Thursday Thirteen: Great Englishwomen

Inspired by this article by historian Bettany Hughes listing her choice of the ten greatest Englishwomen - I'm not claiming these are the greatest, and if I did the list again next week it would probably be different, but today I am picking this list of thirteen:

(1) Saint Hilda of Whitby ... abbess of a double monastery (monks and nuns), and the brains behind the Synod of Whitby, which settled that the English Church should follow the customs of Rome rather than the Celtic Church.

(2) Julian of Norwich ... medieval mystic, whose influence spread far beyond her anchoress's cell.

(3) Queen Elizabeth I ... love her or hate her, she ruled as a woman in a man's world for over forty years, in many respects successfully.

(4) Venerable Mary Ward ... a seventeenth century English nun, founder of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Declared Venerable (the first step to sainthood) by Pope Benedict in 2009.

(5) Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough ... the power behind the throne for much of Queen Anne's reign, and also an ancestor of Winston Churchill.

(6) Jane Austen ... one of the greatest of English writers, male or female.

(7) Elizabeth Fry ... Quaker and prison reformer.

(8) Florence Nightingale ... nursing pioneer.

(9) Emmeline Pankhurst ... leader of the Suffragette movement, who fought to win the vote for women.

(10) Charlotte Mason ... determined to give children a "living" education, she had a strong influence on both schools and the training of teachers.

(11) Beatrix Potter ... not just for her children's books, but because she was one of the founder members of the National Trust and saved large tracts of the natural beauty of the Lake District for future generations to enjoy.

(12) Rosalind Franklin ... a pioneering scientist who made the initial discoveries of the structure of DNA.

(13) Margaret Thatcher ... whatever you think of her politics, as the first female prime minister she has to be on the list.

Thursday Thirteen: Festive Fare

Perhaps I should rename this blog The Foodworm. I have definitely done more eating than reading this year, and probably more talking about food than about books. Note to self: Rediscover Bookworm identity in 2011!

Thirteen things I have enjoyed eating over the Christmas holidays:

1. Turkey

2. Roast parsnips

3. Christmas pudding

4. Brandy butter

5. Smoked salmon bagels

6. Cheese footballs

7. Twiglets

8. Turkey soup

9. Bendicks bittermints

10. Marmite flavour cashews

11. Brie cheese

12. Marzipan fruits

13. Luxury rice pudding with Drambuie soaked dried fruit (made by Tevye's cousin, using a Delia Smith recipe)

And the Christmas 2010 booby prize goes to Thai Sweet Chilli flavour Pringles. Gross. I couldn't find anybody prepared to eat more than half of one, so they ended up in the bin.

Funny how many of those are things I could buy at other times of year, but just don't. (Does anyone buy cheese footballs at any time other than Christmas?)

Oh, and I am drinking Whittards winter spice flavour hot chocolate. Whittards hot chocolate is just the best - worth the price of ordering online.

Thursday Thirteen: Christmas Decorations

Thirteen things that are making our house look Christmassy:

1. Advent calendar. This one has / had chocolate coins in for Cherub, the older two have Cadbury's chocolate calendars.

2. Animated teddy that sings Jingle Bells. Someone gave it to Cherub when she was tiny. She was terrified of it, but now tolerates it so long as nobody switches it on!

3. Playmobil nativity set. Mary has apparently gone walkabout. Must remember to look for her tomorrow.

4. Silver spiral tree originally bought to use as a Jesse tree. This year I only remembered for the first four days, so decorated it with red and gold baubles - much more cheerful than a mostly bare, failed Jesse tree.

5. Cute snowman decoration made at school by Cherub. Very simple - two cotton pads, a paper face and hat, stuck to a small plastic milk bottle and decorated.

6. The girls' stockings are hanging from the bannisters. This snowman stocking is Cherub's.

7. An angel decoration made long ago by Angel.

8. Christmas cards stuck to the bannisters.

9. More Christmas cards displayed in the ornamental card tree I bought last year to use as a Jesse tree. This year I switched trees to accommodate larger ornaments (failed!) so it is being put to its intended use.

10. Advent wreath on the dining table. A wooden candle ring with an artificial candle wreath and pillar candle inside. It took me years to come up with an advent wreath I liked. On Christmas day I will switch the purple candles for gold ones.

