Sloe gin plum jam

We have two huge old plum trees in the garden, they blossom beautifully in spring, but all the fruit is way up too high to reach, even with a ladder. When the blue plums fall down on the path through the garden, it's usually the slugs who get to them first.
We also have a younger plum tree, a different variety, which produces sweet pink plums.
Last year many plums were ruined by the squirrel who comes to raid our hazelnuts. She also bites off the plums and just throws them on the ground.
I can see why they are called tree rats. Just look at this cute thug.

I did manage to pick about a kilo and a half of plums last week. We ate half of the juicy sweet plums, and the rest were turned into a sloe gin plum jam.
I like to add a bit of alcohol to preserves. I'm always tempted by the jars of strawberry prosecco jam or raspberry Cointreau preserve, or whisky marmalade, which typically appear in shops as gifts before Christmas. I like to give and receive them as gifts.

Sloe gin plum jam
Ingredients:
750g plums (stones removed)
750g preserving sugar
50g sloe gin
a blob of butter

Place the halved stoned plums in the medium sized pan, pour the sloe gin over the plums. Add the sugar, bring to boil, stirring all the time until the sugar dissolved. Lower the heat and simmer the plums for 10 minutes.
Bring to boil again, boil rapidly for 10 minutes, stirring regularly and skimming the scum.
Turn off the heat, add a blob of butter.
Let it rest for 10 minutes before ladling into sterilised jars.

In this recipe I used Gordon's sloe gin, but any sloe gin would do. You can't actually taste the alcohol in jam, it gives a lovely depth of flavour.

If you like this recipe, you might also like a recipe for Plum, sloe and vanilla jam.

Which preserves are you making this time of the year?

Epaderm Junior Range

Being able to swim is a great skill to have. Our elder son has been going to the swimming pool for many years, and is a reasonably skilled swimmer, albeit a not enthusiastic one.
When our younger son was little, we took him to the local swimming pool a few times, but had to stop, as his skin was badly affected.
Regular swimming sessions bring their own problems, mainly related to skin conditions like eczema. Both of my sons have sensitive skin.
Last year Eddie's school started taking Year 2 children to the pool for the swimming lessons. I was one of the volunteers who accompanied children to and from the pool. I have noticed that they were not advised to have a shower after the lesson. When I queried that, I was told they had no time. Imagine going back to school with the chlorine still on your skin.

Needless to say, Eddie's skin has immediately started to show the signs of eczema. His arms and legs looked sore and red, with patches of rough skin.
As we've been battling with eczema bouts for years for our elder son, we have tried many creams, lotions and ointments. Most of the prescribed medication in big tubs (like Diprobase, Aqueous cream and such like) didn't help at all, if anything, the skin was getting more and more irritated and inflamed.

Recently Epaderm got in touch with me, asking if we'd like to try their Junior Range for two weeks.
We received an Epaderm Junior cream and ointment. The range is suitable for kids of all ages including babies.
It is fragrance, colouring and SLS free. It provides moisturisation for eczema, psorias and dry skin.

Epaderm is recommended by doctors (though not in our clinic, they prescribe different moisturisers) and is the no.1 prescribed ointment in the UK.

Epaderm Cream could be applied in the morning and used during the day, as it is a lighter cream.
It can be used as a skin moisturiser and also as a skin cleanser. It is light and quickly absorbed, eaving skin softer and smoother.
For the night use the heavier ointment. You can add it to a bath too instead of soap/bath bubbles.

We have used it for over two weeks, and Eddie's skin has improved considerably. All redness is gone and the skin looks smooth. You can hardly notice any traces of eczema.
Saying that, he also hasn't used the swimming pool during summer holidays.

I think it's the combination of the Epaderm, lack of swimming pool's chlorine and the salty sea water (we spent a week in Cornwall) which helped Eddie's skin.

The real test will be when he is back at school and re-starts his swimming lessons.

Have you tried the new Epaderm Junior range? Did it have a positive impact on your child's eczema?

Disclosure: We received two Epaderm products for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are our own.

Cawston Press The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cloudy Apple juice

The summer is almost over, it's back to school for us in less than two weeks. We are not enthusiastic about it.
Eddie's going to a new school, and we are all a bit anxious about it. New school, new rules, new class mates (well, not all of them, as his Y2 class was split into two, so half of them he knows very well).

We haven't decided yet whether he would have school lunches or bring his own lunch box from home. Last year I let him have a lunch box once a week on a day when they had roast meet which he doesn't eat.
I will be helping him to choose the foods and drinks for his lunch box.
With a big variety of drinks for children, it might be a bit confusing as to what is truly healthy. Some smoothies contain more sugar than coca cola.

Cawston Press, the leading British drinks brand, has recently expanded their Kids Blend range by introducing The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cloudy Apple juice.
The delicious refreshing drink features The Very Hungry Caterpillar on its pack and is the exclusive partnership of its kind with Rocket Licensing and "The World of Eric Carle".

