Not a food blog...

As most of you know, I'm not the world's most enthusiastic cook. Sure I can cook, fairly decently if I'm honest, but I prefer not to. Still, Tuesday was a good day for me. Jake had a friend over to play after school and I made them fish fingers with some crisps, a little cucumber, tomato and a few grapes.

The kids got busy playing and I wasn't feeling lazy, so started getting things ready for dinner. Jake has grown the most beautiful aubergines, which are hellishly expensive at the moment, so we were going to have them for dinner. The weather was gorgeous - the kind where you don't feel particularly hungry and we all felt like a light dinner.

Anyway, I'm getting distracted - I just wanted to share my tzatziki recipe with you, I'm not sure if any one's ever made it for themselves, but it's so easy and so much better value (and quality) then the ready made ones you get in the stores. Plus, I had my camera on the counter while I was making it, so have a few photos to share. We made and ate this literally every day while we were in Greece, so it always reminds me of that trip in 2006.

So, first you take a cucumber, grate it, sprinkle it with salt and leave it in a colander to drain. I'm usually too impatient to leave the cucumber to drain, so I end up just squeezing the juice out. Makes no difference to the end result...

Then you take some fresh garlic and grate that too. We don't have a garlic press, so I just use the grater - much easier then chopping. I normally use 3 - 4 cloves (yes, you will STINK after eating this)...

Toss the garlic in with the cucumber...

Add your yogurt - I used about 500ml, but I was also using fat free yogurt, which is thinner then extra thick, creamy, rich Greek yogurt, so you use less. Just keep adding until it looks right...

Add about a tablespoon of olive oil...

A tablespoon of white vinegar...

A little salt - just a teeny bit, the garlic adds peppery flavour and you want to taste the cucumber and yogurt. And then you're done...

So, once the tzatziki was ready, I got going with the aubergines. We had four that Jake had grown. I cut up very thinly, rubbed them down with olive oil and topped with Dukka (an Egyptian spice blend that I am in love with). I lay them flat on a baking tray and baked them at 220 deg C for about 15 minutes. I think, in all fairness, that I needed to bake them a for little longer - I wanted to get them a little crispier. Still they were delicious with the tzatziki...

And then you have to have one of these for dessert! We eat them all the time and they're divine. There's an art to eating them though - if your biscuits break, it gets really messy. You kinda have to squash the marie biscuits as you go and lick the ice cream around the outside as it squishes out. Tons of fun and so, so yummy. Oh, this one was made with banana split flavoured ice cream. Totally divine...

Enjoy!! XXX

A few extras...

These are just some randoms that I've taken and either forgot to put in previous posts or didn't have anywhere to put them. Still, they show a little more of what we've been up to, so I felt like it was my duty to share them...

Last Tuesday we had pancakes in the garden. I love the simplicity of pancakes and the fact that they can be used for mains and dessert all within the same meal. Jake ate his pudding one with his legs dangling in the pool...

This is the house that Jake built. Not really, this is the house that Jake's mother built. Don't ever, EVER buy your kids (or mine, please) a construction kit. They can't do it and the job gets left to mom. I couldn't do it either, look how skew the walls and lintels are. Plus, I never used enough cement and when it came to putting the lintels in, the walls weren't high enough...

These little flowers are growing in Jake's pots at the moment. I'm not sure how they got there, I'm guessing that Jake picked them from the front garden and shoved them into the pots. My grandmother, who's been dead for just over 21 years now, gave them to my mother and every time we talk about them, my mom tells me that she can remember her mother giving them to her like it was yesterday. I don't know what they're called (I'm not a very good gardener), but they're pretty and they're special...

This is baby Chloe. She's 5 1/2 weeks old here and is on holiday from the UK with her parents...

I'm only putting this picture up to prove to Jo that Jake's capable of holding a baby. Please let me take photos of Jake cuddling Connor...

I see the moon and the moon sees me...

