Yule

Our annual event involves breakfast, generally pancakes (previously cooked on a hill at a dawn!) and juice this year.

 

 Then a walk in the woods

 Before coming home to lunch, gingerbread engineering and presents

And today we finished off with a staff only christmas party at my work. The kidlets wore their new Christmas outfits!

Back on it, Baby!

I have had a busy couple of days Clanettes, and it has been fabulous! 

On Thursday I went back to breastfeeding clinic (Vikki came to hold my hand and I made us late because I was having a flap. Thank you for being so patient!). I managed the whole session - it was manic frankly, and I came straight home and went to bed.  Which was just as well because Vicky (yet again, thank you!) collected me that evening and we trotted down the road to Elle's house. What started as a bit of innocent jelly fish crochet poncho making (they are at a festival this weekend with an under the sea theme and Elle whipped up some costumes.. They look great and will be amazing once she strings them with solar fairy lights!), quickly became a wine and sausage roll party.

I drank far too much wine, and had a ridiculously good time - apologies for my mad ranting about most things ladies! Crochet carnage!

Man oh man I paid for it on Friday morning. I was pretty ruined to be fair, and had to be up sparkly and bright to go and see my consultant and have physio.. Thank goodness Paul had the day off and could get everything ship shape.


Immediately on arrival at the hospital I had more X-rays done - they look exactly the same as the first set I had done as I left hospital. Lets have another look at the cringing photo.

The photo on the left is upside down, but shows a face on view, so the cross strap is actually at the bottom of my spine and makes sure all the screws load bear rather than just one or two. The photo on the right is indeed looking at my spine through my left side. So you can see that I have no flexibility through that part of my spine.

Seeing the consultant was great. He was delighted with my progress and how the bone grafts are healing. He has encouraged me to get back to sports, taking care to go as slowly as I need and to make sure that I lie down and put my spine into neutral if it gets too much. Ultimately, the more active I am, the easier it will get. Music to my ears!

Seeing the Physio immediately afterwards was good - she had me on the stepper and doing all sorts of core strengthening exercises.

So immediately Lucy and I went back to the gym last night, and had a swim. I was hugely nervous. Sunday mornings in the gym are quiet, there are no full time staff around and it is easy to be anonymous. Friday night is not like that. Our gym is small and everyone knows everyone - particularly when you spend as much time there as Lucy and I do (did!) (do!). I don't know why I am so reticent to talk about Spinal Fusion in real life, but I am. Lucy thinks I am silly, and she is probably right. She usually is. I can prattle on til the cows come home on here, my blog, but I find it hard in person. The long and short of it, I suppose, is that I am embarrassed. Who the hell has their spine fused? The whole thing seems so melodramatic.

Anyway. Everyone was suitably interested in my absence, then in my stick and then in 'Spinal Fusion? No way!'. Yes way. Way embarrassing.

I did 15 mins on the elliptical trainer, 15 mins on the bike, 5 mins on the treadmill with a grade 2 incline and then we hit the pool. Ok. What I mean is, limped to the pool. The lifeguards had kindly put the disabled steps out for me and in I got. Lucy, you made the whole experience so much easier for me, you were so confident that it was so normal. Exactly what I needed thank you.
Getting in the pool was weird, almost as if the buoyancy exaggerated everything. Everyone has a spine, and yes you can touch it and feel it, but generally speaking you can't 'feel' your spine. Even beforehand, at the height of my pain, I couldn't 'feel' my spine, just pain in the 'catch' around it. Last night I could feel my spine. There was no pain, the whole thing was pain free, but I was aware of 'scaffolding' holding my spine.. It's hard to describe. I suppose if I describe it by saying that when you wear a glove, your hand can feel the glove and there is no pain, but it isn't like gripping with a normal grasp.. does that make sense?
I know that this weird scaffolding sensation is actually how it feels to be me now, and I know it will become normal, but last night it was weird and together with extra weird rippling water on my weird burning sensation skin, we got out after 6 s l o w lengths.
But I did it. I went to the gym and I went swimming. Then I immediately went to bed and was grateful to sleep like a log and wake up with that 'Yay, its the day after the day after the night before, and I'm not hungover!' feeling.

So there we go. 6 weeks post spinal fusion on Monday and I went to the gym and swam last night. I always joked that I'd be 'Back on it' by 6 weeks. One of those scary, cocky, please be ok jokes. Well this time the joke is not on me. I'm Back on it, baby!