Cawston Press has been working with Eric Carle before. A couple of years ago, children's juice packs carried a promotional code to enter in weekly prize draws to win The Very Hungry Caterpillar hampers. We entered quite a lot of these codes, as Eddie loves the juice, but alas, weren't lucky.

The endearing caterpillar from the children's classic book is a colourful and charming character for a juice drink.

The new Cloudy Apple juice comprises 50% Cawston Press apple juice and 50% water, making it a natural, light and refreshing drink.
One pack of 200ml contains 46kcal and 10.4g sugar (naturally occured sugar from fruit) which is about half or even one third of the sugar amount of some of its competitors.
This pressed apple juice drink is not from concentrate, has no added sugar, no sweeteners or colours/preservatives.
I'd say that makes it a great contender for a child's lunch box.

It comes in a pack of three and is priced in line with the current Kids Blend range, which includes Apple & Pear, Apple & Mango, and Apple & Summer Berries at £1.89.
It is available in Waitrose, Ocado and Tesco nationwide.

This light juice drink definitely got a seal of approval from Eddie.

Disclosure: We received several packs of juice for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are our own.

Mummies galore

Meresamun, the singer

A couple of days ago Eddie and I were browsing the shelves of the "pre-loved" DVDs in Poundland, our favourite place to shop for snacks and plastic tat treasures. I have spotted all three The Mummy movies (the original ones, not the latest film with Tom Cruise which I haven't seen).
I couldn't resist buying them, to revisit my youth and introduce my child to the pleasures of the trashy horror.

We have watched all the Goosebumps on Netflix, and of course, the Goosebumps film. While enjoying the scary parts, Eddie tends to sit next to me, just in case, and if I need to pop in to the kitchen to brew a cup of tea, he would pause the film and wait for me.

We watched The Mummy, hiding behind the big cushions when the scarabs were taking over, but quite often giggled too and said Eww, that's gross!
Eddie thought it was the best film ever.

After watching this masterpiece, I thought it might be a good idea to visit The Ashmolean and see the real Egyptian mummies. Earlier this year we went to the National History Museum and saw some of the glorious sarcophagi.

Temple singer Meresamun, The Ashmolean Musuem

Sasha had a day of activities with Barnardo's, so Eddie and I hopped on the bus to Oxford and enjoyed our time together, just the two of us.

The Ashmolean Museum is a splendid place to visit, and there is so much to see and learn. It is the most visited British museum outside London. Several years ago, it has reopened its Ancient Egyptian collections.

You can argue that displaying the human remains to the public is not ethical, but at the same time the museums spend vast sums of money to preserve them for the eternity. I'm in two minds about seeing mummies in the museums.

They are, of course, an incredible study of culture and history, but they are also dead bodies.
In one of the rooms, you can see a mummy of a two-year-old child. Though it happened thousands of years ago, the death of a child is a tragedy.
Next to it there is a glass installation created by Angela Palmer. The scans made on the little mummy have revealed that the child had a twisted hip and a deformed skull. The artist was so touched by these facts that she visited Hawara, the place where the little mite lived his short life. She brought back with her a handful of sand to place next to the mummified remains.
It feels poignant but also reverential.

The mummy of the 2-year-old boy from Hawara

We loved the Pharaoh Taharqa's shrine, which was once a huge temple. There is a statue of Taharqa inside. We looked for his name written in hieroglyphs outside the shrine, inside the frame called a cartouche.

Pharaoh Taharqa

Pharaoh Taharqa

As canopic jars with preserved organs feature quite prominently in the Mummy film, I pointed them out to Eddie in the museum.

This is the Ram of Amun, he is keeping Pharaoh Taharq safe.

If you've seen The Mummy, you might remember how scared The Mummy was of the cat. Ancient Egyptians revered cats and mummified them as well, so that they could live in the afterlife too.
Seeing this mummy of the cat brought back memories of my childhood and visits to the Pushkin Musuem of Fine Arts in Moscow, where you can find a mummified cat as well.

mummified cat

This is a sarcophagus of Ptahhotep, steward of the treasury.

Ptahhotep, steward of the treasury

We only studied the Ancient Egypt collections and didn't venture beyond that.
I wanted Eddie to learn something from ancient history, while his memory is still fresh after watching the film.

As you enter the Egyptian rooms, you can find a little chest of drawers with activities for children. We picked two of them - Ancient Egyptian Survival Guide (what you need to know to journey safely through life and into the afterlife) and Ancient Egyptian Animal Adventure (which invites you to find amazing and magical animals in ancient Egypt). They are cleverly done, and make a visit to the museum more fun.

One of my favourite pieces in the Ancient Egypt collections is this delicate spoon.

