Maltese Heat

I'll be lying if I said I hadn't hoped to come back to a rainy England after hot Malta. As high as the temperatures were - Maltese heat isn't impossible to deal with when most houses have air-conditioning and when you can jump into a pool or the sea if you feel too hot. Here, the houses just aren't equipped for the heat (Emily's had to move into the spare room this week) and my hayfever rages on, making it all very frustrating.

But then, when you can wash and dry four loads of laundry in a day, outdoors, and let the little ones splash around in paddling pools to cool down, have windows open all day (and night) long, and not need to do anything else in particular... well then's it's quite alright really.


I had 466 pictures to sort through after our holiday in Malta. And there were more to start with, but when with 3 days still to go, my memory card was full, I had to painstakingly go through them all and delete doubles or pictures that didn't seem great. I do take a lot of pictures of the same thing!

(And after doing that, I went online and ordered a larger memory card to be waiting for me when I got home.)

Here are my favourites from the holiday. Enjoy!

We did spend most of our time by the pool. There were no other motives behind this holiday: we wanted to chill. And that we did.

We had small gatherings of friends and family over, and some mornings we ventured out to the (air-conditioned) shopping centre for a change of scene.

David had a couple of boys nights out and I had a cinema and cocktails night with my girls (we watched Magic Mike - perfect girl's night out movie!). David and I had two date nights - more than we've had in months!

Emily loved all the attention, and she loved the water. But by day 2 or 3, when she realised we weren't going to let her "swim" alone (because she doesn't know how), she refused to get into the pool and took to having refreshing showers instead.

Best holiday in years!

Holidays!

We're just back from our holidays in Malta with beautiful, golden tans and big smiles on our faces. It was an excellent visit, mostly spent in the water with family and close friends. David and I even got two date nights (no, we didn't spend those in the water)! But more on the whole trip later - for now, here's little missy strutting her stuff.

Hope you're all enjoying the good weather if you're lucky enough to have it!

Messy Play

After months of talking about it and meaning to do it, I finally took Emily to a Messy Play session last week. Dressed almost entirely in "Primani" and with a change of clothes ready just in case, she seemed to love that she could wander around and make a mess freely. There were tubs of shaving foam, rice, water, soil and a table for painting. She seemed happy to play with the rice and water - which if I'm honest, I was more than okay with!!

However a part of me was slightly disappointed. When I thought of Messy Play, I somehow had this idea of massive tubs of whatever messiness on offer, that the kids could actually get into and roll around in. A bath of mess, if you will. So to find tubs that were significantly smaller than the picture I had in my head was a little bit disappointing.

Still, she seemed to have a blast. I'm sure those little tubs looked huge to her!

Emily's Favourite Dinner

My mum made a delicious tuna noodle bake when we were young. I never inherited the recipe (and have since heard it was very calorific!) and then one day, years ago, I decided I wanted to make it so I looked online for something similar. I found a recipe which I have since tweaked to a point where it looks almost nothing like that original recipe.

David and I love this dish. It's quick, easy and a satisfying favourite. Emily, ever since she begun eating what we eat, has also had a soft spot for this dinner - she likes it enough to inform me that it is "ummy". It's easy for her to eat, and tasty too. When she starts to be fussy about eating dinner, I cook this and it's problem solved.

So, if you want to try it, here is the recipe for this Tuna-Cheese Bake:

You will need (for 3-4 persons):
1 large can of tuna, drained
2 cups of shredded cheddar
1 pot of Elmlea single cream (or any brand, approx 280ml)
a handful of frozen sweetcorn
(I sometimes also add a handful of frozen peas)
6-8 mushrooms, roughly chopped
a stick of celery, chopped
400g conchiglie (this is my favourite pasta for this recipe, but anything will work)
any other chopped veg you want to include

1. Cook the pasta and pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees C / 350 degrees F.

2. In a large saucepan, cook the celery for a few minutes until soft. Combine the mushrooms, sweetcorn, cream and tuna (medium heat). Add half the cheddar and mix.

3. Fold the pasta into the cream mixture and pour into a baking dish. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.

4. Bake for approx 25 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Ta-da!

And to quote my Mum, "U ara x'inti tiekol!" ;)

Pushing Boundaries

I have a recent history of nasty anxiety attacks, which got bad enough a few months ago for me to decide something had to be done. Amongst other things, I've made the decision to try and think myself through them instead of letting myself simply fall victim to the insanity. I'm happy to say things have been going very well so far, and I think I can even say it now gets easier to overcome every time.

David was in Germany over the weekend. A boys' football tournament organised by work. His usual trips are business trips and weekdays, so I'd normally book a taxi to meet him at the airport. But since he was landing at a decent time and at the weekend, I thought that maybe I could go and meet him at Gatwick myself.

I'd never driven to Gatwick before. And big, new things like this (well, big to me) will usually set off an anxiety attack, and I'd then chicken out. But it's all about pushing boundaries now, forcing myself out of my restrictive comfort zone.

So I drove to Gatwick.

10 minutes in, Emily started moaning.
Then the rain picked up.
And there was fog.
The wipers were going so fast they looked like they might fly off.
Traffic was going 20mph on the motorway.
I couldn't see the car in front of me, or the one behind me.
I couldn't see lanes, I couldn't see exits.
And on top of it all, my eyes were itching because of my blasted hayfever.

More than enough to trigger an anxiety attack, you'd think. True - but it didn't. Emily finally fell asleep. And it may simply have been that most of my energy was going into not rubbing my eyes, but I didn't panic at any point.

I got to Gatwick half an hour before David's plane landed, which gave Emily about 20 minutes to melt the hearts of an entire group of Irish teenagers and then have a little wander around the terminal.

I didn't want to push my luck, I asked David to drive on the way back and of course there wasn't a drop of rain all the way. It certainly was a baptism by fire for me and my next drive to the airport won't be anything as scary as this one was, which made me all the more proud to have done it - and to have calmly survived!

[image cred: Viv King]