Halloween

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I have read a number of recent blog posts and commentary arguing that Halloween was never as ‘big’ as it is now, however I differ to this thinking as I remember Halloween being an important part of my childhood, perhaps a little less commercial, for example costumes were fashioned from existing clothes but still a time of fun and treats.  This could be down to my Celtic connections, Halloween was always celebrated, bobbing for apples and 50p pieces, jumping up to the syrup pudding and getting dressed up, always followed the next day by the Holy Day of Obligation Mass.  We were often in Scotland at my grandparents for Halloween as it coincided with half term and so its a time of year I always associate with them.  Sadly, my lovely Gramps died on Halloween when I was 18 and fifteen years later I was back in Scotland for the half term week for my Grandma’s funeral.  That week has also been a busy time for family birthdays so there were often lots of cousins and family up with my grandparents too, happy childhood memories.

Halloween is also a significant date in my life, not only did I lose my Gramps on the date when I was 18, a wise, kind and loving man but on Halloween when I was 25, I met my husband.  I like the symmetry of these two men ‘sharing’ a date as they have so many shared characteristics,  love, kindness, family values and responsibility.  Sixteen years ago Halloween was a miserable, wet and cold Saturday night and I was out in town with a friend to see a band, the sort of night you wouldn’t go out in but we wanted to see the band, it was only a gig in a pub and they never made it big!  When we left the pub we ran to the nearest club for a dance and a few more drinks and there on the dance floor I met my husband, I even remember the song playing, Daydream Believer by the Monkees.  Whilst our wedding anniversary is important, Halloween always has a little more significance, its our day!

Our plan for today is a trip to a local attraction which has free entry for everyone in fancy dress.  We went a couple of years ago and it was brilliant, stunning costumes and lots of Halloween treats with a great atmosphere.  We have our Halloween picnic ready.  Before we leave we will pop over to the neighbours to show them our costumes, I’m a witch, Little Miss a gothic bride, her choice following the Phantom House at Disney and Little Man is Frankenstein.  When Daddy gets home from work tonight we’ll play some traditional Halloween games, it just isn’t Halloween without apple bobbing!

Halloween Baking

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As tomorrow I’m planning on taking the children out for the day, today was the day to prepare for Halloween.  We’ve decorated the kitchen, recycling old costumes as decorations, carved the pumpkin and done the baking for tomorrow’s themed lunch.  Above in the photo is some of our baking.  We’ve made orange flavoured pumpkin cake pops, covered in orange chocolate, bat biscuits sprayed with a silver sheen and ghost and mummy cheese biscuits.  I’m proud to say that this is our work, the children were enthusiastic bakers and are becoming much more independent in their work, they were in charge of measuring, mixing and rolling the ingredients.  The finished products may not be perfect but there is so much love,enthusiasm and work gone into making them.

I really enjoyed making the cake pops this morning, my first attempt.  The moulds are brilliant and the cakes were excellent.  I found it more difficult with the coating as it was a specialist ingredient and I need a few more trials.  However I have many ideas bubbling for Christmas baking using the pops.  I had bought an edible ink pen, however this wasn’t as effective as I had hoped and whilst probably better on icing it did not work well on the cake pop coating or the cheese biscuits where I was trying to draw on bandages and facial features.  I like to note down these reflections to remind me for the next time.

In addition to the baked goods above, our lunch tomorrow will include a few more treats, sandwiches in the shape of ghosts, wrapped sausages in bread with tomato sauce as bloodied fingers and ghost bananas and pumpkin satsumas, I love a theme!

Rushing Through Life

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I came across this quote on my guilty pleasure of Pinterest last week.  It made me pause and reflect on my own life, putting into words how I’ve been feeling recently.  I am so lucky to have a loving husband, two amazing children, a part time job which I love and materially all I need.  Yet I feel I have been missing my passion, vitality and spirit.  I looked in the mirror last week to see a grey face staring back, lines appearing and looking tired.  I am not vain but it was a shock to see myself ageing.  I also had a lot of diary entries last week and felt that at times  I was simply there in body rather than spirit.  Last week was a week I look forward to annually as by a quirk of my working life I have 4 days off work whilst the children are at school.  However my days ended full of appointments and rather than getting the opportunity to do some creative things, purchase some festive material for Christmas stockings and buntings, I was meeting education psychologists to ensure one of our littlies gets all the support they need in school, fighting the education authority’s refusal to do a special needs assessment, supporting a prospective adopter by meeting and offering advice, objecting to another planning application on a neighbour’s house which would invade our privacy etc ..  The result of all these appointments was that  I was so drained I felt ill and just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep.  Whilst I did not work, I felt I was physically and mentally recovering from such a demanding period at school.    My work life balance is not in equilibrium at present and I am not the person I want to be.  I want to be the caring and supportive wife, loving and fun Mum, home maker, fit and healthy, creative and vibrant, sparkling woman I know is the real me.  My challenge is to rediscover her so everyone benefits.

