged (before he ran away). Small and I played Water Hide and Seek for a while before I came in to start an early dinner. We also had a quick trip out to the library and the General Store and the Beer Store looking for potatoes. Tonight I made a Roast Dinner but didn't realise we didn't have many potatoes left. Neither of the shops had them so I dug up some of ours that I had forgotten about, however the Beer Store asked me if there was anything I missed from Britain, food wise. I said Lemon Curd as you can get it here imported but it is rare. She has made a note of it and will see if the owner can get it. I said I'd send the boys in with their 'missed items'.

ExerciseNic came round this evening with 18 eggs. She is looking after a friends house and they have chickens. Straight from the hens bums! Lovely.

Smallest had football practice tonight with CoachOl. He hated the practice and then they played an impromptu game against the Under10's. His back is still hurting him.

 

 

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Big Nose Tennis

Huffles toe (that he bent the wrong way yesterday) has now turned a lovely shade of purple. Small had a nose bleed last night and subsequently had a late night, which made him grumpy today. I too was grumpy with EVERYTHING and everybody.

After breakfast and a bit of gadget time, the boys and I left HufflePurpleToe working at the kitchen table and cycled to the tennis courts. We played an hour of tennis which was hard because the sun was so bright and it got considerably hotter. The boys played really well and had very powerful shots.

Hitting each other?

After we had worn ourselves out we trundled home on our bikes with very tired legs and had lunch with Huffle.

This afternoon I let the boys play on their tablets and the Wii for hours while I did all those little things I don't normally have time to do. Dust the picture frames, clean the glass, sort out the Tupperware drawer, clean the cupboard doors, organise the kitchen, clean the cooker top and organise the pantry. Then I made dinner.

This evening, the boys were sent out to play to get rid of their 'sillies' - they played football. Huffle and I cleared away dead stuff, cut back the tomatoes and then tackled the raspberries. Taking Monty's advice, we cut back this year's stems (brown ones) and any that were hanging over the edge. Tied the existing ones up and replanted some in our new raspberry bed, adding lots of water and comfrey leaves.

Everyone is tired. School starts back a week tomorrow.

 

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Available to assess your Tangella

Lots of lovely sleeping, lie-ins and a lazy morning of playing table football, table tennis and some gadget time. It was really hot and humid and then we had a heavy rainfall and then it was hot and humid again.

For our early afternoon dinner, Huffle and I made three different risottos. Sausage and Tomato, Garden Vegetable and a chicken one. Very yummy.

This afternoon we all played Mario Kart, the boys played table football and Lego and Huffle Skyped Grandma and Grandad.

Early evening we went to football practice. There were only seven boys who turned up tonight so they did things a bit different and I think it was much more fun than normal. They had loads of penalty practice with Small as the Giant Goalie. Huffle collected the balls that went behind the net but unfortunately got a blister from our walk around all the pitches two and a half times and then he bent his long toe over and damaged itbecause he took his shoes off when he got the blister. Smallest hurt his back (we think he may have pulled a muscle or strained it trampolining).

 

 

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Nothing better than a smiley Sikh

There was a vote at the breakfast table this morning "who wants to watch the Stoke game on the big TV?" Six hands went up (cheats). "Who wants to watch the Leicester game on the big TV?" Just me! The boys all got the TV in the living room and I got thrown out on the porch with an IPad, my coffee and my knitting. Poor me (I think I got the best deal but I won't let them know that). Well Stoke lost and Leicester won ha! I tried to tell my family they were supporting the wrong team but funnily enough, they ignored me.

Yay finished

By midday we were ready to go out and decided on an impromptu afternoon/evening in Downtown Toronto. Huffle drove us down and we parked in our normal 'ticket on the dash' place and then walked up to our favourite pizza/gelato place G FOR GELATO. On the way we caught many Pokemon and filled up with so many Pokeballs, lotions and potions that I had to empty my 'bag' several times.

Small had a late night and was tired from yesterday's football. His mood today was very impatient and everyone and evything was annoying him.

