Jenson's Marvellous Medicine!
Despite the title of this blog, yesterday was anything but marvellous. The medicine on the other hand came in the form of wine.
It was a bad combination; over tired children from Sunday's marathon medieval festival and a whole house of furniture to unpack after the end of its vacation in our London pad. It wasn't a recipe for marvellous medicine but a recipe for disaster.
The day had started brightly enough with some excellent LEGO model making from Jenson. He had very sweetly built Wren a 'miow' birthday party and once finished moved on to a digger. I was totally impressed with how he had made it, in particular the hinged sections, seat and bucket. I'd say the lengths of the arm sections were pretty spot on.
Things went quickly downhill as I got stuck into the arduous task of unpacking and moving furniture while the children got stuck into making as much mess as they could in my wake. The only joyful moment of the day came in the form of a spontaneous idea on my part while cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. I don't think the jars at the back of those cupboards had seen the light of day for a century going by the sell by date on some of them.
I sensed Jenson was at a bit of a loose end and so out of my head I plucked this random idea that he might like to make a marvellous medicine as George did in Roald Dahl's classic. Safe to say he was very enthusiastic!
I handed him a bag of old tins, jars and packets and let him loose with it all and although I had my head buried in the back of the cupboards I couldn't help but watch.
He poured in gallons of Worcester sauce and Lea and Perrins followed by a lovely assortment of old food colourings, pasta sauce, mincemeat, kidney beans, ground nutmeg, stock pots, hemp seeds, ground almonds, spaghetti pasta shapes, cinnamon, oat cakes, a banana, water and finally a whole tub of cornflower to thicken it all up!!
The final thing looked like something someone might have thrown up and once boiled it smelt like it too. The concoction had a truly awful whiff.
It was so repulsive that even the dog refused to eat it and those of you who know our dog know she really will eat anything. Put it this way, we've found half eaten soiled nappies in her basket before so the fact she wouldn't eat this was saying something!!
All throughout his little cooking experiment I had gently recited the tale of George's Marvellous Medicine, which stretched my memory banks somewhat. The whole process lasted less than an hour but it was a good hour where he learned a brand new story and also had fun. I don't know how many of these memories will stick but if he can remember a story about himself as a small child sitting in the kitchen brewing up a marvellous medicine then perhaps the day wasn't such a disaster after all.
Today was a new day and a wet one as it turned out. We do however like rainy days very much as you can always guarantee the park will be empty giving my two free reign to do what the hell they like without the disapproving glares of other parents.
After our medicine making yesterday I had promised Jenson I would take him to Waterstones and buy the Roald Dahl classic. I had also promised both of them that I would buy them each a new book. We normally go to the Red Cross book shop on the Bath Road but it was nice to take them somewhere different and open their eyes to a whole new world of tales and stories, pictures and poetry. It was also a good opportunity to get on the bikes and get some exercise.
We spent a great deal of time leisurely looking through all the books. Jenson is not one for reading but even he enthusiastically grabbed book after book after book off the shelves. It was lovely to watch and hear him get so excited. In the end he decided upon Winnie the Witch. It's a lovely series about a witch and her cat who make really bad spells and then try and fix them together. The illustrations are beautiful too.
We headed to the park where we sat in the rain and read all our new books. It was super fun. We spent so long there that morning turned into lunch which turned into the afternoon. Time passed quickly not that we noticed so engrossed were we in Winnie and her witch adventures. It was a lovely day.
