7 Quick Takes Saturday

I know it should be 7 Quick Takes Friday, but I seem to have been a day behind all week!

For more quick takes, visit Jen at Conversion Diary.

-- 1 --

Elizabeth at Frabjous Days shared her Christmas menu and was intrigued by variations. Here is ours:

Turkey with chestnut and cranberry stuffing
Veggie burger / veggie fingers for the non-meat eaters (neither wanted anything more exotic)
Gravy
Bread sauce
Cranberry sauce
Roast potatoes
Roast parsnips
Creamed swede
Carrots
Brussels sprouts

Christmas pudding with custard, brandy butter and cream
Apple pie with custard and cream (for the non-Christmas pudding eaters)

-- 2 --

Recommended gifts if you want to encourage physical activity ... swingball and Eye Toy Sports, though the latter is perhaps a little much for stiff, middle-aged mothers. Horse racing over jumps nearly finished me.

-- 3 --

On New Year's Eve I took the two older girls to see Inkheart, the film of the book by Cornelia Funke - none of us had read it, but I thought we would enjoy it as we liked The Thief Lord, based on another of her books. I was right. We did enjoy it. The film has whetted my appetite to tackle her Inkheart / Inkspell / Inkdeath trilogy. If anyone has read them, I'd be interested to hear comments.

-- 4 --

One of our family traditions is to go bowling on New Year's Day with our neighbours and people from their Church. Little Cherub was delighted to get "special 'oos" for the first time as her feet are now big enough for bowling shoes. Just. It needed the velcro fastening at its limit to keep them on her narrow little feet.

-- 5 --

Thanks to some Christmas money Angel was able to buy herself a much anticipated new mobile phone. After registering the phone and transferring her number we now know why her pay-as-you-go credit always seemed to last a long time and why she seemed to get a lot of random free texts. She is still on a "five free texts a day" package we all thought had expired long ago. So far as we can see, she could send five texts a day forever and never pay a thing, providing she keeps her existing number. Calls are ludicrously expensive, but given that she rarely makes any and relies almost entirely on texts, she is very happy!

-- 6 --

I thought the novelty of pulling decorations off the Christmas tree would wear thin after a few days. I was wrong. Little Cherub is still busily scattering them ... and rearranging the nativity set. The only figure left upright this morning is an angel. An angel she found on the tree, that is. The angel that belongs to the set disappeared before Christmas.

-- 7 --

Happiness is ... Star finding a large cuddly penguin she has been coveting for weeks in the sale for £2. She is a spheniscophile. (I thought I made that word up, but when I googled it I found others got there before me.)