The Wind in the Willows II - Their Grand Tour

"The open road, the dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling downs! Camps, villages, towns, cities! Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing! And mind, this is the very finest cart of its sort that was ever built, without any exception."

Thus spaketh Toad on his first empassioned journey of Willows- and he remembered those words with glee as he hopped into his envelope in Denver today and snuggled down with Ratty and Mole for the first leg of their Grand Tour! The whole world really is before them this time!

The suns and I have just been spinning our globe and looking at all their stops- it's quite something to consider as we snuggle down into Autumn here, with routines and school runs and homeworks and swimming and BB and piano and conkers and blackberries and hats and gloves that will definitely be coming out before I go to rugby practice again!

At least these three little characters will eschew the train train quotidien for a train train poop poop of merriment and wide open skies. Ratty is just remembering some of his own past words, in case the hilarity gets a bit much,

"O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!" "O stop being an ass, Toad!"

(Their full Itinerary will be posted soon- so that everyone can check where they are. Still time to invite them to the adventure that is your place!)

Friday Cake Bake

Leftover Lemon Cake. Actually Luscious Lemon Cake in the Cranks cookbook, but in the Year of Living Small we're taking as our departure point what must be used up! Followed the instruction to cut into squares, well, obviously not entirely literally! This did, however, have the most pleasing effect of disguising the complete failure of the thing to do any rising in the middle. At all!

We had better results in in the jungle this evening- ten cheeky monkeys ready to go! Though I'm noticing now that they could have been more diplomatically arranged to hide the much lovedness of our table!

Mellow mornings

We love that series of books that starts with The Man who Wore All His Clothes. We laugh and laugh and laugh at the messages from the fridge and the doormat. Which is why I smiled to myself when I reached for my cereal this morning. You have to like a cereal box that says quietly, "Hello!" when you are just back from walking up the hill and have a very great deal of cleaning to do before you walk back down!

The Chronicles of Thrifty Thursday: Chapter 2

It did not begin well as Thrifty set forth on the second week. Cycling down to The School for Sun 2 in stormy windy weather, she was blown from her bike! Hurt, beginning with damage of least importance, was sustained to her ankle, her trousers and her pride! The huge hole in her only pair of jeans remains a challenge to the rules of Thriftiness...

She was, however, highly successful in following the previous week's suggestion that no food should be bought until all existing food was used. This led to fabulously innovative meals, and an evening of hilarious entertainment- banana buns by Mum, cloud scraping decoration by Jo. She even began her Waste Not Exchange project with Ms Efficiency Everyday and handed over the half of a butter milk carton that remained from the baking of said banana buns.

Thrifty had been much impressed by blogtales of chutneys and jams and preservings of all wondrous imaginings. She knew, however, that rushing out to buy ingredients, not to mention a technical thermometer thing, would not at all be in keeping with The Year of Living Small.

But wondrous Nedboy of the country manoir has supplied another harvest, and Thrifty can feel a little bit thrifty after all!

Wind in the Willows II- The Grand Tour

You see this beautiful copy of WitW? Well, this is Pom Pom's copy. Ha ha! But soon it could be coming right to you! Due to spectacular demand, Wind in the Willows is back, but for a whole season, not just a week!

Pom Pom will soon be posting her copy on, and the book, complete with Mole, Rat and Toad will be going a Grand Tour of the blogging world. We will have an official launch very, very soon, but this is your invitation to have a think! You don't even have to read the whole thing, or even be a great fan- and I know some of you were interested last time, but weren't totally enticed!

The idea is that you will stamp the passport, for there will be a little passport, and then sign the inside cover giving dates and place, and after that you can underline, annotate, illustrate to your hearts content! And even slip in some leaves, little fancy from your corner, and you would post it on- we'll work out the Itinerary from the comments that express interest here or at pompomsponderings.blogspot.com

Oh go on, it'll be something fun and frivolous to take us through the Autumn- they all need to back with Pom Pom by Thanksgiving hopefully, when they'll have a great homecoming party!

Sign up below- full instructions will be given in the Official Launch and will be included with the book on its travels....

Treasure and spies

We got our last day in the waves today, and there was even sun! It was quite simply the best body boarding I've had, and there have been many excellent days in the sea this summer!

But the most exciting thing was also most unexpected! Treasure!

Well, a hunt for treasure! As the three of us were alternating supervision of four sand drawing children, we noticed another trio of very fascinating folk. I could only imagine they were parents out with their sixth form son, engaged on some intricate Geography or Art coursework. Why else would you be measuring out very precise distances from the posts in the sand with a long piece of string, then digging deep holes, peering into them and then filling them back in.

Eventaully we could stand the curiosity no more. I was despatched.

"I'm guessing it's Geography or Art coursework, but we can't decide!"

Man looks warily around, "Yes. It's a treasure hunt. We're searching every beach from Ballycastle to Benone (that's the whole of the North Coast. We have been working out the clues and doing quite well. But some people aren't working out the clues. We're being followed by people who are watching us. There's a car quite close by that is watching us right now..."

Mags looks warily around, "Oh. Good luck with that then!"