 

@Bristol – Science at its Best

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This weekend we spent the weekend with our parents.  Firstly there is the diplomacy to manage to ensure that each family sees the children for the same amount of time, we counter this by staying at both families with the children swapping houses on each night.  Saturday morning was spent with Grandad and Saturday afternoon with Grandma and Granfer and then all together on Sunday morning, its a logistical challenge with lots of driving between the houses, but hopefully a solution which pleases all.

On this visit we were able to visit the interactive Science museum in the centre of Bristol @Bristol.  Its somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for a long time and the children now seem to be at an age when they can make the most of the facilities the museum offers.  The children are at a great age and I am really looking forward to doing more activities with them, each age just makes the children more entertaining, interesting and fantastic company.

The museum was brilliant, everything was interactive and I learnt so much.  The museum has different themes, the body, the solar system, an exhibition on food, simple physics as well as demonstrations, little shows etc.. I had so many favourite activities, freeze your shadow was amazing, looking at my veins pumping blood fascinating, checking my vital statistics and learning that my resting heart beat is good was reassuring and a go at making a short animation which was emailed back to me made me feel quite creative.  My parents and the children loved the museum too and it was lovely to see them explaining all to the children like they used to with me.  I think they too have been patiently waiting to visit the museum to explore and learn.  It is the type of museum you just don’t want to leave and when you do, you are already planning the next trip.

Christmas Presents

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Today was the deadline for the Rotary Christmas boxes.  Its a very simple idea to fill a wrapped shoe box with little gifts for children living in poverty around the world.  Over the years I have collected boxes as my year group’s charity project and made contributions.  Its an appeal which is close to my heart, we live such a blessed life and I get upset that there are children in the world who live in such poverty and hardship.  If my box can bring joy to a child, I feel privileged to be able to do this.   I spend lots of time choosing presents for the boxes, games which can be played easily that’s Jenga and dominoes this year, nice stationery, little toys and a Christmas card. This year I have done two boxes for children the same age as our children, this has made it all more emotional for me.  Amid all the excitement of Christmas Day, I always think of the little people receiving this year’s boxes and hope they are enjoying their Christmas presents.   The presents show that someone is thinking of them and sending Christmas sparkles, to me this is the true meaning of Christmas.

Baking

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This afternoon, I had one of my special baking sessions with Little Miss.  I love baking and whilst my Mum was never a home baker, my Grandma instilled in me a love of baking. ‘Our’ recipe was cherry scones, but at her funeral I discovered that she had taught each of her grand daughters different recipes.   I love that she did this so that her skills and special recipes live on in all of us. The other key baker in my childhood was my Godmother, Auntie Helen, Grandma’s youngest daughter, her marble cake was amazing and never bettered. Growing up, I was always the keen baker at home and my Dad an appreciative consumer, my favourite recipe was a fruit cake from an old black and white recipe book, the magic ingredient being a little melted chocolate.  Being a mum has only developed my passion, I now have more keen tasters and exciting projects, I love a cake for all occasions and have a brilliant Pinterest cakes board for inspiration.  I spend months planning for birthdays, this year we had a Spiderman cake and a Frozen themed cake.  it did feel quite bizarre, making snowflakes on one of the hottest days of the year.

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Today our recipe was for simple butterfly cakes.  I want to keep baking easy and fun so Little Miss can learn the basics and enjoy the process.  I am very careful that it is her work and relax with the presentation.  Little Miss had a lovely time baking this afternoon, perfect Mummy and daughter time and she was so proud of her cakes.  She went up to bed tonight with one of my recipe books looking for our next project.

Letterbox

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This evening, I have finished the task which occupies my waking thoughts in the preceding weeks.   It is a simple task, a letter and some photos of the children, something so easy.  I am so proud of my children and I could easily write reams on their personalities, characters, successes, little anecdotes etc.. and fill album with photographs, yet this letter is to their birth family and it is so difficult to strike the right balance.  For security, we have to be careful not to identify ourselves, so no mention of the beach babes they are as this may give a clue to our seaside town, photos must be vetted carefully for clues, no uniforms, local landmarks etc..  I am also aware of the circumstances of the family and am careful not to boast of the treats and holidays the children enjoy.  To me the most important purpose of the letter is to let the family know that the children are happy, healthy and most importantly loved unconditionally.  In one of the most emotional meetings of my life, I met the children’s birth mother, we shared a hug and I promised her that I would always love, care and be there for the children, we were both in tears so it was quite difficult to get those words out.  I see the annual letterbox contact as one of the ways I can show her I am keeping my promise, its so difficult to write but so important too.

As well as for the birth family, the annual contact is for my children too.  In the years to come when the children are 18, I want to show them that I always kept my promise to their birth family to write an annual contact letter.  I have never had a response from the birth family but I am ok with this, I can only imagine how joyful and distressing the letters must be.  The joy of knowing the children are happy and healthy but the distress of not knowing where they are, the hurt of the adoption etc..  I don’t feel hate or anger towards the birth family, just sadness at their circumstances and respect for their decision to have the children adopted and given a fresh start in a happy, loving family.