11. Tiny olive wood nativity. about four inches high. Picture not great as there is a yellow tissue box behind.

12. Metallic star decorations dangling randomly from the ceiling.

13. Christmas tree - five feet tall, artificial. Star and Cherub decorated it and chose the colour scheme. It stands on a small table in front of the patio door, and the red curtains make a nice Christmassy backdrop.

Thursday 13: Microchip Memory Lane

I'm not sure what got me pondering the various computers and electronic games devices we have had over the years, but once I started thinking about them it turned into a list. So, does anyone remember any of these?

1. Pong ... yes, two little paddles and a ball, bouncing around the TV screen. The height of electronic excitement in its day.

2. Sinclair ZX Spectrum ... (this was Tevye's, but I'm shamelessly including it in my list to make up the numbers!). One of the very first home computers, that required programming to make it do anything. Tevye and programming do not go together, so the Spectrum was not a success. He doesn't remember ever buying any software for it, so the poor thing sat unloved and unused.

3. Amstrad 1512 ... my first ever computer, bought when I started a degree course in 1989. The 512 figure was to indicate the whopping 512k of RAM. These machines revolutionised the home computer market in the UK, because they were genuinely usable. I wrote all my essays for three years on my Amstrad, using a cheap word processing program.

4. 286 Computer ... I think 286 was the processor speed? (386 and 486 machines were bigger and better). If I remember rightly this one was not a Windows machine, but it did run Word Perfect. Again, it did the job - I wrote my doctoral thesis on it - and I think it was the first computer I used online, paying £10 a month to an ISP for 10 hours of internet time.

5. Olivetti Quaderno ... I loved this machine. So much so, that I still have it. Although the keyboard is shot, I can't bring myself to throw it away. The Quaderno was a tiny computer, way ahead of its time - so much so that it never really found a niche in the market and I bought mine half-price around the time I started as a doctoral student. It had 20Mb of storage (I think), ran Word Perfect, had a full keyboard, synced with my desktop computer, and had four hours battery life. With a spare battery pack, I could work all day in a library or archive taking notes. It was small enough and light enough to fit in a handbag - not much bigger than my iPad. This at a time when laptops were large, clunky, and expensive.

6. A.N.Other Computer ... about which I can remember nothing, except that it was my first Windows machine, running Windows 95.

7. Sega Gamegear ... given to Angel by my brother, who acquired it from a friend who bought it in the States. Probably out of date by the time we got it, as no new games were available in the UK. Still, it kept Angel happy with the handful of games that came with it.

8. Handspring Visor PDA ... similar to a Palm, and something I used a lot for a while to keep track of my life. Ideal for a list lover! Angel like mine so much she bought herself a used one on eBay.

9. Handspring Treo  ... a PDA upgrade, mine was the only Treo model that was not also a phone. I chose it because it had a small but usable QWERTY keyboard. I still have a strong preference for little QWERTY keyboards over standard phone keypads.

10. Compaq Presario ... this desktop computer ran Windows Millenium and I was happy with it for quite some time, until it got too slooooowwwwww.

11. Playstation2 ... we are not big gamers here, but we enjoyed our Playstation and it still gets plugged in occasionally if Angel fancies playing one of her old games.

12. Creative Zen MP3 player ... did what it said on the tin. Played MP3s.

13. Assorted laptops ... when the old Presario reached the point of driving us crackers, we decided to switch from a desktop to a laptop. We learned the hard way that cheap laptops do not cope well with heavy use from four people. Within 18 months we had returned three laptops that developed faults while still under warranty - one Compaq, one Toshiba and one HP. After that we gave up and switched to Macs.

These days we have an iMac, a MacBook (both 2006 models, but swinging along nicely since their memory boosts and software upgrades, apart from a thin blue line down the iMac screen and some insulating tape holding the laptop charger lead together), an iPad, assorted iPods - I have a first generation iTouch, Angel has a Nano, and Star a shuffle - and a Wii.

