This day I love.......: fish

Our Easter holidays seem to be flying by. The first few days the girls have been at football school, something they have been asking to attend for some time now. Wednesday saw them have a break and with that we headed to the seaside with Grandma and our friends. The weather wasn't the best, it was cold, windy and rainy but the week before it had been predicted snow, so in some ways we counted our blessings.

In all my years visiting Scarborough I have never seen the sea as rough or as far in during the day. I was surprised to say the least. The girls were equally as surprised but yet watching the waves crash and spill over the defence walls was mesmerising and something we could not step away from.

Easter holidays seem to be staggered over the country and as a result Scarborough was incredibly quiet. We hardly saw any other people as we walked around the parks.

With many of the usual North Bay attractions closed due to the off peak season we were incredibly happy to see the North Bay railway was still running. It was a bit of a dash as we rushed to make the last train of the day, but Little Man absolutely loved every second.

Whilst he has been on the train before he was only a baby, this time he laughed and smiled. He pointed at the sea and he went choo choo every time the train blew its whistle. He smiled so much, I have never seen him smile as much before and it was just lovely to see.

After exploring the North Bay we headed over to the Sealfe centre, which had come under invasion. Claws.

The new exhibition to SeaLife Scarborough features hands on learning and fact finding.

My daugthers, aged 5 and 7, walked around reading each of the exhibits. Finding out if they were as strong as a crab, what the smallest creature was at SeaLife or even learning about armour.

In addition to the new Claws invasion all the other attractions at SeaLife are open and we spent a good 2 hours walking round, it was no wonder the kids wanted to put their feet up.

Little Man was simply having the best day. First trains and now fish, he even found a playground to play on.

After watching the Seals we headed back inside to look at the fish and marine animals again.

Some of them hiding and others I had never seen before were out and about. Some of them were a lot easier to spot than others.

We had spent a whole day in Scarborough and at 7.30 decided it was time to make the journey home. The kids in their PJ just in case they fell asleep on the way home, Little Man did but the girls did not, and dinner in the car on the journey home.

We always have such a wonderful day out when we visit Scarborough, and this time was no exception. Whilst we may have visited SeaLife several times before it was still great to go again and see the invasion and to get hands on with the new exhibits. I am looking forward to our next trip to Scarborough when hopefully we will be able to play on the beach too!

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We love Fish and Chip Friday in our house, it is our weekly treat and one the girls really look forward to. In fact I am pretty certain if you were to ask the ultimate question 'Daddy or Chips?' both girls would answer chips. Now that Christmas and the festive period is out the way, we are getting back into our normal routine and back to our traditions, like Fish and Chip Friday.

It is nice getting back into a routine again and getting back to normal, but with it comes the girls after school clubs and the need to make quick and easy dinner. When McCain got in touch with their back to normal campaign, I instantly knew I wanted to be involved.

I thought this a great opportunity to share our simple fish cakes that are quick, easy and fun to do with the children and are great when accompanied by McCain Chips, particularly their Crispy Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients

To make Fish cakes:

1x tin tuna

1x tin Salmon

3x eggs

125g Mozzarella [shredded]

3x chopped spring onion

Oats

Plus McCain chips

Method

1. Pre heat the oven for your McCain Chips

2. Mix together in a bowl all ingredients for Fish cakes. The oats are only needed if the mixture is not thick enough.

3. If Mixture does not stick together, then add oats a few at a time until the mixture is thick and can stick together

4. When over is hot enough add McCain Chips.

5. Add oil to a Frying pan, and ensure pan is hot.

6.When pan is hot, spoon fish cake mixture into pan [in balls] to make individual fish cakes.

7. Fry for a few minutes before turning over

8. When golden on both sides fish cakes are ready. They should only take a few minutes

9. Remove cooked McCain chips from oven.

10. Serve Fish cakes and Chips together, and Enjoy

You can add a variety of ingredients into the fish cakes to alter the taste, different fish, peas or even chopped spinach or kale. If the mixture is too thick add another egg and use oats to re thicken. The fish cakes can also be made to different sizes to suit different sized tummies!

“I am a member of the Mumsnet Bloggers Network Research Panel, a group of parent bloggers who have volunteered to review products, services, events and brands for Mumsnet. I have not paid for the product or to attend an event. I have editorial control and retain full editorial integrity. [I have received a voucher as a token of thanks for this post]”.

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Back at the end of November we began the construction of our Blagdon Affinity pillar from Swell Aquatics. The weather then took a turn for the worse, the rain, wind and the cold meant that we put our Affinity Pillar into the garage, until the weather became better and we could install in the garden. All winter the girls have been asking when we can put the fish house in the garden, and we finally have!