Buildings, blue sky and reflections

I can't pretend to know them all but I got a Jigglypuff and a polysomething

Lunch was a shared pizza (Margherita and Truffle Oil Mushroom) followed by huge gelato (salted caramel, creamy chocolate, lemon, coconut, white chocolate fudge, stratiatella). We then made our way from the financial district down to the harbour, more pokemoning as we went, learning about the names of different buildings and statues along the way. It was quite interesting and informative, plus we caught some rare Pokemon.

Lanterns, sculptures, fountains and beautiful glass work

At the harbour we queued up for the ferry and at the last minute decided to take the 'residential' one to Wards Island and then walked 3km to Centre Island. (All in all we walked over 10km today). On the way we stopped at a drinking hole for refreshments. It was next to the water, in a garden of shadowy trees and was very pleasant. We carried on walking until we all ran out of steam. Two of us had dodgy tummies, one of us had little legs and was tired and the other needed feeding. Eventually we got to the ferry, pushed in the queue like very unbritish people and didn't fit on the ferry that was sitting in the harbour. We had to wait in a cage for the next one feeling very sticky, hungry and tired. Luckily it didn't take too long by which time it was around 8pm but was nice and breezy with lots of people to look at and watch including a very smiley Sikh gentleman.

On the way there

Drinking hole, bikes galore and snake island

I had very little charge left on my phone and spent the second half of the trip on Airplane mode. Probably good else how many photos could I have taken?

On the way back

On the way back

As we hadn't eaten much we popped to a shop that sold everything and picked up a baguette, some laughing cow and a packet of crisps and ate our tea/supper underneath the egg whisk sculpture. Once again there was plenty to watch as we saw another dog called Winston take a shine to us and want to sit and eat with us (at least this one didn't poo on us) and another dog being pushed in a buggy but being taken out in order to wee on the concrete. Huffle took umbridge at this. One of his pet hates is dogs dressed up, but being pushed around Toronto in a pushchair - eeeeek! We saw several in handbags today too. Poor things, what do their owners think those four things are under their bodies?

We finally got home around 10pm and the boys went straight to bed. We are staying in tomorrow!

 

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The medal is in your head.

There is a field about 2km away that appears to be receiving waste soil from nearby building projects. Apparently builders/contractors etc have to pay to dispose of this and I'm guessing as the farmer can't use this particular field at the moment, he is letting builders dump stuff there. The only problem is that we can hear the dumping from our house and very early in the morning you hear the constant beep beep beep of lorries reversing and the annoying 'dump' noise. So that, and the constant dog barking that went on last night, made for a bad nights/morning sleep.

After breakfast, I picked up Small's friend GoalieAL and off we went to trampolining where we met up with Smallest's friend Dan from football, his middle sister and their mum (lovely pregnant lady Angel). We had booked an hour's slot for 10:30 and after all the waiver filling out and buying of special grippy socks, we stood around waiting for them to be let on. They all did lots of jumping, Dodgeball and Slam Dunk plus some foaming. They had a great time but all were sweaty and hot when they finished.

We came home and brought Al with us who stayed for lunch and part of the afternoon. The boys all played on the Wii until Smallest got kicked out for killing Mario!!! Smallest and I played Stack Em up on the porch while I knitted.

This afternoon I picked veg, watered plants and generally tidied. Too hot again today to do much outside.

This evening was the last of CoachHuffle and Small's tournament. Smallest and I went along to cheer. They won 9-3. It was an excellent game although Huffle could have done with some Valium as he was quite excitable and very sweary. There were no trophies or medals at the end but the pizza man did arrive and left us a huge box plus water. I heard Huffle tell one of the boys on his team "the medal is in your head".

Smallest lent us one of his trophies for the photo.

Well done Huffle for an excellent season of coaching. The team loved him and some of the coaches (not PatP or WHAT) respected his knowledge and passion. Very well done to Small who captained the team to a well deserved win. Special mention has to go to the two mum's (or whoever they were) of the twins de-de and mi-mi for tonight's cheer leading and also to Smallest for his mascotness.

 

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Tangela and a Terrible (Ref)

Good nights sleep resulting in me feeling a lot better this morning, although my sore throat is back and now Huffle is not feeling too good with a wibbly tummy and a sore throat.

After a whole day inside yesterday, I felt like I had cabin fever today. Huffle worked in the basement and after a morning of playing and gadgets, the boys and I went out late morning for a walk in the local town, Pokemon catching and meeting up with Huffle and having lunch in a pub.