Thursday 13: Christmas Music

Thirteen tracks from my Advent and Christmas playlist:

1. Christ is Born a Child on Earth (Patricia Spero, from Celtic Christmas Harp)

2. A Christmas Carol Symphony: Rondo Finale (Patric Standford)

3. Dies Natalis (Grimethorpe Colliery Band)

4. Ding, Dong Merrily on High (Maddy Prior, from An Evening of Carols and Capers - just love her voice, and especially her Christmas carols accompanied by Renaissance instruments)

5. Gaudete (Steeleye Span)

6. Improvisation on Christmas Carols: Allegro (Bryan Kelly)

7. Merry Xmas Everybody (Slade - a bit of 70s. It may be loud, but it's cheerful!)

8. O Wisdom Antiphon and Magnificat (London Fox Players, Advent Promise)

9. The Kingdom Triumphant (Sellers Engineering Band - playing this in our band Christmas concert. I end up half dead after playing all the trombone fanfares and full throttle ending, but it is worth it!)

10. Troika / O Little Town of Bethlehem (London Cello Orchestra, A Cello Christmas)

11. Veni, Veni Emmanuel (Hayley Westenra, Winter Promise - stunningly beautiful, ethereal voice)

12. Walking in the Air (Aled Jones - because The Snowman has been part of so many family Christmasses)

13. While Shepherds Watched (Maddy Prior, An Evening of Carols and Capers - I love the violin on this)

Thursday 13: Sixties Child

What an inventive, thought provoking blogger I am ... not! Life seems to be whizzing past without much time for coherent thought, but I can at least manage to churn out memes.

This week, thirteen things I remember from my 1960s childhood:

1. Long socks. I remember wearing long white socks to school until I was maybe 12 or 13. These days I rarely see them - the younger girls almost all wear short socks in summer, or woolly tights in winter.

2. Black-and-white TV, which is apparently beyond my children's comprehension.

3. Paper bags. Lots of things came in paper bags - sweets, of course, but also fruit and veg, and any smaller items. Large items went directly into a shopping bag. When did plastic carriers come into common use? Early 70s?

4. Brown painted woodwork. Old-fashioned even in the 60s, but older people's houses often had doors, skirting boards and staircases painted brown. Was it war issue paint, or just 1940s style?

5. Ski yoghurt, which was at the cutting edge of culinary adventure. Foreign food!

6. Big pennies, and other pre-decimal coins, like silver sixpences, half-crowns and the multi-sided thruppeny (three-penny) bit. I'm not quite old enough to remember the farthing (quarter-penny). Oh, and doing arithmetic in pounds, shillings and pence - 12 pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound. Children today don't know how lucky they are!

7. Coal fires and coal delivery trucks. We always had a coal fire in the sitting room, and electric fires in the kitchen and bedrooms. I don't remember anyone having central heating in those days.

8. Lino. Particularly the cold lino floor in my unheated bedroom (or at least, unheated until I got out of bed and crossed that freezing floor to turn the fire on.

9. Outside toilets. Most people I knew did have inside bathrooms in the 60s (though we did have a long disused two-seater thunderbox at the bottom of our garden!), but my primary school still had an outside toilet block. In winter it froze. Enough said.

10. Operator connected telephone calls. Some numbers were on a direct dial exchange, but not all. A far cry from todays mobile networks.

11. Record players. I know these were still around in the 70s and 80s, but in the 60s there were only record players - no cassettes or CDs, just records. I remember having a record player with a switch for playing 78s, but I don't think we had any.

12. Ink wells in desks, dip pens to write with, and blotting paper. (When did you last use blotting paper?)

13. Strap on roller skates. Remember those?

I got to the end of this and then had a hunch that I had done a similar Thursday Thirteen before. Sure enough, I had - but it is long enough ago and different enough that I am not going to worry about having the same good(?) idea twice.

Thursday 13: Holiday Food

I enjoyed the Thursday 13 posted last week by Pamela at When Good People Get Together, where she listed memorable foods from thirteen different places she had lived. I haven't moved around enough to copy her directly, but I thought I'd adapt it to favourite foods I remember from different holiday destinations. Working roughly in chronological order:

1. Cornish Splits and Clotted Cream (Padstow, Cornwall) 
My great-aunt and uncle lived in Padstow until I was six, and I remember sitting at the dining table there (funny that I can still picture that dining room) eating splits - kind of like a cross between scones and bread rolls - with strawberry jam and clotted cream.

