I was there first

oh my god I've stayed at the same hotel as Peter Andre (though I stayed there first!)

Prestonfield House Edinburgh - total lushness :)

Woo wow wow! Kerry from Digital Outlook gave me this film to watch last week - have to admit I went to the cinema to see it in 3D and was pretty impressed. Would the 2D version be the same - sure was!

This film will actually make my collection of Ultimate Favourite Films to watch again and again. I thought I would find the story dull - the book never interested me - but the film is a technicolour feast for your eyes, and the characters are played brilliantly throughout. What other stories or films does Tim Burton have in mind to recreate? Each one his magical mind has worked on so far has turned into wonderful films with a dark edge to them - they are really so good!

And as for Johnny Depp futterwacken- wow :)

http://www2.disney.co.uk/DisneyDVDs/DVDs/tim-burtons-alice-in-wonderland.jsp

Tea Party
http://www.totaleclips.com/player/Splash.aspx?custid=1064&clipid=e67375&playerid=69&affiliateid=-1&bitrateid=378&formatid=10

Hatter Futterwackens
http://www.totaleclips.com/player/Splash.aspx?custid=1064&clipid=e67377&playerid=69&affiliateid=-1&bitrateid=378&formatid=10

Eat Me Cakes
http://www.totaleclips.com/player/Splash.aspx?custid=1064&clipid=e67379&playerid=69&affiliateid=-1&bitrateid=378&formatid=10#

I'm a what?

Emily has reached the age where she now invents new words and phrases - best so far is "snootigator"

go figure what that means - but it sounds ace ;)

Green things-a-Growing

Though our allotment is starting to spring into life - its still a little behind some of the others. But hey-ho(e) never mind - but its slowly coming along. My friendly allotment keepers have been very kind, one lent me his rotovator so I could finish prepraring some soil, another gave me some lettuce today and a friend also came down and help to strim some of the weeds out for me. Without them I think I would not have got this far for sure.

But I'm pleased to show you some photos of the fruits (or veg ) from all my hard work.
This is the bean/pea section - not much to look at really.



This is the view across the strawberry and raspberry patch to the end of the allotment.
This is the view looking back at the top of the allotment - shed, water butts, flower patch and the squash/courgette/pumpkin patch.

Some raddish.

A small flower bed on the left and on the right the lettuce I received.
The little plants sticking out of the black weed sheet are cauliflower (I hope)

The lettuce again

Spinich patch

Loofas

and cucumbers

Yellow courgettes

What Shall We Do Today?

is often a question I think when we are stuck indoors with the kids! But we were introduced to the Disney Playhouse Website which had some really good games for kids about Emily's age. She really liked the Handy Manny - and she loved to play the Handy Manny Puzzle Pipes. The game involves her trying to fit the missing pipe and using the right tool to turn the water valve back on so the water can travel up the to tap. I was amazed she quicky got the hang of this game and now she loves it - plays it all the time we come to visit the website. I did manage to get her to look at some other games but she found the Flicker Lights the Way a little to difficult because instead of using the scroll pad on the laptop she had to use the up/down/left/right arrow keys which she's not too familiar with.

One other problem we had was that it took a little while for the website and games to run on our old XP machine, it was ok on the Vista laptop which is not great for playing games as we don't have a mouse attached to it. Still we got lots of other games to explore and if the weather turns miserable again we'll have another look at the other games.

Things you should do

most of you have probably read or listened to the news about what's recently happened in international waters near Gaza - if you do one thing today please go to this website and sign your name

Please also read this blog which is being written about the organisation of the aid to Gaza, it lists the people on the ships - it also shows you how generous, kind and passionate people have been in assisting and working hard to send aid. Also note that this blog has stopped being updated - the known condition of the author is unclear at the moment as she was on the boat.

Thank you for reading today