Second Pause in Advent: Peace

 There isn't a jot of peace to be had in my world! I got the essay handed in, I got prepared for Preparing for Advent (and it was a lovely evening), I watched the fabulous DVD lent to me by a very long-suffering friend from church. The tree is up, the lights are on, the Amazon order is placed. Lists are written, including Mattman's exam revision timetable which started last night. This all sounds very good and glorious when set down in type.

 Along with the chocolates in our Advent calendar this year I have put a challenge a day into the pockets. I stole this idea from Ang. All the best ideas come from Ang, and all you other, better than me folk! Because we take a day each, it means you get four days to complete your challenge. This is just as well as although I gathered together my books to take to the charity shop, they are still here in a pile. Manana. Which is when I will be leaving happy notes for someone to find. I might start under some pillows tonight...

So I suppose in the midst of it all I could sit down and clear my head, but I am afraid to because many sad things are all around us this winter. I fear there is not much peace to be found. Last Thursday night at Preparing for Advent we thought about how we need in this dark world to wage peace, hope, love, joy as assiduously as the world wages war and despair. Admittedly we did end the night with a thought from Rend Collective's blog: "The message of the manger isn’t that we need to make sure everything is right before Jesus comes, it’s that he makes all things right WHEN he comes."

Shalom x

Advent Hope

Oh dear, I was so hoping to do my first Advent post actually on the first Sunday in Advent, 

but now I'm just hoping to squeeze it in before the end of Monday!

I am sincerely hoping to get my 1500 word essay finished tomorrow,

as I am also sincerely hoping to be ready for Thursday night's Advent event.

I am hoping that Jo's cold and very sore nose will get better,

and that no-one will need a doctor this week.

I am hoping that we all get out to work and school

on time

for the rest of the week.

I am hoping that now that Jo's transfer test is over, over, over

he can get back to enjoying school,

but I hope that I will not forget to help him with his craft homework

tomorrow

and I do so hope I can do that and finish my essay and get

ready for Advent.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hoping that all you lovely American folk will have a precious day off with family, regardless of pastry and pies and roast beast. You are already such a daily example of thanksgiving to me x

Pause

 Look at the height of those suns. That's my eye level looking mostly at their eye level. 'Twill soon be Mags in the Land of the Giants as oft I have feared. I realise that you're not looking at their eyes, and that indeed you are looking deliberately at the back of those precious heads. Soon they will be old enough to smear themselves all over the Sinternet, but until then their story is (mostly) safe with me.

Today we were by some stroke of divine humour actually stirring up on Stir Up Sunday. In went the wishes. They were very long wishes. That's a worry! My position for much of today's baking was actually on that there stool in the top corner, with my cup of tea. After the Christmas Cake (not Pudding) was safely concocted Jo made his first entirely single-handed cake. And very fine cake it is too. I sat on that there stool in the corner with my cup of tea and thought things. Mostly to do with boys who get bigger.

Ang at Tracing Rainbows is, as you all know, running another wonderful year of Pause in Advent, when so many wise women of the east, west, north and south of wherever ponder all sorts of things in their hearts. I love Advent!

Our daily bread

 Mattman baked his first loaf of bread this week. It was Savoury Irish Bread week in Home Economics this week and he came bolting out of school brandishing his box and a smile. There were three mouthfuls left! Two were buttered and left for Jo and Dad.

 I have been soaking lots of fruit in lots of brandy and ginger wine for Christmas cakes, but I haven't got much further than that, despite today's great plans, because Prince Charming has had the fire lit in here all day, and it's very hard to leave!

 Jo did the second of his three transfer papers for Big School this morning. Two down and one to go, and then it will be Christmas! So we're all at very humble stages of getting things done this week- all very ordinary, common activities that don't set the world alight, but that are nonetheless filled with lots of personal satisfaction. They're the sort of things that warm the house in gentle ways.

This weekend winter wanted to make sure that we knew it was here. We had lots of stormy snow last night, that didn't lie, but left us with low temperatures and the stark beauty of November in all its fullness. I do continue to love November! It is my time of my getting ready, quietly, gently, humbly.

What I have discovered this month though is the website of Our Daily Bread. The photography is lovely, the resources are extensive, and the readings are very helpful indeed. Love to you all, and to you all a good night x

Trusting the National

 We rely on the National Trust for many things in this house, not least the vast apple orchard at the entrance to Ardress House at this time of the year! Not sure that they should trust us when we arrive for windfalls enough for a crumble!

 I looked up "scrumping" on t'Internet and The Wall Street Journal talks about how this is a "a fast-growing trend in urban London and throughout the U.K". I am surprised. I thought it had been de rigueur for centuries. A Robin Hood formula equating the haves (apple trees)  and the haves (apple trees) not. The WSJ continues: " These women are part of a growing army of guerrilla fruit pickers" who have their own group called Abundance. Here in the Frozen North we're just Trusting the National!

 Our favourite October spot is The Argory, just down the road from Ardress. We have been leaf admiring and conker collecting here for whole Autumn seasons of small boys to bigger boys. Though no conkers to be seen this year- not at the Argory and not even on our own new to us chestnut tree- apparently the wet summer and warm, dry Autumn have combined to confuse nature out of this particular abundance. Our blackberries are very late in ripening too- much to Mattman's disgust with all his jam-making plans.

 Mostly what we trust the National Trust to provide for us is all year long opportunity to run and walk and play and just be outside. Last year at The Argory they expanded their adventure playground- just in time for two high-octane suns of mine. The "who is that trip-trapping over my bridge" bridge was getting slightly too small for my own burgeoning harvest. Now there is even more scope for running and jumping, high and far.

 I confined myself to the swing. There was energy to be preserved for scrumping... (Don't tell!)

In which my bookroom reveals itself to be, in fact, a sloth

At least two years ago we had a Hungry Caterpillar calendar. Full of inspiration I photographed every month's picture come year's end with full and firm intention of blogging monthly on my reading accomplishments. Sigh. Here I am just about managing to mark last month's end, and what spectacular accomplishments do I present?

"A Woman in Arms" by Russell Braddon: The story of Nancy Wake. This is a book written for older children. Just about my level of intellectual endeavour these days! I have actually been much struck by my need to reawaken the little grey cells. Last week I decided to inspire myself to spiritual creativity on the domestic front, and virtuously took The Hidden Art of Homemaking to bed. I managed two paragraphs before conceding that I have a concentration span worse than either of my suns. On a bad day. This discovery has not at all been much dissipated by my being on a twilight course for work this month. There is the prospect of an essay ahead. An essay! I haven't written one of those in...

I digress. Low concentration. Nancy Wake. This is a story that needs read in adult format. Far too much Enid Blyton cavorting in woods, admittedly with machine guns instead of ginger beer. She seems to have preferred copious amounts of champagne. I was conscious the whole time of a darker, grittier tale beneath. A woman in her twenties, leading thousands of French Resistance guerillas in the months following D-Day? Much more to be unearthed, if I only had the grey cells.

I found the story in our school library. Somehow I have had the glorious fortune to have been assigned to helping there two periods a week. One hour and twenty minutes of tidying the shelves in what is a quite superlative collection. So I'm afraid there may be more young adult books ahead!