2. Knickerbocker Glories (Isle of Wight)
As a child we went to the Isle of Wight for a summer beach holiday for several consecutive years. Going to a cafe for ice creams was a treat, and I remember often copying my mum and having her  favourite, the knickerbocker glory.

3. Cornish Pasties (St.Just, Cornwall)
After a spell in Norfolk, my aunt and uncle moved back to Cornwall, where I developed a taste for pasties.

4. Curd Tarts (Yorkshire)
Yes, that is curds as in Little Miss Muffet's curds and whey - mixed with currants and used to fill a pastry case. I love curd tarts, and have never seen them anywhere except Yorkshire. The best ever come from Hunters of Helmsley.

5. Moussaka (Corfu, Greece)
The first Greek island I visited was Corfu, back in 1979, which is where I discovered that Greek classic, moussaka. Yum.

6. Kataifi (Kos, Greece)
Next up on the Greek list was Kos, and lots of time hanging out at a cafe-bar that sold the most gorgeous cakes. Traditional Greek desserts are a lot like Turkish, with lots of nuts and honey. For me kataifi, made with a kind of shredded pastry (looks like shredded wheat), has the edge over baklava.

7. Gelato (Rome)
Italian ice cream. Enough said.

8. Turbot (Calais, France)
Back in our very early days together, Tevye took me on a day trip to Calais, where we ate at a restaurant recommended by a former colleague with gourmet leanings. I had a truly memorable main course of turbot, cooked to perfection.

9. Crab Sandwiches (Jersey)
While Tevye was recuperating from surgery on his back we spent a week on the Channel Island of Jersey. Most days we ate lunch in a little cafe overlooking a bay, where they sold the best ever crab sandwiches. Delicious.

10. Vegetarian / Vegan Food (Totnes, Devon)
When I was three months pregnant with Angel we spent a week in a cottage in Devon, which coincided with the beginning of the end of pregnancy nausea and the realisation that eating was at least an occasional possibility. My first real meals in a couple of months came from a vegetarian / vegan cafe in Totnes. For some reason they appealed to my frazzled taste buds where meat based meals just didn't.

11. Danish pastries (Weymouth)
Since Angel and Star were quite small we have holidayed regularly at a caravan park in Weymouth, Dorset. One holiday treat is to share a giant slab of Danish pastry from the Dorset Cake Company for breakfast.

12. Moules a la Normande (Normandy, France)
Mussels are a classic dish for northern France and Belgium, and apples are ubiquitous in Normandy. Combine the two and you get mussels cooked in apple cider and cream. 

13. Doughnuts (Thassos, Greece)
Our favourite Greek island is Thassos, in the north. A fixture on the beach since we first went nearly twenty years ago is the doughnut seller who strolls round at intervals with a tray full of chocolate doughnuts, jam doughnuts and plain rings. No prizes for guessing my favourite.

Thursday Thirteen

I haven't done one of these for a long time, but here, short and sweet, is the starting school edition. Thirteen things Little Cherub has done at school this week.

1. Played in the vet's surgery.

2. Petted a guinea pig.

3. Drew a monkey with a banana which she cut out and stuck on card ready to display.

4. Played a monkey game involving hanging plastic monkeys on a tree.

5. Listened to The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

6. Looked at a real caterpillar.

7. Played a recycling game on the computer.

8. Played in the playground.

9. Gave a doll a bath in real water.

10. Brought home a story book of her choice.

11. Used a painting program on the computer.

12. Learned to stop what she is doing and listen when the teacher rings wind chimes,

13. Was made "special helper" for the day.

Thursday Thirteen: Doubled

Two for the price of one today ... I saw this alphabet meme at the S/V Mari-Hal-o-Jen

A is for age:
Only 28 months to go until I hit fifty. Eek! My head says about 32! I only wish my body agreed.

B is for burger of choice:
Cheese and bacon burger. Calories? What are calories?

C is for what kind of car you drive:
Vauxhall Zafira. It isn't pretty, but it is friendly and obliging.

D is for your dog's name:
I'm allergic to dogs and Tevye is not a dog person. As a child we had dogs called Jock, Patch, Bess, Judy and Lassie. I wouldn't say originality in choosing pet names was a strong suit.

