In "In This Life"

Pam, thank you thank you thank you! Thank you for letting a completely unknown person arrive late at your door one dark and rainy Friday night! Thank you for your tolerance of her inane excitement at being in your living room. Look, here I am in your living room! (There I go again...) It's just that I have read and loved your beautiful, poignant In This Life words for so long that I was really quite overcome at being in the same room as the train tracks and the dolls' house and the wonderfully intact glassware.


Thank you for tea and cake (and please forgive me for posting the picture of the kettle). Thank you for putting me on the right bus for the stage of my Edinburgh adventure. Thank you for your welcome and your hospitality and for your words. Thank you every post for your words, even the 'solipsistic' word. I've been looking at its definition for a full five minutes now...


Sorry that it has taken me a week and then some to thank you here! A wonderful weekend in Edinburgh is suddenly in the past. But the blessings it brought are still very much bright and lovely! Hopefully more on the rest of my weekend soon - with lots of thank yous to Sandra who may be landing back in the States anytime now.

Thank you, bloggers of this beautiful bloggy world.

This is, I promise, the last shameless flaunt of our little book this week! (On the blog... One reserves the right to be shameless on farcebook.)

There are lots of things I love about blogging, and one of them is the universality of the thing. Knowing that all across this wide and wonderful world, physical and virtual, there are women who sound a bit like me, hugging their cups of tea and trying to be happy.

Another thing is the kindness of bloggers: the lovely comments, the thoughtful emails, even the visits when they so incredibly manage to happen. And so many times over the last ten years have there been letters and gifts and advice and such love.

So huge gratitude tonight to the five of you who read a crazy email about a year ago and signed up with such generosity of spirit to a project that wasn't even on your landmass!

Alison at View from the Teapot; Angela at Tracing Rainbows; M.K. at Through a Glass, Darkly; Pom Pom at Pom Pom's Ponderings; and Sandra at Thistle Cove Farm. From the States to France via England!

I have to warn you five that you may be about to hear from some of the supportive folk who have been buying the book. I'd be interested to hear if you do hear from anyone! We've decided to have a little competition to see who can get the most contributors' signatures by the end of this year. There will be a prize!

Back to normality next time, whatever normal is around here, although I must also say that, incredibly, I may be meeting two bloggers in person, in the real world, very soon. These are very exciting times just now in the Meadowplace!

Happy Pumpkins

Might I be honest? Could I tell you what I really think about Thanksgiving? Divulge my secret from across the wide Atlantic sea? Well, presuming your affirmative reply, I shall whisper quietly, lean in, that it's all about the pumpkin pictures. I fully understand and admire the looking back on past Ebenezers, and hasn't the Lord been good to us after all? I fully understand and admire the gatherings of family and friends without quite all the trappings of materialism and tinsel. I also fully understand and admire the recipes and the pies and the feasting and the more time off work.


However, what it does for me, here, in this little and frozen Northern land, is prolong the visual pumpkin season. We only see pumpkins for those weeks before Hallowe'en. Very few of them are grown here; indeed I imagine that only recently have any of them been grown here at all. But you, y'all, you have pumpkin fields galore; I know; I've seen one, once! In Indiana many harvest moons ago now...


All this to say- obviously Happy Thanksgiving to all you fabulous American bloggistes who make my screen shiny with love and life. But more importantly for me, thank you for all those glorious pumpkins x

Ubi sunt?

 We went to see a specially commissioned Game of Thrones tapestry at the Museum just before Hallowe'en. It stands in tribute to the contribution made by the series to the Northern Ireland economy! From the Stones and Thrones-like bus tours to the Dark Hedges and Giant's Causeway to Castle Ward's becloaked archers, this little country has made a serious amount of money from books and TV far too graphic for me to encounter beyond marvelling at the gory tapestry scenes! Right now though, it's not so much that winter is coming, because winter is well and truly here. Cold!

 It was on one level quite the usual autumn here in the Meadowplace. Pumpkins, berries, cosy times. Finding that someone had raised an Ebenezer long ago in their home, as I endeavour badly to do here! There have been exceptional moments too- the small matter of a little hurricane for one. On that other level of things outside the norm, I was so glad to read MK's recent post about how the reality behind Blogland can bely its pictures. It's been a tough season here in many respects. When I walk out of our friends' new house to see that old Ebenezer sign it does me good to remember that thus far God has indeed helped us. I pray that He is helping you too x

 I finished an anthology of Emily Dickinson last week. My! That is a hard read. Possibly one of my hardest. I did, however, love the idea of ubi sunt literature. Writing that voices our questions over where the values of the past are, where the things that we have lost are. This articulated for me all my approaching fifty angst- where are the things that I had/did/aspired to/achieved? Then, thankfully, I had a little Epiphany.  What if I asked not,"Where are?" but, "What now?" What if I did do not very much with my education, my thin body, my opportunities to do this, that and the other? What now? What next?

