The amazing flying tube!

I'm a sucker for a little geek sad project to try and impress boy1 and boy2. So I was excited to see a very unusual paper aeroplane on QI the other night. This was essentially a tube of paper slightly weighted at the front end which flew straight and true with a little spinning overran throw.

As the boys have recently been coming back from school with armfuls of traditional paper darts this seemed a great opportunity and I was pleased to find a good PDF on the web which has now been printed and folded. It don't look much but it really does fly! Can't wait to see the boys reaction!

Changes...

So nearly a month has gone by since the last blog and I've been busy on the business front. A chance conversation in August has led to a very exciting opportunity to move the business into much larger and better located premise s which, I hope, should hugely increase our footfall on a daily basis.

Of course this means that I've spent the last few weeks reading 90 page leases, talking endlessly to telecoms and electricity companies (not my favourite way to spend time!), sorting signage and, not least, finding a new tenant for our existing space. So excuse me if I have not had time to blog!

Seeing (pasta) stars

Tiny pasta shapes are, apparently, a staple baby food in Italy.  And we have in the past stocked a whole selection of different shapes and sizes in the shop from a company called Plasmon. 

 

However, since we squeezed the baby food out of the current shop some time ago we have had to buy our baby pasta from other sources. 

 

Yesterday boy3 had a bowl of baby bolognese with pasta stars and I realised I'd forgotten how sticky and difficult to remove from anything the little pasta stars are!  By the time I'd finished the kitchen (not to mention the batch of lunchboxes I was also preparing) were covered in the little blighters!

 

 

A nervous month ahead...

Those who know me often say that I'm laid back and nothing fazes me. Little do they know that under the relaxed facade is often a nervous wreck. I remember the job interview for my last employed job and the hr manager said something like oh, and it all comes pretty easily to you doesn't it? To which my response was well, i'm like a swan - all serene progress on the outside whilst underneath I'm paddling furiously.

Anyway, my point for this post is that I'm having a squeaky bum moment as we've just agreed terms on new business premises which will pretty much treble our floor space in one go. Of course it also trebles our rent and increases the business rates bill massively, and leaves us with a shop unit to let out in Tavistock but I'm sure that will all turn out fine.

On the plus side it means that I'll have a lot more room to assemble our lunchboxes (check out http://www.Lunchboxesetc.co.uk) and a whole lot more room to display our ever increasing stock of quality second hand children's clothes.

Erg! (part 2)

So, boys1&2 are at a friend's house today which leaves me a chance to fall back into my term-time indoor rowing regime a week earlier that I expected.  For those who are interested I'm trying to follow a training plan loosely based on the pete plan and the wolverine plan.  This means that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday lunchtimes when boy3 is asleep I get to do a quick session on the rower.

A couple of days ago I did a 5000m long row session. Today it was a set of 4x1000m reps.  The aim of my training plan is to do at least 3 sessions a week - one long row, one sprint reps session (500m reps) and one longer reps session (1000-1500m reps).  I'm logging all the rows on the concept2.com logbook and ranking the faster ones against the other online members on there which is definitely a good motivation tool as I can see when I move up the rankings.

What surprises me is the speed with which I can improve my 2000m pb by doing lots of sprint rep training sessions.  I guessing a lot of this is mental improvement in that you get used to going at a certain pace and know that you can carry on at the pace for a  good period.

Anyway my good intentions are now published and out in the open so I'll have to keep up with the plan won't I!

A new lunchbox design for back to school 2012

I've justed added this new poppies design lunchbox to my website lunchboxesetc.co.uk in time for the back to school rush this year!

There is still plenty of time to order a personalised lunchbox in time for the first day of term.  Just tkae a click to go to http://www.lunchboxesetc.co.uk.

A rainy bank holiday Monday

Perfect weather for preparing a bumper lot of personalised lunchboxes to go to the printers today. Although we did get out for a wet walk this afternoon. Boy3 was in the backpack, the others with full wet weather gear. No such thing as inappropriate weather etc etc .