The boys and I had a good walk, stocked up on PokeBalls, caught a few Pokemon and even left a Pokemon in the gym (whatever that means). Huffle left us to go back to work and we walked back to the car, taking in a few shops on the way. The boys started arguing and ended up not talking to each other. I think they have just had enough of being with each other every single day. I decided, on the drive home, to pick up one of Small's friends and he came back and played with Small for a couple of hours. They played on the Wii and table tennis. His Dad is not well and has the stomach flu so there is certainly bad stuff going round and he was sneezing all around me last week!

I tried to sit on the porch and watch TV and knit but DonNoQuotey decided to cut the grass and his sound won above mine. Smallest got upset today because his tablet stopped working and Small wouldn't let him play with him and Al so I sat upstairs with him and built Lego (I was actually chief-finder-of-prices and I was very good at it so Smallest said).

Early evening we went to Smallest's football game. There was storm forecast (a tornado hit Southern Ontario last night, not near us) and we actually got the game started early. Today's referee was officious and inconsistent (out of our favour again). He wouldn't let the subs on until the subbed were off the field. He ignored the other team bad tackling ours but had a stern talking to Smallest when he tackled them. He told him he was a bad boy and was never ever to do that again and yet when they performed a worse tackle on him, he let them play on. When one of theirs tackled one of ours to the ground and left him lying motionless, he said nothing. The parents (of our team) were trying to get our coach to stop the game and take our boys off and he was very close to doing so. Apparently at the beginning of the game, the ref told both teams he did not want to see any 'cherry picking' and yet they had a striker constantly standing near the goal waiting to take goals, which he did. We lost but only 4-3. The coach had a word with the ref at the end but I'm not sure it did any good! Huffle was heard to be singing "in your Vaughan slums...............".

Small stayed at home and played on his tablet and made his own tea. There was some thunder but only a little bit and we had rain.

 

 

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Kaboo and Pat lose their game ha!

I woke up feeling awful. Really hot and very sick. Unfortunately for the boys, I spent the rest of the day with waves of sickness and going from hot to cold. They were brilliant and came and gave me cuddles, helped me make dinner later and kept checking I was okay.

Huffle put the air con on to cool me down and insisted I did nothing. Apart from a load of washing and some sweeping, I didn't do much really.

Smallest played Guess Who with me in the morning and we played Super Mario Bros late afternoon and Smallest played Catan with me. They both played on their tablets, read and built some Lego. I did some knitting.

For dinner Small made meatballs and Smallest cooked them while I made the sauce and cooked my veggies. Last time we went shopping they chose Rigatoni as their preferred pasta and we had that too.

Tonight was Small's last but one tournament and Smallest went. They won and are in the final. I stayed at home as I felt so tired and weary. I was cold so I sat on the porch and watched TV and knit.

 

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Stock piling

The boys came, voluntarily, to Costco with me today. Smallest wanted to sample all the delights on offer and Small wanted to make sure I bought him some Brookside (dark chocolate covered fruit and grains thing he likes). There wasn't too much to sample though today as they were still setting up and cooking but smallest successfully tried Chocolate Milk, Chicken Breast, Sausage, Key Lime Yoghurt and Cranberries covered in dark chocolate and unsuccessfully tried Crab (almost resulting in him throwing it back up), Coconut Water (it was disgusting) and Jalapeño stuff on cracker.

This afternoon I left the boys playing outside on the trampoline and with the Swingball (and probably on their tablets once I left) and went to see ShopkeeperEl for some help with my sock heel again. She put me right and then I picked up some food and cleaning stuff I couldn't get at Costco.

Halloween stuff out already

While I was out, Grandma messaged to say she was thinking of booking for a March visit and then Moo Facetimed to say she was thinking of booking for December. They had spoken to each other about the latest deals on BA and were taking full advantage. The boys decided they were going to bake again so Small made his Courgette Chocolate Loaf all by himself bar the grating of the courgette and the putting in and taking out of the oven. It was excellent once again. Smallest decided to make Toffee and Cream Muffins (which uses Werthers and are my favourite). Once he started bashing the Werthers, Moo decided to leave us to it. I helped with the Muffins but he did most of it by himself. They were deliciously decadent.