Yesterday Mattman and I climbed one of our local hills. He wanted to keep on going and walk down the other side. I think he could have walked all day. My forward-facing teenage man and a clear, cold November dusk-coming sky. Not so much ubi sunt, as ubi ergo!

A prayer for bloggistes

I've been going to a home group in church for maybe most of a year now. I don't go every time, but Prince Charming is quite good at getting me out the door when I have no excuses left! The discussion book this term is Bold I Approach, and it is a very good study on prayer.

This week we were looking at what happens in prayer, and at one point we looked at Paul's just incredible prayers for new believers at the start of Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians. At the same time I suppose I have been thinking a lot about blogging, and looking back at the things I wrote about when I started. So, here are some of Paul's prayers for the church in Colosse, because when I think of all the strong encouragement I have received from women all over the world through this very screen, these words seem beautiful for you too x

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light."

Happy last weekend in October, blog friends and saints x

To autumn around Belfast

What if "autumn" was a verb as well as a noun? If I talked about "springing" around Belfast that would have all sorts of energetic, full of life connotations that would not be inappropriate at all.

Well, despite the much lamented by me lack of blogging,we have been autumning around the city since last I typed, and it has all generally been very nice. We manged to get to the David Hockney exhibition before it closed, although I think the (three) boys were most impressed by the view of St Anne's Square from inside the Mac. That is actually my favourite part too!

Hockney has very special significance for me. I'm afraid it's less to do with his undoubted genius and more to do with the weeks my aunt and godmother summered me round London and its exhibitions. It was also very, very lovely to see some of the iPad work that Catherine and I saw on our Utter Jolly to Biarritz and the Guggenheim, Bilbao a few years ago.

Is this Hockney's mother? I very much identified with the slightly slumped resignation. Maybe the good lady wasn't feeling a bit weary, but as the autumn pulls on the rope towards dark and cold, I am certainly starting to flag!

 Last week at Hookery we had a very special night, because of an on-going and hitherto top secret special project. I didn't get much further than the chaise longue!

And so to last weekend. Brisk and bracing walk along Belfast Lough. The engineer inspects the machinations of a new fountain installation.

The boys carried their penny boards (penny boards?) in between places of sufficiently smooth, flat surfaces for a decent whatever the word would be. Look at the height of those boys!

I wondered if Sandra will be able to spot her wind turbines on the other side of the Lough? It should certainly be a familiar sight to Kezzie! I'm afraid I've only ever sailed it on a car ferry, and not on one of the luxurious cruise liners that still make us smile wryly at the benefits of The Peace.

This is Hazelbank Park- which has a little avenue of fruit trees: apples and pears. The boys were most disgruntled at finding traces of fermenting fruit under their feet. I am sure that this attention to new shoes will not last.

Prince Charming did some foraging, and we'd need to get some stewing done before we have some fermenting of our own. Not that would necessarily be a bad thing either...

And that is probably the height of it- except of course that the main event has not yet been covered. I keep waiting for the perfect moment to overwhelm me, but it never comes. So, Sandra's wonderful, lovely jaunt North as part of her recent trip to Ireland will have to push its way through the domestic mire very soon. What a fabulous weekend it was!

And so there we go. Mise had a truly beautiful piece on how much less blogging there is around now. I wish I was still blogging lots and lots. There is just so very little of interest here to share. It's all two boys at Big School now and the homework that it entails, and it entails a lot. It's having to have a list to remind you of what laundry to do when, and what nights to think about PE kit, Games kit, violin, guitar, Drama. It's always knowing that there is so much more you could be doing for x and y and z. It's about never ever ever getting around to making more leaves for the autumn garland, tidying my room, or applying more moisturiser!

It's mundane and it's domestic and it's so non-photogenic! That's how I autumn just now! You'll have to imagine the gorgeous golden light in the gorgeous golden trees and the gorgeous golden heads of my boys busying away on the floor, because Mum is at the desk.

Happy October!

End of an era

 I have been thinking that, apart from the working five days a week thing, and the looking after children and parents thing, and the being as lazy as get out thing, one of the reasons I have rarely blogged for a long while now is because I have allowed my mind to be ruined, ruined utterly, by a dependence on short, preferably witty sentences or sub-titles that require little effort and less thought, and which are usually found on facebook.

