Neglectful Blogger!

Oops! Nearly two weeks since I last posted! Tevye and I spent last weekend at our all time favourite hotel, leaving girls scattered in various places. At almost 17 Helen now stays home alone, forcing her to confront the reality of dishes that do not wash themselves. Rose stayed with K and A-Next-Door, where part of the routine when she stays is to go for a pub lunch, which always includes chips (fries) for her.

Me: What are you most looking forward to about staying next door?
Rose: Pub!

All went well. We had a good break. Rose enjoyed her chips, and getting taken bowling by the next doors teens, and generally being made a fuss of. Marie spent the weekend with a girl who has been a close friend since she was nine, and as she calls C's family her "second family" she was happy. Helen didn't burn the house down.

Here are a few pictures (taken with my phone, so not the greatest):

The bridge house at Ambleside. As you can see the weather was decidedly Lake District grey. At least it didn't rain on us.

I love the Lake District stone walls. Isn't this house wall at Ambleside neat!

A view from Coniston

On the way home was stopped off here

In this town

And ate this (or at least I did. Tevye ate a steak sandwich)

Then strolled around the gardens, both indoors

And outside

And here is a gratuitous picture of Tevye and myself, which I very rarely take, let alone post!

Knitting Update

It is an age since I posted any knitting pictures, so here is an update on recent projects.

I finally finished the aran cardigan that I started the Christmas before last (apart from buttons). The pictures aren't great but they give an idea of the end result. 

This was an awful lot of cabling but the end result was worth it. A cosy, classic cardigan, which will be warm enough to wear instead of a coat in spring and autumn. 

Another successful project for myself was this green lace vest using Wendy Bernard's Jordan pattern. I haven't worn it yet as I finished it in October, but I think it will get quite a bit of use in the summer. The yarn was discounted end-of-line Jaeger Trinity. This is a very simple lace project knitted as a tube and two flat rectangles.

There have been smaller project too. These are my third pair of skew socks (for me!):

And I knitted this Bella's mittens pattern for Helen for Christmas in Rowan Cocoon. Gorgeously soft and warm. I shamelessly borrow them!

My current projects are a grapevine sweater in the same yarn as the Jordan vest and a pair of Jaywalker socks in Noro Kureyon sock yarn. I like this wavy pattern and it works beautifully with the colours of the yarn. I am being very brave and just knitting the socks as they come rather than trying to match the colour sequence on each socks. The anal part of my brain really feels that non-identical socks is a radical move! This is the first time I have used Noro. Having read lots of comments about its shortcomings - scratchy and uneven texture being the usual criticisms - I was very unsure whether I would like it, but I picked up a couple of balls in our local yarn shop's January sale. Although the thickness variations are crazy (in places it is more like one ply than four ply and in others there are thick clumps of badly spun yarn) I actually like it better than I expected. The colours really are lovely and I am very happy with the way it is coming out. 

I have another ball of Noro Kureyon that I am thinking of turning into an Ishbel shawl. I am also seriously considering making this beautiful St. Ninian's Scarf in one ply Shetland yarn. It looks challenging but well worth the effort.

Book 7: G is for Ghosts

Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one just squeaked up to four stars. Written by a British author who lives and is raising his family in Madrid, it looks at modern Spanish culture and how it has been shaped by history. Although I have studied bits of Spanish history, I have only visited Spain once and didn't have much of a sense for how Spain and its people tick. Much of the book was fascinating and I now feel I know a lot more about the country, including certain aspects that were a complete blank to me before - flamenco, Basque separatism, and the establishment of democracy after the death of Franco, to give a few examples. There was also a section on contemporary morality which was pretty graphic! The style is quite easy to read though I did find the book a bit over long - the final chapters on different regions were still interesting, but my focus was slipping by this stage. I found the author's casually anti-Catholic attitude a bit irritating and the close association of the Church with the Franco regime uncomfortable. I also couldn't help wondering how much things have changed in Spain in the light of the financial crises fo the last few years.

Next on my list for 52 Books in 52 Weeks is The Help. I didn't see the movie so I am coming to it with no preconceptions.

Diamond Queen

I meant to post last week to comment on the 60th anniversary of the Queen succeeding to the throne. It was a royal-ish sort of week. Rose's school had a Diamond Jubilee themed day on Wednesday - they decided to go with the date of her accession rather than the official celebrations in June which coincide with the school's summer half term break - and the BBC started a three part documentary called the Diamond Queen. Two things in particular struck me watching the programmes that have been shown so far:

(1) Duty. If there is one word that sums up the Queen it is duty. Thanks to the sense of duty inherited from her father - who became king as a consequence of his brother Edward VIII putting personal interest first - she has spent sixty years, day in and day out, doing a grindingly hard, relentless job in which she is constantly on display. Just imagine. And she doesn't do it because she chose to live such a public life, but because it was thrust upon her. If Edward VIII had remained King and had children of his own, she would have spent her life as a comparatively minor royal.

(2) The incredible knowledge of the world and public affairs the Queen has amassed over those sixty years. Every time she meets a visiting leader or dignitary or travels abroad she is briefed and given the opportunity of conversation with them. Every week she meets the British prime minister to discuss current affairs. She takes all this seriously. Imagine the depth of personal knowledge and experience of someone who has known such an extraordinary list of world leaders: Winston Churchill, Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Nelson Mandela, Charles de Gaulle, Pope Benedict XVI, to name just a few. It seems to me that this continuity is one of the benefits of monarchy - rather than a head of state changing every few years and having to get up to speed from a standing start, the Queen is able to consolidate and increase her already extensive experience year on year. Her political neutrality means that every prime minister and his government is able to draw on this, as are the heads of state of the Commonwealth countries.

Personally, I'm very much a monarchist. Here in the UK we have an old and in some ways odd political system, with no written constitution. While in matters of day-to-day government the Queen is essentially a figurehead, she is also the guarantor of the system. If, to take an extreme scenario, the prime minister decided to suspend future elections and turn himself into a dictator (though I can't say I see David Cameron as a dictatorial type!), the Queen could force an election, at least in theory - in the most extreme case it would depend on whether she could carry the army with her, which is quite likely as their allegiance is to Queen and Country rather than to the government of the day. I once had an interesting conversation about this in the House of Lords tearoom, but that is a whole 'nother story! The bottom line is that without the Queen (and her future successors) this country would not only be poorer in many ways, it would also be less stable.

God save the Queen!

(I also picked up the tie-in book for the TV series as a Kindle deal of the day yesterday, which is now waiting for me to get to Q for Queen on my A to Z reading challenge.)

