A Perfectly Lovely Few Days

One of the best things about having a busy schedule is taking a moment to look back at everything you have achieved and realising that if you can do all that in a few days, the possibilities for the next few years are limitless. I'm having one of those moments right now with my cup of coffee and keyboard and feeling very optimistic for the rapidly approaching new year.

Last Friday was my little Addy's school Winter Fayre. I had volunteered to run a 'Decorate a Cake' stall to keep the children entertained as well as making biscuits to serve with mulled wine as an alternative to  the more traditional mince pies on the refreshment stall. I love baking and I particularly love baking on a grand scale, usually for party food or in this case for a fundraiser. I baked four batches of butter biscuits cut in Xmas shapes and then set about the task of embellishing them with icing.

I had just finished decorating Xmas tree biscuits with royal icing (green food colouring producing a disappointingly insipid shade) using an 'outline and flood' technique and topped with a sprinkling of white glitter sugar when the doorbell rang. It was the postman delivering my latest issues of the Cake Decorating part work I subscribe to which included a Xmas Special. It couldn't have been more perfect timing. I used the snowflake cutters providedto emboss discs of ready roll icing to top circular biscuits and did something similar with star shaped ones. Leftover ready roll icing was perfect for transforming snowman shaped biscuits into proper little snowmen. I also had a go at cutting out delicate snowflake shapes using sugar paste. It was fiddly but effective and could well be used again when the time comes to decorate this year's Christmas cake.

I was pleased enough with my biscuits and although transporting them to the school was a bit nerve wracking (a gust of wind blew the cling film right off one tray), the job was done and another box on my to do list could be ticked.

How much money the Winter Fayre raised has not yet been released but I had the feeling that it was not well supported by parents. A lot of effort had been put in to make a successful event but without the people attending to spend their money, it would all be in vain. My 'Decorate a Cake' stall did very little business because there simply wasn't the steady flow of young people I'd hoped for, keen to roll their sleeves up and drizzle icing and sprinkles in imaginative ways. I am not blameless. My own children stayed at home because they were tired by the end of the week and I knew we had an early start the next day to pay a Xmas visit to the grandparents in Brighton.

As I left the Fayre (in a hurry as I still had packing to do), the lovely 'burger van man' gave me a bag full of unsold veggie sausages and burgers to take home. I enjoyed a little snack on my drive home and handed out warm, meaty(ish) goodies to the family on my return. The 'family' numbers were swelled on account of Taylor being home from Uni for the Xmas break. It was a joy to see her looking healthy, happy and confident after completing the milestone of her first term

I always love going to Brighton. It is where my husband grew up so has special meaning for him. It is where my older sister settled and holds many memories for me of her life and death. And it is where my husband's parents live still.

Addy was especially excited about seeing her grandparents and the promise of staying in a hotel.

A four year old's vision of a "ho-tayal"

My mother in law had a terrible health scare recently which resulted in the need for surgery on her heart so it was a wonderful surprise to see her looking fantastically well. Well enough to have gone dancing with her husband and well enough to have made a raspberry trifle for our tea. My mother in law's raspberry trifle is one of my absolutely most favourite things.

The hotel did not disappoint Addy and I thoroughly enjoyed cheering for James Arthur in the X Factor final on the telly from the huge, comfy bed with a pint of beer bought up from the bar.

It would be a shame to go all the way to the south coast and not visit the beach. We wrapped up warm and took the children for a walk along the seafront. It was cold but the sun came out - bracing and glorious. Unfortunately, Addy got a little too adventurous with the breaking waves and as King Canute could have told her, that will never end well. Soggy shoes, socks and trousers removed, she was wrapped in a warm blanket ready for the long journey home.

Borrowing one of Addy's hats and using hubby as a windbreak to keep warm

Hadn't realised I'd dressed Dylan as a mini dad!

Moments before Addy's soaking

The icing on the cake of a perfectly lovely few days was watching James Arthur win X factor 2012, back home in front of a blazing fire.

Getting the Summer Holidays off to a Good Start - Part I

It had always been on the to-do list for the Summer Holidays to spend a week near Brighton where my husband's parents live so that the children could have the chance to see their grandparents and start making the sort of memories that will stay with them for a lifetime. After consulting our diaries it transpired that there was only one week that would actually work for everyone (my in-laws have a fairly hectic social life centred around their shared love of sequence dancing) and that was the first week of the holidays.

My husband booked the accommodation and I hurriedly organised the packing. The weather was abysmal and my mum rolled her eyes heavenwards as she wished me a happy holiday and hoped we might get a little bit of sunshine. Neither she nor I could have imagined what an amazing transformation there would be from grey miserable skies to clear cloudless blue. I have never had a holiday in Britain where the sun shined constantly.