But this afternoon, writing this year's series of thank-you cards with my shining suns, it struck me that the place I really wanted to be documenting what is a big milestone for us here in the Meadowplace wasn't facebook at all. Despite the fact that blogs are much more open than social media with their supposed privacy settings, there is in blogging an atmosphere of intimacy and understanding that doesn't exist there. Here in the small nest of sympathetic readers is a small, precious space to lay down a little egg!

 Tomorrow Jo will leave Primary School. He will surge out of the red doors at 12.15 and bounce around for a while with all his friends, high on life and loud as a hoarse-from-a-morning-of-shouting thing can be. I think I started blogging in 2008, when Jo was about to start his nursery year. I was certainly blogging when he started school. He had seven years of hearing that school bell ring, running up and down that playground, doing homeworks, going on trips, walking/scooting/cycling down and up the hill, learning to play violin and protesting his hatred thereof at every pluck of every string! For most of that I was blogging cakes, books, trips, Wind in the Willows, walking down and up the hill- I'm not at all sure what!

I know that I did come to feel that I was eventually blogging all the same things at all the same times of the year. That did make me feel slightly boring! But what is life if not Autumn cosiness, winter lights, Spring emersions into the fresh air, and solo summer surviving when you have two suns and their high octane energy to channel and Prince Charming is safe in work!

Thankfully, regardless of his increasing propensity for teenage attributes, Jo has the living room floor covered in train track. Schools may change, height may change (that's definitely them rather than me), seasons may change- but some things remain to litter the nest a while yet!

Tomorrow our Primary days end, another holiday kicks off, and all will be well in the world x

Owed to Spring

Oh, I know. There were so many other things that I should have done on a totally gratuitous day off school today. At least four of you must be guts for garters with me in mind. And I didn't even show you the most incredible giveaway that Simone gave away to me last week. I'll use her photo because mine would never do it justice. I have it in my schoolbag for random acts of celebration. Thank you, Simone. I'm still delighting in its beauty.

I'm going to suggest that my gay (can I till use that word in that sense?) abandon of the to-do list is owed entirely to Spring. This is where I was today, instead of being efficient. There were lambs and daffodils and many, many balls of wool. I bought two- balls of wool. Now I have three little shamrocks all ready for tomorrow, when I shall look at my to-do list. Promise...

Pause in Advent IV

We've always talked about the Winter Solstice, and indeed the Summer one. It's just that this year I have been more than ever aware of how dark the days have been, how short. The boys and I have marvelled at it over grey breakfasts and dusk-filled school returns. Admittedly this photo has just been taken at 7pm, but it has been this dark since 4pm!

And I feel the darkness now as Advent comes to an end. I don't feel excitement as the days of Christmas approach. As the boys and I often say, Jesus wasn't born on 25th December. I am breeding Scrooges! I feel tired at the thought of all the food organisation, preparation and consumption. I feel defeated by the psychology of family. I am admittedly lying down under a rotten cold this evening in the hope that it will go away and quickly.

Maybe I should lie down in hope under the whole thing. Lie down under a blanket with some paracetamol and the annual reading of Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher! I'll count how many times she mentions Belfast sinks and be inspired by the glamour of Carrie who sprays her cold-ridden self with sophisticated perfume and opens the door to the possible love of her life. Maybe I'll spray myself with my one small bottle of sophisticated perfume and open the door to Prince Charming and our suns when they get back from the carol service!

Hope. There is my word for the next week. Hope for energy, hope for being organised, hope for celebration- as Gary's post so succintly exhorts. Thank you to Ang for this year's Pause in Advent. It is an integral part of December for me now- and I have loved reading all your wisdoms xx

Views

We have been enjoying the most fabulous September weather this week. Every day is warm and airy. We get home from our schools and pour ourselves straight into the garden. The conkers are becoming visibly brown and are just ready to fall all over us and we cannot wait.  Please note the fine linen spread on our recently moved table.

I had not one but two parcels waiting for me this afternoon. One was very expected and may I just congratulate Clarks for using a sensible courier who can take a decision that doesn't involve spending your weekend driving the length of the borough to retrieve undelivered mail?

But Sandra of Thistle Cove Farm- thank you immensely for this beautiful tablecloth! I have been imagining what American feasts it has already hosted. It is quite the most perfect companion to Scarlet's gifts of last month. Bloggistes really are a kind and generous band of folk.