School Report

Rose ... is as good as gold at school, bless her. (Actually she is pretty good at home too!) She is very proud of the fact that she has never, ever misbehaved at school or been told off for anything by her teacher. She likes learning, and her teacher describes her as "a little sponge". Everything just soaks in. Reading is coming along fast, though she tends to need a bit of coaxing when she is ready to move up a reading level as her confidence lags behind her ability. On the whole, though, she is getting steadily more confident. She was actually excited instead of nervous about getting to collect a merit certificate in front of the whole school (at her school the kids get stamps on a merit card for good work, and after 25 stamps they get presented with a certificate). On the other hand, when the school had a professional theatre company in to perform a pantomime, Rose took one look and bolted straight back to the classroom! Fortunately her teacher had more sense than to send her back and she apparently had fun helping to do "jobs" while everyone else watched the show.

Marie ... her new school still seems to be a good fit for her and most of her teachers were complimentary, though a bit more focus and a bit less day-dreaming would be good.  She is now at the stage of choosing GCSE courses. Compulsory subjects are English Language, English Literature, Maths and Science, for which Marie has been put in an advanced group where they take three separate GCSEs in Physics, Chemistry and Biology; she then gets to do four more subjects of her choice. Her options form had to be in by the end of last week and her final choices were Art, French, History and Business Studies. Art she has always enjoyed. Her choice of history surprised me as she has always complained she doesn't like it. Apparently "history is much more interesting at this school". Glad to hear it! Business Studies is her makeweight, as there was nothing else that particularly wanted to do. French has become a favourite since she started at this school in September. I can't say enough positive things about her French teacher, who has somehow managed to enthuse Marie into working hard and using what is turning out to be a latent talent for languages. The UK National Curriculum is graded in Levels, with the average rate of progress being one full Level every two years. At the end of last school year Marie was graded as Level 4b for French (below average for her age). Suddenly she has shot up to Level 6a/7 (well above average) - in theory that is 5 years worth of progress in 6 months! At the parent-teacher consultation I said how impressed I was with how well she was doing given that she had only been at Level 4 last year. Bemused teacher said that simply wasn't possible! Amazing what a bit of effort on Marie's part can achieve.

Helen ... is also still loving the new school but had a disaster with her Product Design course when she lost a folder containing an entire term's coursework. Faced with the near impossibility of catching this up we have come up with a Plan B. She dropped Product Design - a shame in a way as she was good at it, but she did admit that the amount of work was beginning to overwhelm her even before she lost the folder - and is planning to add in Maths and ICT (information technology) next year. Usually young people in the UK who take A level course take three subjects at A2 (advanced) level and one at AS (advanced subsidiary) level. Helen will end up with two A2s (English Language and Media Studies), two ASs (Photography and Maths) and a BTEC (technical / vocational qualification) in ICT. If she decides she wants to go to university she may need to take a second year of Maths to boost that up to an A2, which she could do during a gap year, but currently she thinks she would rather look for an apprenticeship in something media or ICT related, possibly web design.

Too Much Stuff, Too Little Time!

Life here is busy! On that edge between very busy and crazy busy. My mum is waiting to have her second hip replaced, which will probably happen either the end of this month or early next. Meanwhile she has been needing more help than usual. She had a stairlift fitted in her house on Monday which should make life quite a bit easier for her. Getting upstairs had become a mountain to climb. We weren't sure how easy it would be to fit a stairlift as her stairs are narrow with an inconvenient bend at the bottom. After consultation with the nice man from the stairlift company I (yes, me! Apparently I missed my vocation as a stairlift engineer!) came up with a neat solution that worked - so I am feeling quite pleased with myself now it is successfully installed.

The last couple of weeks have been a marathon of school appointments for Marie and Rose (still can't get used to this name change!). There was an information evening about how Rose's school teaches numeracy, a GCSE options evening for Marie, and parent-teacher consultations for both. I'll write about those later. In amongst that, Marie has been having trouble with the wires on her braces, requiring two extra visits to the orthodontist. Helen is in a state of wild excitement as she heads off on a five day school trip to New York today.

Meanwhile I have been busy with work and study. I am still working an extra day a week, which for complicated but good reasons may increase in the spring rather than decrease as I expected. Fortunately my current archive course module is palaeography (reading old handwriting), an area where have already have a fair amount of experience. As a result the course is not too time consuming. Just as well!

Book 6: F is for Five

Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The suggested theme for 52 Books in 52 Weeks for this week is Dickens. I am almost there as Arnold Bennett is an author who has been compared to Dickens. I remember reading and enjoying Clayhanger maybe 30 years ago but haven't read anything by Arnold Bennett since until I picked up this free eBook. I had forgotten just how good a writer Bennett was. Like Dickens he was a journalist who also wrote fiction. Like Dickens his work has a very strong and acutely observed sense of place - Victorian London for Dickens, the early 20th century Potteries for Bennett (the Potteries is an area in Staffordshire which was traditionally the centre of - duh! -English pottery making). Bennett's fictional Five Towns based on "Bursley" are in reality Six Towns centred on Burslem.  Like Dickens, Bennett is a master of language. What in a lesser author could be dense and turgid text in Bennett's hands becomes finely crafted description. In some ways very little happens in Anna of the Five Towns, a coming of age story in which the heroine Anna begins to break away from her miserly father and experiences the first stirrings of romance, but I found I couldn't put it down. My one disappointment was in the ending. It seemed to stop very suddenly without any of the subtlety that is characteristic of the rest of the book. Maybe it was because this is one of Bennett's early works.

As a flavour of his style, here is the first sentence:

The yard was all silent and empty under the burning afternoon heat, which had made its asphalt springy like turf, when suddenly the children threw themselves out of the great doors at either end of the Sunday-School - boys from the right, girls from the left - in two howling, impetuous streams, that widened, eddied, intermingled and formed backwaters until the whole quadrangle was full of clamour and movement."

I have a sense that Arnold Bennett's works have fallen out of fashion among the classics. It's a shame as they deserve to be more widely read.

Snow!

After a bitterly cold week we finally got our first (and only?) real snow of the winter, with three inches or so falling overnight. Rose and Marie built a snow-girl. As Rose pointed out, "you should know it is a snow-girl because it has plaits".

Book 5: E is for Eat

Eat Well Spend Less by Sarah Flower

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I don't have much to say about this one. I got serious about eating more healthily last year and thought this book might give my improved diet an extra boost and some new recipes. It was OK, but didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. There were a few useful and reasonably economical recipes I will probably try.

ETA: Coincidentally the topic for week 5 of 52 Books in 52 Weeks is Literary Cookbooks. I love the idea of The Jane Austen Cookbook. 