E is for essential item you use everyday:
My laptop.

F is for favorite TV show at the moment:
Grand Designs, in which people build their dream house. Something I am never likely to do, but I get vicarious pleasure watching other people.

G is for favorite game:
Scrabble

H is for Home State:
Does county count? Buckinghamshire, though I now live a few hundred yards over the border in Bedfordshire.

I is for instruments you play:
Funny! I just realized I have learned a new instrument every decade of my life! Piano and violin to start, then added viola in my teens, organ in my twenties, flute in my thirties, and baritone (brass instrument slightly smaller than a euphonium) in my forties. I also play guitar a bit. What should I learn in my fifties?

J is for favorite juice:
Pink grapefruit

K is for whose butt you'd like to kick:
Whoever is responsible for the Early Years Foundation Stage of the National Curriculum.

L is for last restaurant you ate at?
A carvery pub

M is for your favorite Muppet:
None. I'm not a Muppet fan

N is for Number of Piercing:
2

O is for overnight hospital stays:
Five. Tonsils, orthodontic surgery, three babies.

P is for people you were with today:
My husband and daughters. Usually I have a cup of tea with my neighbour after she finishes work before the girls get home from school, but I have to take Star shopping after school.

Q is for what you do with your quiet time:
Blog

R is for biggest regret:
That I was such an utter pain in my pre- and early-teens. My poor Mum!

S is for status:
Very married

T is for time you woke up today:
6.30, thanks to Little Cherub - quite late by her standards, early by mine.

U is for what you consider unique:
My ability to give completely random answers to questions I haven't listened to without realising I have done it. When you have children this can be a Very Bad Thing.

V is for vegetable you love:
Roasted parsnips

W is for worst habit:
Saying "just a minute" and taking ten (or more)

X is for x-rays you've had:
Dental and a foot injury as a teenager - turned out to be sprained not broken

Y is for yummy food you ate today:
Yesterday (it's a bit early today) ... Dorset apple cake I baked yesterday afternoon. Shame none of it lasted until today.

Z is for zodiac sign:
Libra

Thursday Thirteen: Past Times

Down memory lane ... thirteen things from my childhood that my children have never known.

1. Coal - I grew up with coal fires. I remember regular deliveries by the coal man and houses with "coal holes". I doubt my daughters have ever so much as seen a lump of coal.
2. Records - the black round things with a hole in the middle that came before CDs.
   
3. Juke boxes - do you remember putting a coin in the slot, choosing your music and hearing the machine make clunk-clicking noises as it loaded the record.
4. Mutton - we often had mutton chops and roast mutton on Sundays. Now all mutton is apparently dressed as lamb.
5. Dripping - spread on bread, or bread fried in dripping (bacon fat). Nobody had heard of cholesterol in those days!
6. Operator-connected phone calls - yes, I am old enough to remember a time before all telephones were on the direct-dial network.
7. The test card - no round the clock TV in my childhood. During the times when nothing was transmitted, the BBC used to show the "test card" - a picture intended to demonstrate that yes, you were receiving a signal, but no, there were no programmes to watch. The testcard was, of course, in black and white. (I remember seeing my first ever colour TV in the home of an affluent friend when I was ten.)
   
8. Wind-up watches and clocks - no battery operated timepieces in those days. Although my girls have seen a wind-up clock (my mother has an antique grandfather clock), they have certainly never had to remember to wind a watch.
9. Old money - pounds, shillings and pence. Twelve pence to the shilling, and twenty shillings to the pound. Money problems in arithmetic were not fun, even to the mathematically inclined. ("If John bought a table for £5.13s.4d and six chairs for £1.2s.11d each, how much change did he get from £20?" Ugh!) We used a completely different set of coins, not to mention pound notes instead of coins.
   
