Graveyard Squirrels

On the advice of my carer, my husband and I went to our local grave yard to walk my little dog Bella this weekend. There were so many old graves, obviously from rich families of the past. Some graves were sinking near trees, cracked, lifted up off the floor and falling over. There were small graves the size of a shoe box, huge graves so tall I wondered how they were still standing and everything inbetween. Some were for multiple people in families, children, babies and adults too. Some had verses, pictures, crosses and windows on. Some stood straight up and others lay flat with railings or raised stone details marking their borders. One was decorated for Halloween.

My carer says the squirrels nest under the lifted gravestones.

We parked up and got out of the car. Before we had even put the ramp away there were atleast 7 squirrels gathering from near and far across the way from us. People obviously feed them, not just us. They were all over the graves, trees and grass, leaping like newborn lambs towards our car. Everytime we stopped along our walk the same thing happened. At one point two squirrels had a quarrel that alerted my poorly sighted dog to their presence. 

Later on in our walk amongst the gravestones from long ago and more recent, my husband stopped and patiently waited for a squirrel to feel confident enough to eat out of his hands.

I videoed the squirrels for my children to see, a nice thought that even in death you aren't alone. Even if you feel your loved one is abandoned in a far away cemetery there will be company for them. 

We have already been back there once and plan to make it a regular area to walk Bella and maybe ponder life ourselves.

Podcasts, Cookies and Crab

There are so many things in my head from today that I thought it better to combine them all into one post. So here goes for Podcasts, Cookies and Crab.

(excuse the state of the oven door)

You'll be pleased/relieved to hear the crab and cookies were not one and the same. I have no doubt someone in the world will have tried it, but not for me thankyou.

I can't wait to get my carers back, and a routine for my own life back. My sleep lately has been terrible and the days all seem to be merging into eachother and then into the nights. I am trying my best to keep as busy as I can, to not sleep in the day unless I absolutely have to and to settle down to sleep around the same time, but when you're not tired what can you do?

My youngest is also struggling in a huge way with her sleep. She messaged me on messenger in the early hours this morning (apparerntly the app showed me as being online even though at that time I was just about asleep) with voice messages and gifs getting increasingly and sad because i wasn't answering. It was awful to hear this morning and I felt like a terrible mum, but it was at 1.42am........I have promised to keep my phone on loud at night now and told her to get into my bed for a cwtch anytime she needs it. When I woke around 3am she was curled up on our floor wrapped in her choice of fleecy blanket (insert sad and guilty faces).

Despite all of that, today was the day we had agreed to bake cookies. She had been in my room during the week and seen someone baking chocolate cookies and she wanted to try the same recipe. I made sure we had all the bits we need, was in the kitchen waiting for her but then she decided she wanted to do something else instead. So guess who ended up baking the delicious chocolate chip cookies?........Yep, me and my husband.
I need to bake more of them...I think there are only one or two left already!

All our recipes have to be corn free, gluten free, dairy free, yeast free, soya free and egg free. It can be a challenge at times, but this one worked pretty well.

We used Bob's red mill 1 to 1 baking flour, moo free chocolate, water mixed with gram flour as an egg replacer and vitalite dairy free spread as substitutes for the relevant parts of the recipe and needed a little more moisture than the recipe calls for (this is normal with gluten free baking).

I saw a similar recipe to the one we had seen on the TV in the Sun newspaper yesterday. They had it from fabflour.co.uk

300g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
120g salted butter (melted)
225g light brown soft sugar
1 egg
20 squares of milk chocolate

Preheat oven to 180C.
Mix the flour and bicarb in a bowl and put to one side.
Combine melted butter and sugar in a separate bowl. Add egg then add this mixture to the dry mixture.
Bring together to a dough with a wooden spoon.
Divide into 60g balls and place on a baking tray with room inbetween, pushing each ball down gently.
Place in oven for 6minutes.
Remove cookies from oven, press 2 squares of chocolate into each cooke and return to oven for further 6 minutes.
Allow to cool slightly before serving.

