Halloween 2013

Halloween is a tricky one for me (like what I did there?)

Brought up by a deeply spiritual Christian woman, I was never taken trick or treating.

We were allowed to have a small party to ourselves, dress up, apple bob, eat donuts from strings pinned up over a door way & we were even allowed to raid my mums spice rack a make 'potions' (at least I think we were, we certainly did it regardless).

Trick or treating was considered begging at best, theft using fear & intimidation at worst.

As I became an adult, Halloween still never really hit it off in my life. I don't watch horror movies because I'm a giant wuss, so all the macabre and scary stuff just doesn't have a place in my head.

However, now I have children.

There are things I've done every single year, I always carve a pumpkin. I carried on going to my Mum's house to bob for apples and eat donuts.
Over the past few years I've started to make sure I have a bowl of sweets for the neighbourhood kids when they come round, and I've started to build up a box of decorations, bought from the supermarket during regular food shops or bought in sales at the end of the season.
Each year has been a conscious effort to make more of the season and this year, thanks to Pinterest, we made decorations together and had a Halloween dinner the night before. 

This year we were invited to a party at a friends, after which we all went trick or treating together as a group. The kids were on strict instructions to only knock on the doors of decorated houses, and each time the door opened one of the parents would apologise for the amount of children present.

It's funny. We watch so many American TV shows & movies, where Halloween is huge, and it has changed here so much in the past few decades, but it still felt a little awkward to me. I don't know if, as a 'door opener' you're supposed to pretend to be scared by the children in their costumes or what, but it defiantly seems that us British types haven't got the whole thing just yet.

Sadly, because we were out all night, my bowl of sweeties went un-trick-or-treated. What a shame.

We went to bed that night feeling quite proud of our boys who only had a few of their treats (self discipline at 4 & 5, how unexpected), but when I got up in the morning I found two boys downstairs sat on the sofa next to two empty buckets and a lot of sweetie wrappers. Never mind.

Bean with his decorated biscuit at Un-School.

Ed decorating a biscuit at Un-School.

Ed making chocolate spiderwebs.

Bean eating a spiderweb.

My attempt at chocolate spiders.

My dodgy attempt at sausage Mummies, as seen here.

My entirely-made-up-on-the-spot zombie brains. I made it using filo pastry, with a layer of tomato puree and cheese, rolled up all wiggly, then sliced & placed in a baking tray all hap-hazard like & baked. Yummy cheesy goodness.

My creepy eyeball jelly did not go to plan.

Yummy meringue ghosts.

Foraged Fruit Crumble

I know some of you will scorn, either because you think this should have happened ages ago, or because you think it's maybe a bit minging, but for me this is very, very exciting.

Yesterday the boys and I went to the park with a friend, M and her two girls to feed the ducks and have a play.

While the children were investigating the edge of a field, one of them came rushing back to us proudly clutching a berry.

I was immediately excited simply because it wasn't one the those red/orange things that usually get squished into my car seats.

So the grown ups (me included) went to check them out. We found a tree bursting with sloe berries. Thankfully, because we'd been feeding the ducks using a bag of chicken food my excellent friend had so thoughtfully brought with her, we had an empty carrier bag. So the four kids helped us collect sloe berries as well as some elderberries M had noticed and we filled our bag. My boys were so excited, so proud of themselves bless 'em.

So we rushed back to M's house to make a fruit crumble using the berries we'd collected and some apple & pears from her garden.

I have to be honest, I wasn't very brave when M was picking the bugs out as we washed the fruit. I can't stand earwigs, they freak me out, so watching her let them crawl all over her hands as she collecting them from the fruity water made me squeal like a big girl.

Anyhoo, I bravely de-stalked the fruit as M made the crumble. I like the way M didn't faff with the fruit to make the crumble, she just threw it all in a pan, sprinkled some sugar over, then covered the lot in crumble mix and baked it for an hour.

Man, it was tasty. Especially because it was gluten free, so I could eat it without falling asleep yay!

