Bonfire night

Steve's favourite night of the year is bonfire night. Steve, Tracey and I grew up in Sussex, not far from the town of Lewes.

Lewes, and its surrounding villages are world-renowned for their huge bonfire celebrations. Although Tracey and I (and Rich) really enjoy a good bonfire and firework display, our enjoyment is not even on the scale of Steve's.

For the last three years we have tried to bring a taste of a Sussex bonfire night to Devon.

It starts with preparing the torches. Each piece of branch has felt wired round its top and on the night they are dipped in paraffin.

Then we build the bonfire. We ensure there are four tunnels going through which create the draft needed to give the fire the draw it needs.

There are things to do for all of us leading up to the night..

The kids love writing their welcome messages on the slates.

We knew people were bringing rockets so Molly made this wonderful slate to signpost the box they were going in.

Like in Sussex, we chose a few 'responsible' boys and girls to dress in smugglers outfits and generally make sure the whole event was safe and ran smoothly.

Tracey was responsible for the food and drink and she did an amazing job. The kids had hot dogs and the adults had butternut squash & sweet potato soup, bean and chorizo cassolet, a cheese board, dips, rum hot chocolate, mulled cider and...

everyone bought cakes!

Many with a fab bonfire theme. These were some of my favourites

baby rockets...so sweet!

Anda made this wonderful bonfire creation which must have taken hours!

a bonfire 'matchstick' cake!

Many local friends packed into our Snug and Ballroom and the atmosphere was cosy and warm and very exciting..especially with the background noise of Steve and his mischievous mates letting off 'rook scarers' outside!

After sparklers out on the terrace,

we had fountains of fire coming from the pillars in the Italian garden, to start the display.

Followed by our girls' favourites..the Catherine wheels..

The sky was filled with noise and colour

I just love this picture of Zac as he watches the fireworks with his friends.

Each year we have made more of these lanterns. They are made with bamboo, tissue paper and hold a candle inside. It is really good fun making them and well worth the time because the effect at night is wonderful.

We line everybody up, hand out torches and lanterns and

process through the garden, weaving through the trees in the woods..

and arrive at the bonfire where we throw the torches on.

It burned hot and bright

as friends basked in the warmth.

Charlie, our no.1 bonfire boy

The atmosphere was...magical and

Steve clearly loved it!

The carnage of the morning after! The kids loved collecting in all the empty cardboard tubes

which we put in the trailor and took round to the bonfire

Zac recovered a torch from the ashes and re-lived the night before

while the girls had rides amongst the debris..can you spot Liza?

A beautiful sunny day made the clear-up fun.

I think it will take a few days for the smile to fade from Steve's (aka Gandalf's) face! x

PS I just found this piece of paper scrumpled up on the floor. Hilariously, it shows Steve's plan for each firework - where it is situated and who is going to light it. This is completely unseen and unknown footage showing quite how much he loves it. Is his name by every one? Sorry Steve, had to expose x

In praise of October sun

As October draws to a close I wanted to say thank you

for all the amazing sunshine experiences we have had this month.

The kids have swam/surfed in the sea without wetsuits

We have met up with friends and had big BBQ's on the beach (our Sarah just produced these little home-made flags from her bag, unbelievable)

not going home until the sun has set

aware that we are moving towards colder and darker times

and wanting to make the most of every minute.

Zac has loved his new surfboard

and we even got to cycle the Tarka Trail, some of us with our tops off!

We stopped half way for ice-creams and looked out over the estuary.

The sun enabled us to jet wash our camper and snuggle it down for the winter

and jet wash our catering tent and fold it away until spring. (although it looks like Steve did all the work here, it needs to be said that actually Rich did most of the marquee. I bailed out as soon as my jeans got wet).

We had help from our two youngest Pickwellers to sweep up leaves and clear away the rubbish

and we even got to eat lunch outside on my birthday! (as well as cleaning out the chickens and mowing the lawn! I think I'm getting old as i REALLY enjoyed it!)

October has always been my favourite month and now you can see why! x

Our local school and Zac's birthday

Our Pickwell children have the most wonderful school. It is just a mile away in our nearest village. We recently went to their harvest service in the village church and

Pickwell featured quite heavily. Rich and Liza were volunteered (well, forced in poor Richard's case) to make the word harvest, then jumble the letters around to spell lots of different words that harvest encapsulates, like 'starve' and 'share' for example. Then the whole school sang a song which included a verse our Molly had written about vegetables- brilliant!

Another thing they do is when the children go in to year 4, they go along to the village 'community tea' after school. Here, they share what they are doing at school to the more elderly folk of the community.

I went along as it was Zac's first time and oh my goodness it was so moving! You could really see how much it meant to the men and women at the tea. The children were amazing too, each taking it in turn to read something they had written. We love stuff like this.

They also had a luchtime last week where all the parents were invited to come in and eat with their children and play in the playground with them afterwards.

Then a letter came home that on Zac's birthday (and it was also Zac's friend, Teddy's birthday too) they were taking the top half of the school to the beach for the day as part of their pirate topic. We agreed with them that they could make a shortcut through our grounds.

This is when we hatched a plan. We rallied together as many parents as possible and began to plan our ambush! Well, it was Zac's birthday and we thought it would be good to give him something he wouldn't forget...

Steve waited by the start of the drive and hid behind a stone pillar. We could hear the screams from where we were hiding at the far end in the woods!

