yummie tea...

i discovered this tea recipe on apron thrift girl's blog, and made up a similar mix with what i had in the cupboard and in the garden! it's yummie!

for a pot of tea (about a litre) i used 3 chamomile flowers (the ones i have are really strong), one lavendar flower from the garden (mine are very small this year, normal sized ones i'd probably use a half), one big sprig of mint from the garden (crushed) and two tea spoons of dried raspberry leaves (the ones i got are called 'pure raspberry leaves' and are green, not read). All this goes into the 'tea sock' (a filter/strainer for the pot) in the pot, fill up with boiling water and steep for ten minutes. stir 2 teaspoons of honey into the pot. drink some while hot, let the rest cool down and fill into a caraffe or bottle, for the fridge, i quite like it cold!

i'm not sure how much i'm supposed to / allowed to drink while pregnant, but i had 2 cups yesterday, and two today. i might step it up a little as i get closer to my due date (the raspberry leaves are supposed to 'tone' the uterus and make the contractions more effective when it comes to labour, that's why i bought the raspberry leaf tea initially)

if i manage to keep the tea drinking up then i might make up a mix, i might even try the rose hips in it, but from all i remember i don't like them, never have, too sour...

one big spider...

there are loads of them around this autumn!

the bump at 33 weeks (and a half)

Another day out with visitors!

We went to the usual close by attractions, if we get many more visitors this year we'll have to think of some new places to go, so we don't get bored!!





Skerries Harbour was lovely and busy, everybody making the most of the warm day, knowing well it might be the last for the year!






the sun going down always makes for a nice photo opportunity, these are all taken with my old, clumsy, slow, noisy, annoying olympus x715 camera... ach, it's nowhere near as nice to handle as the benq... it'll do for blog photos, but i really hope i can get the other one fixed... and maybe get a more advanced one, for when the baby needs lots of photographing, all going well... (still scared of jinxing it if i assume all will go well...)

my camera is very sick!!

:-( just paralysed! it kind of half starts up and then goes into error mode, display frozen or off, and the lens out or half out!! the only way to switch it off is to take the battery out, but that doesn't retract the lens, oh dear... i've treated it so well, never dropped it or got it wet or anything...

i don't like to be without a camera, it makes me uneasy! i like to have it with me most days! just in case! i love digital, i don't mind taking 20 photos to get just one good shot, and i love being able to take pictures of bits that i'd never bother to get printed, just to show on the blog or send home to my sis or parents. p got it for me last year in february, on ibood, so it is still in warranty, unfortunately it's a 'carry in' manufacturer's warranty, and i have a feeling it might be for the UK only, they don't even have an irish phone number... have to wait till monday when their warranty department opens to find out. it wasn't expensive, as far as digital cameras go, under 150€ including all the bits, postage, tax... all of it! so if i go down the warranty route, i might spend a large percentage of the price on sending it to and from the UK...

i might see can i bring it into one of the camera shops in town, but the two i tried today were no good. in one of them the guy was pressing on the lens to try an make it retract! he even left a big fat fingerprint on it, i think to work in a city centre camera shop you don't actually have to have any knowledge of or interest in cameras... ah well... p managed to make it retract properly by pressing a lot of buttons at the same time, so at least i can transport it safely and won't be asked if i dropped it!

if i can't get it fixed i think i'll have to get another compact, and i'll have to decide on one soon (only 7ish weeks till baby's due!). i had just started to think about getting an SLR-like camera, but i don't think i could handle having only a bulky camera, i really like to have something small that i can slip into the handbag or jacket pocket, it was supposed to be in addition to my point and shoot!

i like what i'm reading about the lumix lx3 , but it's only just out and not in any shops here, and gee, it is pricey for a compact! but it reminds me of my precious old analog olympus myu, no zoom on that one, but a lovely bright lens and it takes great pictures. although the flash can be a bit bright... alternatively maybe the tz 5 but i heard it's got noise problems?

i seem to be quite set on something with a wider angle lens, and at the moment i like the panasonic ones best, but i'll have to do a bit more research... when really i should be preparing the house for the baby!! i seem to be suspiciously easily distracted...

pregnancy dreams, and not just mine!

anybody else have weird dreams during their pregnancies? some are panicky and scary, or just unpleasant, and showing how i'm a bit worried i'm not quite ready for this baby!

like the one about us having a baby boy, and friends coming to see us in the hospital, and they are asking what we called him and we realise we haven't decided on a name, and our friends are horrified at us being so uncaring and unprepared as not to give our baby a name!

but some are nice dreams, too...

my favourite is the one where i discover i have a pocket on my belly, you know, like you'd have on a hoodie, and i can carefully put my hand in and feel the baby, and i can stroke her hand and she holds my finger and i know it's a girl and she's happy and content in there!

one of my friends had a dream about my baby! she said she was over to visit and i had 'taken the baby out to show her' like that was the most normal thing in the world, it was a boy and he was smiling and had dark spiky hair, she said it was all very lovely and cute, until i said, 'right, now you have to help me to put him back in, he's too young to be born yet'! thankfully she chose to wake up before it got to gross!

i finished my scarf yesterday!

remember last winter i started this scarf? well, after some 'summer' hibernation and a final giving in to the bad weather and knitting woolly things again, it's finally finished! i was worried it wouldn't be long enough, but everybody kept telling me it's fine, just start on the decrease rows... i reluctantly gave in, this scarf is near impossible to unravel and restart, because of the dropped stitches (i find), but i needn't have worried! i washed it yesterday, in the machine's 'wool and delicates' cycle, together with a cream jumper (that said dry clean only, but i don't approve of dry cleaning...) using wool detergent.



perfect results! both jumper and scarf came out unharmed, and the scarf grew from a just about OK 180cm to a brilliant 250cm! i dried it flat on the guest bed and am delighted to find the wool turned softer and drapier and the scarf is just what i wanted! and just in time for the miserable september weather that's hit us this week.



i'm not a hundred percent sure if i used the wool cycle properly, there was quite a strong detergent smell off the wool, i wonder are you supposed to run a rinse and drain cycle afterwards? or is that just the way wool detergent smells? if the smell doesn't go i'll have to do a rinse&drain and lay it out flat on the bed again... will the drapiness stay if i wash it again?

belly at 31 weeks

if i take my arms up it looks a little less big and even more pointy!!