Book 4: D is for Darkly

A Darkly Hidden Truth by Fletcher Donna

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The series title "Monastery Murders" and the promise of dashes of medieval history and iconography intrigued me, although I am not generally a murder mystery enthusiast - I enjoy them occasionally, but it is not a genre I read often. The bargain price in Amazon's post-Christmas Kindle sale made me decide this book was worth a try. It turned out to be an easy and reasonably entertaining read, but I'm afraid I found the heroine Felicity rather irritating and the plot required me to suspend disbelief too far and too frequently. I was also bugged by both major and minor inaccuracies - a female ordinand in an Anglo-Catholic Anglican seminary? Sounds odd given that opposition to women priests is a defining characteristic of most Anglo-Catholics. American Felicity lectured by a policeman fo failing to carry her passport and visa while in the UK? Um, no, there is no requirement for anyone in the UK to carry any sort of ID. This is the second book in a series and not knowing what came before made it harder both to get into the book and to identify with the characters (how did the previously non-religious Felicity end up at theological college, I wonder?). There were aapects I enjoyed - the ways she brought in the anchoress Julian of Norwich and eccentric medieval pilgrim Margery Kempe, for example - but I didn't enjoy the book enough to want to go back and read the first one.

Next time I want a monastery murder with a medieval flavour I think I'll stick to Ellis Peters' Cadfael books.

For more reviews visit 52 books in 52 weeks.

The Iron Lady

Tevye and I decided that this year we would try to go to the cinema once a month - really, we should take more advantage of our on-hand babysitters! Our first trip was to see The Iron Lady, with Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher. We had seen mixed reviews. Some (most?) writers felt that the movie dwelt far too much on Maggie's old age and waning faculties; others praised it and felt it was well done.

We both came away with the same opinion, which was that it wasn't the movie we would have liked to see. We were in the "too much old age" camp and felt the movie put too much emphasis on an aspect of her life that ultimately isn't that significant in terms of the whole. While it did tell the story of her life and political career it did so in short flashbacks that never did more than skim the surface of a complex and interesting story. We both wanted more about her life and politics and less of the fictional (or loosely factual) "human interest". Our feeling was that the movie avoided any political subtlety and focused on Maggie the person in order to appeal to the American market. From the British perspective it completely glossed over the strong feelings, both for and against, that the Margaret Thatcher years still evoke.

Having said that, we were glad we saw The Iron Lady. While we would have liked it to take a different angle, Meryl Streep's acting was superb and carried the movie beyond what we felt were its weaknesses. Jim Broadbent as Dennis Thatcher was also excellent.

My Life in Facebook Updates

Haven't posted one of these for a while (apologies to those of you who have already read these on Facebook):


Why is my life like a series of scenes from Outnumbered? The latest one involved the car, toast, crumbs and the frustrations of a 5 year old who can't grasp the concept of lending money.

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Oops! Slight fail. Took Rose to school for the second time since September. Have maintained my 100% record of getting her there late ... Me: "Are you ever late when Daddy takes you?" Her (shocked): "No! Never!!!"

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Just found a Christmas tree bauble in the back garden. Why????

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Just started watching a period drama about a midwife in the East End of London, then realised it was set in the year that Tevye was born, also in the East End. Suddenly "period drama" doesn't seem quite the right description!

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Why do all three of my daughters have to hold conversations with me simultaneously on entirely unrelated subjects. This morning one wanted to know if I had any spare plastic folders, another was trying to work out what clothes she wanted to take to a sleepover, and the third was explaining the difference between digraphs and split digraphs (that was the five year old - she takes her phonics lessons very seriously). *Head explodes*

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And in sequence, the tale of Rose the rabbit-lion-rabbit:

Rose came home from ballet yesterday bursting with excitement about being a toy rabbit in her dance show. She has written down instructions to remind her what she has to do and pinned them up ready to practice before school ... "All the time. Bend down and jump." Not that tricky to remember for a rabbit!

Oh dear. Dance show disappointment. After a week of excitement about being a rabbit, Rose is now a lion. She is decidedly not impressed! Apparently lions do not get to jump.

Update on the Rose dance show casting saga. Sympathetic ballet teacher has reinstated her as a rabbit. Not only that, but she got to try on her costume last night and she is a PINK rabbit. A very happy pink rabbit.

And for those who asked on FB - I will try to provide video, but the show isn't until the end of March / beginning of April so expect a long wait!

Book 3: C is for Cake and Crag

The Tale of Oat Cake Crag by Susan Wittig Albert

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have been chugging gently through this series for a few years now - I see I read the first one back in February 2006 (reviewed here) and the rest at intervals since, getting through both the last two on train journeys up to Scotland. They are light, gentle reads that don't need too much concentration when there is lots of switching trains and hanging around in station cafes in between. The Tale of Oat Cake Crag is the seventh in the series and is essentially more of the same. Real biographical facts about Beatrix Potter's life mixed in with local colour, mostly likeable imaginary characters and anthropomorphic animals. The series has now reached the stage where Beatrix's marriage to solicitor Will Heelis is approaching but is still opposed by her parents. This book also brings in a real life hydroplane being tested on Lake Windermere and a rather less realistic visiting dragon. Occasionally the narrator's voice is irritating, but overall I like the style and the characters enough to be looking forward to the next (last?) book in the series when it becomes available on Kindle at a reasonable price. If you like Beatrix Potter's books and are interested in Beatrix herself in particular and the Lake District in general then this series is fun to read. If you hate anthropomorphic animals or anything a bit twee, avoid!

How appropriate! I just realised my header photo is one I took up in the Lake District a couple of years ago

Next up A Darkly Hidden Truth by Donna Fletcher, described as "a gripping modern mystery enriched by liturgy, iconography, and medieval history". I'm intrigued to see whether it lives up to the description.

Day Zero Project: Catching Up

I started the Day Zero Project back in October 2010 and after six months of enthusiasm mostly forgot about it. In a fit of New Year-ish-ness I decided to see what else I had checked off since I last posted about the project last April and what I would particularly like to do this year.

So, successes over the last few months:

• 11. Fit comfortably into a pair of size 14 jeans. Yay! I am now the proud owner of three pairs of size 14 jeans which I had to buy as every single pair of jeans (and other trousers) I owned had got to large. Pride forces me to add that a UK size 14 is a US size 12!
• 18. Buy a zoo membership and use it at least 4 times a year. Teyve and I took Rose to zoo at the beginning of the month, which I am sure is at least the fourth time we used our zoo passes, and possibly the fifth.
• 30. Swim in the sea - Spain in August.
• 31. Make a sand castle - ditto. 
• 36. Knit myself a sweater - it wasn't the greatest sweater ever, but I finished on in October.
• 54. Watch the entire series of Upstairs, Downstairs. I think we got to the end of Series 5 in July.

Hmm. Not that many, but it makes a total of 33 out of my original 101 ideas so far. I have also made progress on a number of others. I never imagined there was any chance of doing them all, but it is a fun way of recording ideas for things I would like to do and to at least occasionally encourage me out of my comfort zone.

This year I would like to achieve some of my fitness, reading and decluttering goals. Tevye and I are planning to try to go to the cinema once a month this year, I'm aiming to knit twelve pairs of socks (you can never knit too many socks, and I only made it to seven last year) and I am truly optimistic that I can reach my goal of losing 20 pounds, as I think I have already lost about 12 to 15. You can see my whole list here. 