Clambering in the sand dunes at Camber Sands under a beautiful blue sky

I had packed jumpers and raincoats. We had to go shopping once we were there to buy suntan lotion and shorts. I also bought a whole lot of outdoor toys at sale prices that would keep the children amused.

We stayed in a very comfortable holiday cottage on a farm in Herstmonceaux, East Sussex. The children took a liking to the horses in a nearby field ( I had wanted to write 'neighbouring field' there but thinking of it as a neiiigh- bouring field of horses was becoming an obstacle!)

The holiday worked out perfectly. We were able to spend lots of time with the Grandparents as we'd hoped and also managed to visit beaches, take a bike ride along the cool, leafy Cuckoo trail and spend a day at the Bentley's Wildfowl and Motor Museum featuring two things that my little boy loves - duckth and carth (yes, he has developed a very cute little lisp!)

With only a couple of days at home to unpack and pack again for our next week away, I was glad to have done some of the laundry already. As lovely as it was to enjoy the sunshine at the beach, I was especially appreciative of how useful it was in getting the washing dry!

The pebble beach at Eastbourne

The Gallery - Week 65 - Grandparents

I know of several sad stories of Grandparents who, through no fault of their own, lose contact with their  grandchildren when families fall apart and marriages end. My heart goes out to them.

This was not exactly the case when my marriage ended.

My mother in law did not like me, she did not like the way I brought up my children and I don't honestly think she liked my children either (on one memorable occasion she did accuse 2 year old Taylor of being spawn of the devil because she was crying - and without a hint of jest).

In her defence, I think there were some mental issues at play coupled with an appetite for alcohol that exceeded normal limits. She was a formidable woman but when she screamed at her own son that he was dead to her and tried to attack my children, my maternal instincts did not allow her to have her way. After this event, my eldest daughter, who was only 8 years old at the time, was terrified of her.

Sometimes she would phone me very late at night, usually waking me up. It was often incoherent with slurred words. It was always angry. One time she was shouting about how she never got to see her grandchildren. I reassured her that she was welcome to visit us and see the children whenever she wanted. She practically spat at me that she didn't mean my children.

I did feel sad for my children that they were missing out on all the wonderfully enriching things that grandparents can contribute, but the blow was softened when they were all 'adopted' by the grandparents of their cousins, my sister's in-laws.

At the time of my divorce, I had neither seen nor spoken to my mother in law for quite some time.

My eldest daughter was about to start University and our uncertain financial future was a cause for concern. I remembered that when she was born, her paternal grandparents had set up a savings account for her into which they had paid a small but regular sum of money for her future. Her future was now and although  I had no idea how much there might be in the account, I couldn't help thinking that it would be a great help for her to have it and possibly even a way to establish an independent connection to 'post-divorce grandparents'. I encouraged her to mention it to her father (by now he refused to speak to me so I could not broach the subject with him). That conversation (conducted by Instant Message on the computer) did not go well but he must have mentioned it to his mum because shortly after, my fragile, damaged little girl received an evil letter from her grandmother accusing her of being 'the daughter of the money grabbing mother' and telling her in no uncertain terms that she did not feature in her life nor would she feature in her death. It was two A4 printed sheets of absolute hatred. Just to be fair, although the letter was addressed to Liberty, she told her that ALL her sisters were included in how she felt.

The man that my children had once called Grandpa was not a blood relation. My mother-in-law was divorced from my husband's biological father and by all accounts he was no good. My husband had had no contact with him since he was a child. I had always been vaguely curious about him. In 2009, I got the chance to meet him.

After the dust had settled on my horrible divorce and my girls and I were happy and settled in our new home with our new family, I re-established contact with my ex-sister-in-law. I was really surprised to find out that she had made peace with her real dad and was working on building a relationship with him.

When I took three of my girls to visit her, he came across to meet us all.

I was quite taken aback by the resemblance between my ex husband and his biological father but this man seemed kind, gentle and meek with a softness to his face that made me warm to him almost instantly. He spoke so fondly of his ex-wife, my evil ex-mother in law, saying that she could light up a room. I wish I could have known that women. I wish that woman could have played a positive role in the lives of my girls.

The girls enjoyed meeting their absent father's father but there is so much more to being a grandparent than biology.

Sprayza Studio - Review

Sprayza Studio

£9.99

"Create your own amazing airbrushed pictures with the Sprayza Studio! It's safe, clean, fun and easy. Choose a colour and stencil and blow away to create your masterpiece!"

I enjoy doing craft projects and I thought that the Sprayza Studio pens looked lovely - a stunning colour pallette and a neat little device for blowing the ink. The kit comes with some cardboard stencils but they were a bit of a fiddle to press out and didn't really excite me much. 

It is the sort of thing that my parents like to have at their house to keep the grandchildren amused when we visit. I thought it might be fun to set my parents loose with the kit and see how they got on with it. This is the result.