I could eat crumble all day.

I took a massive bowl full of berries home with me and spent today boiling it down and blitzing it in the juicer. It turned into this rich, thick syrup. I froze it in ice cube trays for adding to fruit smoothies  and the like. Since there was so much juicy pulp left over, I put it back into the pan with some hot water and some sugar, boiled it, then sieved it & added it to gin.

I tested that earlier, and it's a little too feisty to drink over ice, so maybe I'll add more sugar or berries or both. I'll decide later.

Looking forward to throwing some of those fruity ice cubes into a shake in the future....

Silent Sunday

Don't Panic. It's only Facebook.

I am constantly being driven mad (but not driven away it seems) by the shit people post on Facebook.

The constant;

For crying out loud. The fact they are always so unbelievably easy tells me one thing.
Information sharing spam.

The incessant 'police' warnings making women feel unsafe going to the frickin store (that's a rather in depth rant that I'll not get into here, but it had to be mentioned).

The candy crush invites....

These;

Whatever your beliefs might be, the idea that angels or god or whatever is 'challenging' you through Facebook is absurd. I think this shit is nasty for so many reasons. In my humble opinion it is false hope giving lies. This comes from a place of love and care, but if your life is so broken, only you can fix it.

I hate all 'like'/'share'/'ignore' memes. Full stop. Especially the ones that use photos of really poorly children....grrrrrr.

I'm also annoyed by the fact that every other day there is a new 'missing person/dog' spread on Facebook. I usually google them, if I have a moment. The reason I've never shared one is because they have almost always been found. Of course I understand how useful social networking sites can be for sharing information quickly, but it's a useless tool if people become blasé about seeing these things presuming them to be bullshit. If we checked them before we shared them, it would be a far more powerful weapon.

So anyway, now this;

Now we're all terrified of six legged spiders??

Cue the back story which has made me write this today.

Yesterday my boys were playing with a spider, which by the time I caught them and recommended they put it in the bug collector so they could look at it, only had six legs. I presumed they had managed to pull in the off in the unmentionable game they were playing with it before I came to the rescue. But when I saw this on a friend's page, I began googling, fearful that they had in fact been playing with something quite dangerous.

Now I'm going to have to say it.

I didn't want to. 

I didn't want to be a bitch. 

But people, will you please, before you put something on your FB wall, will you please google it? 

Find out for yourself if it's true or not.

This is what I found, after months of being annoyed by the whole 'sudden influx of 10,000,000,000 deadly spiders in the U.K.' thing.

Google was mostly full of cheap newspaper articles about deadly spider bites, but there was also some real information about the species.

Interestingly, this spider the noble false widow, has been in the UK since it came in on some bananas in 1870. 
So no sudden influx. 
Just an increase in numbers and a movement north as our climate became warmer.

Also, it turns out it's not so deadly, since no one as actually died. Ever.

Warning, don't watch this video if your stomach turns at the crawling of a spider over a persons hand. Mine does. I held it in because my boys were watching and I'm trying to be brave.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/false-widows--it-s-probably-a-false-alarm-152131532.html

I learnt a fantastic new fact today. There are 670 species of spider in Britain (blurgh), but only 12 of these are capable of biting a human (yay!).

So, I think we should try to be more responsible about what we throw onto our timelines, and not just click it without thinking.

And let's try not stress people. 

Relax.

Even if you've seen it on Facebook, doesn't mean it's true :)

Life is Better with a Dog

Every Sunday, we go to my Mum's for dinner and a play.

Mum has two big dogs, one of which she has had for years, but the Husky is a new addition to the family.

I came away last Sunday feeling really, really lucky that we have these marvellous creatures in our lives.

I am thrilled to bits to see how well she has settled in and how well she treats my boys.

She's only a young dog at no more than a year old (she's a rescue and no-one is sure how old she is), so she's full of beans and feist, but once again Mum has managed to find a dog who can put up with small children.