Thirty Five

I haven't been doing Jen's 7 Quick Takes for a while but always enjoy reading hers (and others). This week she celebrates her thirty fifth birthday and asks ... "if you are older than 35, tell me about what you were doing at this age. How do you feel about that time of your life? Anything you'd do differently?"

I remember 35 as a particularly happy time. Helen (oh dear! I can't get used to this! I may yet simply revert to using their real names) was seven months old and I was still technically on a maternity break from working on my doctorate on medieval knights. In fact by that stage I was back to doing quite a bit of research but was not under any pressure to get a particular amount done, making it an enjoyable and leisurely process. I was able to work from home most of the time as a lot of the source material for the period I was working on is in print. The London Library's mail order service was a godsend at this time.  Tevye had spent nearly a year at home after taking redundancy from his previous job so took on a large share of the baby care. I think at this point he had just started doing some freelance work writing exam questions for a couple of days each week. I may have been teaching in London one evening a week, but I can't remember for sure.

I don't think I am looking back through rose-tinted glasses, but I honestly can't think of anything I would do differently. We were very fortunate to have a wonderful work-life balance where we both got to spend lots of time with Helen but also to do other mentally stimulating things. Rather to my surprise I had discovered I loved having a baby - with no small relatives or close friends with babies I had no experience of them before having my own, and had rather expected that I would find the baby stage boring. In fact, I adored it. Thirty five was good!

Book 2: B is for Beasts and Belfrys

Beasts in my Belfry by Gerald Durrell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I went through a phase of reading Gerald Durrell's books many years (decades!) ago. I picked this one to re-read for local interest as it describes Durrell's time as a trainee keeper at nearby Whipsnade Zoo where we have annual passes. It isn't the best of his books - not in the league of My Family and Other Animals - but was an easy, light read with his usual humorous touch. I enjoyed it more for being able to picture both the locations and the animals. Although the zoo has obviously changed since Durrell was there in the late 1940s, it still has many of the same types of animal, with at least some in the same locations.  I imagine some of the animals we see today must be the direct descendants of those Durrell worked with as the zoo has breeding herds. I read the Kindle edition, which has a few minor issues I presume are down to character recognition problems ("rn" turned into "m", odd punctuation and so on). These happened just enough to be a minor irritation, but not enough to outweigh the convenience of instant download and reading on the Kindle.

Next up for 52 books in 52 weeks ... The Tale of Oat Cake Crag by Susan Wittig Albert (C is for Crag. And Cake)

Two-Seaters

I want to get back to posting here more regularly, so expect some random off-the-top-of-my-head rambling. I'm not sure what it says about me that the first topic that tripped into my mind was toilets. I blame Bill Bryson, who commented in his bathroom chapter on the communal nature of such things in past centuries ... which reminded me that my childhood home had a two-seater! That put us in good company as, according to Bryson, so did Thomas Jefferson. Admittedly our two-seater was in a shed at the bottom of the garden and no longer functional. By the time we lived there it was used for storing garden tools rather than its intended purpose, but I imagine though that even in the 1960s there were probably few still surviving - if there were ever many around in the first place. Strangely, I can still picture it quite clearly ... a small brick-built building with a wooden door, with a wooden box-like structure running across the full width at the back with two suitably sized holes in the top. There was no plumbing, so I presume it was an earth closet. Why a two-seater I have no idea. It was a farm, so maybe a combination of family and workers meant it was in high demand. Unfortunately we lived there long before digital photography, and nobody ever thought to waste photographic film and record it for posterity.

I'll try to come up with a more delicate topic next time! Back to my Kindle now. I finished the Bill Bryson book and am about to start book 2 - Beasts in my Belfry by Gerald Durrell.

Book 1: A is for At Home

At Home by Bill Bryson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I rather stupidly chose a "chunker" of over 600 pages for the first of my 52 Books in 52 Weeks. I have only managed to get through two-thirds of the book so far, though I'm quite pleased to have got that far given that I also had to submit final assignments for last term's archive course module by Friday (including an essay I didn't start writing until Monday!) . I am going to post a review not despite not having finished the book as I don't want to get behind and I am determined to get to the end this weekend.

At Home is more of Bill Bryson doing what Bill Bryson does. Mostly I enjoy his easy-reading style, but this is not my favourite of his books. It is a history of domestic life which he hangs on a room by room tour of his home. In fact, the connections with the rooms are often pretty tenuous and he flits from topic to topic with an almost frantic speed, skimming over the surface of each. Often I found that just as he had aroused my interest in something he skipped on to something else. Still, I learned a little about a whole raft of subjects I knew nothing about before - why it does not work to build a house with iron or concrete, Capability Brown's landscape design, bedbugs, candlelight and the spice trade are a few that come to mind. Overall, though I quite enjoyed the book I also found it a bit too diverse and overlong.

52 Books in 52 Weeks

To encourage myself to read more this year and get plenty of use out of my Kindle I am copying Faith and taking part in the 52 Books in 52 Weeks reading challenge. The rules are:

• The challenge will run from January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2012

• Our book weeks begin on Sunday.

• Participants may join at any time.

• All books are acceptable except children books.

• All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc.

• Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2012.

• Books may overlap other challenges.

• Create an entry post linking to this blog.

• Sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" below this post.

• You don't have a blog to participate. Post your weekly book in the comments section of each weekly post.

• Mr. Linky will be added to the bottom of the weekly post for you to link to reviews of your most current reads.

To add a little spice I am going to add in the A to Z mini challenge:

Challenge yourself to read books alphabetically by Title and/or by Author.  Have fun searching out those difficult letters. For titles, the letter doesn't have to be the starting word. It can be any word in the title, but to make it more challenging try to find one that starts with the letter. This year I am making a bit more challenging by discounting any book that started with THE. For authors, it can be their first name or last name. Have fun with it and be creative.
A to Z by Title - Commit to 26 Books
A to Z by Author - Commit to 26 Books
A to Z by Title and Author - Commit to 52 Books

I don't want to be over ambitious so I am going to go for the 26 books by title option, with the word anywhere in the title.  I looked through the books I have already downloaded to my Kindle or have on my wishlist and can already cover most of the alphabet. This extra challenge will help me with the potentially paralysing choice of deciding which book to read next by narrowing it right down for me.

First up ... A is for At Home by Bill Bryson.

New Names for a New Year

I have been thinking for a while that Angel and Star are both outgrowing their blog names. I want to stick to pseudonyms for the sake of the girls' privacy, so I have decided I am going to switch to using their real-life middle names. The New Year seems like a good time for a change, so meet:

Helen (Angel)

Marie (Star)

And Rose (Cherub)

Tevye and myself will stay Tevye and the Bookworm. Whether or not I will remember I have changed the girls' names is an open question!

