autumn equinox - thermos to the rescue

the first day of autumn.

crisp blue skies, crunchy fallen leaves, conkers, apples, and blackberries.

or if you live in the North East of England it would appear that actually what you get is grey skies, Lots of rain, mist, fog, damp, wind, cold feet, and soggy socks....... (oh and spiders, so many spiders.)

also you get a rather grumpy teenager who has an extremely heavy bag and a long walk to school, and is in need of a little comfort by lunchtime.

The 6th form common room serves a variety of hot food and drinks, but the teenager can't eat the food as none of it is gluten free and despite my best efforts she doesn't like tea........

I asked her what she would actually like to have at school, and the answer was quite definitive.

Soup, or soup, or soup, or soup, or hot chocolate.

so a flask then.
we have several flasks already, but they were all proving to have something wrong with them;
too big, too small, too leaky, doesn't keep anything hot, too untrendy..........

teenagers really are quite fussy.....

anyway I think we have the solution.

thermos travel mug. this one is bright red, it hasn't leaked, it keeps the soup hot enough it's nice to drink out of (although for thick soup it's better to take the lid off and use it more like a cup than a travel cup) and because it's steel it doesn't have any glass in like the ones we used to take on picnics when we were children and then find that it had smashed on the way and there was glass Everywhere.....

on the one chance I've had to use it it kept my tea nice and warm, it fit in the cup holder of the car neatly and I didn't spill tea everywhere when I drove J to the station at a horribly early time of the morning, always a bonus! ( I didn't need to use the little hook provided on the lid for my teabag, as I always make my tea in a teapot and then pour it in, but it's cute if you like that kind of thing, and you're not sceptical of teabags with strings......)

apparently it will also keep drinks cold for 9 hours without the outside of the flask sweating, can't vouch for this yet, but should we ever go anywhere hot ever again I'll test it out.

thermos kindly provided me with this product, they have a range of designs (all BPA free) in a back to school range, designed for younger children through to university students in need off coffee to keep them awake.

oh and if you have any great soup recipes do let me know, so far there has been a lot of carrots.

five excuses

five truly rubbish excuses why I've not posted for 18 days.

1. I was decorating banister rails; sanding, undercoating, glossing, swearing when the gloss had drips in, and more swearing when the masking tape that was protecting the carpet pulls off a layer of gloss paint from the base of the railings.....
2. urmm.... no nothing, no more excuses,     well I suppose I did go and choose some paint samples for the walls, at the moment it's a toss up between chalk white and sail white. no-one except me can tell the difference between the samples I painted on the walls, and someone else said they liked the colour the wall already was better than the new choices........... I am wondering why I thought it was a good idea to decorate the hall at all.........
3. I've finally managed to buy E a pair of school trousers that are long enough, he's only been back 2 weeks, so it's not that bad surely.... and I did have to drive 20 miles to collect them, and sit in the store's cafe drinking tea until I got a cheerful email telling me my order was ready to collect. 
4. I baked the nicest blackberry crumble in the whole world and then ate so much that I couldn't move from the sofa for hours. 
5. I was abducted by aliens and therefore couldn't take any decent photos or doing anything that might actually be worth writing about?   this is as good as excuse as any in reality............ 

I can imagine this being marked at school. E for effort. Must try harder..........

joining in with Amy's five on Friday.

Hello September

Hello September. Gosh you got here quick. I'm not quite ready for early mornings, and school bags, and making sandwiches, and uniforms just get, so if you'd like to go away for a few more weeks that would be fine. I'll have extra August.  I'm not ready, we still need to buy school trousers, and I have no idea whether the school ties are in a safe place. I'm not at all sure about anything on your list September, there is no chance of me remembering passwords, I write them in a secret place......... but I'm happy to try notice small things day,  it would be gracious to celebrate be lovely to everyone day and who can resist be thankful for pineapples day!

Do you have fun plans for September? Are you excited by new stationary, or dismayed by the lack of autumn flowers in your garden? Does anyone else think this summer went really fast, or was that just me?