Bean in particular loves all creatures great and small. He's a cuddler, which often means typical four year old type strangulation and 'over-loving'. He'll learn in time to be more gentle, but for now I'm just grateful we have dogs that won't give him the nip he probably deserves.

This is Bean snuggling with Cassie. The most marvellous thing I've noticed about Huskies is the love of snuggles.

This is the boys trying to make the dogs sit for a treat. It's difficult with two kids who are learning how to speak to a dog and two dogs who are the same size as said children...

Bean and Cassie a few weeks after she moved in.

This is our lovely little Milly.

Our lives are so enriched by these dogs.

It's hard to put it into words without getting a bit too soppy.

It's clear, not matter what kind of dog you have whether it's a handbag dog, or a great big horse of a thing, it makes your life better. However crap my day has been, spending a few milliseconds giving Milly a little chin scratch cheers up right up. A sofa cuddle with a blanket and a Milly puts me in a better mood than a whole tub of Ben & Jerry's (the lack of eater's guilt obviously helps too haha). In fact, nowadays, even though it doesn't happen very often, if I ever throw a blanket over myself while I'm sat on the sofa, Milly knows her place and joins me immediately.

It's these moments that I forget what's been chewed....

This is Ed when he was a bit poorly. She always seems to know who's feeling pants and loiters until she's invited for a snuggle. Although I think on this occasion cheeky Milly is simply enjoying the opportunity to lay on someone's pillow...she does not like cold floors haha. I'm sure she's not alone in this, but if there is ever anything fabric or cosy on the floor, she'll be asleep on it before you can blink.

Milly playing in the snow last winter.

My Miley Rant

It's time.

It was guaranteed to happen eventually.

Here is my Miley Cyrus rant.

I've watched from afar.

My formative years weren't spent with pop music.

Mummy brought us up on Madonna, Meatloaf and the occasional classical music CD. Actually thinking back, it was mostly 80's rock. When it became my choice as to what tape to put in, it was usually Bon Jovi or Bryan Adams, which somehow led me to Metallica and other rock music. I spent my late teens surrounded by metal.

So I am not in the pop scene. I've only a vague idea of who's who.

I see snippets thanks to X factor, YouTube and Facebook but I don't usually like what I see (still watch X factor though, car crash telly at it's best).

But there are two things that make me mad. Rihanna & Miley.

Dirty bitches. That's the first phrase to come to mind.

But those bitches can siiiiiiiiing.

It's a crying shame.

It makes me glad I don't have daughters.

And I hope that my boys will grow up to become men who turn away when a chick lifts her skirt for anything less than mutual love behind closed doors.

Oh god, I sound like a prude. I am so not. But dude, that doesn't need to be on my TV.

I do not need to see Miley's ass crack. Ever.

I'm happy to hear the girl sing, but I don't need to see her tits.

I YouTubed Miley's VMA performance after everyone ranted about it the day after.
Then I watched the 'we cant stop' & the 'wrecking ball' video so I could form my own opinion.

Wow.

The first thing that popped into my mind when this shot came up was what I'd look like in this pose....how did she manage to contain those tiny nipples? Mine would be round my neck hahaha.

On a more serious note, I did notice the similarity between the crying scenes & Sinead O'Conners video & I personally thought it a cheap shot at adding 'depth' to the vapid, shallow, nastiness that is that video.

I love that Sinead o'Conner stuck up for what it right & true. It's so predictable that Miley responded with that immature twittering.

My baby sister used to watch Hannah Montana, so obviously I've ended up watching a few episodes & I'm vaguely familiar with her on screen/off screen Daddy. 
Man, I feel sorry for Billy.

role model? really?