I also admired the Mummy with perky boobs, which is on display as you leave the Egyptian collections and move onto the Fayum mummies of the Coptic period.

It was better not to cram as much as possible in one day, and not visit the other ancient worlds. We came home and looked at the book An Egyptian Pyramid.
And that was our foray into culture for the moment. We are ready to watch The Mummy Returns.

One Dog and His Boy by Eva Ibbotson

In the last weeks I seem to have fallen into a blogging lurgy. I don't have much mental spark or enthusiasm to finish any of my half-written posts, and the list of the blog tasks is growing longer and longer.
With summer holidays, I barely have enough energy to keep my children entertained. We go out most of the days, and at home I try to keep a fine balance between TV, ipads, DVDs, books and games.

Just yesterday Eddie and I watched The Mummy (1999 version). He pronounced it to be the best film ever. It is still as bad as I remember it. The first time I watched it in Russia many years ago, and those pesky scarabs preyed on my mind for a long time.

Every evening, before bedtime I read aloud to Eddie. We snuggle in together on a big bed, I read and he listens and asks one zillion questions.
After finishing three Diary of a Wimpy Kids books, I said Enough is enough, I cannot stand this any longer, they are all practically the same. Let's read some proper literature.

One Dog and His Boy is Eva Ibbotson's last novel. She died in 2010. I regret that I never wrote to her to say just how much I enjoyed her books. And now it's too late.

One Dog and His Boy is a modern classic for children.
This is a story of a boy called Hal, who lives with his rich and supercilious parents. He has all the toys a child would ever want, but he is unhappy. His parents don't have time for him.
He is just an accessory. The new carpets and a house with a swimming pool are much more important considerations.
His parents are a caricature of nouveau riche. While I do believe that such people exist, they are not very convincing. The portrayal of parents for me was the weakest point in this book.
Who in real life will get excited by a platinum poop scoop which apparently was the replica of the one that the Royal family of the Romanovs had for their dogs?!

Hal has been asking his parents for a dog for a long time. Finally his parents cede to his overwhelming desire. His father promises him a dog. Hal is ecstatic, when he finds the right dog. Little does he know that the dog has been only hired for a weekend, from Easy Pets venture.

Once the dog is returned to Easy Pets, Hal goes on the run. He is rightfully indignant and wounded by his parents' deceit.
Thus a big adventure starts for Hal, his dog Fleck, his new friend Pippa and four other dogs who escape the prison that is otherwise known as Easy Pets.
Will Hal be able to reach his grandparents who live up North? Will he and his true friends be caught by police and private detectives?

It's a warm and sweet story, slightly old-fashioned and a bit predictable, but very enjoyable.

If you are looking for a book to read aloud to your child, this is a great story. Chapters are short enough. We read about 3 chapters per day (there are 25 in total).
Each chapter comes with a charming illustration of a dog.

I'm thinking now of reading one of Morpurgo's books to Eddie. If you have read One dog and his boy, which book would you recommend to us to read next?

Beneath the surface by Jo Spain

Beneath the Surface by Jo Spain was one of the books I won earlier this year on GoodReads.
It starts with a grisly murder at Leinster House, the Irish seat of Parliament.
Ryan Finnegan, a political adviser to the Minister Aidan Blake, has been slaughtered while fleeing from his hunters.
Inspector Tom Reynolds and his team have to navigate the corridors of power and reveal dirty secrets before they find the killer. Almost everyone present at Leinster House on that evening could be potential murderers. There are so many people with their own agenda, all the way up to the highest political offices.

 The background of the thriller with all the party politics and unsavoury shenanigans is something Jo Spain delivers credibly and convincingly. Not surprising, as she has worked as a journalist and a party advisor on the economy in the Irish parliament.

I haven't read the first novel in the series - Search for a Bestseller - but it had great endorsements from the Irish authors and newspapers. Beneath the Surface works perfectly well as a standalone book.

I am not that interested in the Irish politics (sorry!), and after reading the first couple of chapters, I put the book away. I typically have a few books on the go, and knew I would return to it eventually. Glad that I did. It turned out to be a riveting read.
The corruption and sleaze in the higher echelons of power are not surprising really. We all know the value of empty election promises. It's not just the Irish politics.

I imagine this book would make a great base for a TV series, as it has all the right elements in it - murder, sex and dirty politics.

SpinZipz, Spinbladez and Thumb Chucks

Fidget Spinners of all types are the latest craze this year. They have been promoted as a must toy and a helping tool for children with cognitive impairments, especially for children on the spectrum.
But as they say, if you've met one child with autism, you met one child with autism. What works for one child on the spectrum, won't necessarily work for another.

