Children of the Night...

H is having a sleepover. If ever there was a misnomer it has to be the term 'sleepover'.  All parental experience so far goes to confirm that very little actual  sleeping  takes place either for any child involved or any supervising adult. "It'll be fun!" she says as if this alone will convince me of the benefit of such a scheme.

Sleepovers seem to be a rite of passage for any child over the age of six and in order for it to be properly accomplished there is a whole host of ritualistic items to be bought.  Sacraments must include pizza; on one occasion to satisfy parents of a many food-allergy child (no one had invited them to a sleepover before for this very reason and I felt sorry for them) I searched high and low for a gluten-free, dairy-free vegetarian version. Even the pinnacle of upmarket stores, Waitrose, was unable to offer me the complete package and I had to buy the raw ingredients and make the multi-tolerant pizza instead - the result was like a damp cardboard frisbee.

Dental cavities anyone?

Enormous quantities of sweets are stuffed into overnight bags to be consumed at midnight - jelly fangs, illicit Haribo, sour cherries - the more E numbers the better. I have never understood why anyone bothers to bring a toothbrush! Popcorn is another must-have. Much of this, I have found, has a tendency to adhere itself to the sofa and remains as a permanent fixture like some kind of cushion pebbledash.

The choice of movie is, of course, a hotly debated matter amongst sleepover attendees and a source of concern for parents.   Is a 15 rated film appropriate for a 14 year old?  (Personally, I think some are but there again there are 12 rated movies that have given me day and nightmares!) The older the child, the more likely it will be that someone will attempt to sneak in something wholly unsuitable. I greatly admired the child (and her absent parents) who brought a dog-eared copy of Mary Poppins to a teen sleepover once, especially when like a fervent Disney-styled preacher they managed to convert the heathen mass into actually watching it!

Unease about sleepovers is more than just a concern about movie ratings or tooth decay though.  There is nothing like the reveal-all honesty of children, who having spent a night in your house, will expose your family's peculiarities to all and sundry.  Euphemistically, I like to think of our housekeeping standards as 'bohemian' whereas, when compared to stay-at-home mum households, it is more likely to be classified as slovenly. I have niggling anxieties about being seen in my interesting choice of pyjamas and whether I will remember not to sing along loudly to Absolute 80s radio in the morning. But after sleeping lightly with the responsibility of other parents' precious progeny under my roof I stop worrying about what the house looks like and I have no energy to be anything other than my weird self.


Generally, there is such child-created mess and food debris left in the wake (no pun intended) of a sleepover that it would be pointless to tidy up beforehand anyway. The shrieks of laughter, nonsense games, dressing up, pantomine-style application of make-up and giggled whisperings into the night certainly sound like the soundtrack to the 'fun'  that H was so intent on having and who am I to stand in the way of such adolescent merriment.

H dressed as the sleepover bunny (it is nowhere near Easter?!)
Note that at this stage the sitting room is almost tidy

This moment...

Inspired by Soulemama's {this moment} - a Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing an image from the week. A simple and special moment that I would like to pause, savour and remember.

Look back Monday...

Some scenes from the weekend...and what a funny weekend it was.  The Wonderful Man decided to play out a stolen version 'The Good Life' and filched a fresh 'neep' (swede) from the field opposite: 

The French claim that swede is only good for cattle and the English!

But it made a delicious soup

The recently harvested fields make a good walking ground.  The straw makes a satisfying crunch underfoot like a stubbly version of snow. Looking to the east, Torness power station dominates the horizon. I'm fascinated by how it seems to change - there's a peculiar beauty in its ugliness That sounds a very odd thing to say but it has a real chameleon quality; on a dismal grey day it fades to grey too. If there's a real sea mist and heavy cloud then it often looks like it might be floating. Bass Rock is just to the left of it and far out on the right a solitary container ship makes its way north (I wonder what it might be carrying?)

Saturday night a gathering of ghouls, devils and witches celebrated an early Halloween, birthday and wedding anniversary all thrown into one.  Yummy snacks of werewolf toes, bats' ears and satan's eyeballs were enjoyed by all (translation: sausage rolls, crisps and stuffed tomatoes) 

Even Lance, the doped cyclist, and Edwina Scissorhands made an appearance

Meanwhile I dug out a long black wig from the dressing up box and piled on the make-up and da dah - a reasonably convincing Morticia! 

There was no escape from the devil

Desperately seeking brains

H is writing a short story.  Like most teenagers she is more intent on finding an original title and researching ideas for the plot than she is in actually getting down to write the content.  She flies into the kitchen, where I am desperately trying to finish some work of my own, to ask, "Which title do you think is best  - 'Blood River' or 'Rot and Live'?"  At this point the word 'blood' has made its way through my semi-listening filter and she now has my full attention.  I enquire nervously as to what kind of story this is going to be exactly.  "A zombie apocalypse story, of course!" she answers me as though I am either very slow or very old (probably both in her youthful opinion).

I wonder why it is that teenagers seem so obsessed with the undead? Is it because they share a number characteristics - the preference to stay horizontal in the darkened pit of their room rather than get up in the morning,  the mounting collection of black unwashed clothes on the floor and the 'uneven' skin tone perhaps. Or, I suppose, it could be the mistaken belief that they too are immortal and whatever crazy suggestion or dare they choose to follow there will be no consequence.

