So, today Miss Frugal decided to make some chocolate cupcakes for her Dad seeing as he's working until 4pm on what looks to be the hottest day we've had so far this year.She made them herself with no help from me and she couldn't wait to get them iced so they'd be ready for him when he came in from work. She broke the chocolate into pieces in a bowl and popped it into the microwave as we normally do to melt it.It was going well until the microwave made a few crackly noises, sparked a bit and then made a rather loud bang!  We're now left with an unpleasant smell, what's left of the … [Read more...]

I'll start by saying that I'm really not that big a fan of Doctor Who.  I just don't see what the fuss is all about if I'm honest but the rest of my family are huge Doctor Who fans so I tolerate it for them. Just.So you can imagine my disappointment when we went to Liverpool last week and a poster we saw on the train advertising some sort of Doctor Who exhibit at Spaceport put paid to my plans of wandering round the shops and Albert Dock.  Instead I ended up ferrying across the Mersey on a very cold windy day to get to this place so we could look at Daleks and Cyberman.  Whoo Hoo.Like … [Read more...]

As much as I love to encourage the kids to play outside wherever possible and to do other none computer related things when we're in the house, I have to accept that they're going to want to play on the internet!For the most part, I'm happy for them to use the internet - Miss Frugal is required to use it every week to research her homework anyway and I genuinely believe that the right amount of time on the internet is good for them, as long as you make sure that you know exactly what they're doing online.We use a mix of educational sites and fun sites and I do limit the amount of time … [Read more...]