Well hello October!

As always seems to be the way, all the things are happening at the moment - let's try going back to work AND get your house ready for going to market Laura, that makes LOADS of sense.  This means that all the things that I would normally be doing, like cooking and blogging, haven't been happening.

So what's new?

Last weekend I went to see the Bluetones with my very good friend (and colleague) Alison.  It was a great night - so good to see them back together again, even if it did involve epic journeys and getting home after 1am.  I couldn't stop smiling all night and I clocked up about 7000 'steps' while I was there (I'm sure a few of them were clapping but I'll take them anyway!).  I also took the opportunity to pop into The Stable for dinner.  Service was a bit slower than I'd like but the pizza was fantastic.  This time I tried the Harbour Herbivore but switched the blue cheese for mushrooms.  Fantastic.

Roo had her last Baby Sensory session... only for me to extend her time by three more weeks as it was just too difficult for me to make that the last session - not least because we missed 'Say Hello to the Sun' at the beginning.  It's going to be a genuine wrench when we are done.

We'll be starting up Gymbabes next week.  I'm hoping it won't be too long until she moves up to Tumble Tots - she seems ever closer to taking those steps but never quite.

I tried this incredibly spicy marinade that Encona sent me.  I used it on aubergine and it was frankly delicious.  I did also try it on halloumi but the squeaky cheese was just a bit resistant.  It also caused my frying pan a bit of trouble.  I'll definitely give them another try - I hadn't thought about how I can use marinades in my cooking as a vegetarian but I'm sure there is some experimenting to be done!

I also went to my first blogging event - a conference at the Winchester Science Centre.  Mr K and the kids had a day of hanging out there and I got to play with editing a photo of a big pile of sweets - and met some fantastic bloggers, including Eats Amazing, The Boy and Me, Mummy Barrow, Mammasaurus and also discovered Sadie from Tiaras and Wellyboots who had spent a bit of time digging around my blog.  It's always a bit strange to hear someone talking about what you've written, or tweeting you about something you've done.  Nice but a bit strange.

It was an interesting day.  So far as I could tell, there weren't many foodie bloggers (apart from the aforementioned Eats Amazing who creates some fantastic food for kids) but as I dabble in a bit of parenting blogging here and there that was fine.

I particularly enjoyed the photography session with Annie from Fable and Folk.  It gave me a few things to think about... I didn't really clock the fact that you can customise your photography a little more on Instagram and not use the presets.  I'm really happy with this sweet picture I took.

It was a bit of a kick to remind me that I should spend a bit more time playing on Photoshop/Lightroom rather than relying on Picmonkey too.  While I love PicMonkey, some of the reason I went into blogging in the first place was to up my photoshopping skills and I lost that along the way somewhere.

I also really loved seeing the Scummy Mummies in performance and also The Unmumsy Mum talking about how she doesn't do all those things that bloggers "MUST" do.... and she's pretty successful.  Refreshing.

It's my birthday today... and I'm blogging.  Which is exactly what I wanted to do.  I've missed it here. Hey, maybe this week I'll even manage to cook something that doesn't come out of a jar/the freezer/make a ping when finished...