10. Inkwells and dip pens - for most of my schooldays, school desks had inkwells that were always kept filled as we were only allowed to write in "real" ink. I am even old enough to remember a year or two where we had to use old-fashioned dip pens, provided by the school. Fade ... smudge ... splatter ... blot ...
11. Log tables - the alternative to the yet-to-be-invented pocket calculator. After a certain age maths meant an ever present book of "log tables" - logarithms, sines, cosines and more - to make impossibly long-winded arithmetical calculations possible without electronic assistance.
12. Sweet (candy) cigarettes - so we could pretend to smoke like the grown ups. How un-PC is that!
13. School milk - little bottles of milk we had to drink at morning break every day. Room temperature, and sometimes no longer quite at their best. Drinking your milk was not optional. Consigned to history by Thatcher the Milk Snatcher.

Thursday Thirteen: Knitting

One of my new year's resolutions was to take up knitting again, and it is one I have kept with enthusiasm. Here are thirteen good reasons for knitting.

Knitting is:

1. Soothing and relaxing - that gentle click, click of the needles and rhythmic movement
2. Simple - you only need to learn two basic stitches, knit and purl
   
3. Easy to pick up if you have a few spare minutes - no setting up and organising required
4. Economical - it is possible to buy yarn very cheaply, the internet has a huge number of free patterns, and you save money by knitting things you would otherwise buy
5. Portable - you can tuck your knitting in a bag and take it anywhere
6. Satisfying - you get to wear, use, or watch your family and friends wear your finished articles
7. Environmentally friendly - wooden or bamboo needles, natural fibres like wool, cotton, silk and bamboo ... an ecologically sound hobby. You can even recycle old clothes by unravelling them and reknitting the same yarn.
8. Sociable - knit with friends, chat to other knitters.
9. The perfect hobby for bookworms - with a little practice you can learn to read and knit simultaneously.
   
10. Toddler friendly - how many other crafts can you do with a toddler around?
11. Flexible - there are so many different things it is possible to knit, and an endless variety of patterns and yarns.
12. Addictive - once you start, you can't stop!
    
13. Fun!

Thursday Thirteen: Seeing Yellow

I haven't done one of these for a while, so here, for spring, are thirteen yellow things I like ...

1. Daffodils - my favourite flowers
2. Buttercups - another favourite. Maybe because I also like ...
3. Butter - yes, the real, comes-in-a-block, saturated fat stuff. I justify only ever buying the real thing on the grounds that a little butter is better than a lot of low-fat spread. In fact, according to Tevye's biochemist cousin, a little butter is better than even a little margarine, which he wouldn't have in his house. (I'll gloss over the fact that he has since moved on to only using olive oil.)
4. Sunshine - at least I think I do. Can someone remind me what it looks like?
5. Sunflowers - big, yellow and beautiful
6. Smiley faces - because they brighten up dull text much more than :) and ;)
7. Bananas - yellow superfood
8. Lemons - lemon sorbet, lemon mousse, lemon cake, lemon chicken, lemonade, lemon squeezed on pancakes ...
   
9. Little Cherub's cute duvet cover - now I just need to paint her room yellow to match
10. Yellow cars - supposedly the safest colour, because they are most visible. I was once the proud owner of a yellow car, until it died of old age.
11. Golden lion tamarins - aren't these the cutest monkeys? One of my favourites at the zoo.
12. The yellow brick road - can't you just see me dancing down it, off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz .. dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum ...
    
13. Winnie the Pooh - the original, not the Disney version

Thursday Thirteen: Happy Christmas

Thirteen things that made this a happy Christmas ...

1. Singing carols in the High Street on Christmas Eve
2. Happy girls sitting on our bed opening stockings
3. Little Cherub's happy squeak of recognition when she opened a package and found Iggle Piggle
4. Mass on Christmas morning (despite Cherub's best efforts at disruption)
5. Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, the cooking of which all went to plan
   
6. Socialising with family, friends and neighbours
7. Chocolate
   
8. The Doctor Who Christmas special
9. My new iPod Touch
10. A leftovers breakfast for Boxing Day (smoked salmon sandwiches for Tevye and I, houmous and yellow pepper for Angel, grumbles from Star because there was no leftover apple pie. Oh, and I finished up the Christmas pudding with brandy butter and cream. Yes, I do have good digestion!)
11. Visiting Grandma for Boxing Day tea and enjoying the comparison with last Christmas when she was in hospital recovering from hip replacement surgery and we were trying to pack up her house ready to move
12. Reliving my childhood by playing my brother's favourite childhood game, Coppit. I found a set in a charity shop and couldn't resist buying it for him.
    