Taking Stock

I haven't blogged enough to look back at posts over the past years, so I am doing a little family stock taking  instead. Littlest first.

Cherub - has had a good year. She is still loving school, maybe even more so now she is in Year 1. She likes learning and likes rules, so school is a good fit for her. She is much more confident than a year ago, though still extremely cautious about anything new and reluctant to confront anything that might be even the slightest bit scary. Reading and writing are coming along nicely. She isn't ready to read on her own yet, but I can see the skills slotting into place. Her spelling is pretty much entirely phonetic - mostly legible but entertainingly wrong.

Star - loves her new school. Long may it last! Star and school are in some ways not a natural fit (rules? what rules?) so feeling positive makes it easier for her to deal with the constraints. She has made two new close friends, as well as keeping up most of her old friendships. It's hard to believe she will be starting her GCSE courses next summer. She has to choose her options next term and is thinking of French, Art, Child Development and possibly Business Studies (in addition to compulsory English language and literature, maths and science).

Angel - this has been the year when she has become a young adult. She passed her GCSEs with creditable grades, is tackling A levels with her usual competence, loves being a sixth former and being at her new school, has proved herself working in an adult's job, and has managed to juggle school, work and a social life. Oh, and has acquired a boyfriend! She is stretching her wings and getting ready to fly, and though it is a little bittersweet to see her moving away from us into the adult world I am very proud of the capable, independent young woman she is becoming.

Tevye - mostly more of the same. Overall he has a good work-life balance which makes up for the frustrations that sometimes go along with his work, and the recession hasn't had any noticeable impact on his company. His eyes have been up and down - he has a condition affecting the cornea which is not degenerative but fluctuates in severity and gives him some vision problems. A separate pair of occupational glasses for computer work and reading has helped, and glasses with a new prescription he collected this month seem to have improved his vision significantly.

Bookworm - lots of changes for me! This time last year I was about to start my archive course and now I am already half way through. Getting a job has been a big change, but I am absolutely loving it. I find it hard to imagine anything I would enjoy more. The content of the documents I am working with is fascinating, the working conditions are good and I like the people. It has been quite hard fitting in an extra day of work each week over the last couple of months while still trying to fit in my study time, but I have enjoyed the variety of doing something different and getting to learn more about how the archive ticks. I will probably be doing it for another month or so, after which I will be back to working my usual mornings only routine - which is now going to seem beautifully easy! The other big positive from this year has been that I have managed to get into much better eating habits, which have had the nice side effect of causing me to effortlessly lose weight. I have no idea how much as I have no scales, but I am a size smaller and have had to throw out clothes that got too big. I have been eating lots of fruit and veggies, sticking to wholemeal and wholegrain as much as possible and mostly avoiding sugar and junk, which I compensate for with a couple of squares of dark chocolate and a small glass of wine most days.

My New Toy!

Look what Father Christmas - or maybe it would be more accurate to say the Hannukah Elf - brought me.

I have been coveting a Kindle for a while but couldn't quite justify it at the price. Once Amazon brought out this smaller, cheaper keyboard-less model it went to the top of my Christmas list. I have to say, I am loving it! After a conversation with my Apple loving neighbour about why I would want a Kindle when I already have an iPad I did some thinking about the reasons, wondering whether there was really a justification other than gadget mania. And yes, there are reasons. The Kindle is significantly smaller and lighter, particularly good for throwing into my bag to read on the train, but the main reason - which I think I sub-consciously expected, but only pinned down in the light of experience - is that the Kindle gets out of the way. Reading on the iPad I am always at least a little aware of the machine, thanks to the brighter, backlit screen (great for video, but not quite the right contrast for a book), and its built in distractions (too easy to flip over to Facebook, or Google something unconnected that has flashed across my brain). With the Kindle, it is easier to get lost in the book. The liquid ink screen is easy on the eyes, and the neat page turning buttons on the sides flip onto the next page at a touch. For someone like me who usually knits while reading it is a big improvement on printed books, which are not always amenable to hands-off reading and once propped in the right position are liable to dislodge themselves during page turns.

I already had about 30 Kindle books downloaded but had already read most of them on the iPad, so I have been having fun stocking the Kindle. Amazon UK has a 12 Days of Kindle promotion on throughout the 12 Days of Christmas (duh!) with a whole new batch of books added each day, mostly reduced to 99 pence. I have been taking advantage of this and now have the following stacked in my reading queue:

•  The Eagle of the Ninth (Rosemary Sutcliff)
• Ghosts of Spain (Giles Tremlett) - a combination of travelogue and history
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (modern translation by Simon Armitage)
• Map of a Nation (Rachel Hewitt) - about the making of the original Ordnance Survey maps of the British Isles
• Salt: a World History (Mark Kurlansky)
• The Little White Horse (Elizabeth Goudge)
• Yesterday Morning: a Very English Childhood (Diana Athill)
• A Darkly Hidden Truth (Donna Fletcher) - the description "a gripping modern mystery enriched by liturgy, iconography, and medieval history" sounded intriguing
• The Magical Maze: Seeing the World Through Mathematical Eyes (Ian Stewart)
• The Help (Kathryn Stockett)
• The Tale of Oat Cake Crag (Susan Albert) - one of her Beatrix Potter mysteries 

So far I have finished Austenland (Shannon Hale) and I am three-quarters of the way through The Secret Life of France (Lucy Wadham). Reviews to follow. 

Christmas. Hannukah. New Year.

All tumbling over each other this year, which is why I have not posted for a while. Hannukah started on the Tuesday evening before Christmas and ended yesterday, neatly running through Christmas, and now it is December 29th and New Year is looming before I am ready to think about it!  I apologise for not wishing eveyone a Happy Christmas beforehand, but as we are still only on the fifth of the twelve days of Christmas I wish you one now. I hope you had a lovely Christmas day and are still enjoying the season!

We have had a good time here with friends and family. My mother and brother were with us for Christmas Day, then on Boxing Day we all went out for a meal. This was a change of tradition for us. For nearly twenty years our family routine has been to be all together here on Christmas Day, then to go to Mum's on Boxing Day. She used to cook a lavish lunch and provide a buffet tea, until the cooking got too much and we started just going for the afternoon and tea. For the last couple of years even this has been getting steadily harder for her and she has been relying heavily on my brother to help. This year we noticed that the local Harvester restaurant (one of the larger chains over here) was offering a two course meal plus salad buffet on Boxing Day for £10.99. We suggested this might be a good idea as everyone from the five year old to the eighty four year old likes their food and it would save Mum and my brother feeling they ought to be catering for everyone. They jumped at the idea and we all enjoyed ourselves, so I think it may become a new family tradition.