In reality.....This was all done in one bowl (what's the point in making extra dirty dishes to wash?). No wooden spoon so I used a fork instead and that worked great. Really? Weigh each ball of dough....I just tried to make them all look about the same size as eachother.Splitting cooking time in two for adding chocolate on the top?...nope, we put the chocolate on top at the beginning (and added some to the dough mix itself) then baked them for 16minutes.
They were barely cooled when half of them got eaten!....so you see the need for more to be baked.

As soon as everyone had eaten a cookie and had a drink, it was time to walk the largest of our dogs (the other two get worn out running around the house and garden bless them....and do go for walks when times are more normal). We have walked her around the local park so many times she usually knows which way we will go next, takes no notice of any of the birds there and happily plods around with us. Today though she seemed in a funny mood. She was reacting to things she doesn't normally care about. This was the most of obvious when she tried to leap at a goose on the edge of the lake and my husband pulled her back just as her body was tipping overbalanced into the lake.
She seemed shocked at that and kept plodding with us for a little more until we had a stop to feed the ducks and geese. At this point she got even worse and tried to chase a goose that was already in the lake. You can guess what happened here....one wet soggy doggy. She leapt in after the goose, all the way under the water with her harness and lead attached and we quickly found out she can swim! (just before she got hauled out by my husband).

We brought a sulking, soggy, sad dog home from her walk and I took the chance to listen to some podcasts whilst she had a shower.
I have a few podcasts I enjoy listening to, depending on my mood. Today I listened to Chris Ramsey and his wife Rosie on their podcast 'Shagged, Married, Annoyed'. I love their podcasts because they are so relatable and funny. They cheer me up and make me chuckle along. Then I tried a new one through Audible called 'Locked Together'. The concept is that two comedians skype/zoom eachother and have a general chat about how things are for them at the moment. I am half way through my second episode of this now and loved it. I am playing catch up though since the first episode was recorded early in the period of lockdown here in the UK.
My other favourite podcasts include 'Invisible, Not Broken', 'This is Not What I Ordered', 'BBC Ouch', 'Woman's Hour', 'My Dad Wrote a Porno' and 'The ME Show'....a varied selection.
I have tried new podcasts from charts but not managed to find any more I particularly enjoy. I like to feel that something is relevant, or atleast makes me laugh. I can't concentrate on things very well so if I feel I can relate to the people on there in any way it helps.

Today, Alexa (amazon's AI device) decided she was not going to let me listen to BBC Ouch. She tried making me listen to many other things, none of them the right podcast. At one point she put something on and refused to stop when I asked her to. Honestly...with three children, three dogs and being married, I don't need attitude from an electrical device that is meant to be helpful! I soon gave up and went for a drink outside in the sun for a short while, until my son asked if we could open the crab yet.

I'll explain...


...yesterday we needed a couple of things from the supermarket so we drove to a couple, looking for a queue that wasn't wrapping around a building in the rain. We ended up at a store starting with M. Whilst looking for our normal foods, I spotted a cooked, whole, vacuum packed red crab! Well....if you know me at all you will know I love the unusual, love to give my children any experiences I can and nothing is excluded from that. We have disected hearts before, examined dead flies, bought owl pellets online....so we bought the crab.

Perhaps this is part of your normal diet, great for you....but we needed youtube.
Instructions on what to do with a cooked red crab.....how to get meat from a red crab. It never ceases to amaze me what you can find on youtube when you need to know something (in a good way too).
I watched a two minute video https://youtu.be/gopHYbida08, made sure it made sense and related to the crab we had in our fridge, then sent the video to our family group on messenger.