13. Watching a BBC adaptation of Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes - a real treat, despite a little plot tweaking to add a romance for Garnie.

Thursday Thirteen #21: Favourite Authors

If I could only take books by thirteen authors to a desert island ... chosen in part for variety and with a leaning to more prolific writers (I wouldn't want to run out of books, now, would I?).

1. J. R. R. Tolkien
2. C. S. Lewis
3. Elizabeth Goudge
4. Peter Kreeft
5. George Weigel
6. Charlotte Mason
7. Winston Churchill
8. Bill Bryson
9. Michael Palin
10. Ellis Peters
11. Geoffrey Trease
12. J. K. Rowling
13. Elinor M. Brent Dyer

Thursday Thirteen #20: 40 Reasons to Have Kids

Yes, forty is the new thirteen ... but after reading Karen's and Sarah's lists I couldn't resist adding my own selection. Here are forty rather more lighthearted reasons for having children (Karen set out the real reasons far better than I could do).

Why have children? When you have children you get to ...

1. Stuff your pockets full of conkers.
2. Ride rollercoasters
3. Eat more ice cream
4. Re-read beloved books from your childhood.
5. Find new beloved children's books.
6. Have tickling fights.
7. Play on the swings.
8. Whizz down slides.
9. Visit the zoo.
10. Watch fun movies.
11. Jump in puddles.
12. Enjoy sloppy kisses.
13. Cuddle a lot.
14. Play board games.
15. Tell stories.
16. Sing songs.
17. Listen to jokes.
18. Bake cakes.
19. Ride bikes.
20. Row boats.
21. Draw and paint.
22. Make scrapbooks.
23. Throw parties.
24. Take picnics to the woods.
25. Play on the beach.
26. Borrow your daughter's iPod.
27. Have your nails painted by your own personal manicurist.
28. Have your hair arranged by your own personal hairdresser.
29. Go clothes shopping with your own personal fashion adviser.
30. Kick balls.
31. Throw frisbees.
32. Fly kites.
33. Go swimming.
34. Pick blackberries.
35. Watch fireworks.
36. Play in the snow.
37. Visit Father Christmas.
38. Fill stockings.
39. Make new friends.
40. Laugh a lot.

Thursday Thirteen #19: Autumn

Thirteen reasons why autumn is my favourite season ...

1. Crisp, cool mornings with a hint of mist ("Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ...")
2. Golden brown leaves.
3. Walking through leaves crunchy with frost.
4. That optimistic new school (or homeschool) year feeling.
5. My birthday.
6. Comfort food for cold weather (soups, stews, apple crumbles)
7. Hot chocolate.
8. English apples
9. Bonfire Night (perhaps not the most appropriate holiday for a Catholic to enjoy, but I do love bonfires and fireworks).
10. Autumn feast days (Archangels, Guardian Angels, St.Therese, St.Francis, All Saints, All Souls)
11. Warm fluffy socks.
12. Snuggling under a cosy blanket.
13. Christmas just around the corner.

Thursday Thirteen #18: Favourite Saints

Excluding the Holy Family to leave more scope, a slightly random selection of favourite saints (ask me again tomorrow and I would probably give a different list) arranged in more or less chronological order ...

1. St. Peter. I find it so reassuring that Jesus chose an impetuous fisherman who couldn't live up to his own expectations to lead his Church.

2. St. Thomas. Another thoroughly human saint. If even one of the Twelve could doubt Jesus, I feel better about my own weaknesses and inadequacies.

3. St. Joseph of Arimathea. The rich man who gave up his own tomb to Jesus, only to have it become the site of the Resurrection. The story that Joseph subsequently came to England and settled at Glastonbury may be legend, but it is a beautiful one.

4. St. Helena. I can't help but admire a woman whose influence helped convert an Empire, and who trotted off to the Holy Land in her old age to try her hand at archaeology. And she is one of my patrons, as my middle name is Helen.

5. St. Nicholas. The real Santa Claus.

6. St. Benedict. The father of monasticism in western Europe. His rule is so humane and still applicable nearly 1500 years after he wrote it.