I find myself getting caught up in H's research.  I learn that the wonderfully onomatopoeic word 'zombie' originates from the Haitian Creole 'zonbi' and Wikipedia defines one as 'an animated corpse' (an oxymoron if ever there was one) that has been resurrected by the use of witchcraft.  In popular fiction of the 'Night of the Living Dead' variety the witchcraft element has been replaced as a cause with the idea of a modern-day plague causing hordes to join the zombie army that is threatening to eradicate all human life. We have the added disturbing complication of zombies' cannibalistic desire to eat living flesh, especially brains, which are incorrectly depicted, so I'm told by my resident expert Dr H, as being 'bright green'.

"What would you do?" enquires my teenager, "Would you fight, run or give in and become a zombie?" Clearly, this is an easy question to answer - give in, of course!  I'm always one for a party and the idea of an open invitation to rampaging revelry all night and not having to worry about whether I have something clean to wear or getting my hair done is much more appealing than wielding an axe or hiding in a cellar.
  "After all, I was a zombie once," I inform her.  She looks incredulous.  "Yes, for a whole year after you were born I was a 'mombie'. I didn't sleep and looked frightful.  My eyes were open but I was in a new mother trance with no will of my own and incapable of finishing a sentence."
"You didn't want to eat me though, did you," she says with a wry smile on her face.
"Oh, yes, I did." She looks worried now. "I wanted to eat you up with hugs and kisses. Consume you with love - my little zombie!"  She gives a relieved laugh and wanders upstairs to use her bright green brain and finish her story.

This moment...

Inspired by Soulemama's {this moment} - a Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing an image from the week.  A simple and special moment from the week that I would like to pause, savour and remember.

Look Back Monday

Well, back to work this Monday for me and so I thought I'd take a look back at some scenes from the weekend and remember the best bits:

L's freshly baked sesame rolls - yum.

Now you see leaves, soon you won't.

Two wheels good; four paws muddy.

Looking very much like a rug on a rug, Luna is in desperate need of a shampoo,  cut and blow-dry.

Back home and time to settle down and watch Downton Abbey along with a hot drink and one of S's delicious  gingerbread pigs!

Something will turn up...

The Micawbers

Mrs Micawber is a bit of a literary heroine to me.  For those not familiar, Mrs Micawber is the long suffering and supportive wife of Wilkins Micawber in the Dickens novel 'David Copperfield'.  Wilkins Micawber is an eternal optimist.  He's always struggling financially but remains recklessly cheerful - his punchline always being: 'Something will turn up!'  Here's the connection for me to dear old Mrs Micawber for although L is indeed The Wonderful Man, he is also very much the optimist.  Entrepreneurial to the core he has followed every 'get rich' scheme and enterprise, never doubting for a moment its long-term success.  Consequently, it's either feast or famine in the Macfennell household as each plan results in the first flush of profit and then the downward trend once the novelty and usefulness of such an endeavour has worn off.  Currently, we are definitely in more of a lean period, not quite a famine in the biblical 'plague of locusts' kind of way, but certainly a time of tightening our belts and economising.

I like the idea of economising rather than the reality. In my 'fluffy world' (more of this in another post)  economising makes me think of the good life and all the positive adjectives attributed to people who care more about their spiritual well-being than the materialistic.  I start off with excellent thrifty intentions involving DIY and 'upcycling' (I love this neologism, don't you, the idea of of re-using and re-purposing the old into something new and improved...if only you could do this with people!)  The problem is that I don't really possess any DIY skills, my sewing sucks and I do not feel inspired to make my own cleaning solutions with baking soda and lemon, possibly because I don't feel inspired to actually clean the house either.  In my experience I have found people who harp on about how they have stopped using expensive shampoos and soaps, and how they make their own deodorant from a stone or cut their own hair, a bit weird (and quite often a bit smelly).

Our efforts at economising have taken a comical turn.  We decided, for example, to cut down on our alcohol consumption.  You would have thought that this can only be a healthy decision but once you know that you cannot have your requisite glass of wine it becomes an issue.  I found myself like some kind of fallen-off-the-wagon AA member searching through the cupboards for something more interesting and adult than water or milk.  I chanced upon a bottle of champagne, obviously being saved for an 'occasion' and decided there and then that desperation was occasion enough.  The following morning my coffee was accompanied by two paracetamol.  L and I do not on the whole drink spirits but we found ourselves looking deep into the recesses of the drinks cabinet and indulging in a tasting session.  We ruled out the Baileys (it had lumps) and decided that two bottles of a peculiar Danish schnapps sort of thing had to go as we had no idea how it was meant to taste and whether it was meant to be that cloudy.  This left us with various whiskeys, some with tombola tickets still attached, and a bottle of vodka left over from New Year.  

We extended our alcohol limitation exercise to our food consumption also.  Surely, there must be money to be saved by living off the contents of our freezer for a while.  All this exercise led to was a number of searching questions:  how long exactly can you keep salmon frozen for? Can chicken nuggets be 'upcycled' into something more sophisticated? Is that bolognaise, lasagne or shepherds pie in the tupperware and, more importantly, why is it not possible to tell the difference?!

There have been benefits though, especially this last week when the smell of L's homemade bread wafts up the stairs like a sensory alarm clock in the morning or family visits to our fantastic local library rather than one-click ordering on Amazon.  My car has stayed parked in front of the house and I have enjoyed being at home and having more time to look around our cosy abode and appreciate what we do have.  I know too that something will indeed turn up soon and we can stock up again on the non-essentials and the downright hedonistic.