Ridgeway Cottage anyhow

Hallowe'en is now such a bitter sweet time of year for me which hangs heavy on my heart. Throughout my childhood it was always a time for celebration, as it was my Grandad's birthday and we lived in a street full of family friends so trick or treating was quite an event. Last Hallowe'en we went to Weston Park with my brother's family and it was such a magical time.There is nothing more lovely than seeing your own children with those of your siblings. I remember how truly happy I felt and that everything in my world was better than I ever could of have imagined. And then during the next week, my life changed forever, events beyond my worst nightmares shaped the rest of my life and my heart was permanently broken. Soup is always so comforting and seeing as I'm a vegetarian, chicken soup isn't really on my menu but I do love pumpkin soup. Especially when the pumpkins have been home grown. This is the pumpkin happily growing amongst the weeds at the allotment....

We've been quite busy over the last couple of days going out and about to take part in Hallowe'en activities. This time of year really seems to inspire creativity in people and my children love making things. Hallowe'en is perfect for Charlie and has so many of his favourite things attached to it: the colour orange, pumpkins and sweets. Yesterday we went to Wildwood for Hallowe'en crafts in the Education Centre, which a fabulous place full of exciting wildlife related stuff, like a huge pile of deer antelars. There were far more activities than you could possibly complete within an hour and Charlie wanted to do his own thing and make a Hallowe'en book which turned out so well that several children, including his sister copied him. Charlie's Hallowe'en book, two bats flying across the moon and autumn painting. Today we went to Canterbury Museum for pumpkin carving and it was so much fun. Charlie and Josie did an excellent job. There were slime experimen...

Today has been such a wonderful day full of all the good things that school holidays are made of it would be difficult to pick what to blog about. We've done some historic visiting for Josie's half term school project, piratical rubustifications for Charlie to enjoy at lunch time, discoveries and a little bit of sewing. A day jam packed full of happy members with my lovely children. We chose very carefully when we wanted to move out of London and Canterbury is perfect. We can walk everywhere including a Roman Museum which is right in the centre of the City. Josie liked the museum because it was full of information about Romans, she was able to make lots of notes in her secret diary and learn. Charlie liked it because there were displays about food, cooking and kitchens and you could touch some of the displays. I liked it because there was one door in and then you had to go downstairs to Roman Street Level and therefore there was very little chance of either child escaping an...

It just so happened that Josie's and my craft afternoon, continued into the whole of the next day, following evening and everything was finally finished off today. We bought a fabulous book, The Girls' Book of Secrets , it was really good for reading with Josie and opening up discussions about surviving bullying, how to win an arguement and the secret to understanding your mum. So over the past couple of days we've made a secret diary, a secret den and a secret den wall organiser and all whilst Charlie has been unwell (poor little thing). Josie chose the fabric from my fabric trunk and we made a secret diary with padlock to keep Charlie out and a matching pencil. Then we made a secret den in her bottom bunkbed and a secret den wall organiser to keep the secret diary in. Finally we made a Halloween plate and some Halloween biscuits to go on it. Sadly now Josie is feeling unwell so I think both of them must have had some kind of nasty bug. I hate it when they are il...

Just the little lift I needed. A message from Paula Radcliff I've now run 500K this year and that includes the 5 months I took off running. Firstly I tore a muscle in my calf  (I do have old calves now and they've done a lot of work since I started dancing at age 3 years)secondly life was just too much to go out running. As I said yesterday though, Nike+ is addictive and now I'm back on the road, I've already started setting myself new targets. I want to run another 50K by 23rd November. It maybe a bit optimistic since there are such tough times ahead but I can always extend the date if I don't mangage it. Josie and I had a craft afternoon but the results wont be ready until tomorrow but it was a lot of fun.

Today we invested in a family membership for Wildwood  and it truly is a magical place set in the most beautiful Kentish woodland. We hadn't been since Josie had her fourth birthday party there as an individual visit is quite expensive. However for two adults and up to six children, it is only £6 per month and worth every penny. A good friend gave me a leaflet about the upcoming events after reading my blog about wild mushrooms because there is a Fungal Foray there next week. Apparently it is sold out but people do drop out and I'm sure that if I'm persistent, I'll get a place. I've also booked the children in for Hallowe'en crafts later in the week. They have a fabulous collection of native British animals: beavers, badgers, deer, foxes, mink, otters, owls, pine martins, pole cats, squirrels and wolves. I especially liked the cavern you can enter to view the pole cats sleeping in their dens. There's also an adventure playground which the children loved. ...

Despite the beauty of the first frost, there have been some garden and allotment casualties. Until Thursday morning, my garden was filled with more glowing nasturtiums than I could pick, but now they look sad, withered and frost burnt. Some flowers and plants remain in more sheltered areas but more than 90% have died. The lovely thing about nasturtiums is that once you have them, they self seed and come back year after year, with more vibrant and unusual hot colour combinations. It was more upsetting to learn that dahlias don't like frost. This is my first year growing dahlias and it was so sad to see my beautiful orange dahlia, still in bud which will now never flower. As soon as I got my second allotment earlier this year, I was able to start growing the flowers that I have always dreamed of and as the dahlias fade, the chrysanthemums seem unaffected by the wintry weather. The buds are about to flower which is very exciting. I have also planted a flower den for Josie made f...