My Life's Ingredients

I just love it, and this year we had even more kids around than usual. Glad to see so many younger kids with their parents, and Doug can’t wait for the girls to be old enough to go “guising” = kids have to do something to earn their sweets – a joke/dance or similar – Doug prefers this to standard “Trick or treat”, and the amount of kids asking right out for money was next to nothing this year I think. Have been sewing the twins’ costumes, didn’t give myself enough time to do it properly, and it’s been a while since I touched my sewing machine, so the outfits are a bit of a dog’s dinner. Suppose, they look ok as long as you don’t turn over the girls (I can’t measure correctly either, apparently – didn’t allow enough fabric for the “skirts”). So … here they are in their secret identities!! Kara on the right, Megan on the left. And yes … their parents are total geeks. And now the usual Halloween addendum: “Hallo Ian”–still funny as!! :D Looking forward to lots of years of the ...

Ok, seems I’m doing this every other month maybe. I was thinking a lot about things I did in my kiddyhood and teens that my girls won’t be able to do (for whatever reason). See a movie at a drive-in cinema (the one I’d been to was closed and is now derelict since about middle of the 90’s I think) Camping with friends on a patch of land in the cul-de-sac (now it’s all in back gardens only) Go for a midnight walk in the woods during aforementioned camping (parents wouldn’t allow camping outwith house boundaries nowadays – lots of scare about abduction etc) Go for midnight swimming during aforementioned midnight walk (doubt there are any pools available and it’s too much scare for kids to do this now) Get fresh water for your tea in a well in the hills (not sure if the one in my area in Germany still exists, but don’t know of any around here really) Regular street parties with neighbours (does anyone do that around here? We had that regularly, and it was absolut...