Light fun

Quietly Friday slips to Saturday, and so starts half term.

A heartfelt sigh.

For many reasons, this week has been a trudge through the thickest treacle imaginable. Not literally, of course. My tin of sticky sweetness is still safe in the cupboard, ready to add to our Christmas pudding. Thank goodness. No. This week has been a combination of tired children and finishing off work. Doing items on the list that need to be done, but I’d happily put off for ever. If ever a week needed smidgeons of fun splattered through it, I’d put this week forward for the award.

The children have been dragging themselves through the last week. The term has been full of new experiences for two of them. They have done so well. I’m proud of them all.

Middle teen had a fun language trip, this week,  which I hope will inspire her. Eldest teen desperately wanted to go but it wasn’t open to her year at school. (Plans of disguising herself as a year 9 were soon squashed). Not to miss out, the pair of them spent time that evening building on the Korean that Middle had learnt that day. I 100% love that schools organize inspiring events like this one.

With the darker mornings, we’ve all been finding it more difficult to drag ourselves out of bed. I added a bit of ghostly chocolate fun to help them get out in time for their ride to school. It worked.

I broke out my new cookie cutters too. They have a woodland theme which fits in with some others I have in my collection. I love cookie cutters and can’t resist picking up interesting shapes. These ones are fun. I was planning to decorate them, but gave up the idea when I realised I only had icing sugar and blue food dye. Blue moose? Maybe not. We ate them plain, which was no hardship. I still think I’d like to decorate the next batch. Any suggestions on what I should add to my shopping list?

I had a helper. Hero the deerhound loves baking. Where the previous dogs have happily waited for the finished product, he prefers to sample throughout the process. I do not encourage him. He is tall and very quick. Long story short, he ended up ignoring a hedgehog or a squirrel, and swiped a moose. Appropriate when you are a deerhound, I guess.

This photo was taken afterwards. I see hope in his eyes. Just one more unbaked cookie, please.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have caught a story I posted up about our delivery man. Repeating it here as another proof of fun this week.

One morning, I was filling the dishwasher and heard a knock at the door. I bobbed up and looked out the nearest window. The delivery man was standing at the door, looking slightly disturbed. Was it my sudden appearance at the window? Or was the hound outside? No. Must have been me. Anyway he delivered our food order at break neck speed, with none of the usual small talk. A bit edgy. Said the minimum he could and left before I had a chance to even check the eggs.  Strange.

OK. Maybe he was behind schedule.

I went out to shut the gate and as I came back along the path, I spotted the window next to the one I had suddenly bobbed up in.

Eric was at the window. I’d forgotten. He is the only Halloween decoration on show, at the moment, from the outside of our remarkably normal looking, country cottage. I guess he might seem a little out of place. Probably didn’t help that the oversized, shaggy hound sat at the glass conservatory door, watching the delivery man leave.

May have to rethink this arrangement.

Final bit of fun, our pumpkins are ready to pick from the garden and the last of the flowers are brightening up the garden.  We have three good sized pumpkins, which are the perfect type for carving and cooking. According to the seed packet, these ones are good for pumpkin pie and I love making pumpkin pie. And eating it. I’m sure you can see why I chose this particular type. Anyway, hopefully I can persuade at least one of the children to get creative  and I can start baking.

Despite the treacle, it has been a week of islands of light fun. Now for half term. More fun to be had, I think!