I think these days, artists really do need to understand the importance of being a good role model, and that this is not OK. By all means, enjoy your youth, go out and party. But it's not OK to brag about your need for chemical help to enjoy yourself, it's not OK to take your clothes off in public, it's not OK to encourage little girls to look like little boys in that awfully gangly, anorexic way. And it's definitely not OK to prostitute yourself and lessen your actual talent. Please excuse my bluntness, but I believe humans are so much more than 'where I can shove that in'.
I find her claim that she shaved her head, inspired by Sinead, to gain a little control over her image disturbing (obviously I think people can do what they like with their hair/bodies, but in this context, it seems an odd thing to do).

"I just cut my hair and then it really changed my life. There’s something about having no hair that screams being confident. And I think especially because people like to put people in a box — I mean, the names I’ve been called since I cut my hair......I’m at a point where it’s like I know who I am, but I know that I’m not finished figuring that out and I won’t be finished until I’m in the dirt.'   taken from; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2442749/Miley-Cyrus-simulates-sex-Terry-Richardson-shoot-swipes-Sinead-OConnor.html
Let's hope that in time, she delves a little deeper and finds herself some actual self esteem.

A Week Housesitting at Mama's.

I'll be honest. We couldn't afford to go on a proper holiday this year. We chose this and we don't feel too bad about it. However, any opportunity for a 'holiday' will always be grabbed at, so when my mother-in-law asked if we could feed her cats while she went away, we took the opportunity to house sit, and spend a week in Derby, my husband's hometown.

The boys and I left on Tuesday night after a day playing with friends, and the boys slept the whole way.

Peace and quiet for a whole two hours.

On arrival, we found that Mama had (as promised, because the boys tend to break things) put most of the breakables away in one of the bedrooms, but still there was a lot of trinkets and things to worry about in all the bedrooms, so we decided we'd be safer if we all slept together on the living room floor. Plus, my husband and I find it difficult to sleep on a soft mattress, so we knew the floor would be better than Mama's bed.

So, we gathered together some bedding and built our camp.

Sleeping beauties.

On our first day (Wednesday) we met up with an old friend of mine, L and went to Markeaton Park for a play in the adventure playground and a little wander.

Steam was burnt off, sticks were found, ponds were investigated, fun was had by all.

Ed & Bean at the top of 
the crow's nest.

Bean trying to copy his older 
& braver brother.

Ed enjoyed going down the slide backwards, but when Bean tried it he panicked and got stuck. Daddy had to go rescue him, which was hilarious because no-one realised his trainers wouldn't hold him on the slope so he slid straight down to Bean. Bean burst into laughter and forgot why he was worried.

The pond in Markeaton Park gardens.

On Thursday, Daddy took us all to his childhood haunt, Allestree Park.

We had a wander through the woods, along the lakeside and up to the old derelict house. It took hours and poor Bean's little legs struggled, but we had a completely lovely time.

'Sweeping out' the 'stick tent'.

We found a great den, which the boys insisted needed a bit of a sweep out, so they grabbed some sticks and scraped away at the floor.

Popping seed pods.

Daddy showed us all these crazy exploding seed pods. I think it's this but I'm not sure.

They were too much fun, and the boys & I found we just couldn't stop popping them!

I pocketed some seeds, so maybe we'll grow them, though obviously with such a prolific method of spreading, I may regret that!

On the hunt for bugs.

Found: millipede.

We had a little hunt to see what we could find. It took milli-seconds to find a millipede, which was then lost, but then found again.

In Allestree woods with Daddy.

Bean looking for fishes.

Ed & Bean in a tree.

Happy Ed.

Ed, just before he realised 
he couldn't get down.

Ed got stuck up here.

Call me mean, but it was hilarious.

Ed will climb anything he can get a foot hold on. He climbed up onto the fallen tree, along the trunk and then up to the top of the root ball. He can jump really far and from really high, but it turns out over 6 foot is too high for him (I would've worried about his little ankles anyway). So I stood underneath and offered to catch him, until i realised there was a little notch of a broken root just in front of his crotch. If he had jumped, he would've scraped his man bits right off (!), so between us, Daddy & I had to lift him over it somehow, then catch him. Ridiculousness.

