Halloween Hints for Beginners.

Halloween is starting to become bigger here in the UK and I thought I would share some ideas and tips for those who aren't used to doing anything for Halloween. I know the idea of Halloween started on this side of the Atlantic, but believe me, the other side in North America has truly expanded upon the concept.

1. Pumpkin. First, get yourself a pumpkin. Now is a good time to find one, about a week before Halloween. If you wait too close to the date, there are likely only badly-misshapen ones, too small ones or ones that have started to rot and have soft spots. You can get it even earlier as pumpkins store well. Keep it dry and cool and it should be no problem to last until October 31. Choose one that is big enough to get your hand into easily once you open it up for carving.

2. Carving. Carve your pumpkin! I love carving pumpkins and you can really be creative here. But, if you are new to it, it's best to stick to a basic pattern. Rather than write here how to carve a pumpkin into a jack o'lantern, I'll just link to a good article on pumpkin carving for beginners. Tips for carving: Don't try carving your pumpkin more than a couple of days before Halloween, as it will quickly spoil once it is cut. And get yourself a serrated blade to carve the pumpkin with, as it will make your carving MUCH simpler. Here's a complicated one that I did a couple of years ago. I put it here just to show off, please forgive me.

3. Costumes. The Brits seem to think that Halloween costumes need to be scary. I disagree. If we want to look at the tradition of Halloween and costumes to scare away spirits, I think it's just as good to confuse them by not being recognised because you are in costume, rather than scaring them. Especially for little kids, I think it's nicer not to necessarily have something covered in blood and guts and just something exciting for them to wear. Plus, it gives you a lot more room for creativity if you aren't limited to spiders, cats, witches and ghosts. But hey, if you have older kids who want to go for the knife through the head look, I say go for it.

This next point might out me as an old fuddy-duddy, but I think home-made costumes are waaaaaay cooler than store-bought outfits. Maybe it comes from when I was a kid, store costumes were either very expensive (ie, Mom and Dad wouldn't buy it) or really lame. By lame I mean they were a cheap plastic mask of a character and then a even cheaper plastic top similar to a garbage bag in material with more printing of the character.

See what I mean? Do you want your kids to be seen in the 2010's equivalent? No. Make your own costume. Sure, buy bits and pieces to put it together but don't just buy a costume. Last year my daughter wore a red dress and had a mask of Peppa Pig and she looked perfect. This year, she wants to be a hula girl, so it's a skirt made of grass or ribbons (which ever I organise) and a lei and a flower in her hair. Done. Honestly, please leave a comment and ask for an idea if you are stuck rather than buy a costume. I'll do my best to come up with something for you.

Tips for costumes: If you are planning on going trick or treating in the costume, try and make it big enough to fit over a jacket. Not much point putting lots of effort into your costume and then have it covered by your winter parka. Or at least wear enough layers under the costume that you can keep your jacket open in front for people to see it.

4. Trick or Treating. I like trick or treating. When I was a kid I loved going to people's houses and getting the candy, but I also loved showing off my costume and seeing people's reactions. Now I enjoy the kids coming to my door and seeing their costumes. I feel seeing their efforts at dressing up is more than fair reward for a couple of cheap sweets. I don't feel it's begging at all; they entertain me and I give them a sweet in return.

Tips for trick or treating: For anyone less than 13 or so, I would recommend going with an adult. Depending on age, the adult in question can either come up to the door with the child or hang around on the sidewalk, trying not to embarrass the child with their existence. We would usually go around with the other kids who lived near us. It makes life easier for the people you visit too, as they can get a bunch of kids at once rather than one or two every minute. Back in Canada I would go to any house that had its lights on. Here, I would recommend just going to the houses that have jack o'lanterns in their window or on their steps. Since Halloween still isn't done by everyone, there's no need to tick off people by pushing Halloween onto them. So if you are willing to hand out candy to the kids, see points 1 and 2 above!!

The littler the child, the earlier you can start going out. I think that 5:30pm should be the earliest you start, with between 6 and 7:30pm being the ideal time to go. 9pm should be the absolute latest you knock on anyone's door, so plan your strategy from there.

We used to use pillow cases for collecting the treats. Strong, yet light for carrying. Slightly classier than a Tesco bag too.

5. At the end of the evening. Once you are done trick or treating, have an adult go through the candy. There are plenty of urban legends about terrible things people have given out for Halloween, but I don't know of any documented cases. Still, it doesn't hurt to have a quick look over to make sure there aren't any items like a lollipop that has lost its wrapper or a box of raisins that has popped open, both collecting more dust and detritus than is prudent to eat. If you are accepting people for Halloween and you are done for the evening, let people know by putting the light out in your pumpkin, taking it out of the window and turning off your front light.

I hope these tips and ideas will help some of you out there enjoy Halloween here in Britain. Happy Halloween and spooky good time to all!