Smallest had an early football practice this evening so we made do with a Jacket Potato for dinner and then all went. Small and I have decided we are going to get fit (me) and fast (him) so we started some walk/jogging around the football fields. Huffle joined us in walking and Small and Huffle started hatching their Pokemon Eggs. Huffle needed to walk 10km and he just kept going and going and going. Small did really well jogging, considering he does not like running or walking particularly. I had to give up after half an hour because I got a blister from not wearing my trainers for ages. I watched Smallest practice instead. The other two carried on for most of the practice and Huffle still couldn't get his egg hatched. When we got home Small walked up and down the garden until it hatched into a Syther (I think). Coach gave Small and Smallest a book about football skills. He is creeping!

This evening Small, Huffle and I finished off the second Bourne film.

Smallest has seemed fine today, I am still a bit dizzy and hot, no sore throat now but I feel a bit nauseous at times and I have a couple of ulcers on my tongue which normally means I am run down.

 

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Is the ceiling fizzy

Huffle worked from the basement and came out to cut the grass and buy salt bags (we have to add salt to our water softener). He noticed the Beer Store now sells food and shampoo! Ummmm I wonder what the local general store thinks about that? A bit of local Competiton.

The boys and I decided to take full advantage of the slighter cooler day (23*) and with the bikes still all being in the back of my car, and went back to where we walked yesterday by the lake. This time we cycled. The car park was full, normally at the weekend it is empty but I suppose the commuters were parked there today. We had to use the overflow car park. We are experts at getting the bikes in and out now, though it does take three of us. Two to haul the bikes out and one to hold the helmets (Smallest).

It was perfect cycling weather. A nice breeze off the lake, cloudy, shady but still warm. We cycled further than we walked yesterday and Smallest belted down a hill at top speed and on the way back up the hill, hit a bump and crashed his little boy parts. He was almost in tears. Bless him, I still don't think he is 100% well. I'm not either. My sore throat is back and I feel very hot with cold feet at times and occassionally dizzy or faint.

Up high was a Bird Sanctury that wasn't a great place to cycle because it was mainly uphill with paths of woodchips and bark. Smallest went off ahead without us and Small's chain fell off. We caught up with Smallest eventually and came out of the Bird Sanctuary and cycled along the road back to our trail. The same trail goes all the way to Toronto but that's a bit too far for us amateurs.

After we turned around and made our way back to the beach, we stopped for lunch and a Pokemon catch. Today we caught a Capone in the lake. It's not one I've heard of before.

After a bit of stone throwing, we made our way back towards the station and the car, stopping on the way for a rest and an apple. Then we drove home. The journey was about half an hour each way and we cycled for a couple of hours. It was nice, we got some fresh air and some exercise.

I made dinner very slowly and the kids played on their tablets. Smallest and I had a play on the Wii playing Super Mario Bros. After dinner we all played Mario Kart. The kids watched Tv and Huffle and I sat on the porch. I had to have a blanket and Huffle put on a fleece. It's getting cooler definitely.

 

 

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I had three clean sheets at the back*

It rained again but it didn't wake us.

After breakfast we went to the lake and walked around 7km along the lake, partly on the beach and over a bridge or two. Huffle had put Pokemon Go on his phone so the boys could play along the way. Huffle is now at Level 5. Smallest played on mine for a short while and made me run out of Pokeballs! Smallest took a bouncy ball with him and we bounced it along the trail. We thought it would be a good cycle track and might have a go next week.

It was a warm but cloudy day and the breeze coming off the lake was lovely and just cooling enough. We sat on the Beach with our snack relaxing for a while before we turned around and walked back.

We found an Italian for dinner and apart from them getting Smallest's order wrong and him having to wait until we had nearly finished ours, it was nice. We drove miles away to find a new Gelato place and the boys all had one but I didn't because I didn't fancy any of the flavours today.

Back home, we Skyped Grandma and Grandad on the porch.

Smallest and Huffle went to football practice and Small and I stayed at home and tried to watch the closing ceremony of the Olympics but we got bored. When Huffle came home we started the next Bourne film.

 

*a direct quote from Grandad (possibly regarding his fantasy football team).

 

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