The solitary pear on my Christmas pear tree has now clearly reached a weight that allows it to hang vertically rather than horizontally. This is emcouraging, if slightly less smile inducing.

We moved the garden table from under the kitchen window because I wanted to have a quiet corner for herb pots and thinking. This is the starting point! These chairs sat in full sun just under the kitchen window in Strawberry Land and they were my thin place. A place where the barrier between Heaven and Earth is thin, and where God is strongly felt.

Glorious sunshine to the front as well. That tree in a pot was waiting for us when we arrived just over five months ago, and it has taken me all this time even to begin to have the courage to rearrange things. Its next move might involve more than a rearrange.

This tree, however, is much more intriguing. Answers on a postcard, or in a comment, please?

Bloggistes of my world, may the Son be shining on your face all day x

September

 One of you fine Susan Branch living people shared a picture of her September tree the other day on good old farcebook. But I can't find it now or you now, so here is a teeny tiny one stolen shamelessly from Goggle. The line at the top stood out for me even more than the fabulous words. "Wind gives speech to trees". Here in the frozen North for days now as soon as you go outside you hear Autumn. Up until this year I thought you felt it in the crisper, cleaner air. I thought you saw it in the blue, blue sky whose sun didn't burn. In a little epiphany I realised last week that you hear Autumn: in the dry leaves not yet ready to take their leave (excuse the pun...) of summer.

Appropriately, yesterday morning in church we sang "We have heard a joyful sound" and I did smile broadly when we got to the verse that says, "Give the winds a mighty voice: Jesus saves". I was smiling and hoping that the noise of His Autumn would be heard wherever the leaves fall and that salvation would come for all who most need it. As our very traditional preacher pointed out in a most untraditional way for the frozen North, being the word "saved" has many translations, among them finding peace and well-being.

 I have goals for this month! I told my extremely lovely Science teacher and co-staff room chatter today that I was going to get organised this month. She pointed out that you'd never set that as a goal for a child. "Be specific, Mags," she said. So here are the specifics, in an attempt to create accountability for myself:

I am going to have food in the house every day and that includes remembering that I need a packed lunch too!

I am going to stop forgetting swimming kit and piano lessons.

I am going to crochet my tank top from this book. My version will be in easy, monochrome grey.

I am going to start that 52 books in a year thing that everyone else started in January. So institutionalised are we, in three separate schools now, that September is really the start of our new year!

I will be in bed by eleven instead of midnight. (It's 23:29 now.)

If you're still here you'll want a cup of tea. Camomile at this hour. Thank you all for still popping in to the new Meadowplace x It is lovely to have so many porches to relax on when a moment even vaguely beckons from behind the conker-laden chestnut tree up yonder. I know that you're all finding ways to celebrate the speech of the trees this Autumn!

Views, from a bigger picture

I thought that if I took Jane's Views from inside the room, I could bore you with the inside of the Meadowplace. This is the sun room. All of life ends up here. A bit like the kitchen back in Strawberry Land, except that at least now the stacks of untended crockery are hidden from view! Your eye will be caught either by the climbing wall or the bunting. This probably reveals as much about your psyche as do those facebook surveys that tell you which city you would be most at home in, what colour you would be and what sort of a job you could do. I should really be a social activist in Portland wearing blue. Of course your eye might just be caught by the mess. Try to spot the new wool instead!

Voici la cuisine, remarkably devoid of untended crockery. You should see it right now. Door right leads back into sun room; door left leads into what I'd like to call the scullery because I don't like the term utility room. But we do in fact call it the utility room. We utilise it for the washing and drying of clothes, but not really very often for the ironing thereof. Plus ca change...

I did mean to take other views, but my camera decided to have a little strike,coming round in time to show you a very wonderful present that arrived here today. Many astounded thanks to Scarlet from The Finished Article. Embroidered fraises on crisp linen. A joy! The kindness of strangers is such a beautiful aspect to blogging, I think. I would not recognise so many of you if our paths crossed on some street somewhere. We could be drinking coffee table by table! Yet here we are, checking in, catching up, smiling at the other's adventures of the day. Scarlet, you made me smile today!

So if you do find yourself at a table in a coffee shop on a street somewhere, beside a family with two boys who may or may not be sitting comfortably, if the mum is clearly grumpy and looks something like this, do say hello! (And leave quickly... )

ps I know. I keep forgetting to ring the kitchen cupboard people. Manana.

