King Richard III - "So Where's the Dead King Then?"

In recent months Leicester, the city that we live near, has been in the news headlines because of the discovery of King Richard III's remains underneath a council car park. The remains of the king have been laid to rest in Leicester Cathedral, so I decided it would be a good opportunity to take my girls to see where history was made.

Since it was announced that the remains of king Richard were being laid to rest in Leicester Cathedral, a lot of work has been undertaken in the city, the Cathedral and its grounds. The cathedral itself is not s very big cathedral compared to the majority of cathedrals around the country. Leicester cathedral was never designed to be a cathedral and was once a normal parish church.

On arrival at the Cathedral we warmly greeted and admired the new gardens. Ruby and Lottie both enjoyed running around in the open space; Lottie particularly liked seeing the flags. 

As we entered the Cathedral building, Ruby said very loudly... "so where’s the dead king then?"; it was quite embarrassing but had everyone in stitches - You’ve got to love the innocent mind of a child!

King Richards remains are situated just in front of the high altar and I was pleasantly surprised at how simple and nice the design of the tomb was, however I do wonder how so much money could be spent on one tomb and funeral. 

Ruby and Lottie wanted to touch the stone of the tomb and Ruby commented on how smooth it was and how deep the cross was set into the stone. It felt very surreal to think that a king was buried right in front of us. 

Whilst in the cathedral we looked at the beautiful embroidery that covered the coffin when it lied in repose before the service of committal. It surprised me at how beautiful and colourful the embroidered was and just how much detail went into it.

As we were leaving the cathedral we were asked if we would like to say a prayer and add a prayer ribbon to some iron railings. Ruby was very excited and told the lady she would like to thank God for the world and all the wonderful things that are in it. I thought the idea of tying a ribbon to the railings was a very symbolic way of praying and it was nice to see the different array of coloured ribbons on display. 

I would highly recommend attending Leicester Cathedral for a day, out as my girls and I both have a really lovely time.

Silent Sunday!

Silent Sunday!

Recipe - Pea Risotto

I am not a very good cook, or should I say a confident cook! I tend to cook the same thing week and in week out, and to be honest I find food very dull and uninspiring; this probably thanks to my own laziness! I should be a reasonably good cook as I undertook food technology whilst at school and gained the highest possible marks! I have even had some expert cookery lessons thanks to BBC Radio Leicester. I was invited onto their show and shown how to cook in a live 3 hour cookery special dubbed Kimberley's Kitchen!

I have started to expand my repotoire of meals, and I was shocked and suprised that when I uploaded a photo of a risotto that I had made, several people commented on how good it looked and asked me for a recipe, so here is my recipe for pea risotto:

Ingredients:

1 Onion
50g Butter
1.6L of Vegetable Stock
350g Risotto Rice
225ml White Wine
30g of Parmesan Cheese
300g of Peas (frozen are fine)


Method

1. Chop the onion finely.

2. Melt the butter in a large pan -  this will need to hold all of the stock, wine and rice.

3. Add the onions into the pan and fry until soft.

4. Whilst the onions are cooking put 100g of peas into a food processor with a couple of spoons of   vegetable stock and whizz until it forms a puree.

5. Once the onions are cooked, add the rice to the pan and ensuring that the rice is stirred constantly. Once the rice has absorbed the melted butter, add the wine.

6. When the wine has been absorbed by the rice, add the stock one spoon full at a time, and keep stirring the rice until its absorbed all of the vegetable stock, this can take 20-30 minutes dependent on the cooking time of the rice.

7. Once the rice has absorbed all the vegetable stock it should start to turn into a creamy consistency. At this point stir in the pureed peas, remaining unblended peas, parmesan cheese and seasoning.

8. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to stand for a couple of minutes before stirring again, and then its ready to serve!

Risotto is my go to comfort food at the moment! You can always change the peas for something else to make different flavours. I hope you enjoy!

London

A few weeks ago I noticed on Facebook that one of my friends was offering a night in a hotel in London, as she was no longer able to use it; for some time hubbie and I have been talking about how we would love to take our girls to London but we always put it off due to the amount of money it would cost. I spoke to my friend who very kindly gifted us the hotel, this was such a generous offer and I feel so incredibly blessed by her actions as we had a really lovely family time.

I had looked at the price of travelling to London via train but it would have been so expensive so instead we drove down to Stanmore and parked for the entire weekend for under £4! At Stanmore we jumped on the jubilee line and headed to our hotel where we left our luggage before heading out to explore London.

It has been many years since I last went to London; we decided to take the girls to the Tower of London, the highlight for them was seeing all the Crown Jewels. Ruby even asked a member of staff how heavy the crowns were, they weigh around two bags of sugar and Ruby came away wanting to practice wearing two bags of sugar on her head!

