Swimming Lessons

Because I have had a bad cold, I didn't want to get in the pool with Tabitha at her swimming lesson - no point adding my germs to the Germ Soup that is a local pool!

So my best friend Amy came to the rescue, and took Tabitha swimming for her lesson.

During the lesson, the babies are continually helped to swim to the edge, and assisted to pull themselves out, crawling clear of the water.  It is hoped that they will eventually learn that, if they fall into water, they should swim to the edge and climb out, or at least cling to the edge.

Tabby loves her swimming lessons - she puts her head under the water for a few seconds, and although she always seems most surprised by this, she remains cheerful for the lesson!

We went to Hays Paddock for Mothers' Group - it is a massive adventure playground, designed for all children including those with disabilities.  It is well worth checking out, even with older children, as the equiptment is really challenging.

While we were there, a strange looking pigeon kept harassing us.  It had a fancy feather arrangement around its neck, like an Elizabethan neck-ruff - so elegant.  I suspect it was a domestically bred pigeon which had escaped, since it was SO tame!  It ate (stole!) bread out of our hands and kept climbing ONTO the babies as they crawled around.  Some of the babies were terrified of it (which I must admit was cute to watch) but Tabitha kept trying to grab it and bite it!  One mother picked it up and carried it all the way to the other end of the park, but it just walked back, following her, and wouldn't leave us alone.  Strange!

NB: I realised I should point out that feeding bread to birds isn't a great idea, even though lots of us used to do it as kids, I think - the yeast isn't good for them.  Birds are better foraging for their own seeds and worms, and certainly not stealing chocolate biscuits as I saw the swans at the Botanic gardens do once, eek!!!

I used some of the passionfruit from our backyard vine to make a passionfruit slice, which I took along to mothers' group.

Here are some of our passionfruit:

Here is my recipe:

Line a slice pan (18cm x 27cm) with baking paper, coming up the sides a little (you can use this to lift the slice out when it's done).  Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Combine 80g icing sugar, 165g self raising flour, 95g dessicated coconut and 125g melted butter in a bowl, stirring until it comes together.

Press evenly into the prepared slice pan, and bake for around 12 or so minutes, or until lightly browned and risen.  Leave aside to cool a little while you make the topping.

Take about 6 passionfruit (this really depends on the size - sorry, I can't be too specific!), and scoop the pulp into a strainer over a bowl.  You need to collect about 2 tablespoons (40ml) of the juice without seeds.

 To the 2 tablespoons of passionfruit juice, add 50ml of passionfruit pulp (seeds and juice from while passionfruits - about 4, depending on size).  You will have a total of 90ml of passionfruit.

Tip a tin of condensed milk (395g) into a bowl.  Add 115ml lemon juice, and the 90ml of passionfruit.  Stir together, the mixture will thicken slightly.  Pour this over the base, and bake for 10 minutes.

Put the slice in the fridge.  When cool, you can remove it and cut it into 4cm squares.  Store in the fridge in an airtight container.  This slice made about 24 pieces, which lasted less than 24 hours!