On Tuesday we switched back from Christmas to Hannukah and held our usual Hannakah party for ourselves and our neighbours. This year we also added in Cherub's Little Friend N (whose poor mother was also supposed to come, but couldn't as she wasn't well). I cooked a mountain of latkes (fried potato cakes) which disappeared rapidly) and bought a matching mountain of doughnuts from Tesco. Hannukah recalls lights of theTemple in Jerusalem continuing to burn miraculously for eight days despite being on the last dregs of oil, so is celebrated with food fried in oil. Jewish food does not do low calorie! After Hannukah food for twelve on Tuesday, Tevye's sister and family and a couple of family friends came for the day yesterday which meant providing lunch and tea for thirteen. I cooked a mountain of baked potatoes, chicken and mushroom casserole, cauliflower cheese for those who don't eat meat (or in the case of Tevye's nephew's fiancee, non-kosher meat), various veggies, and a couple of apple pies using the pastry recipe from Linds' mince pies (delicious!).

If I had any sense today would be a restful, chilling out sort of day, but no - I am heading off to London on the train with four teenagers to hit the post-Christmas sales at the Westfield Centre in Shepherd's Bush. Eek! Tomorrow, I chill!

Advent Books: Week 4

Late, but posting this anyway for the record, our final batch of books for Advent. There were a couple of others I wanted that I ordered from the library, but they didn't arrive on time - if I could have got them I would have added in The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett and Bethlehem by Fiona French.

Sunday: The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski

Monday: The Nutcracker (Usborne Picture Book)

Tuesday: My First Hannukah board book (enough content for this not to be a baby book)

Wednesday: Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson

Thursday: Light the Lights: A Story about Celebrating Hannukah and Christmas by Margaret Moorman

Friday: The Legend of Old Befana by Tomie de Paola (more of an Epiphany book, but the library let me down and I had to fill a gap!)

Saturday: Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve? by Jan Brett

Her favourite from week three was Tomie de Paola's The Clown of God, and from week four Light the Lights ... but really we fizzled out rather towards the end (or life got busier in the evenings) and a number of the books from the last two weeks didn't get read at all. We did read all of The Story of Holly and Ivy, which she loved. I am still trying to nail down the different editions of this. Amazon UK has three: a picture book illustrated by Barbara Cooney, which at 31 pages long must be either heavily abridged or a retelling; a version illustrated by Christian Birmingham with 64 pages - this is the one I have in the Kindle edition, with the town name changed, which I am sure is abridged; and an old Young Puffin editon with 80 pages, which I think is a reprint of the 1958 original, although I am sure the copy I borrowed from the library for Star several years ago had a different cover. I am slightly frustrated that I don't know what is missing from the Kindle book, but I am sure something is.

Advent Books: Week 3

I wrote this on the train during the week, but needed to tweak the pictures and only just remembered!

This week's books:

Christmas by Jan Piemkowski



A Flower Fairy Christmas



Saint Lucy by Silvia Vecchini


The Clown of God by Tomie de Paola



Tod and the Clock Angel by Andrew Matthews and Christian Birmingham



The Night the Stars Danced for Joy by Bob Hartman



The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie de Paola



Alongside those we are reading Chrissie the Wish Fairy (having made it to the end of Holly the Christmas Fairy. Oh joy!) and A Street Through Time by Anne Millard and Steve Noon, one of a series of gorgeous illustrated history books published some years ago by Dorling Kindersley, mostly out of print and getting hard to find at a reasonable price. Cherub adores this book. We look at one double page spread each night, and she tries to find the various small illustrations around the page in the main picture. Last night we added in The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden, which also seems to out of print except in a Kindle version which I downloaded last night. I am slightly irritated as I think this many be an abridged version, and the town name has been changed form the original Aylesbury (real, local and name familiar to Cherub) to Appleton (fictional). Why?

As for last week's books, Cherub's favourites were Brian Wildsmith's A Christmas Story, the pop-up version of the Nutcracker, and Jan Brett's Christmas Trolls (an all time family favourite, this one).

Advent Books: Week 2

The books for advent have been a huge hit so far (with the exception of Saint Andrew which she took against). This weeks selection is:

Sunday: A Christmas Story by Brian Wildsmith



Monday: Nutcracker (very pretty pop-up / lift the flap version)

   

Tuesday: Saint Nicholas by Mary Joslin



Wednesday: Country Angel Christmas by Tomie de Paola



Thursday: Mary by Brian Wildsmith



Friday: Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett



Saturday: The New Star by Taffy Davis



Highlights for Cherub from last week were The Story of Christmas by Jane Ray, which Cherub has wanted read every day. Apparently it was also their storybook at school one day, which delighted her. I love Jane Ray's style of illustration, the text is traditional and flows well, and I noticed for the first time that in a couple of the pictures Mary is discreetly nursing baby Jesus (a nice touch, I thought). Mog's Christmas by Judith Kerr is an old favourite, but Cherub now gets the humorous touches that went over her head last year. Another one we are both loving is Jan Brett's The Twelve Days of Christmas, which I am expected to sing in its entirety. We both love the little vignettes at the side of each page showing a family finding, cutting and decorating their Christmas tree. Jan Brett's pictures within pictures are always a delight.

Stravinsky's Firebird Suite

... finally makes sense! It probably always made sense to listen to, but until last night too many bits were just a jumble of notes when I tried to play it. At last night's orchestra it finally came together, which is just as well as we are playing it in a concert on Saturday. Not that I can play every note, but at least I now have a handle on where they are meant to be! And it sounded wonderful with a full orchestra (lower brass and percussion usually come just for the last couple of rehearsals). Very dramatic!

After being slightly resentful that this concert and rehearsals were a time squeeze I could have done without at the moment I'm now glad I didn't decide to drop out as I realised last night how much I like the programme. As well as the Firebird Suite there is a Beethoven piano concerto, a pretty bit of Mozart for wind, and Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis for double string orchestra, which is just beautiful. If you like classical music but don't know it I highly recommend you download it, sit back and relax, and just let it flow over you.

This Week: 29th November 2011

The weather ... A nasty, wet morning, after a frosty start yesterday. It still feels more like autumn than winter.

I am wearing ... black jeans, black vest top, black sweater, pink cardigan, pink plimsolls, pink coat and scarf. Plenty of layers as I am working in the stack room today. It is cold up there when sitting on the computer, but if it is busy the physical exercise can make it warm. Also have to dress for climbing steps and lugging boxes around.

I am reading .... The English Poor Laws 1700-1930 by Anthony Brundage and Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy. I don't like Hardy - too depressing for my taste - but downloaded a free Kindle version after reading a review (which I will try to link to later - too fiddly right now as I am on the train with an erratic 3G internet connection). I finished The Secret Life of Bletchley Park.

I am creating ... boot socks for my brother, socks for my Mum and mittens for Angel. Angel's snood is blocked but still a bit inclined to want to curl up.

I am listening ... two rather snarky sounding schoolgirls in the seat in front grumbling at each other ("you gave me the wrong number you dodo!")