Reconnected

This is home at dusk! Boys' supper bowls still on table, DVD noise from next door. We have been reconnecting with Prince Charming who has just now fallen into bed- he arrived home this afternoon having been transatlantic to Big HQ for a three-hour meeting. His feet were in North America for twenty-four hours. He was away from home for forty-eight!

What interests me in all the disruption of back-to-back travel and also in the high cost to the company of such a short trip, is that it was clearly worth it to the project involved to have people in a room, face-to-face, reading each others' expressions, able to be fully understood and to fully understand.

Which seems ironic in this super-modern context of instant and diverse communication. I am about to log in to an on-line group to which I belong, and which I very much love. But often I dearly, dearly wish that I could be in the same real room, on the same real continent, with these women.

I wonder is blogging slightly different though. Is the marriage of words and picture a very tangible window through which we allow like-minded folk to look in on us? I don't mean the "lifestyle" blogs with huge followings and managed perspectives. I mean us. Those of us who have bumped into each other on the corner of someone else's street and said, call round!

I've been away from Blogland for ages, and am trying to reconnect. I have decided that I don't have anything particularly worthy to share with the group, but I am so deeply reassured on returning to find our years turning on their solid landmarks and seasons that I am going to pitch right back in with unending attempts to knit socks and a long list of vain sewing projects.

Though actually, it's all about boys here! So if you do call round, look out for the water balloons....

Peekaboo

Hello! No more strawberries where now I live. Hoping to rectify that soon. But there are bats and birds and even briefly cows! Not bad for a move across the road!

We have been unpacking and installing and working out how to live in a new place- and also trying to work out what on earth was going wrong with Blogger. 'Twould appear that Internet Explorer 11 was what was wrong, so here we are on a firey fox, hoping to do better!

More to follow, if this works! Thank you very much for all your good wishes. We are very happy to be here in a meadowplace.

Mags x

Are you sitting comfortably?

I'm going to tell you a story. It is the story of The Beds That Went Out in the Snow. It is not a picture story because I still cannot get pictures to work. This may well be the end of fraise, and it distresses me beyond measure. So here is the beginning of the end. It is actually the beginning of the end of the Land of the (sometimes tearful) Strawberries anyway, but that's The Moving Story, with which this tale connects. I think all good stories do...


Once upon a time there lived a grandmother whose grandchildren lived very far away in another land. Across two seas, and three borders, and many mountains. At that time there were three grandchildren, though now there are four.


Occasionally the parents of the children would journey back to the land of their birth and stay a while. Even more occasionally the children would stay there and perhaps go to school, because Other Things were happening in the far off land. The grandmother lived in a small house, so she had sturdy bunk beds brought for the two older girls, while Adam, the first-born son, slept on a little bed next to his grandmother. These beds carried the children safely and snugly through many seasons of their fledgling lives.


All children grow, however, and bump their heads on upper bunks that are suddenly much lower, and fight with the sister who was once such a close ally. Then of course Other Things led to a return homeward for everyone, and the houses of the families were now mere counties apart, instead of countries. Shiny new furniture soon replaced the worn pine bunks.


I think they stood there quite some time, those faithful bunks, not at all sure of what they could be without children, even transient ones. But they still glowed warm and hopeful.


Now it so happened that friends of this family were a wild and chaotic lot. They were small in number, and most of them were very small in stature. They made up for this, however, in noise and passion and fuss. High their principles may have been, but their ability to realise anything was limited indeed. The calm and experienced family had oft set a clear example to these floundering folk, and quietly stepped in when a question of new beds arose.


The bunk beds arrived one dark night in Strawberry Land. 'Twas the start of a riotous adventure.


In early times a canopy of blue and stars enfolded the high bunk, and under night skies at all hours of the day great conspiracies were hatched and empires forged. Later and below, dark dens of caves were formed from thick walls of quilt and at all hours of the day midnight feasts and ocean voyages and piles of books flowed far from adult eye.


All children grow, however, and bump their heads on upper bunks that are suddenly much lower, and fight with the brother who was once such a close ally. Then of course Other Things led to a looming move, and the brothers didn't want to share a room any longer.


They stood there quite some time, those faithful bunks, not at all sure of what they could be without children, even riotous ones. But they still glowed warm and hopeful.


Now it so happened that the Strawberries saw that someone was looking for bunk beds. Having ascertained that the calm and sadly separate family no longer had a use for them, the Berries offered them to a big family with four year old twins. The bunk beds left Strawberry Land in a fluster of snow and a billow of frost, and set forth once more into the dark night.