This small spinning toy claims to help children who are prone to fidgeting, they are also supposed to help with lowering anxiety and stress. And while I don't want to challenge these claims, I can only say about our autistic son. It didn't attract him much at all. If anything, he played with it for less than a couple of minutes and gave it back to me.
Our younger son (who is neuro typical) - on the other hand - is a big fan of fidget spinners. We have 6 different ones, and would have had more, if I didn't resist.

We were among the first ones in Eddie's school to buy a fidget spinner, and of course, he had to take it to school to show off.
SpinZipz spinners and Thumb Chucks skill toy are a cool summer accessory to be seen with.
You must have seen books and manuals on what to do with these toys, how to play with them and which tricks to learn. Social media is full of videos and images of cool dudes and dudettes, showing their skills.

My younger son is the perfect social media target, he loves Instagram accounts and watches videos of toys, games and gadgets on Youtube. He doesn't have yet any of his own accounts, but he has asked me already (cruel mother said No, you are not old enough). He enjoys watching unboxing videos (which I find absolutely boring), and he knew about fidget spinners well ahead of me.

If you fancy having a peek - check out #spinzips and #thumbchucks on Instagram.

SpinZipz fidget spinners (3 blades) and SpinBladez (2 blades) are colourful and mesmerising. Their distinctive LED lights make it a perfect toy to play with in the dark.
There is a pin, which you can insert in both toys, making them stackable.

SpinZipz are mighty attractive. They remind of a story I have read as a teenager, I think it was called The Hypnoglyph, about a magical object brought from a different planet. It looked like a smooth wooden egg, and anyone who took it in their hand, found it impossible to part with it, as the hand would keep polishing and caressing the hypnoglyph. Does anyone know what I am talking about? It was one of the sci-fi stories (a genre which I loved in my teens).

Thumb Chucks from Zing Toys look deceptively simple, but they are actually quite tricky to master. They light up, and come in a range of colours.

There are plenty of tutorials online, if you want to master the art of Thumb Chucks. Eddie is still in the learning stages.

Disclosure: We received three fidget spinner toys for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are our own.

Admiral Benbow, Penzance

Just a week ago, after a long walk along narrow cobbled streets and a visit to the playground nearby Penlee gallery, my guys and I had lunch at Admiral Benbow in Penzance.
Admiral Benbow is one of the oldest drinking places in Penzance. It has a unique history and an extraordinary interior design.

We first visited this pub in 2009, when Sasha was the same age as Eddie now, and Eddie hasn't been born yet. My in-laws were travelling with us then. It was a horse-riding holiday, and we have very fond memories of staying at The Old Vicarage in St Hilary. If you are looking for a great place to do horse-riding in Cornwall, check out The Old Vicarage.
Eddie knew of this place, as he has seen our old photos.

Sasha and I in Admiral Benbow, 2009

He was particularly interested to see the wooden carved statue. I remember Sasha was fascinated with it.

Sasha, 2009

Admiral Benbow, 2017

The pub was nearly empty when we arrived.
When we have taken seats around one of the tables, the lady who brought the menus snapped at Sasha as he had a half empty bottle of Pepsi with him, saying that he's not allowed to drink anything bought elsewhere. Fair enough, but she could have been more polite about it.
We did get drinks for everyone in the pub, including one for Sasha which he didn't touch. Being autistic, he has his own ideas on which drink is acceptable while going out to a cafe or restaurant, and that in his opinion is Pepsi (which they didn't have).

The menu wasn't very inspiring. I wanted something light and ordered soup of the day, which was borlotti beans and savoy cabbage. At about a fiver, it was reasonably priced. The bread was fresh and tasty, the soup could do with more flavour.
I asked for half a pint of local ale, and it was lovely. I think it was called Proper Job, or something funny like that.

Kids had chips and sausages. Eddie enjoyed the chipolatas, but didn't finish the chips, saying they were not very good. He did nick some of ham from his Dad's plate though.
My husband had ham and eggs with chips. When he asked for some bread, it took ages for it to arrive. He almost finished his meal by the time bread was brought to the table.

The food is the typical pub grub, nothing special.
What you pay for is the ambiance. The pub is a maze of small rooms and enclosed spaces, with maritime ephemera covering all the walls.

 In that, it is a pretty unique space, with some amazing finds, from beautiful vintage artefacts to total kitsch. It can compete with any local museum.

When we had lunch, the pub wasn't very busy, so the staff wasn't rushed off their feet. Yet they were not very friendly, and the service was pretty slow.
Also I don't like loud muzak, when I am eating. I found it quite annoying.
So, a mixed bag: a fascinating place with an average food and mediocre service.

We visit Penzance every year, and we might come back, if boys decide they want to see it again.
Eddie certainly wanted to explore its nooks and crannies, and apparently there are lovely views from the rooms upstairs.

And of course, for fans of Treasure Island this pub holds a special place, as Jim Hawkins' parents own it. For that reason alone I would suggest visiting it. As long as you don't expect much food-wise.