I am watching ... Garrows Law, not much else. I'm reslly not that big on TV and if time is short, which it is at the moment, TV watching is one of the first things to go.

I am enjoying ... Poached eggs. I seem to have finally mastered cooking the perfect poached egg!

I am planning ... just working on sticking to the plan! Essential as there is so much to do over then next month.

Learning notes ... Angel is off to London today. Her product design teacher is taking her class to a study day at London University.

Cherub ... is now a camel in her Christmas concert. I think she was just hoping to be an angel before the parts got allocated. As she is a few inches shorter than the other camels, she is going to be a baby camel!

On the menu ...
Monday: I went out for dinner with a friend, and shamelessly lt the rest of the family to eat instant meals from the freezer.
Tuesday: cod, chips and peas
Wednesday: chicken with butternut squash wedges and broccoli
Thursday: pasta with meatballs in tomato sauce
Friday: ??
Saturday: baked potatoes
Sunday: roast chicken

On the calendar ...
Tuesday: flu vaccination
Saturday: orchestra rehearsal and concert
Sunday: playing carols with the brass band

A picture from last week ... actually another zoo picture from the previous week.

Not So Mad After All?

Back in August I bought a (very cheap!) set of 42 Rainbow Magic books for Cherub and complained that it was madness. Quite how the publishers and the several authors writing under the pseudonym of Daisy Meadows have managed to churn out over one hundred books with essentially the same plot (two girls help assorted fairies to thwart Jack Frost and his nasty goblins) is beyond me. Still, I have gritted my teeth and we have just finished book eighteen (plus a few outliers borrowed from the library by a gleeful Cherub - the highlight being her namesake Naomi the Netball Fairy).

And now? Cherub has made a huge jump in the level of the books she wants me to read to her. For the last three weeks we have been chugging slowly through H.E.Marshall's Kings and Things, a slighter retelling of British history than Our Island Story written for younger children, but still running to 400 pages and with a fair amount of unfamiliar historical vocabulary - I dug it out to read about Guy Fawkes for Bonfire Night, but she insisted we should read the rest of the book. She has started wanting me to read poems to her, thanks to the gift of a poetry book from Grandma, and tonight we launched, full of enthusiasm, into Letters from Father Christmas (yay! Tolkien!) and The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean. She wants to read, and discuss, and look in detail at pictures, in a way she didn't three months ago when we started the fairy marathon. Tonight it dawned on me that all that listening to chapter books, albeit simple and repetitive ones, has stretched her comprehension and ability to focus, in the same way that becoming engrossed in an easy reader series often kick starts a child into reading more complex material. And yes, the fairies are still top of her bedtime storytime pile, but the pile is now growing in both quantity and quality.

Now the dilemna. The Book People have 21 more Rainbow Magic books on offer, including Naomi the Netball Fairy. Christmas? Should I?

Picture Books for Advent

Last year I wrapped a book a day for Cherub during Advent. Some she loved, others she refused to have anything to do with. This year I think she is more likely to be prepared to give unfamiliar books a go, so I'm going to do the same again. I am only going to wrap one week at a time though. Wrapping 28 books in one go is a marathon I'd sooner avoid, and this way I can tweak as I go and can pick up extra books from the library as I need them.

I am using books with a mix of religious and secular themes, with some saints' stories thrown in on their feast days and a couple of Hannukah books. For the first week I have wrapped:

Sunday: The Story of Christmas (Jane Ray)
Monday: Mog's Christmas (Judith Kerr)
Tuesday: Christmas in Grandma's Day (Faye Gardner)
Wednesday: Saint Andrew (Lois Rock)
Thursday: The Twelve Days of Christmas (Jan Brett)
Friday: An African Christmas (Ifeoma Onyefulu)
Saturday: Angelina's Christmas (Katherine Holabird)

Cherub has been perusing the pile of wrapped books and is excited, not to mention a bit peeved that we couldn't start today. We also have some longer books lined up to start tomorrow - Holly the Christmas Fairy (yet another of the Rainbow Magic series, which she adores despite every book appearing to have the same plot), Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas (which I love and am hoping she is ready for), and I think I will give Grraldine McCaughrean's Jesse Tree book ago. We also have to carry on with H.E.Marshall's Kings and Things, which I thought would be over Cherub's head, but she is insisting on having read every night.

This Week: 22nd November 2011

The weather ... more of the same, mostly grey and damp, though still warmer than usual for November. It is supposed to be getting colder as the week goes on.

I am wearing ... black long sleeved T-shirt, purple cardigan, new black jeans. Smaller black jeans!

I am reading .... The English Poor Laws 1700-1930 by Anthony Brundage and The Secret Life of Bletchley Park. Getting towards the end of both.

I am creating ... boot socks for my brother and mittens for Angel. Two three-quarters done cardigans of my own are on hold while I knit Christmas presents. Angel's snood is done but needs blocking as it is curling up on itself.

I am listening ... to the dishwasher. Apart from that there is a brief space of silence.

I am watching ... still Garrows Law and Junior Apprentice.

I am enjoying ... dark chocolate (Tesco's 74% cocoa bars)

I am planning ... how to fit everything in that needs to be done between now and Christmas. I have to get end of module assignments done by January 6th, but as I don't want to have them hanging over me all through the Christmas break I am hoping to get them done before Christmas.

Learning notes ... Star has recently become enthusiastic about French. The French department at her school was rated outstanding after a recent inspection. Judging from Star's attitude, they are certainly doing something right!

Cherub ... is excited about being an angel in her school Christmas concert.

On the menu ...
Monday: chicken in BBQ sauce with rice or baked potatoes and green veg (which I finally managed to cook!)
Tuesday: chicken in breadcrumbs, chips and peas
Wednesday: beef stew and dumplings
Thursday: pasta with meatballs in tomato sauce
Friday: salmon?
Saturday: beefburgers
Sunday: roast chicken

On the calendar ...
Thursday: medical appointment for me (asthma review), and Star is having two teeth extracted before she gets braces (then another two next week. Ugh!)
Saturday: possibly playing Christmas carols with the brass band - it will depend how many people they need

A picture from last week ... from a trip to the zoo with Cherub on Saturday. She earned it by getting 20 stars on her sleeping-through-the-night chart.

This Week: 15th November 2011

The weather ... still very, very Novemberish. Grey and damp, occasional sun peaking through, not particularly cold.

I am wearing ... black and white pyjamas

I am reading .... The English Poor Laws 1700-1930 by Anthony Brundage. The Secret Life of Bletchley Park is temporarily on hold.

I am creating ... Angel's snood. A quick knit but the first attempt came out shorter than she wanted so I am knitting a longer version. Still have boot socks for my brother and my multi-coloured cardigan on the go.

I am listening ... Tevye explaining his idea for our Christmas newsletter this year. We always try spice it up a little with an original theme.

