Legejunglen - GREAT for a rainy day

Free for the adults and unlimited play once you've paid for the kids.

Laura (6) and Petra (1.5) were ready for an adventure the day I
took them to the play jungle in Slangerup. 

It is huge - especially by Danish standards.

But as you can see by the shutter speed, it soon became clear that Laura would be up,
down and off to the next challenge long before Petra made it past the first hurdle
- with me following up her rear.

I'm going to post this while I walk the dog and then put up some more photos.
He's crossing his legs, and not being the most tech-savvy blogger in the worls,
I wouldn't want to add 'washing the carpets' to my list of things to do today :).

WATCH THIS SPACE

Phew, that's better. And I've cleared up the hedgehog poo outside 
ours and the neighbours' too. 
There must be an industrial application for hedgehog poo - 
it has EXTREMELY effective adhesive qualities.

Good job they are so cute.

Anyway, back to the play jungle and the first ball pit.

The biggest slide was certainly the volcano.

Laura was great at finding handholds.

Petra seemed to think she could toddle on up there - look grandma, no hands!

Wow. Halfway up!

Near the top!

And parachuting down again. Good idea to wear leggings!

And no the person who left more than a CO2 footprint wasn't us, 
but it did make us think about getting angles of trajectory right!

Come on Grandma, you can do it!
Our next post will show more fun obstacles, including this 'mangle', which I was pleased I managed to get through. Headfirst, and fairly quickly. I didn't have much choice as both kiddies had shot through it in a matter of seconds and were heading off into the interior intestinal tract of the monster playground.

Potty time at the open air museum

This is cheating a bit but I'll pass it off as a good way to learn some Danish
- if you can zoom in close enough.
This is just one of the MANY old houses at the open air museum.
But these photos will give you an idea of what to look forward to
on this huge site, where admission is free.

All the potter's tools are on display

Neatly lined up.

Ouch - also at head height. Though judging by the height of some of the doorways,
Danes may just have been related to hobbits.

Imagine the potter sitting with his back against the wall,
treadling like mad with his feet (if there's such a word)
so the base goes round as he's shaping the lump of clay
 on the top. I guess that's how it works, anyway.
I'd be no good at that because I can't even rub my tummy while patting my head!   

Here's the kiln where the pots were fired.

And here are some more pretty pots. Is that a pig's head hanging on the wall?

This photo has nothing to do with the museum, but Dr Watson has just had his whiskers trimmed.
Hold on, Watson...is that a packet of crisps?

Make a cute mouse egg cosy

These are the cutest egg cosies I've ever seen and you can 
buy them at the Open Air Museum in Lyngby, which is well worth a visit.

If you live on another continent, or fancy a couple of hours sewing, you can follow
 in our footsteps and have a shot at sewing something similar. 

Cut out a shape roughly like this. Mice are all different sizes -
they just nibble their mouseholes a bit bigger to fit,
so exact measurements are not a problem ;o)
Just make sure that the lower edge of the fleece is long enough to go right
round the fattest part of the egg cup and leave a bit for a seam down the side.

This is what ours looked like. Fleece is great because you don't need to
hem edges, it's stretchy but firm to sew and you can trim ears as you go along. Eeek,

This is the point when Jake took the raw egg we were using as a pattern and
tried to demonstrate some law of physics he'd seen in a video.
That's why the table is shiny wet and I had to wipe down my machine.
In his defence, yes, I believe raw eggs are strong if you push top to bottom
but NOT if you squeeze them round the middle! Yuck! 

Now that's all cleared up, back to the mouse. Sew a seam
down one side and across the other shoulder.
Fold the nose back, as shown, and sew the two sides.
 Trim the ears rounder, see above. 

You can see the lines where the stitching are better in this photo.
One shoulder poked out more than the other, so we ended up running a
 seam of stiching down that side too at the end to even things out.

Now take a deep breath Mr Mouse as we turn the nose inside out
and then tuck it into the neck hole. 

Push it right down until the whole nose is inside the body
with the edges meeting at the top of the neckhole.
(Like you do when sewing a sleeve into a shirt).

There will be pleats/bunched up bits but that will all be under his chin, and most
 of us have a few spare chins tucked away under there. I stitched this by hand as it was a bit fiddly.

In the very foreground of the picture above, you can see what will
be the top of the head and the ears each side.
DON'T SEW THESE BITS TOGETHER YET! 

Now turn the mouse the right way out by pushing the nose right into the body
and pulling the body down until the seams are hidden inside.
Now push the ears through the holes and run a line of stitching around the base of one ear,
around the back of the neck and around the base of the other ear (see above).
When you gather this stitching slightly, it will shape the head and ears.  

