Month: October 2017

Old fashioned slice of sweetness

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The Louise Cake is a classic Kiwi tea time slice. I imagine that it’s been around for decades, because first of all it’s called Louise so it must date back to the Seventies at least. It doesn’t have any fancy ingredients, a simple treat that goes very well with a cup of tea and a yarn. It’s made up of three layers; “cakey” biscuit bottom, jam and coconut meringue topping. What I love about this, is that you can easily make it gluten and/or dairy free, it’s nut free too so you can pack it off in the children’s lunch boxes or donate it to a school cake sale.  Plus you can have fun with the middle layer; it could be any flavour jam, or lemon curd, caramel or if you can eat nuts, you could spread Nutella in there. Oh my gosh, I want to do that right now! Despite having three layers, it is quick and easy to make and it looks really pretty. I’ve used the recipe given by Natalie Oldfield in …

We’ll always have ice cream – Part Two.

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Our family have worked through some major life changes in the last few months.  Moved country, sold our home, given up our dog, new job, new schools, new friends and I’ve (temporarily) given up sweets.  These are all major changes. All. Of. Them. I’m not an expert in child psychology or parenting, but I generally fulfil the role of Change Management Co-ordinator in our family, so I thought I would share some things I’ve learnt along the way. As I said in Part One, children do adapt to change but it takes time and they need help to navigate through the choppy waters of change.  As their parents, we are in the best position (frankly it’s our responsibility) to help them along the way.  And at the same time, parents can make things harder if they’re not switched on to the version of events as experienced by the little people. Something I realise now I have hindsight on the first half of this year. It’s not surprising, given I blog, that I believe when you know …

We’ll always have ice cream – Part One.

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There are many observations and pearls of wisdom that I have heard over my time as a parent: “It gets better” “Try not to be anxious about it, they smell your fear.” “Oh I breastfed my children until they were one and they never get colds.” “You can’t give in to them or they will just keep doing it.” “I’m sure that’s perfectly normal but perhaps just go to the doctors to check it out.” “My my, what spirited children you have.” In relation to all this moving around the world business we keep subjecting them to (OK it’s only been twice in five years but it feels pretty regular from where I’m sitting), you often get one of the most popular phrases about children said to you: “Children are really resilient, they will adapt to the changes.” And it’s true.  Children are resilient and they do adapt. However, that 10-word sentence does not tell you how they will adapt, or what you should do to help them through change, or at what point you …