We decided to go around London on an open top bus as we were aware that the girls would find it difficult to walk around everything that we wanted to see. On the bus we saw most of the major sites including:

• Big Ben
• The Houses of Parliament
• Westminster Abbey
• Buckingham Palace

Before we knew it dinner time was fast approaching, I had exchanged some of our Tesco vouchers so we could use them for dinner at Pizza Express; we ate at the restaurant overlooking the River Thames. After dinner we walked around the capital via the Millennium Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral, and headed to Hamley's which is open until 9pm on a Saturday! I found it really odd how busy the shops were at this time of night, it's by true that London is the city that never sleeps!

We had a really good nights sleep and headed out on Sunday morning to the National History Museum. The dinosaur zone was definitely my girls' favourite, whereas I loved the vault and seeing all the precious gemstones.

 

We were very fortunate that the weather was so good, so we made the decision to head for the Princess Diana memorial park in Kensington Gardens. The park is made up of many different multi sensory areas, and I would highly recommend that you visit it if you have children.

My girls loved playing on the pirate ship and sand, as well as following the trails around the park, heading through tunnels and going across stepping stones.

Before we knew it, time had got the better of us and it was time we headed back on the tube to he car park and to drive home. We had the most magical family time and it was just what we all needed, I feel so very grateful to the person who blessed us with the hotel, thank you so very much. X

Silent Sunday!

Easter 2015

Blink and you have missed Easter; well that's how it seems to me! I don't think its been helped by the fact that I've had to have a couple of days in bed as I'm recovering from a throat and kidney infection. I am so very grateful for antibiotics as I'm now feeling a million times better.

On Easter morning, despite having very little sleep and feeling unwell, we headed to a tiny church that we had never to before and we were warmly welcomed into the regular congregation. Although it was a tiny church, it was packed and had lots of things for Ruby and Lottie to play with whilst the service was taking place.

At the end of the service we were greeted by the most amazing Easter cakes I have ever seen, someone in the congregation had made them just for Easter Sunday; I unfortunately wasn't quite well enough to eat any of the cakes, but Ruby assures me that it was really very yummy!

All the members of the congregation were given a chocolate egg! It so happened to be a Lindt egg, I absolutely love these!

Many years ago when I first started to attend church, after the traditional Easter service the children would go around the church and surrounding areas to hunt for Easter eggs. This was very new to me as it was something that I had never done as a child, and I vowed that when I had children of my own I would do an egg hunt for them.

Last year I managed pick up some plastic eggs that you are able to open and fill with chocolates, I had about 20 and hid them around the garden. Hubbie on the other hand decided to make the hunt for eggs more challenging by hiding plastic balls from the ball pit so the girls thought they had found an egg but in fact it was a ball!

The girls took it in turns trying to find the eggs and when Lottie was struggling Ruby stepped in to help her find one. They then placed the eggs in the basket, and after all the eggs had been found Ruby shared the contents between herself and Lottie.

I love this new family tradition that I have started. I would love to know what you did on Easter day.

Silent Sunday!

Justin & Friends: Mr Tumble’s Circus Tour

When you think of CBeebies, what do you think of? Justin's House, Mr Tumble, Gigglebiz, Something Special? There's one thing that links all of these... Justin Fletcher, the man who is constantly on my TV screen and is able to keep my daughters sat down and watching the TV, gripping their attention and thus keeping them from trashing the house. I don't know how Justin Fletcher does it but I am one very thankful parent, as I am able to grab myself a cup of tea and actually drink it whilst it's hot! A Luxury many parents I'm sure can relate to and appreciate.

So why am I talking about Justin Fletcher? Well following a sell out tour a couple of years ago, he has decided to go on tour again, and what's even better for me is that there's a show in Nottingham during our Easter break, so we shall be going along! Ruby and Lottie are both equally excited and Lottie, who has no sense of time, keeps asking several times a day can we go now?

Justin Fletcher's tour is entitled 'Justin & Friends: Mr Tumble’s Circus' and is touring arenas up and down the country. The tour kicked off in Cardiff on the 1st of April and runs until 14th of April with the final location being Manchester. Tickets are priced between £15 to £51.50 per seat and each child needs their own seat, the show isn't recommended for children under the age of 18 months due to the noise levels. I expect it will be noisy with all the children screaming for their heroes, I think I might need to pack some ear plugs!

This is what it says about the show on its website:

"Come and join in the excitement of this arena spectacular with Mr Tumble - as well as a host of other Tumbles from Something Special, including Aunt Polly and Grandad Tumble! See Cat Sandion and Swashbuckle presenter Gem, in their first CBeebies Live! show, along with the adventurous Andy Day!

But uh‑oh! Mr Tumble’s Circus is delayed en route! The CBeebies mega‑stars with the help of Gigglebiz favourites, including Keith Fitt, Dina Lady, Gale Force and Arthur Sleep - must swing into action and save the day! In doing so, they discover that they too have some pretty amazing talents as well!

But with Robert The Robot insisting that everyone do their chores and Little Monster just wanting to cause mayhem and mischief… Will Justin and the CBeebies stars help get Mr Tumble’s Circus to town on time?"

We are so excited!!

If you would like further information about the show or would like to book tickets, please visit their website. 

Disclaimer: we have kindly been given free tickets to attend this even in exchange for this blog post. We are really excited to attend this event!