7. St. Thomas Becket. Who would have guessed that King Henry II's egotistical, display-loving chancellor would end up a saint and a martyr. Pig-headed, stubborn and at times a thorn in the flesh even of his friends, Thomas's flaws make him seem very real to me.

8. St. Hugh of Lincoln. An outstanding English medieval saint. Even Henry II was prepared to tolerate outspoken cricitism from Hugh, which says a great deal for his force of character.

9. St. Francis of Assisi. Simply extraordinary.

10. St. Thomas More. Brave, humane, intelligent, likeable, and prepared to die rather than go against his conscience.

11. St. Teresa of Avila. An woman of great energy and humour as well as outstanding spiritual qualities. I chose her as my confirmation saint, then realised later that her feast day is my birthday.

12. St. Bernadette of Lourdes. One of the first saints I "met" after I became a Catholic.

13. St. Michael the Archangel. Can I count him? Representative of all those angels that guard and defend us. (I suppose chronologically he should be first!)

Thursday Thirteen #17: Macs

Thirteen reasons I love my Macs and will never, ever (I hope!) go back to a Windows PC:

1. They look so good. (What do you mean looks aren't everything? OK, you have a point, but there is no denying they are stylish. Sadly, unlike their owner!)

2. You take them out of the box. You plug them in. They work.

3. They almost never crash.

4. You don't need anti-virus software.

5. They print documents in the right order - last page first, so that the pages end up the right way round. No shuffling back-to-front piles of paper.

6. Built-in iSight cameras. No webcams with wires.

7. They don't keep asking you if you are really sure you want to do what you have just told them to do.

8. MacBooks come with magnetic power leads, so if someone trips on the lead or yanks it no problem ... no damage.

9. No slide out CD/DVD drawer. Just slip the disc straight into the side of the machine.

10. If I forget where I put a file, a Mac will find it for me in seconds.

11. My computers talk to each other. I can play music stored on the iMac on the MacBook, or access a document on the MacBook from the iMac.

12. iMovies. It keeps my children entertained - creatively! - for hours.

13. I will never have to "upgrade"(!!!) to Windows Vista

Thursday Thirteen #16: Classical Music

Thirteen of my classical music favourites:

1. Allegri, Miserere
2. Haydn, Trumpet Concerto in E Flat
3. Vivaldi, Concerto in G for Two Mandolins
4. Bach, Concerto for Two Violins
5. Elgar, Cello Concerto
6. Vaughan-Williams, Fantasia on Greensleeves
7. Rossini, William Tell Overture
8. Handel, Hallelujah Chorus (from Messiah)
9. Mozart, Horn Concerto No.4
10. Beethoven, Symphony No.6 (Pastorale)
11. Vivaldi, Esurientes (from Magnificat)
12. Pachlabel, Canon in D
13. Rodriguez, Concierto de Aranjuez

Thursday Thirteen #15: Homeschooling

I forgot to do a Thursday Thirteen last week, so this week you get a double dose (a day late).

First, thirteen things I will miss about homeschooling when the girls start school ...

1. Spending so much time with two of my very favourite people.
2. Being able to get up in the morning whenever we like.
3. Reading good books aloud.
4. Taking day trips and holidays when everyone else is in school.
5. Planning curriculum (even if I do always end up changing my plans!)
6. Getting together with other homeschoolers.
7. Snuggling at home with warm blankets and hot chocolate when everyone else has to go out in the winter cold.
8. No busy work or homework.
9. Tailoring the girls education to their needs and interests.
10. Lots of time to talk.
11. Plenty of time for outside activities.
12. Independence.
13. Flexibility.

On the positive side, here are thirteen things I am looking forward to ...

1. Having lots of time to enjoy Little Cherub.
2. Doing fun toddler things.
3. Having a cleaner, tidier house - at least some of the time.
4. Being able to go to daily Mass more often.
5. Not being responsible for teaching Angel maths.
6. Slower-paced days.
7. Peace and quiet (relatively speaking).
8. Hearing about the girls' school days.
9. Having to arbitrate in less sibling disputes (I hope!)
10. Less juggling of competing and sometimes incompatible needs.
11. Being a kinder, gentler, less stressed mother (again, I hope!)
12. Planning and implementing a new routine.
13. School holidays :)