We decided to call in an electrician to install the pond outside. Whilst the instructions don't ask for this to be done, we wanted to be able to control the unit from inside the house and thought it would be good to have all the cables correctly installed.

Our Blagdon Affinity Pillar was installed in no time and we filled with water and added the necessary treatments before we could add the fish.

This weekend the girls and I went fish shopping! My eldest wanted 3 fish and she wanted to call them, Nuggets, Fingers and Snow white. The mind of a three year old is fantastic. So we went on a hunt for Nuggets, Fingers and Snow white. After a lot of thought and choice here they are

our Fish, Nuggets, Fingers and Snow White

We put the fish into the water and the girls stood for ages watching them settle into their new home. I decided to take advantage of the inbuilt plant baskets

I love listening to the waterfall and looking out at the Blagdon Affinity Pillar at night, as there is a soft light which makes it look very peaceful. The girls love watching the fish and the great advantage of the Blagdon affinity Pillar is that they can look through the windows but also because its above ground it makes it safer, in some ways, as they would struggle to trip and fall in.

This morning my eldest requested to go and see the fish in their fish house, my youngest however stood at the door and shouted 'Fish Splish Splash!'

Watching the fish in the fish splish splash

Our Blagdon Affinity Pillar is proving to be very popular with the girls and it is such a lovely way to encourage them to be outside and be involved with nature

This day I love Fish Splish Splash!

We were sent a Blagdon Affinity Pillar from Swell Aquatics to review. All words are my own.

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For the first time in a while we have had a weekend with nothing pre planned. It was just lovely to spend some time with the girls and not rushing around to try and get to various things. I had asked my daughter what she wanted to do first and her response was to go to the duck pond. The girls and I took a nice walk around a local country park to feed the ducks. Neither girl wanted to come out the pushchair though, so they both fed the ducks from there.

It soon started to get dark so we headed back home. My eldest was a little disappointed as she wanted an ice cream, but the lolly bus [see my very first post as to why] was not there. The girls and I spent the rest of the evening playing.

My eldest had several requests for today, her first was to play in the garden. I love this request as I enjoy spending time outside with the girls and it also meant we could start putting our pond together, which was my eldest second request.

The weather has not been great recently and since the pond arrived all my eldest has wanted to do was put the 'fish house' together. As part of the renovation of the garden I wanted to not only encourage wildlife to enter but also really wanted the girls to have an area which we could have some fish. The girls love fish and I thought it would be lovely for them. However, two small children and a very excited dog meant I was very reluctant to put a pond in the garden. That is until I came across the Blagdon Affinity Pools. These are free standing units, with viewing windows and seemed the perfect solution for us.

Our Blagdon Affinity pool arrived from Swell UK, and today we started to put it together. After getting out all the parts my eldest and I began construction

Whilst the instructions are simple to follow, and in principle the construction is simple, there are only screws to assemble the unit with the provided screw driver, it was a little fiddly at times aligning the screws and ensuring they were tight. We continued and managed to build our pond. However by this point it had got dark, so we took the completed unit in doors and will assemble the filter/pump and other electrics including waterfall and plant basket on another day. I am looking forward to the finished pond and watching my girls enjoy the fish.

This then prompted my daughters third request, to do some baking. After my eldest was disappointed from her lack of ice cream yesterday we had gone to the shops to pick her up some, and I wanted to do some baking that we could also have the ice cream with. Yes I know its Autumn and its cold outside, but a lovely home made warm pudding with ice cream on is a great warmer and lovely comfort food.

I had decided upon an Apple Crumble. First the girls and I chopped the apples, and then I heated them on the oven, just enough to warm them through, with a little sugar.

My eldest then made the crumble top. I use 100g sugar, 100g porridge oats, 100g plain flour and 50g Butter. These are then all crumbled together by hand

The Apple mixture is placed into a pudding bowl, along with a sprinkle of cinnamon and the crumble mixture applied on top.

This is then placed into the oven at 200C for 30 mins.

Whilst our crumble was cooking, I also made a Chicken pie. Which my eldest wanted a picture of a squirrel on

After eating our chicken pie it was time for our crumble, I got out our ice cream, Kelly's of Cornwall

and added two scoops to each bowl

The girls were very happy

The ice cream melted into the crumble giving a lovely warm creamy taste to the crumble which went lovely with the warm apple and cinnamon. Great warming comfort food for a dark Autumn day. The girls both went to bed with full tummies and both very happy. It was lovely to spend some time with them and not having to rush around. A really enjoyable weekend.

This day I love walks, ponds, ice cream and Pie.

I was sent vouchers for Kelly's of Cornwall Ice cream and was sent a Blagdon Affinity for review. The thoughts and opinions are all my own.