On Friday, Daddy had to drive back home to go to work for the day, so we went back to Markeaton Park for a paddle in the pool. The boys spent an hour in the cold water having a whale of a time. Then they got dry & dressed and warmed up while playing in the adventure park.

Markeaton Park paddling pool.

Ed in the paddling pool.

Bean stomping through the paddling pond.

Ed. Rocking.

Playing on the slide together.

On Saturday Daddy went fishing on his own all day, so we had a chill day, watching TV, playing in the garden, playing board games and doing some workbooks.

Mama's house is pretty pristine, so the clean up operation had to begin on Saturday.

The boys found it impossible to eat anything without spilling it, so we had a hell of a time cleaning up after them. 

There was one horrible moment when Bean sat at the table eating pizza. 

Everything was protected from spillages, etc, when all of a sudden he dropped his pizza on the silk curtain behind him! 

Holy crap! 

Thankfully, science gave us baby wipes, which are of course incredible at getting any stain out so long as you get there fast enough. 

There is no trace of Bean's boo boo.

The bathroom was a tad skanky, after having little boys in it for a few days. I'm sure anyone with little boys knows what they do to the back of the toilet....

Plus I have the thickest, blackest hair which unfortunately falls out everywhere so I felt inclined to tidy all that nonsense up. After all, who wants to come home to find their bathroom full of someone else's hair? Yuck.

Breakfast at Mama's.

Naked vacuum cleaning. 
Of course.

Playing in Mama's garden.

Jumping off Mama's garden wall.

Bean enjoying Mama's cat, Kiwi.

Ed brushing Kiwi's fur with a 
handmade lego brush.

Both my boys love all kinds of animals, so of course Mama's cats were over loved and chased around the garden. Many hissy fits were had when they managed to escape into next door's garden. Thankfully, they are very easy going cats.

But man, we missed our little doggie.

Sunday was our last day, but a full day it was.

Proud boys showing me the ladybird they found.

The boys and I went to join Daddy where he was fishing with Uncle D & his two children.

Harlequin ladybird

Walking through 
Allestree woods.

Spotted! Daddy fishing on the other side of the lake. But how do we get there?

The lake's overflow hole.

After a mammoth walk around the whole lake (should've gone the other way around), we finally found Daddy.

The boys weren't nearly as interested in fishing as Daddy had hoped, but Ed managed to make himself a fishing rod using a stick he'd found, with some old line tied on. He was pleased as punch when I tied and old screw to the old so it gave him a good plopping sound when he cast out.

Bean simply enjoyed 'stirring' the water and throwing random leaves in.

Ever the homeschoolers these days, we of course had a quick game of 'will in float or sink, and why'.

While I was holding Daddy's rod, I accidentally caught a fish.

Yes.

I haven't a clue.

My fish!

Fishing with his stick.

Fishing with his new rod.

When the boys had had enough of that, we left Daddy and Uncle D to it and went to the park with Auntie L and baby Nile.

Ed doing something Bean just can't 
bring himself to do - the fireman's pole.

Then we went back to Mama's, packed up the car and headed to Darley Park, where Derby Live was hosting a classical music concert. It's on every year and when we lived in Derby we usually went.

Ed's oreo eyes.

It's always a fantastic evening, which culminates in some awesome fireworks set to some epic music. I can't remember how many times we've braved it with two little boys who can't sit down for more than 5 minutes, but we were nervous about how they'd behave. They proved to us we needn't have worried and behaved delightfully. No-one ran off, or wee'd themselves, or anything too horrid. They did however eat too many biscuits, but it was nothing a little walk couldn't solve.

 

Gorgeous pink sunset.

L had bought them both a glow-in-the-dark sword, which was a massive hit. I had intended to get them something glowy, knowing there'd be flashy light up toys for sale from expensive vendors, but it had slipped my mind.

Awesome Auntie L saved the day!

(3 days later, and they are still playing with them).

Watching the fireworks.

Fireworks over Darley park.

Bean & I watching the fireworks.