If one day you see them glowing warm and hopeful, with stickers of Lego men at head and foot, do smooth your hand along their worn pine sides and tell them we loved them!

January

I have tried four times to upload pictures, to utterly no avail. So now I'm trying with words alone. Just to say that the strawberries are still here, wherever here may be. I have managed to keep one out of my two resolutions, having breathed for the whole month of January. Pretty constantly, in fact.


I did sort of keep the second one, in that I have been taking pictures of the views from my windows every Thursday; it's just that I never got this far with them. And actually, last Thursday's views were very interesting indeed, as you shall discover, if I can work out how to post pictures by next week!


Here there has been some baking, more than that crochet and lots of reading. I did have photos of all the above, but I seem to have lost the knack of blogging. Maybe February will be better!

You know me and pumpkins.  I got a bit lost in the colourful pumpkin field- it's all grey-blue Winter here now! Happy Thanksgiving, you lot! (Will you be eating some?)

Views from my Windows

Here we are, Jane - winter dusk in Strawberry Land. Mattman thought the sky was purple. I thought it was pink. You say tomato...

No view of our friendly American today, because she is flying home as I type. Too short a stay, Sandra! On the subject of language, Sandra learnt the word we use for erasers, and we laughed and laughed. Homework will never be quite the same again. There's my kitchen reflected in the back garden once more.

And here are the television and the fire reflected in the front. I fell asleep in front of both this afternoon. While darkness fell and seasons changed.

Jo's teacher says that snow is forecast for this very day next week. Like Kipper, we strawberries are very positive about snow. Not sure that we're quite prepared for it yet though! Operation Readiness begins tomorrow...



No such thing...

....as a free ride. If you come to Strawberry Land, you may well find yourself lumbered with spellings homework!

We're welcoming Sandra from Thistle Cove Farm this week- all the way from America. This is very exciting for us. Blogging- what an adventure!

View from my keyboard

Sorry, Jane. I could have had a spectacular view of Belfast Lough under cold, fabulous winter skies today. Or a possibly last golden views of the most resilient autumn foliage outside. And one of these days I'll charge my little camera to have a spectacular view of Cave Hill from my new place of work.  But here it is. The dining room, again! Complete with laundry, vestiges of dinner, and an aspirational monument to ironing in the corner. Installation art, I like to think of it as.

Today I:

Got up, got boys out, got out. I'm getting better at this in week two of being back at work. I've got to Thursday before crying at the cold, dark monotony of getting out of bed early EVERY day. I know. Pathetic.

Went to work. Worked. Good grief, did I work today.

Came home from work to my glorious big son.

Took him with me to collect my glorious smaller son who been eco-clubbing in the school garden. Sounds like an environmentally-friendly version of going out and having a blast. They were out. And he did have a blast.

We went to the least swish of our three four Loughside cafes and watched dusk come down over Belfast Lough with a little plane bound for the airport.

When it was time to go to the solicitor's we walked through the cold village and Jo managed not to be knocked down.

I signed a very important legal document, and came one step further to being/having Power of Attorney along with my brother.

Got home to find my brother on the doorstep, and we had a needed debrief on being/having Power of Attorney. (I did bring him in off the doorstep.)

Made dinner whilst conducting a long telephone/text/facebook exchange with my friend and mother of my children's friends who keeps me sane in the realm of homeworks, preparations, and all things needing to be done that I may not be at all aware of.

Ate dinner with Prince Charming, allowing the boys to eat in the other room because they could NOT miss this episode of Scooby Doo Something. I know. Pathetic.

Left PC struggling manfully with aforementioned homeworks, preparations and all things needing to be done.

Took Dad to hospital to see Mum. She is poorly, at the minute, despite having made some wonderful progress from a Very Bad Thing that happened way back in August.

Took Dad home and made him dinner, at 9pm. He's still working on the mealtimes thing.

Came home. Boys in bed. I packed Mattman's PE bag and PC packed his sleeping bag and pillow for a relaxation time in school tomorrow. He has three big tests this month and school brings someone in to do candles and incense and the like to de-stress the poor souls. Mattman, however, appears less stressed than hugely excited at the prospect of candles and incense and our promised Subway lunches when he comes out of the tests.

November is racing by; I can hear it as it goes. It whistles softly in the wind sometimes very late at night, like now. I am not blogging daily this year, although I do miss that opportunity to savour every cold, clear, calm moment that November holds. I have finally worked out how to link to all the fabulous bloggistes who are blogging daily though. Do call round for tea and biscuits. MK might show you how to make a hat...