So its Saturday now. It's Beltane weekend, on of our festivals of celebration (Totally missed Ostara whilst I was in hospital!). For the last 10 years we have ALWAYS camped at Beltane (see last year at the bottom of this post here - ironically I also talk about physio for my back! Some things don't appear to change!) and it is weird that this year we aren't camping. In fact everything is pretty normal today. Normal is GOOD! The Bigs have gone to their respective Saturday morning clubs with Paul and Niamh and here I am, blogging.

Bebe is 5 a week on Monday, and as she has shown an interest in a dance class, my parents got her a uniform for her birthday - which she has had early today. She was DELIGHTED!

Happy bank holiday weekend,
Thanks for reading x x

Imbolc Kinday

Just to mix it up, I thought I would share a Christie Kinday with you. 'Kinday' is a name we have devised, which literally means, to us, time spent as a family 'Kin', doing seasonal activities, learning old stories and traditions. I guess in a literal sense, we use the time to teach the kidlets what we believe. The fundamentals of Paganism as we see them. Something that is becoming more and more important to us, as school takes over and really brings the Christian faith home to us.

Imbolc is a Celtic festival celebrated on Feb 02nd. Imbolc means 'In the belly' and literally means new life, i.e. ewes are pregnant, seeds are waiting to send up shoots.. Spring is on its way. See here for a more specific explanation.

Paul and I are both Pagan, but this is just an umbrella term. We both believe quite different things, despite both believing at our core, in a God and a Goddess. So sharing our beliefs with the kidlets is a challenge, because the way we do things is quite different.

To overcome the differences, and to be united, we both lead the activities on different occasions. Paul places special favour on 4 specific festivals, so he leads these and I take the other 4 (I like to think all 8 festivals are of equal importance, but my secret faves are Samhain and Yule simply because we dress the house! See here).

Anyway, today was about Imbolc and so Paul lead the activities. We try to keep the running format the same, so the kidlets know what to expect. Seasonal Craft activity/journal entry/baking/Rit.
Paul chose Brigid's Cross for our craft activity today, and very fitting it was too - nice and easy for the kidlets with good ol' pipe cleaners!

 We do love our crafts!

Once we had made our crosses, we made entry's into our journals. These are specific to Kindays, well the children's are. (Mine is a big old leather bad boy that I have been keeping my Pagan diary in for well over a decade now. I refer to mine as my Book of Shadows, as my Wiccan training calls for, but that also conjures images of crazy kids doing Ouija boards these days, so we don't use that term with the children when they talk about their journal entries. Having said that, they do know what I call my book. Anyway. I guess the jist is, that its hard to explain everything to them, and to you, Clanettes. Just know that we are doing our best to explain a very ancient tradition in a simple way, in a world that doesn't work like it used to and so old concepts are hard to hand down.)

A great book, just amazing for giving you all the tools you need to explain Goddess based religions to children is 'Circle Round' by Starhawk et al. (Starhawk is a bit of a hero of mine) We also have the CD and its nice to have some seasonal songs that the kidlets enjoy, that aren't based fundamentally on Christian ideals. (As an aside, we do believe in God as Christians might believe in him, we just believe that he is one of many Gods and Goddesses. Deep. I know. I'll try and reign it in!)

Then we got to baking. We always bake because a) its fun and b) I like the idea of eating food we have made and sharing it during Rit. This time was super exciting because we used my brownie maker for the first time. LOVE!

Once we're all ready, whoever is leading (Paul today, I know I have mentioned this a squillion times!) then sets up the sacred space, talking about what they are doing and why, and then we have a simple Rit.

As we talk through everything, we lay it all out, but as we come to the Rit, we lay out our specific rug which we chose because its bright and colourful, and depicts the outside. When its warmer and drier, we hold our sacred space in the back garden, but when its cold and horrid, our living room is the best space possible.
Its hard to describe what a Rit is in a blog post. Some of my most astounding life moments have happened in Circle (another name for Rit). A Rit (short for Ritual) is a rich and hugely multi-coloured way to honour the Earth, to honour yourself and to honour those with you.
In my adult life, a Rit is a formal Wiccan gathering where the loose format is to set up a sacred space, welcome in the elements, acknowledge the Gods and Goddesses, work for a purpose (this purpose could be anything from a handfasting, a naming, to a dedication or simply that the purpose is to hold a Rit!) then raise some energy for your purpose, ground it out, share cakes and wine, bid all the elements goodbye and shut down the sacred space (or not). (Paul's format is different to this. He follows a Celtic path, honouring the Irish Deities, the places they came from and the treasures they brought with them. Its tricky! Particularly considering he is WRONG!! Ha ha, Love you xxx) (This is a discussion we have endlessly, and ultimately it always ends in the summation that faith is personal and we both look at it differently) (he is still wrong tho x x)
Despite the fact that we work differently, Paul and I have really worked hard on ways to make the similarities accessible to 6, 4 and 2 year olds.. we simplify everything. Make it fun, make it noisy, make it memorable. So long as the intention is pure and is simply there, who cares how it happens.
When they are older, and think we are weird hippy Pagan parents, I'd like them to remember Kindays fondly, even if they choose not to continue with them. The point is that they will remember what we are trying to show them, whether they ultimately believe or not isn't the point.