Conkers

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I love the simple pleasures in life and today was one of those fun activities which brought us all joy.  We decided on a walk around town, an unusual route for us as we normally explore the local countryside or beach.  However this route meant we were able to visit two play parks and finish off at the station café for coffee and cake.  The highlight of the walk was searching for conkers at one of the parks, we met friends here too so there was a nice social element too.  Collecting conkers from Horse Chestnut trees is a highlight of Autumn, even before children I would pocket the odd conker on walks.  I love the deep colour, the beautiful patterns on the fruit and the childhood memories of conkers games.  Well perhaps it was more the memories of trying to make a hole in the conker to thread through string and various suggestions on how to make them stronger, baked in the oven, soaked in vinegar etc..  It seemed that despite all the preparation, games of conkers were over pretty quickly with one spot on hit smashing the conker.  Today we didn’t use the conkers to play a game, simply using them for decoration and keeping some nice ones for painting in the coming weeks.  Little Miss did distribute conkers around the house, having heard the old wives tale that they scare away spiders, I hope she won’t be disappointed when our little friends scuttle around the house.

Castle Capers

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Last Sunday, I spent much of my marshalling time looking down on a medieval castle.  It is a stunning ruin and one which defines the local area, its on the main road out of our town and I am always bewitched by its beauty, I believe it looks completely different every time I see it, different angles, different coloured skies etc.. Despite having such an impact we rarely visit the castle, we are often close by and enjoy views of it on various walks but its rare that we go in to appreciate the beauty and history of the site.  However, today we were thinking of a family trip and given the excellent weather and quieter tourist period decided it was a great opportunity to visit.

I was really pleased we visited as it was a fantastic trip, there were lots of new features.  We followed a nature trail which led to a natural, recycled play area beautifully set off by a stream with stepping stones, the children loved this and I really appreciate a play area which complements its environment.  In the castle, there were lots of activities for children, there was a castle quest where the children found 6 shields and answered questions on the information given, they received medals for this task and are so proud of them, they’ve both gone to bed wearing the medals and I’ve promised they can take them into school tomorrow to show their teachers.  They were also given a booklet which allowed them to make rubbings of key pictures around the castle, another really enjoyable activity.  Another interesting addition was market stalls showing arts and crafts of the time and aspects of everyday life.  Little Man made a bee line for the soldier with his wooden gun and was fascinated how it worked, he also showed great enthusiasm for the cannon.  To finish the morning we stopped at the castle café which must be one of the prettiest tea shops in the country, an old country cottage with a garden filled with British flowers and a menu reflecting local produce and specialities.

Each weekend we always make time for a family treat, whether it be a walk, trip to a local attraction or simply quality time together in the garden. Time together is so precious and creates those warm, fuzzy moments.

Politics

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Its been an exciting time in British politics with the Scottish referendum this week.  Whilst the no vote has meant we remain a United Kingdom, the constitutional consequences will change the politics and culture of our government.  Whilst for some this will be of little interest, I am loving it all.  I have no idea what the correct term is but I will happily call myself a bit of a political geek.  I studied politics at University and have avidly followed it since without actively participating within a political party.  Despite hating the politician at the time, I was floored (as was Kinnock) by Margaret Thatcher when as part of a 6th form London trip I got to watch PMQ from the balcony of the Houses of Commons, this remains one of the highlights of my life.  I can still remember the poise and elegance of Margaret Thatcher, how she didn’t look like she was listening and then responded with razor quick wit and detailed answers, she was an incredible performer and whilst I could never agree with her politics, I will never forget her faultless performance.  Another highlight was election night in 1997, the election of New Labour, I will always cherish the night spent with my political ally at home my Dad, the disbelief at the scale of the landslide, the hope and belief that flooded the country, my first experience of ‘winning’ an election.  I still get emotional about that amazing night.  By a happy coincidence, I was at a conference near Buckingham Palace on the day Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair and so nipped out at lunchtime to see Tony Blair drive into the palace to resign and for Gordon Brown to arrive to be appointed Prime Minister, another brilliant experience.  its been interesting in this referendum for Gordon Brown to emerge as one of the heroes, to me he has always been a very skilled and passionate politician, but his discomfort at sound bites and media awkwardness appeared to make him a figure of ridicule in the press, he deserved a lot more recognition and respect.

Since leaving University I have missed the opportunities for political discussion and debate, I find it difficult to discuss politics with my husband whose views are very different to mine and conversations with friends and colleagues centre on other interests.  Consequently I listen to political analysis and comment on Radio 4, read the quality press and am appreciating the new medium of social media.  For me events like the Independence referendum are wonderful, a rare opportunity to immerse myself in politics, stay up all night to listen to results and then pore over analysis, can politics really be a guilty pleasure?   One of the highlights of the Indy ref has been the introduction of the vote for 16 and 17 year olds, I was informed and opinionated at that age and to see such levels of engagement and participation among the Scottish youth has been inspiring.  I hope to develop a strong set of values in our children which I hope will make them want to be active, thoughtful citizens.