So far, so good...

Well, it’s day 1, and so far I have
1) Said bedtime prayers with Adam – it was all going swimmingly, following the ACTS acronym (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), until we reached supplication, at which point Adam insisted on telling Jesus all about his friend who died… er, no, he doesn’t have a friend who died. Still, death is looming large in his consciousness at the moment (although Mummy, Daddy and Ruth aren’t going to die, because Adam is going to rescue us ), so I guess this may help to give him a handle on it.
2) Have started hunting round Islamic blogs, and have asked if I may link to an Islamic mothering one. I’m also trying to see if I can find any Islamic knitting blogs, but so far I’m getting bogged down in Medieval Muslim stuff – not exactly what I was looking for, but fascinating stuff none-the-less.
3) I’ve sent an email, and now John and I are on the mailing list for the next year of Living Generously, although I can’t quite see how to add our household.

As for the knitting – well, I’m ploughing through the snowcrystals on the back portion – and will then need to pause to think how to do the sleeves. I think I will probably carry on with the same “It’s got to be OK really” approach – it’s not going to be authentic, but I’m 99% confident that it will work

Oops – just time to finish watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban before Despo Housewives is on.

Greenbelt thoughts

Well, we made it! And (a little to my surprise) I really enjoyed it. The tent was great, and once I succumbed to wearing a thermal vest and my Grandpa’s old long-johns (!) I was warm enough at night – although never truly comfortable when Ruth demanded access to the all-night milk bar.

Highlights? – ooh – so many – I’ll try to list a few:

It was great to meet Daisy – although always a little odd to meet someone for the first time, but know so much trivia about them. There were many other friends we saw too – and frustratingly many we knew quite well were there, but never managed to see (and we never did get the chance to visit the NSTCT ).

The food was fantastic – not only were we more than adequately catered for by Chris at the Franciscan encampment, but the food stalls were the best we have ever seen. There was a strong emphasis on organic/fair-traded/locally produced food, and a surprising quantity was gluten-free. There was a surreal moment when a woman joined us at the table where we were eating our dinner and commented somewhat embarrassedly on her plate of 6 sausages – explaining that she didn’t want them all, but since they were gluten-free the stall-holders had given her the extras for free. I commented that I am Coeliac too, at the same time as the woman at the other end of the table did the same – it’s not often that 3 Coeliacs end up at the same table by chance!

So for the more serious/spiritual stuff: I managed to get to 3 seminars – Jane Bartlett on saying evening prayers with children, Karen Armstrong on fundamentalism and Leo Hickman on ethical living. They all had very good things to say (although I am not in the least convinced by Jane’s claim that since it has been “shown” that praying over polluted water purifies water crystals, and children are 90% water, praying with them must do good things… er, no, that’s not how it works! She has some good creative ideas for making prayer accessible to little ones though.)

I was delighted to hear Karen Armstrong – it’s now many many years since I read her first autobiography, Through the Narrow Gate, and I have been very impressed by her writing in the New Scientist about the Intelligent Design v Evolution debate. I think a lot of what she had to say about fundamentalism boiled down to the fact that people simply don’t understand each other’s cultures, and a throw-away comment from one person may be deeply, offensively wounding to another, and that this lack of ability to communicate with each other has a dehumanising effect, which in turn legitimises a violent response. There was a lot more to it, including the way that secularism and modernism can be very threatening when implemented badly. I have ordered her book, but am never particularly competent at retaining this sort of information, so apologies for not being that coherent.

I have read as many of Leo Hickman’s columns in the Guardian as I could (although we gave up getting it on a daily basis once I returned to work after maternity leave). He was also very good, although maybe I had a slightly smug “well, we’re doing a lot of that already” reaction.

So – good intentions:
1) Try to start some sort of bedtime prayer routine with Adam. (And discourage him from trying to find the “bad men” who killed Jesus so he can kill them – Jesus said not to, that’s good enough for me.)
2) (More tricky) Try to read blogs of “ordinary” Muslims regularly – to try to make personal links and friendships.
3) Join the second Year of Living Generously, which I believe will be set up soon.

Anyway, bathtime and screaming baby call, I’d better go!

Happy, happy, happy

Good news today (watch John’s blog for forthcoming details). So I decided to celebrate by treating myself to a set of Denise interchangeable knitting needles. I’ve been lusting after a set for ages, and after some unexpectedly good prices for some of the stuff I sold on eBay recently I decided it was justified.

Speaking of windfalls – yummy dinner tonight (if I say so myself) – roast veg (courgette, red pepper, tomato, onion, garlic), roast sweet potato, fried chicken breast, runner beans and brown rice, followed by Brown Betty (except with cornflakes instead of oats and flour, and I threw in a handful of brambles from the bottom of the garden, oh, and I omitted the nutmeg – didn’t feel right with brambles somehow). Deeeeeelish! (And all the apples were windfalls, picked up by Adam and our neighbour’s boy on Saturday afternoon – I love free food ).

Decadence

Well, it’s been a decadent day – we dispatched both the children to Ruth’s childminder for the day (big wails and protests from Adam all the way there, until John left him – at which point he was fine ), so I had a day to myself – so this morning I met with a friend who was similarly free of offspring for the day, and we went to Waitrose for a coffee, and spent all our time chatting about our children.

Then this afternoon John and I went to the vicarage to check out their tent, and practise putting it up – it’s huge! And all the bits are there, and it’s in very good nick, so we really can all go

Oh, and I started a list of things we need to take. We now have a system for packing that works. I make a list a day or two before we go away. On the day itself the list gets put in the middle of the dining room table and we both cross things off as they get packed/put in the hall. We do still get cross with each other, but less so than if we’re continually saying “We mustn’t forget x” to each other.