While many of you won't agree, Sunday was, to me, the most beautiful summer's day ever. It was baking hot (I heard it was as hot as 38 deg C) and there was not a breath of wind in the air. We swam and ate ice-creams and spent the entire day outdoors. We had pizzas for dinner on our patio and enjoyed a couple of glasses of chilled Buitenverwachting Sauvignon Blanc (it was divine). At 7pm, Jake was miles away from sleep and it was just too hot for him. We'd also managed to have an afternoon nap, a rarity in my life. So, I allowed him to stay up until just after 8 and we had a fabulous evening together. The moon came up and we all just relaxed together. Normally there's someone rushing somewhere, but for a change, we all stopped.

The moon was perfectly positioned from our stoep (I could sit on my butt in my chair, with my wine and see it perfectly), so I got my tripod out and Jake & I took a couple of snaps. Jake loves taking photos and he's pretty good at it too. I helped him get the camera set up on the tripod and zoomed in on the moon, while Jake clicked the shutter button for me. A joint effort. Needless to say, even with my 100 - 300mm lens, the moon is still very far away. Zooming in on the moon was quite impressive, but since the shutter was open for such a long time, there's a bit of a haze around the moon and I was a little disappointed with the results.

The first three photos are as they were taken from the stoep...

I like the way you can see the shaded part of the moon in this second photo...

It's a little later and a little darker here and the shaded part of the moon is very clearly visible in the photo, although it wasn't to the naked eye. And note how uneven the divide is between lit and unlit...

With Photoshop, I zoomed in and cropped the moon to get the below image. In my highly unprofessional opinion, it's not that great. I do like how you can see the markings on the moon though...

The moon looks a little better when not cropped quite so much...

After Jake had gone to bed, I carried on playing around and took this photo, I put my camera onto auto, used the flash and whalaa..

Again, I'm not sure why cos I did have my tripod, but when you zoom in close, it's still very slightly blurred. This is, anyway, my favourite photo (cropped from the above in Photoshop) of the night. There's room for improvement, I know, but I love the moon and had lots of fun...

Gardens, spiders, flowers...

OK, I'm sure I'm starting to bore everyone with all these blogs, but I don't always get the time to sit and just do one long post, so try divide them up as I get the time to do them. These photos were taken over the weekend at home...

This little worm was sitting half out a tomato in Jake's veggie patch. We've had quite a problem with worms this year. I don't like worms, so this picture freaks me out a little. It gives me goosebumps...

These tiny little flowers grow in clusters in hanging basket in our garden. They attract the ants who drink whatever's hiding underneath the stary part...

Louise over at Dragon Fly has been blogging quite a bit on rain spiders. They're not my favourites and, while they are very pretty, they're also huge. They build big nests with leaves and then lay hundreds of eggs which hatch into baby spiders that grow as big as your hand. This particular nest was built over night and we found it right outside our veggie patch on Sunday morning. The mommy spider hides in the creeper during the day and then climbs onto the nest at night to protect her babies. Jake's enthralled, but again, this photo gives me goosebumps. I need to find a way to get rid of the nest - not kill it, just relocate it to the field behind our house, where the hand-sized spiders can play to their heart's content. My dad has to do this, it's not girl's work and, besides, imagine if that mommy decides to sneak up on you while you're moving her nest...

Does anyone know what these flowers are called? Jake's great grandfather grows them and gave us a few in pots. They multiply really nicely, are really pretty, but are also really prickly. When they first flower, they have beautiful little purple flowers within them - I have photos, somewhere...

A swimming update...

Just a short one, I promise...

Jake's doing really well in the pool at the moment. He's still doing his swimming lessons once a week, on Mondays from 4 - 4:30. While his progress has, at time been slow, he's dealt well with the issues he's had to face and has come through smiling. I love going to watch him do his swimming lessons, it's been really fascinating to me to see how he's learnt. At the moment, they're working on backstroke, the arm movements for crawl and on perfecting their diving skills (ie keeping their arms alongside their ears and their hands sandwiched together infront of them). They do a fair amount of racing in the pool, to see who can get to the other side of the pool first, which Jake loves. He's pretty quick now and he takes complete glee in beating the other kids.