Christmas baking

Today is the Winter Solstice, or Yule. Today is the shortest day and the longest night. Today we welcome the return of the sun, and look forward to the wheel of the year turning and bringing us back to spring and eventually the Summer Solstice. Today was also the end of the Mayan Calendar and the predicted end of the world. Well, here I am typing up my blog, so clearly the world didn't end. You can't be too careful though, so Lucy and I decided that we'd rather die together happy, festive and baking, then on our own, so we got together at my house and together with Niamh, we did my annual Christmas Bake Off.

For starters I made some Hazelnut Crispies (recipe here) to give as gifts. I have two lots of friends who are dairy and/or wheat free, so these were a no brainer. I used doves farm wheat free flour and they were easy peasy. Taste great too!

Then iced biscuits (recipe here), these are a simple gift to make and I like to hand them out to our neighbours, as well as have plenty to take to my parents house. I made two lots, one of which was dairy free - substituting the butter with 'Pure' a soy alternative.

Lucy was the star of the show, making me some of my favourite Christmas treats - lemon curd tarts! She made a sweet pastry and used a small, but deep tart tin and I can assure you that these will not last long! I have yet to use the mincemeat I made back in September (see at the bottom of this post here), but it is tradition that I make the mince pies with my Dad on Christmas eve and its an event I look forward to. So don't worry, we aren't lacking in the mincemeat department, I just haven't made them yet.

Lastly, the other traditional thing that I make is what we call 'Praline' but is actually just a chocolate biscuit cake. The closest recipe is here although I use rich tea biscuits, I use a mix of dark and milk chocolate and I add dates to break up the richness a bit. These are currently setting in the fridge and I will then ice them ready to go to Reading. This is Paul's absolute favourite treat at any time of year, so much so that I make it for his birthday instead of actual cake. These are the only two occasions when I make it.

Niamh was an absolute delight today, eating more ingredients than were possibly added!

School finally broke up today, and I am excited to have Lochie and Brenna at home for two weeks without a timetable. End of term is so late this year that we haven't done any of the things we usually do for Yule. Like walk up the hill at dawn with the tippers and make pancakes, or this weekend, the weekend of Yule, we normally take the kidlets to Glastonbury and celebrate the Solstice there. However the weather warnings for the rain due over this weekend mean that we shall re-think our plan and celebrate at home.

Whatever you do, wherever you spend it, I hope you are full of glad tidings. Happy Solstice, I hope the sun warms your face as it returns, leading us into spring xxx

Dressing the house

So Halloween, or Samhaim (Sow-een) as we call it, is a pretty big deal around here.  Prob our biggest Sabbat on the wheel of the year. Traditionally its the last harvest of the year, when our ancestors would have brought in the very last of the crops before the first frosts hit. They would have decorated their houses and paid homage to their own ancestors. More recently it is known as the New Year and the wheels starts again at Yule. The way Paul and I celebrate Samhain has changed somewhat since the days before the Kidlets, although the essence is still there. These days its all about making it fun and memorable for the children, so that even once they have grown up and have chosen their own route through life, they can look back fondly on the traditions Paul and I hold important.

To try and make the 'season' memorable, we try and find seasonal things to do, see and participate in.  This year we went to a Pumpkin festival and although it rained, it was a lovely afternoon, crammed with mahoosive pumpkins, scarecrows and candle making.

The first thing we do at home, to make the 'season' of Samhain fun and light hearted, is to decorate the house.. We add one or two new things each year and we are getting quite a collection now!

A festive plate needs cake!

 

The most important thing that Paul and I like to remember at Samhain is our connection to our ancestors - to remember where our families came from, and who made us and what we are today. I think a lot of the 'spooky' ideas around Halloween stem from the ancient belief that our ancestors are closest to us, the 'veil' between the living and dead if you like, is thinnest on the 31st October.  We don't see it as spooky though, we have taken to celebrating Samhain a bit like the Mexican festival known as the Day of the Dead, where we spend the day doing exciting, brightly coloured activities, celebrate our family, our ancestors and eat festive food (I shall of course blog about this when we do it!).

I struggle to get a good pic of this, but I made this wall hanging a couple of years ago

Fire place ready for re-decorating Samhain style!

Happy Samhain Clanettes, may your last harvest be great and your family well x x