Now we sewed on button eyes and a popper-stud nose.
Then Jake stuffed the head with offcuts of fleece
and other grey matter to pad out the head.
Brainy.

Jake thought this photo was really blurred...

So he took this much better one instead. Complete with whiskers and a smile.

The perfect dipper eggs take 5 minutes exactly from when the eggs are lowered gently
into the bubbly water - by a grown up.

HAVE FUN!

Spiking interest...

in wildlife

So who do you think might be tucked away all cuddled up in here in a
cosy garage owned by a friendly foster mummy?

He's a bit shy to start with.

And a wee bit sleepy as an overly keen gardener had woken
him up from his hibernation by accident. Isn't he sweet!

And quite long too.

With quite nibbly teeth. 

He wasn't alone, either.
At the moment Conni has about 6 hedgehogs to look after,
fattening them up while the weather warms up outside.

Another little fellow was rummaging about in the newspaper shreddings.
We could just see his nose inside the box but couldn't get a good photo.
Jake tried with his phone but we didn't want to scare him with the flash.

There are two hedgehogs in this big box but they don't get on
so the doors to their separate hoggy homes have to face different ways. 

Outside in the carport, Conni's clever husband has made this multi-box condo that
can be sectioned off to house lots of hedgehogs needing help.

That's just as well because last year Conni had 86 hedgehogs to care for
- 23 was the most at one time.

Of course, hedghogs like woodpiles better than moving boxes.

The bigger the better!

Conni started fostering seven years ago when a family of young hedgehogs lost their mum. Now she has at least four permanent prickly residents in her garden.

So what does it take to be a hedgehog foster mum?

You need time, according to Conni. A call can come any time, though the peak season is from May until November. And you need the stamina to care for sometimes wounded, infected hogs and to remove ticks, mites, maggots etc. if necessary from the poor little creatures. Naturally, the society puts new recruits in touch with an experienced contact person to help advise on looking after sick hedgehogs, bottle-feeding hoglets and homing hoggies. Food (kitten biscuits) is delivered to the door and the cost of medicine is covered by the society. Anyone interested in volunteering in Denmark is welcome to write to plejeransvarlig@pindsvin.dk. They are also interested to hear from potential drivers who can pick up hogs and drop them off with foster parents though the petrol isn’t refunded and all work for the society is voluntary.

If you don't have a big woodpile like Conni, but would like to give a
hedgehog a home, they can make do with a pallet pad covered in insulating plastic...

...and full of straw.
We'll be making our own pallet pad for a hedgehog next time we go up to our cottage
where the garden is big enough for a new resident and the neighbours are friendly too.
So look out for that post in a week or two.

BUT FIRST...next Sunday (3 May) we'll be posting photos of how to bake a chocolate and strawberry hedgehog cake to celebrate the first day of Hedgehog Awareness Week in England.

Mmmmmmm! Fingerlickin' good!

Who needs perfection in confection anyway?
A good dollop of fun is the icing on OUR cake!

Fed up with eggs? Hope not...

Because here's how to make Scotch eggs

Sausage meat (we made our own). Enough to coat the number of eggs you need - about 1 cm thick)

Hard-boiled eggs (boil for 8 mins should be about right)

One raw beaten egg

Flour

Breadcrumbs (some big and some smaller)

Grated onion

Milk (four tablespoons)

Thyme (sprinkling)

Here is Jake grating breadcrumbs. We used half a loaf altogether)

Mix the minced pork with some largish breadcrumbs,
grated onion and a sprinkling of thyme. Roll the hard-boiled eggs in flour.
Now take two lumps of the sausagemeat mixture and
mould it evenly round each hard-boiled egg. If you only use one lump and try and squash it round a whole egg, you may find the coat kind of explodes and the egg starts popping out.

Coat al the eggs.

Turn your computer sideways ;o). Mix four tablesppons
of milk with a raw beaten egg.


Dip the Scotch eggs in the egg and milk mixture.

Roll them in the small breadcrumbs.

Jake got quite fast at it. Make them nice and even.

So they look something like this.

Get an adult to heat the oil. Fry the Scotch eggs.

Then when they are nice and golden brown, take them out and
slice them in half with a knife dipped in hot water.
We missed the yolk with this one but Jake doesn't like yolks
so that was perfect!

This one...

...worked better.

When they are all done, garnish with tomatoes and serve hot or cold.

Watson loved them.
Here he is in his Easter bonnet.
Very chic!