Frankly, i'd be running in the opposite direction if this face leapt out at me.

We ran between the trees as they approached and then Richard grabbed the headmaster and after throwing him over his shoulder, we tied him to a gate.

We made the headmaster (this is not the headmaster btw!) answer three pirate jokes if he wanted to be freed. Sadly we didn't get much support on this from the kids, until the wise and cunning man, fessed up that he had a rucksack full of gold chocolate coins which they would only receive if we let him go!

On their way back through they stopped to drop Zac and Molly off, they sang 'happy birthday' and we handed out cakes (made by Teddy's mum) and sweets to give them the energy to get them back to school.

Zac said that it had been his best birthday ever and that was due, in part, to his brilliant presents.

I asked him to take them to his room because if he left them on the table, the builders might play with them. After he had left for school, i found this..

On the evening of Zac's birthday we had our usual Pickwell Friday Tea with the Elliotts (and Martin our joiner friend who works out of one of our garages) and afterwards the girls produced a special birthday show.


A great birthday for a wonderful 9 year old boy x

apple press day

For the last three years our dear friends Sarah, Ben, Daisy and Milly, open up their home and ancient apple press for a real community day of apple pressing. Today was that day.

Sarah and Ben live in a gorgeous old farm house

and it creates the perfect back-drop to the whole experience.

Its always in October and for some reason, the sun is always shining on this day.

First, Sarah's dad looks through the apples and checks whether there are any that are too far gone to be consumed.

Next, we wash the apples.

Then we give them to Chris who puts each one through the 'mulcher' (not sure that's the technical term).

Zac carrying the mulch to the press.

The base of the press is concrete (i think). On top of that is a wooden, lattice layer, then a sheet of hessian which is filled with the 'mulch' of apples. There are six or seven of these layers which go in each 'pressing' session.

Steve and Rich put lots of effort into winding down the press which squeezes down onto the apples and brings out gallons of gorgeous juice.

The juice is then poured into a giant container and decanted (in this case by Ben and his dad) into..

Empty milk cartons. Hundred's of them! This was just the first three.

While Zac played in the stream..

our girls spent all day 'hanging out', drinking apple juice and generally having a great time.

There is always an amazing spread of food.

Everyone seems to arrive with a cake (many with an apple theme)

and Sarah and Ben cook their own pig for hot pork rolls.

There is pork, cheese, and apples everywhere you look.

I have heard a rumour that Richard is cooking a mulled apple juice recipe for tonight as we are going to a camp fire at another friend's house. I am very excited to try it. I think Tracey will post the recipe in a couple of blog posts time so watch this space!

M and M's Wedding

What a weekend to have a wedding. Who would have thought we would have a heat wave at the beginning of October? Well, it really was a gorgeous wedding and not just because of the weather. Mathew and Marianne have such wonderful friends who rallied around to help make it such a brilliant weekend.

The flowers were by Derryn at Twigs Florist, Barnstaple. These fantastic urns really set off the entrance to the ballroom.

These beautiful arrangements were the central feature of the tables. With the eucolyptus they smelt wonderful.

The bridesmaids and their husbands spent all of Thursday making these delicious cupcakes as the wedding cake and tiny cupcakes for the wedding favours. Each cake had an M and M to decorate the top, cute. The boys in particular showed quite a flare for icing and even became quite possessive over the task!

The boys play a morning game of cricket in the sunshine on the tennis court to calm the nerves.

Also to calm the nerves the ushers requested a pint of Doom bar for the groom. One of the lovely ushers took this photo of Richard spiking the keg. I was holding the towel to guard the wall from beer spray, however it leapt over the towel and drenched me in Doom bar, giving me the faint aroma of a street drinker, mmmm nice!! Oh how he laughed!!

I loved the groom’s button hole, well done Derryn.

mmm, delicious canapés.

Not forgetting the 'gluten free' guest who had her own specially prepared canapés, she was ever so pleased.

Dinner is served; I loved the look of the vegetarian starter.

The bridal bouquet in a vase on the sideboard made a stunning statement in the hall.

It was a truly magnificent day celebrating love, friendship, food and family. The evening was topped off with delicious bacon rolls, cooked in the candle lit courtyard by Lee (Chef) on the BBQ. Who can resist the smell of sizzling bacon......Mouth watering! Then they danced the night away to their great band, the lead singer of which was Marianne's very talented friend from university.

A day out at Arlington Court

I have been meaning to post this since the summer, I can't believe we are already 4 weeks into term already, where does the time go??

We had the most lovely day at Arlington Court, only a 30 minute car journey away, I can't believe I have not been before.

Such beautiful grounds, the perfect place to have a picnic. The lake is full of fish which very much enjoyed the crisps that the children fed them.

Then there was the tree climbing.....

So many brilliant trees to climb and camps to be made.....

They had such a good time, Naomi and I even managed to chat...

The tea rooms were also well worth a visit, lovely lunches and cakes. We were all so hot after tree climbing we had to have a round of lollies.

The carriage museum was so much more than I had expected. There were lots of amazing really old coaches to see including a wonderful gold state coach. Then there were 3 real live gorgeous shire horses to meet and the children even got to have a go at harnessing a very obliging wooden horse called Polly.

A quick ride in a mini carriage, ya, ya!

And just enough time for one more climb on the way out.
A great day had by all, highly recommended!!