Today was the day. My son decided he wanted to try the crab meat and that meant he would have to follow the video. He got the knife, chopping board, scissors, crab and skewer (the video called for a lobster pin.....no idea what that is so we used a skewer), took the first claw off, the legs off and then freaked out. The feel of the crab threw him and all of his bravado left him. My eldest daughter was there (youngest had left in disgust that I would even buy the crab in the first place). She took over where his stomache had left and finished taking the meat out of the shell, legs, claws and body. She thoroughly enjoyed it.
We were all surprised at how hairy a crab is!

I should probably mention, in my children's defence, they all have sensory processing difficulties associated with their autism diagnoses and my son struggles with touch a lot. My eldest daughter has no sense of smell (ever).

It came to eating the crab meat and my son didn't like it! My eldest daughter did, and we had to stop her eating too much of it.

Another great learning experience for them though.

So that has been my day today. How has yours been? Less chaotic? More interesting?
Whatever you have been doing, I hope you are safe.

Testing the new wheels out

Yesterday was an exciting day for me as my new-to-me tilt in space wheelchair was collected. It is wider than my previous self propelling wheelchair but has so many useful and helpful features. The side arm rests are height adjustable, the sides unlock and rise up vertically to allow horizontal transfers, the self propel wheels are quick release for transport or storage, there are two styles of headrest with it, a lumbar support cushion pad, leg rests with large foot supports, leg rests for raising your legs our horizontally, easy to use brakes, two ways for the carer to push the chair and easy tilting mechanism with hand brake for the carer to hold. I have been out in it today for the first time (going into the garden yesterday doesn't really count) and it has meant I could stay out all day with my family. I am totally exhausted and nearly fell getting into the car at the end of the show, but was able to lie back as I felt tired and relax my head, neck and back. My little dog perched on my lap all day distracted people from my legs and arm tremoring and those who didn't notice the dog didn't notice me either..... The invisibility effect of a wheelchair! I was worried about the chair tipping over backwards, sending my head first onto the concrete, so my husband stood on the back of the chair to prove that it wouldn't go anywhere.... Welcome demonstration although terrifying without notice lol. An unexpected bonus of the wheelchair today was as a hiding place for our 7 month puppy who was slightly uncomfortable with the show bless her. We have been to the shire horse show for the last three years, stayed all day every time and the children have thoroughly enjoyed themselves every year. This year they had more independence than ever before, having their phones with them so we could get in touch as needed. They were able to go to the stables area, chat to the grooms, meet the horses, take photographs for me, chat with people showing horses and wander around the stalls in the arena. One gentleman in particular was kind to them and brought a step out for them to be able to reach his horse, Poppy. They returned to see Poppy several times during the day, ending with them getting a wave in the grand parade which made their day. I don't know who the man is or which stables he is from but he really made a positive impression on them all and to wave to them in the parade was a lovely heartwarming touch. The showground where the show is held is wheelchair accessible with a lift to the upper floor that surrounds the show arena. Downstairs the arena is sectioned off with metal fencing which is too high to see over from a wheelchair, but the view from upstairs is much better if you can get the angle right to not be blinded by the lights. That took some practice but was well worth it. Despite how tired I feel now and how much pain I have in my body, I am glad we went and had a family day out, thankful for my new wheelchair and relieved to be home again without falling. This gorgeous horse stood out from the crowd in its class lineup and I instantly backed it for a win. I was delighted when they won their class and also qualified for horse of the year.

This was my view on the ground floor. Utterly uninspiring and resulted in my daughter taking video for me to see what I was missing. Thankfully it only took around fifteen minutes of negotiation to encourage her to move upstairs so I could see.

We ventured into the food hall for the first time this year and found a stall selling honey roasted nuts, olives and baklava. By the time they had me try every flavour my allergies would allow I was feeling pretty full, but we all love this food so I may have bought a little too much (these are delicious basil and mint olives).

Before and after. Well worth the adjustments for a better view of the show.

The infamous Poppy

Two years ago I took my youngest (I was driving and had full mobility then) to this same show and she met and fell in love with one of the mares. This week we are finally planning on going to see her at the farm attraction she lives at (I have everything crossed that she will be there).