Category Archives: Childhood fun

Camp cookery

Hi. We love campers and luckily get to do it a fair bit. I am the family cook while we camp too so have a few tricks to make things easier.

So above you see a bunch of food that I’ve pre-prepared. I then kryovac it then freeze family meal sized portions.

Above left is rubarb apple crumble cake. Delicious as dessert around the camp fire! Above right is a vegan sausage, tomato and onion cassarole. I freeze it in a container, then remove from container, pop into a kryovac bag with frozen peas, and seal. I like freezing the peas uncooked because when it’s reheated, they stay green and plump.

Here it is below reheated at camp and served on rice.

Below is a dark photo (sorry) of thai pumpkin soup and vegetarian roast.

Here is the pumpkin soup reheating on camp. It was very cold and this was ready in a flash, warm and comforting. Served with toast.

Finally, vegan damper cooked on a stick and baked on the coals in the camp fire 🙂

The damper on a stick is cooked, pulled off the stick then filled with vegan margarine and strawberry jam. Hours of afternoon fun!

Baked on the coals. Making a log loaf shape helps it cook quicker.

And finally, just a photo of our tent. I can put it up and take it down by myself in 10 minutes. It’s a Blackwolf 450 cabin tent.

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Day 2 and 3 Christmas Advent calendar

Day 2 was all about being kind. We fed the ducks and played generously with others at the play ground.

Day 3 was make biscuits and package them as presents.

Here is my easy biscuit recipe for stamping out shapes.

Easy vegan biscuits
150 grams vegan margarine
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 cups plain flour, plus extra for dusting bench and rolling
50 ml soy milk
Pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped

Mix all ingredients together. Wrap mix in cling wrap and fridge for 10 to 20 mins to firm up.

Lightly flour bench. Roll out mix to about 5mm thickness and stamp out shapes. Bake on baking paper lined traus for around 10 minutes.  Cool completely before decorating.

Icing
360 gms icing mixture
3 tbsp soy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix together and colour as desired. Spread layer on biscuits and add and sugar decorations while icing is wet 🙂

When icing is completely set, wrap for gifts or store in an air tight container.

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The easiest Advent calendar to spread kindness and joy

We made a super easy Advent calendar this year. So simple to make and the cherubs came up with kind acts and fun stuff to do together. Each paper envelope has the day, a picture and inside  a small note. Some example photos shows our activity 🙂

We stuck them to the wall with blue tac in the shape of a Christmas tree.

Maybe you have some free space on a wall? Hope you have a beautiful season. Xx

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We only had cat stickers to put inside but they still worked well.

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Bonyee Walk – Mapleton National Park

This is an easy walk showcasing massive bunya pines, beautiful palm section and lovely mixed forest with a variety of large eucs. Very pretty and good for small children. Its only a 500m circuit. This is a nice morning out when combined with a cruise around the Yandina markets on a Saturday.

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Hello from me 🙂

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We are your tour guides 🙂

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A faery’s house!

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I’m gonna take a step outside, see what’s shakin’ in the real world 🙂

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Violas mean faeries live here 🙂

Hope you have a lovely weekend xx

The cherubs got their first car today

  
We decided to build a car to take us around Aistralia so we could see our beautiful country. This car turned into s 4WD, a caravan and a camper van. The children were very engaged for hours, in the design, decoration and travelling. They surrounded their vehicle in a blue blanket and exclaimed “we live next to the ocean now!” 

  
Seats were installed and removed, as well as cushions and a small mattress. 

Tomorrow we’ve decided to drive to the Blue Mountains 🙂

Hope you have a lovely week xx

Book review: Bollygum (Australian children’s chapter book)

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Vital Statistics
ISBN: 1 875875 08 5 (PBK)
First published: 1995
Weldon Kids Pty Ltd
Story & Paintings: Garry Fleming
Style: Children’s chapter book
Theme: Australian animal adventure

Oh my! This book is so beautiful, from the very first page. The paintings on each page opening are so detailed, magnificent, romantic that the readers are entranced while engaging with the story.
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Each page opening has a full page painting with a facing page of prose. The language is clear and flows easily, explaining character traits, feelings and the journey with obvious skill.

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The book is described on the back cover like this

Amongst our forests and woodlands there are untouched pockets where time stands still.
This is a story of one such place and the creatures that dwell in it’s valley.
This is the story of Bollygum…

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I describe this story as Australian animals adventuring together, with soft back lighting. A lovely read aloud book with young children and established readers. The first night we read three chapters. Even my active two year old was transfixed the whole time.

This will probably be given by my four year old to her friends as a gift. Beautiful.

The palaeontologist and the triceratops

My daughter told me last week that she going to go to university to study dinosaurs and their bones. I’ve had this gift in the cupboard for five months waiting for her. It’s a dinosaur bone excavation kit, where bones are chiselled away, dust brushed and skeleton cleaned then assembled to make a replica dinosaur. I pulled it out. She was absolutely delighted and kept gasping with surprise, exclaiming that this was so cool throughout the whole activity.

She loved working out what bone would belong to what part of the animal as we discovered them together. The excavation process is very dusty! So once the bones were washed and the cherubs showered, the assembly was finished.

What a fantastic activity. She has requested a Tyrannosaurus Rex for the next project. We are looking forward to it 🙂

This was a great learning experience, led by her interests and involved discussions of geography (where dinosaurs lived), ecology (how they lived, ate etc), geomorphology (laying of materials on top of bones to preserve them), word recognition (reading and listening), anatomy (what goes where) and safety (tools and materials palaeontologists use in the field).

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