I am watching ... Garrows Law and Junior Apprentice. And the X Factor in a half-hearted sort of way.

I am enjoying ... seeing Angel settle into her job. She is enjoying it and her manager is impressed with the speed she has picked it up. I always knew that girl would thrive in a working environment, and it is nice to have that confirmed.

I am planning ... a shopping expedition for new jeans and trousers. I have been eating healthily and every pair I own has got too loose. It seems I must have lost some weight! As I don't possess any scales I have no idea how much.

Learning notes ... I am busy learning about the 19th century poor laws and workhouses as part of my course. Interesting stuff.

Cherub ... is leaning over my shoulder reading this blog! Slowly, and a bit hit and miss, but definitely reading. I'm sure she couldn't have done that even a week ago!

On the menu ...
Monday: chicken and spinach casserole, potato rosti, broccoli
Tuesday: fishcakes, chips and peas
Wednesday: chicken in BBQ sauce with rice and green veg (has been on the list for a couple of weeks but not happened for some reason)
Thursday: spaghetti bolognese (Star is cooking this at school)
Friday: haddock, potato croquettes, veg
Saturday: leek and potato soup (also didn't happen last week
Sunday: roast beef

On the calendar ...
Thursday: consultation with Star's school tutor
Sunday: dance school choreography competition and display. At the last minute Star has decided to take part.

A picture from last week ... another Bonfire night photo

That Parrot is Dead

Sorry, can't mention parrots without thinking Monty Python.

A recent conversation with Star:

Star (all excited): I know what I want for Christmas!
Me: What?
Star: A parrot!
Me: NO!!!!!
Star: Why not?
Me: Don't even go there! And anyway, have you any idea how much parrots cost?
Star: Well, how about a budgie then?
Me: NO!!!!!
Star: Why not?
Me: Don't even go there!
Star: But I want a budgie! I'm going to call it Keith.
Me: NO!!!!!
Star: But why not?
Me (floundering): Because any bird that comes into this house will be cooked and eaten.
Star: What does budgie taste like?

Place Marker

I keep thinking of things I want to blog about, then never get around to writing. Maybe if I post a list here as a place marker it will give me a nudge and stop everything slipping past me.

Blog posts that may - or may not? - happen:

• Bletchley Park
• eating well
• yoga
• history for five year olds
• books for Advent
• time management
• housekeeping failures
• knitting
• all the wonderful stuff I keep finding at work (though that will soon have its own blog)

This Week: 7th November 2011

The weather ... November. Ugh. Yesterday was so grey it felt as though it never got properly light.

I am wearing ... black and white pyjamas

I am reading .... The Secret Life of Bletchley Park by Sinclair Mackay. Next up is a book on the development of the Poor Laws in England - I need to read it for my course, but it interests me anyway.

I am creating ... boot socks for my brother on the train, and a chunky multi-coloured cardigan for myself that I started nearly two years ago. Angel wants me to knit her a snood and I have a couple of Christmas projects planned, so lots of knitting to do!

I am listening ... Tevye running the shower. Nobody else is awake yet.

I am watching ... I was watching Downton Abbey but the series finished on Sunday. Ridiculous, credibility stretching melodrama at times, but still very enjoyable to watch.

I am enjoying ... warm boots. I bought a pair of Ugg-style boots from Clarks in the sale last spring for a third of their original price and they are a bit of warm and snuggly compensation for nasty late autumn weather.

I am planning ... no planning, just surviving an overload of work commitments in this household. Angel is now working as a Christmas temp for a department store, which is going to make the next couple of months a major challenge for her as she tries to juggle work and school. Add that to my extra hours and course work there are a lot of balls up in the air here!

Learning notes ... Cherub has decided her favourite subject is history. Long may that last! Surely one daughter out of three who likes history isn't too much to ask?

Cherub ... really hates loud noise. We went to a local firework display on Saturday, and despite ear muffs to deaden the sound she found all the bangs too much. We went back to our friends' house and they let off some more fireworks in the garden which she loved as the noise was not so overwhelming.

On the menu ...
Monday: cottage pie with root vegetables and green beans
Tuesday: chicken steaks, chips and peas
Wednesday: beef stew and dumplings
Thursday: chicken in BBQ sauce with rice and green veg
Friday: fish in sauce that I bought by accident thinking it was plain frozen fish!
Saturday: Leek and potato soup
Sunday: Roast chicken

On the calendar ... work, work and more work

A picture from last week ... Cherub enjoying Bonfire Night

Rethinking Halloween

For a long time I have been ambivalent about Halloween. When I was a child, Halloween was a very minor date on the calendar. I remember bobbing for apples and maybe playing a couple of other games. I don't remember whether we ever made Jack o'Lanterns - I think maybe we did, but not every year? Whatever, Halloween was hugely overshadowed by Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes) which was a huge deal. We made a Guy, collected wood for a giant bonfire, and went shopping for fireworks - we would be given a certain amount to spend, and in those days that meant selecting individual fireworks and weighing up their relative excitement value. Should it be one giant rocket, or three small ones? The excitement built for weeks.

Since I have had children of my own I have dithered over Halloween, which has become a bigger deal year on year. I don't have any objection to celebrating Halloween in principle. From my perspective as a Catholic All Hallows Eve is part of a package with All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2. My problem is how to celebrate it. Every year since the girls were little the amount of Halloween paraphenalia on sale has multiplied, and trick or treating has got more popular. Some people love it, others hate it. When Angel and Star were younger we sometimes had a small scale Halloween party, but didn't trick or treat, partly because it felt rather alien and partly because we felt that the cons (disturbing people who may not want to be bothered by kids knocking on the door, feeling that it is something that has been imposed on us by the media) outweighed the pros (fun! sweets!). I was also wary of the whole spooky side of Halloween, which is more of a British thing - Halloween costumes are always ghosts, skeletons, witches and things of that type, and telling ghost stories is something else I remember being part of Halloween when I was young.

This year I decided I was warming to the whole thing. Catholic tradition holds that this is this is the time of year to especially remember and pray for the dead, and I presume that somehow the ultimate origin of the spooks and skeletons at Halloween ties in with that tradition. As for trick or treating, I noticed that people have started to leave lit pumpkins outside their doors as an indication that they are happy to be visited by trick or treaters, and that it has become much more of a family event, with lots of families and small groups of children out and about enjoying the atmosphere. We decided to let Star take Cherub, who just managed to let excitement win out over fear - she is Little Miss Timid, and I would have bet against her making it out of the door into a dark night full of people dressed in scary costumes. She set out with great trepidation, but returned with a haul of sweets and the satisfaction of having faced her fear and overcome it.

Cherub, incidentally, was probably the only child in town not wearing anything black or spooky. She was determined that she was going to do it her way. And her way was to dress up as a ballerina with bunny ears. Halloween Cherub style is pink and fluffy!