Mother's Day Special

Pictured here: a few creature comforts with which I curled up today and one gorgeous creature. Oh, no, LOL, I mean Thorin Oakenshield bv the gorgeous creature (wink), although it's true that Eowyn the kitten is growing up to be very pretty. 


Acksherly I spent Mother's Day stressing out about the Piglet party. I was starting a head cold, so you can imagine how pleased I was that I had planned this special day to be at the ice rink.

Gah, the birthday parties are always mega stress. In the early days we would do a huge event at a community centre, with bouncy castle and food for the five thousand so we would stress about getting all the food sorted. Then as Piglet became an older more discerning Piglet, the parties became more choice and priced accordingly. The party list narrowed down. Now I stress about who to invite and whom I end up standing near at the schoolgate going: "la la la look at the sky", making faces at people who are trying to say: "Yes, my piglet would love to come to your Piglet's super duper party, oh, wasn't your piglet invited?"

You can buy this lovely 
ornament from Amazon!

Anyway anyway, the ice rink was a great success, in spite of a couple of the little would-be Torvilles toppling over and having to be assisted off the ice in tears holding the remains of their limbs. They usually rushed back on again in another ten minutes and several had to be dragged away kicking and screaming for "just ten more minutes!"; subsequent reports say all and sundry want to have an ice skating party for their birthday. At Planet Ice where we had the party, the staff were most courteous and kind. We were a bit lucky that a Dad had come along with his skates and he went on the rink and helped out with the less skilled skating piglets. Also, as it was Mothering Sunday, no other mom had been so foolish as to book in a party so we had lots of time and space and staff attention.

As a proper Mother's Day thing, I have found this story about two elephants. Shirley has arrived at the sanctuary after many years in the circus (oh, sorry, I should've warned you; this is a two tissue story). There she meets Jenny, who came to that same circus as a baby elephant. They have not met for over twenty years and then ... (boo hoo! sniffle. PS, the commentary is annoying - I can do my own anthropomorphic blubby blurb, thank you.)

I am not the only mom in our house now, of course. Lakhi the teenage single mom cat is a good mom and Eowyn the kitten is growing up nicely. I was grumbling about how she still uses the litter box, and a friend had advised me that the thing to do is take some of the poo-ey litter and put it outside where you want them to go and do the necessary business. I was just figuring out how to nip over to the neighbours' gardens and scatter the litter in their flowerbeds, when the Fella and Piglet dug out the vegetable patch. Oooh, it was all lovely soft earth, beautifully raked. So now the litter tray is never used any more but I have little black footprints regularly making a pretty pattern across my kitchen floor. Gah.

Lakhi the cat used to make a special prrp noise when she brought a mouse or frog home for Eowyn. (Yes, thank you, we have had the First Mouse of Spring. Poor li'l thing.) What was my surprise when Eowyn made that noise this morning. It having been Mothering Sunday she had brought in a nice fat juicy worm for Lakhi (or maybe it was for me).

No, no, this is Piglet's birthday present, not a Mother's Day present for Lakhi although Piglet has thoughtfully put out a chair for her to sit on and watch "cat television" as we call it. 

Do not fret now! I was not forgotten on the actual Mothering Sunday day. Piglet gave me a special card made in school, and a large box of Green and Black's chocolate selection. I had made pointed mention of a cheap pink box of chocs I had seen in Tescos so I was nonplussed by the understated coolth of the Green and Black's box, and in the stress of the party preparations I put it to one side with a hurried thank-you. When I opened it, it proved to have a lot of interesting items in it.

From review on Takuchat

I used to enjoy having a cup of hot chocolate with a packet of salt and vinegar crisps on the train sometimes - the unusual combination of flavours makes your tastebuds wake up and dance about like Ratatouille's. Thankfully some Man has realised that chocolate and salt are good together and so there are now a number of gourmet items you can pay lots of money for which combine these two flavours.

OK, so I am currently engaged in a careful comparison of the Green and Black's milk chocolate with flakes of Anglesey sea salt and the Prestat equatorial dark chocolate with pink Himalayan salt. I was a little bit biased in favour of Anglesey, as I have fond memories of the Menai Straits. However the very idea of pink Himalayan salt is irresistable. And I have fond memories of less accessible parts of the Himalayas too (of course - more on that soon).

Don't be deceived by the nonsensical blurb which claims the Green and Black's chocolate has 'delicate' flakes of salt in it. Flakes lie over more of your tongue, as you will know if you ever went out in a snowstorm and stuck your tongue out. You get a really good salt lick from this bar, and I like the sweetness of the milk chocolate in comparison. The Prestat bar has good hits from the small Himalayan crystals (I presume they are pink; I can't see them). Both linger satisfyingly in your mouth for quite a while. If pushed I will come down on the side of the Green and Black's bar. But I shall resist pushing - pushing is rude. I need to do a lot more work here comparing these two. Mmmmm nom nom nom. Mmmm: Green & Blacks ... Prestat. Mmmmm nom nom.