Happy Halloween from me

I found these extremely cute little "Munchkins" in Sainsbury's the other day, and carved them into little "mini-Jack-the-Lanterns". Perfect for tea-lights!
What do you think!



Was at work today and Steve left early to pick up Ellen. When I came home they proudly showed me her biscuits that she had "baked" at nursery. Steve said she had "pressed and prodded" the dough... and in his hand he held a piece of tin-foil with two very squashed little biscuits with chocolate bits in them. He little face lit up when she saw them and she almost looked proud of them! Haha.
Cooking...at 14 months old. Excellent. I'm still not cooking at 30!!!
No I lie, I did make an brilliant dinner the other week. Gordon Ramsey eat your hat.

Tonight its girl's night in. Lisa is popping over for some Hallowine!!!
So I am just heading over to the sofa for some serious chillin'.

My new gay lover...

Well, I have just been seriously traumatised.
I went to get the post out of the postbox, found a little parcel which contained a few lovely little crystals I had ordered, another letter was telling me my membership to the local farm/playcentre was going to reduced for next year, it had pretty little lambs on the letter and everything...and then...I just carried on opening my post...as you do. I tore open a letter adressed to "Mr Stephen Newman & Mr Asa Forsvall", thought nothing more of it, as I ALWAYS get letters to MR Asa Forsvall...

This one was different. The catalogue i pulled out of the brown envelope looked like any other catalogue so I just flicked my thumb through the pages to have a look at what goodies I would find... Then my STOMACH TURNED...It was gay sex, in the strongest worst most horrible sense of the word...I literally dropped the catalogue on the floor and splurted out something like: bbbbbbblaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhshhsgg. I felt traumatised, violated and sick!!!

I looked at the catalogue that was now lying on the floor. "New Concept" "Gay Sex DVDs".

New concept. Yes, send it out to straight couples and lets see what happens!!!

Anyway, if anyone wonders WHY I HAVE CHANGED MY NAME FROM ASA TO HELENA???????
Ask me again and I have a very good argument. Don't regret it for a second.

Barry Manilow rocks the Legion

Well today, Thursday, I am feeling veeery relaxed. My neck has been hyper-painful the last week, and Monday morning I could literally not move. So off I went to the chiropractor to get it sorted out. She banned me from doing anything straining and using computers. So Wednesday when I usually work from home while Ellen's at nursery, I was simply OFF. Can you imagine! A day off! OFF! Completely, just ME, chilling....now I never thought I'd be doing that again during the day.
I didn't know what to do with myself, so I went past a Tesco Express on the way home after dropping Ellen off, and bought myself some magazines and some chocolate. Spent an hour or so just reading them and feeling more relaxed than I've done since Ellen was born. Just lovely.
My neck is much better but I am going to sign off in a minute not to over-do it.

Anyway, last weekend, was a great one. The weather was lovely to add to the loveliness. We had a babysitter booked for Saturday night and Steve & I wandered down to "down-town-Wickford" to Bar Plazma. They were showing the Rugby Semi-final on big screen and I got all the rules explained to me and got super-involved in the whole thing. England ended up beating France! Excellent evening. On the pub-crawl back from Plazmas, we stumbled into the Royal British Legion club along Runwell Road and having entered through the door, we were met by a croaky voice singing "I waaaannna laaay you dooown on a beed of roooossses"...didn't sound anything like Bon Jovi (not that I mind..) and we realized HA! Its karaoke time!!! We downed a pint and scribbled our names down on a piece of paper and off we trotted to the DJ.
10 minutes later he called: And next up is HELENA, with a bit of Barry Manilow - here's "Mandy"... And I crawled up to the microphone. So exciting actually, I thought I'd be shitting myself. But nope, good old Miss Forsvall grabben the mic and started: Iiiii remember all my liiiiiifee.....
Managed to finish the song, without any false notes and no fainting attack! Great fun! Want to do it again soon!

There, logging off now.

Horrible Hornet

Yesterday Steve came running into the livingroom explaining that he'd just caught a giant wasp. He'd taken some photos before letting it go in the garden. See below...
We googled "giant wasp" and got the description of a Hornet (in Swedish: Vespa) and that was most probably what it was. It was enormous. I am not leaving the house ever again if those beasts are out there.




Wikipedia told us the following: Hornets are the largest eusocial wasps, reaching up to 45 millimetres (1.8 inches) in length. A Hornet's sting is harmful, but the sting toxicity varies greatly by hornet species. Some deliver just a typical insect sting, while others are among the most venomous known insects[1]. Allergic reactions can occur. Depending on the severity, these may result in death!!!!!????? Nope, not leaving the house...

Tired tired eyes

Good afternoon to you all,

I am so tired I can't get over it. Went to bed at 9 o'clock last night and was snoring away by 9.02... Ellen was kind enough to let me sleep til 7 this morning, so I got plenty of sleep last night. But here I am at a quarter past 3 and can hardly keep my eyes open.

Have just eaten Kexchoklad and some Salt&Blandat. Yum yum. Gave me a tummy-ache though. Gah.

Working today, from home, and Ellen is at nursery again. So nice to have the house to myself and my god, its so quiet.

Just going for a quick break away from the screen. So bye for now.

Breakfast, injections & IKEA

Good morning,
Well not quite.
Went to the pub to do the quiz last night and when we got back Ellen decided she wanted to howl the place down for about 1 hour. So I think we finally got to bed about 1 in the morning. Steve got called out on an emergency by work about 4am I think, it was dark and cold anyway, and all I could think was "keep your voice down so you don't wake the baby", what an evil person I am, when my beloved has to get suited and booted at 4 in the morning to go driving a bus from Pitsea to Gillingham. Christ. But no "does he HAVE to shower???!!! He'll wake the bloody baaaby!!!".
Aaaanyhow.
About 5 minutes after Steve's left, Ellen started crying. Its pitch dark and I scrambled for my phone to check the time. It was six o'clock. Hang on...where did those 2 hours go, I certainly didn't feel like I'd slept for two hours. Nope, it was definately 6am and Ellen was ready to party.
So not such a good morning.

Then while we were eating breakfast I completely startled myself, made me jump and everything, by remembering it was today Ellen was going to have her final injections. I checked the time. 15 minutes til our appointment, chriiiiiist, schwiiiish schwoooosh nappies, clothes, wipe her face, t-shirt on, wipe her nose, trousers on, wipe her face again, in the car, GOOOO! We made it. Just. She got a little sticker that said "I am protected from bugs". She didn't eat the sticker like last time...my big girl.

I hate my pillow. Its not even worthy of being called a pillow. Just flat and hard and awful. So when the little one wakes up I am venturing off to IKEA in Thurrock. I haven't been there in ages, so why not. Its raining outside and its just horrible. Cold and wet and miserable. But liking the fact that you can actually wear jeans again, without sweating your socks off.

Finally, two timewasting shots of our breakfast.
I had the lovely Rachels organic Vanilla Yoghurt with cranberry & melon cereal, while poor Ellen was stuck with a squidgy banana and a Raspberry Fruit Tumble yoghurt.