At home, Jake has really enjoyed our heated pool this summer. The weather's been great and he swims daily. Because he's been swimming at the swimming school for so long, he's obviously very comfortable there and is a little more reserved in our pool at home. He's not keen on jumping in at home and insists on wearing goggles and sometimes flippers. Still, he's swimming unassisted and is loving the water.

I thought these photos were funny, he was asking to get out the pool after about an hour's swim and I was busy taking photos of him getting angry with me for not getting him a towel. In the last one, he's telling me he's not looking at me for photos ever again. Hahaha - you gotta love kids!

The big walk...

Saturday morning saw us up early to do Jake's mini-walk at school. I had put my name down to help butter rolls for the hotdogs afterwards, which meant I had to be there by 7:45! My parents joined us for a bit of moral support.

In the build up to the walk, Jake was counting down the days - he was just so excited. So, after buttering something like 200 rolls, the kids were all called to their classrooms, given their tags to mark the number of laps they'd done and we set off on our big adventure. Jacques' mom and dad were waiting outside for us as a surprise, so Jake had 5 adults walking with him. For those of you who know Edgemead, we had to walk around the block where the Primary School is, three times. Next year, when Jake's in the older group, we'll have to do 5 laps. Each lap is one kilometer, which is pretty far when your legs are only little. After each lap, the kids were given a bunny lick, which seemed to last most of the next round and stopped them from complaining too much.

Jake did really well and it was only after the second lap that he started to moan that his legs were sore. He enjoyed having his family with him for support and he loved passing 'The Hortons' home, where they were standing on the pavement cheering us on our way with each lap. We are so lucky to have so many people around us who care so much.

Running off to his classroom before the walk...

Sucking on a frozen bunny lick...

The walk is done, time to relax with a huge frozen bunny lick...

The baby shower...

My beautiful pregnant sister...

She doesn't even look 8 months pregnant, does she?

OK, so I've been really slack about writing about anything much lately. I've been even worse about posting pictures - I looked back and the last time I bored you with any pictures of my utterly gorgeous offspring (what's the singular? Offsprong?) was 10 February. So, I don't really feel that bad for going a little overboard with the next couple of posts. Life's been busy and I have lots to share with you all...

Laaaaaast weekend, we had a not-surprise baby shower for Jo. After her most recent check-up at the doctor, it seems that she's most likely going to need to have a Caesar done, probably on Monday 30 March. It might all happen the Friday before, which is the 27th, but either way, in less then 4 weeks time, my gorgeous nephew (he's related to me, he has to be cute!) will be here. We're all very excited and every morning Jake asks me first how many sleeps till his cousin comes and second, how many sleeps till his birthday (still something like 73). He can't wait to be the big cousin, although I think he might be a little disappointed in the fact that Connor won't be ready to run around the garden with him for a while yet.

Jo's taking a little bit of strain at the moment. She's got a pinched nerve in her lower back, which is affecting her leg. She's also battling with the heat plus had a mean dose of gastro this last weekend. Needless to say, she's looking forward to the baby getting here now.

So, the baby shower is done now and it went really well. We had an afternoon tea for about 40 people, which was perfect. Lots of kids running around, so they all had fun too. Jo's not big into surprises, so helped with the organising and we had the shower at her house. Connor has been such a spoilt boy already. His room is gorgeous and every thing's ready for his arrival. Can't wait!

Jake playing at the park across the road from Jo before the shower. He's such a monkey..

Some of the snacks...

Jake waiting patiently for the guests to arrive so he can have some melktert (milk tart)...

All the gifts...

Jake & Mike messing around after the shower...

Connor's haul - told you he was spoilt...