Mission plan

We have a mission. We have the attack clones, now we have our mission. We've decided while we are here in Britain, to try and spend the holidays that take place in this country visiting the various British major island groups. So far we have been to the Isle of Wight and to the Inner Hebrides; specifically, the Isle of Mull. That takes care of two of them. What do we have left? Well, the Outer Hebrides obviously, the Shetland Islands, and the Orkney Islands in Scotland for a start. If we get through all of those, we can start to work on all the little "Firth" groups up there. The Isles of Scilly and the Islands of Furness in England. Anglesey in Wales and then the separate islands of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Oh, a visit to Northern Ireland too. I think I've covered the major ones, because there are thousands of little islands around the British Isles. But if I've left something out, please let me know. I am after all, an uncivilzed colonial who doesn't know any better and I will need to add any missed ones to the list.

Why the mission? Because I think it's a good way to get to know the country we are living in. We might be here for just another few years, we might end up spending the rest of our days here, but either way, I wouldn't like it if at the end, I couldn't say I had seen a variety of places around the country. Our families live far away, so that will always slow us down from exploring locally, but local exploration does need to be done.

So if you have any great tips or ideas of when to visit any of these places, where to stay or the address of your great-aunt Bessie who would love to have cake and tea with us while we are visiting near her, let me know. The mission has started.

Grand European Tour - with child

Once again, we have been on holidays. This may seem rather excessive to some, but I always say everyone makes their own choices in life. We live in a small house, only have one car and live well within our means. We choose to spend our money on travel. Others make other choices and that's their choice. Plus, if we didn't travel, we'd hardly ever see any of our family or friends. So this trip was a trip around Europe to see friends scattered around the continent. We were in France, Switzerland, Germany and The Netherlands. Only Italy was missing for the classic Grand Tour. We took our car and did around 3720 km or 2310 miles. We were gone 16 days in total. Sounds a bit insane to most people, but the trip went exceedingly well. No major meltdowns along the way, we saw and did lots. Some tips if you think you are crazy enough to try it yourself.

Our daughter was 19 months old for this trip and still takes a long nap every day. So we tried to plan most of the driving to happen over this nap so that she didn't get too bored. Children nowadays are so strapped down into their seats, it's hardly a wonder they get bored, despite all the distractions. When I was a kid, I could move around, change position, fight with my sister and stretch out for a nap which helped make long journeys easier. As we went through the trip, we saw that so much driving would never have worked without these naps. So if your kids are past napping, I'd reconsider so much driving. Maybe some things like DVD players or such would help keep them occupied, I couldn't say at this stage.

We tried to break up 2 days driving with at least 2 overnights in the same spot. That way there wasn't a constant packing and unpacking of stuff, plus some consistency in location. The longer you can stay in one spot, the better. And other than one major drive of 6.5 hours (which took 10 hours with breaks), the most driving we did on any one day was 3.5 hours.

Accept the fact that you are going to explore a new town via its playgrounds and parks.

Packing was tough, but we went as light as possible. G and I shared one suitcase and laundry had to be done along the way. Having a super-light and small travel tent for Lena was good for packing. Everything we packed, we used, but even so, the back of our little hatchback was full. In fact, G was the only one who could properly pack it. Anytime I tried to do it, it was piled too high to see out of the back window.

We took a cool bag that we kept stocked with both things Lena liked for snacks and things for lunch for all of us. This saved us both time and money by not stopping in a cafe or restaurant to eat or being forced to buy expensive food from the highway gas stations.

For goodness sake, don't forget whatever blankets, lovies, teddies or dollies makes your child feel secure. Lena is pretty easygoing, but with all the changes in location and new people, she was very attached to her blanket and her "nu-nu" (dummy/soother as she calls it) during the time. I was a bit worried at first with her having them so much, I thought she would become too dependant on them even after the trip. However the day we came back, she hardly needed them at all. Having them at her beck and call during the trip offered her a good deal comfort.

If you are interested in a rough picture of what we drove, check out this link of our driving route.

Once again, thanks to everyone we stayed with and good to see all of you.

Back from Scotland

We're back from our little jaunt to Scotland. Sorry for not warning you about it, but I'm a bit reluctant to mention our house being deserted for over a week before that actually happens.

Anyways, Scotland was a very nice holiday, we all really enjoyed it. Both seeing interesting historic sites, beautiful scenery and also meeting several friends during the trip. Pictures should be available soon. Some observations about the whole thing:

• A Ford Focus is okay for travelling long distances, but not the most luxurious comfort car.
• 7 hours in the car is really pushing the limit of a 6 month old's patience. Yes, she slept for most of it, but that hour or so near the end...
• Scottish roads for the most part are far less scary to drive on than English roads. Wider with no big hedges right beside the road, less traffic and fewer blind corners around tops of hills too.
• Stirling Castle is really cool, especially when Elvis Presley and John Lennon tell you about it.
• The Isle of Mull is worth a longer visit. Don't be put off by Mull being the German word for garbage.
• The accent in the Inner Hebrides is easier to understand than the accent in the Borders.
• All beds in small European hotels (England, Scotland, Germany, Austria) seem to only be made using a heavy duvet and a sheet. So you can either sweat and be uncomfortable under the duvet or you can shiver and be uncomfortable under only the sheet. Hasn't this continent heard of blankets?