John has finished Harry Potter 6 (I finished it at the weekend) – we can now discuss it. (Don’t worry, no spoilers coming up.) We both find it much better written than 4 & 5 (both of which I find very difficult to remember – 5 in particular was pretty tedious) – and I maintain a somewhat controversial view of Snape.

Feeling bloated

It was a good dinner tonight – gluten-free (I’m Coeliac) black pudding (made by John a couple of months ago, and none the worse for a spell in the freezer), scrambled egg, oven chips, roast tomatoes and rainbow chard for the adults, runner beans for the children (all veg from the garden ), followed by gluten-free apricot cobbler (never made a cobbler before, but I’ll be doing it again) with “real” custard (we were out of custard powder, and I got a bit carried away!)

Oh and of the 15 items I listed on eBay, they all sold, and 13 people have already paid – and another has already put a cheque in the post. Combine that with the good news about the tent, despite thoroughly miserable weather, it’s been a good day.

Why I love our vicar...

He’s lending us a tent (which should be big enough) and a trailer to take it in, so we can all go to Greenbelt – yippee!

Stressing

So it’s Greenbelt next weekend. And I’m still not sure whether or not we’re going. First we definitely weren’t going – we can’t afford it this year. Then we asked the Franciscans if there were any free tickets available. (We have camped with them in the past as part of their “team”, and are happy to do so again, although it’s somewhat more tricky with two little ones in tow – last year I sent John off on his own – I couldn’t face it with a 2 year old and a 4 month old.) So now we are the happy recipients of one free ticket, and we can afford a second one (thanks to a large back-payment of child tax credits – there are times I could kiss the Inland Revenue!)

Soooo – we do the sensible thing and check our tent out – it’s been sitting on our front driveway untouched for 2 years. It’s not a pleasant sight – mould, mildew, more mould and more mildew. Basically, although the canvas itself is fine, the state of the woodwork means it’s unuseable. Not happy

So this evening, when we should have been cooking dinner, we started a mad panicked trawl of possible sources of alternative tent. We do have 2 other tents, but I’m not at all happy about putting Adam and/or Ruth in a different tent to us, no matter how close they are to ours. We looked at eBay – and probably could pick up a suitable tent for about £60. But frankly that’s more than we can afford. So we’ve phoned my parents, who will happily courier their frame tent down to us, but that will cost in the region of £40, and we’re not at all sure that we will be able to fit ourselves, our luggage, and the tent into our little car.

So we’re looking at hiring a small trailer, or trying to borrow a tent from someone else.

I’m at the stage where the whole thing feels like far too much hassle, and I don’t want to go – but we have this free ticket, and a commitment to be part of the Franciscan team, which is a wholly good and worthwhile thing. At the moment I’m leaning again towards sending John on his own, or with just Adam (now there’s a thought ) – we really don’t have the money to spend a small fortune on courier charges and hiring a trailer.

But there will be lots of good things going on there – I know that there are at least two knitters on the UK Knitters webring – Daisy, and nickerjac – are Greenbelters, although I see nickerjac can’t make it this year , not to mention all the other things – especially meeting up with old friends.

Anyway, it’s now bathtime for Adam and Ruth – and there’s nothing I can do about it now – if we go, we go, if we don’t, we don’t. Che sera sera. (Or however you spell that!)

Meanwhile – the knitting is going very slowly – I’ve been selling a whole pile of stuff on eBay, and although it’s very satisfying, it takes a while to get everything organised.

Must go!!! Big wails coming from upstairs!

Home again

Well we’re home! This is after a 4 hour, 20 min train journey on my own with the terrible twosome. In fact they were pretty good – no, they were basically very good – I just got tired and cranky by the end of it. It’s been a wonderful break – 3 holidays in one.

To start with we spent 4 days in a bungalow/cottage/chalet on Rudyard Lake. The children had a wonderful time. Ruth really got to grips with walking and she had her very first choc-ice

We had some wonderful days out – a walk round the lake followed by a train-ride home along a miniature railway, an abortive attempt to go to Biddulph Grange Garden which turned into a much more successful and cheaper (i.e. free) walk through Biddulph Grange Country Park, and the best one of all was a trip to Ceramica, where we knew we were onto a winner when we were invited to eat our picnic sitting on a comfy sofa in the middle of the exhibits. All of us had a wonderful time (£3.95 each for adults, free for under-4s).

Then we were “oop North” to my cousin’s wedding – I’m uneasy about posting photos of people without asking their permission, so here’s one of Ruth in her party gear:

It was a lovely wedding – my cousin (my baby cousin – all grown-up and married now!) was beautiful, and the groom was… well, very Italian – as were all three of his best men

John then returned home to decorate Ruth’s room, while I stayed at my parents’ with the children. We took them for their first trip to the beach at West Kirby – lots of sand, but no sea, but there really was lots of sand, and a large portion of it ended up on their clothes. (And Adam had a “proper” icecream – a vanilla cone with a flake and raspberry sauce – and he ate it all without dropping any of it!)

And the knitting? Well, I did manage to get some done, but not as much as I’d hoped.

The garden? Well Adam’s sunflowers are out:

and the tomatoes are ripening, and a couple of the courgettes are getting ideas above their station – at the end of the season we’ll let a few of them grow big and make marrow and lemon jam.