Double, double toil and trouble

Illustration of the Pendle Witches
William Harrison Ainsworth's The Lancashire Witches, 1849

I call upon ye sorceresses of the internets, ye witches of knowledge and power. I call, all ye magicians who gesture with needle and thread, ye frequenters of the emporiums of the world wide web, all ye mistresses of dissimulation and deceit.

Come to me, sisters.

I seek to disguise a child.

I wish to send it back in time.

It shall be thus:

"We find that some sort of costume, even a simple one, helps your child to imagine what it might have been like as a Tudor peasant. Girls should wear a dress which is long and plain with a full skirt and wide bottom sleeves. The neckline was cut low to see the plain high neck blouse below. Make a small plain apron attached to a belt and wear it around your hips."

Sisters, I beseech thee. I raise my arms to the sky, I feel your power surging through the air to reach my fingertips.

Give me the spell. Give me the spell.

Breaking the habit

So every day this week I have sat down to write a post but can only come up with one train of thought, which goes like this:

Can you believe how busy I am? I am so busy.

Also I am tired. TIRED! Tired.

But very excited because I bought a new pan! After struggling for 10 years with the Good Wedding Present Pan which gradually went into decline but was Too Good to throw away. Then we melted a spatula to the bottom of it! Hoorah!

And the new one can go in the dishwasher! Which is great, because I am so busy. Did I tell you? And also tired?

Good. Busy, tired, new pan. So you're up to date.

Help me make it through the night

We all have our own coping strategies for dealing with change.

A four year old may, for example, creep out of bed the night before her first day at school and cuddle herself up on the sofa.


Her mother may find comfort from other sources.


Either way, it all seems to work out okay in the morning.

Coming over all Dorothy Wordsworth

Look! What's that glinting through the trees?


I'd like to point out right now that I had no intention of making Lynn jealous. But a long time ago I promised her a picture of the Lake District, assuring her that it would be grey and drizzly, since that was what the Lake District was always like.

Sorry, Lynn.


It is, of course, Grasmere lake, and this weekend it was gorgeous. There was even someone swimming in it. But let's not forget the real star of this outing.


The Delichon Delta. Or the Off-Roader, to give it its new name, after Eldest rejected the other suggestions - Delta, All Terrain Vehicle, Alice (the latter being Littlest's effort).

For a couple of months I have been receiving absolutely wonderful emails from The Woodland Trust telling me exciting things to do in the outdoors with my children. The only problem to date has been actually, you know, getting out into the outdoors.

But no more. This week we set forth with our printout of seeds and fruits to look for, and found all kinds of things - elder, alder, hawthorn, brambles, birch, beech, sycamore, oak - most of which I wouldn't have known the first thing about, let alone my children.

(It reminded me of a walk I took with my mum and one of her friends and her children, when I was a child. The friend had brought a wildflower book and she and my mum were snorting every time she opened it. "Look, children!" they were trilling, with difficulty, being doubled over with laughter. "A ***flower!" I realise now that they probably knew sod all about wildflowers themselves, and were as reliant on the New Book as I was on my Woodland Trust worksheet.)

Anyway, we did just as we were told.


Now it's up to them.

Bringing up boys

The Grandfather, having brought up two sons, knows a thing or two about the wishes of boys when it comes to Christmas and birthday presents.

Thanks to him, Mr Coffee did not reach 40 years old without owning a bright red Ferrari.


The Littlest Latte loves running after the Ferrari. And she has been loopy this week, feral and moody and full of excess energy.


Littlest is not a girl who stays neat and clean or who goes shy when people talk to her. Littlest is out there. She is talking wildly to the puppeteers at the puppet show, she is lying on the floor in the middle of a busy shopping street waving her legs in the air, she is having a tantrum, she is pretending to be someone else, she is climbing onto things and jumping off things and doing it all very, very loudly.

I once had a good old moan about her to her godmother, who has two sons. "She's fine. She's just a boy," she said, helpfully.

As school approaches, she seems to be even madder. And having spent all of Sunday with her pretending to be a boy called Elliot (a fully formed character with a deep voice, who has a Ben 10 duvet, a room full of dinosaurs, a hatful of repressed rage and a little sister who is "always putting her grubby little hands on my STUFF") has made me slightly less nostalgic for days and days alone with her.

The other day we bumped into the nice lady who will be her new reception teacher next week. "Are you ready for school, Littlest?" she said.

I was. "She's all yours," I said. "All this insanity is for you."

The Wise Teachings of the Littlest Latte - an occasional series

Lesson 1

The Littlest Latte teaches us about reusing and recycling

"Daddy, here's some tissue for your runny nose."

"Thank you, sweetheart. That's very kind."

"Yes. And I already catched a spider in it."

Calendar for September

What to say about Lynn from Speechless, Mostly, from whom I nicked this month's calendar image? She's just lovely, and funny, and she sends me emails that make me snort with laughter. I think she's fab.

Is it Autumn already? Really? Fantastic. I love Autumn in the garden. I know just what I'm doing.

I always miss Spring. I'm too late for it, and even if I manage to plan any seeds in time my seedlings all die, and it's hotter than I thought, earlier than I expected, and everything is full of weeds.

In Summer I stare at my garden helplessly through the rain as the greenery inches towards the sky like the forest in Sleeping Beauty.

But in Autumn I'm in control. I'm cutting stuff down and tidying up. With blades.

I don't have to feel guilty about what didn't grow. In the compost it goes!

I can buy mulch! And pat it down all over the place like a carpet!

I can make half-arsed attempts to propagate things that will be so far dead by next Spring I will have forgotten what they were even supposed to be! So it won't matter!

I can plant wallflowers! I love wallflowers. I have bought two trays, and put them in. Remember this year's wallflowers? Next year will be different, for no other reason than Because I Say So. Also bulbs, which I fling around with no real thought for how deep they need to be, and then get annoyed when my wondrous show of daffs fails to materialise.

I can move things! I always move things in Autumn. I'm constantly convinced that if I just move this shrub/ aquilegia/ bunch of whatever-the-hell-it-is over there, then next year over here will look less insane.

Also, I have signed up to some email thing or other that tells me what I should be doing every week, so there's no way it can possibly go wrong next year.

Oh, this year. It's so last year already.