At this time of year the keyboard smokes as my daughter and I fling emails back and forth exchanging recipes as we try to organise some English food to see her over another Christmas in the USA.
Normally I send her a parcel from an ex-pat site, but this year since she moved to New England, she's found a shop a few hours away from where she lives that sells some English food.
She's tucked the goodies away in the bottom of a cupboard, but allowed her new husband to sample the delights of Walkers cheese and onion crisps and some Twiglets... Thank goodness he loved them.

Her ex used to pull a face at English food, but then he didn't like anything about us, which is probably why he's her ex!

We've also stumbled on the site below that is based in Plymouth MA. It's near enough in American terms for her to drive there and shop.
Don't you love what it says...Quite brought a lump up in my throat.

http://www.britishsupplies.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=BS&Category_Code=ctmi

POEM: For Rememberance Sunday.

Old men they
Who, past their prime, with faded eyes,
Gaze through time to the killing fields
Covered now with tidy graves in regimented rows.

Old men they
Who, weeping over absent years, resurrect the life
Of friends and comrades lost,
Remembering the names indelibly engraved in heart and stone.

Old men they
Who, now that greed and self smothers all the
Old beliefs of country, King and home,
Wonder who will know - or care - when they are gone.

(c)D.Rayburn.

That's it for another Year.

So that’s it for another year! Busier than last, but I didn’t run out of bags thank goodness, although we blew out the candle in the pumpkin at eight as the tinies have made the rounds by then.
I didn’t dare help myself to the few bags of treats that were left. I had to promise Isabella that if any were left we’d share them out today, because as she was leaving at seven thirty, she peered into the bowl which was standing on the hall table and did a mental count!

We heard one loud bang from a firework and that was it, so it was by far the quietest Halloween yet. The costumes of the sixteen children who called at the house were impressive, but every single outfit was store bought, so I guess there are some manufacturers who are rubbing their hands in glee this morning.

OPINION: A Quiet Halloween?

So, Hannah has happily disembowelled one of the pumpkins we grew over the summer. It’s had a lopsided, cheerful smile carved into its firm yellow skin by Granddad, and the candle is sitting by its side waiting for our yearly carrying it into the garden after dark and lighting it, ceremony.
Having forgotten she’d happily ended up plastered in pumpkin last year, Isabella looked aghast when she realised what she had to do. Now rising five and a veteran of full time school, she refused to get her hands sticky and instead took charge of picking out a couple of dozen seeds to be dried, wrapped in foil and put aside for growing next year.

While they were here we packed twenty one bags of treats – would have been twenty four, but we had to check they were tasty enough!
I doubt we’ll need that many; Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night feel eerily low key due to an absence of fireworks being let off prematurely.
Don't get me wrong. I like firework night and have many happy memories of it, but that's all it used to be; one night of fun. And way back then we didn't know about Halloween in our neck of the woods, which was probably a good thing, because our parent's pockets wouldn't have stretched to two events in the same week.
These days the run up to both is an absolute pain in the neck and a misery for pet owners.

Miraculously we didn't have any pre-Halloween parties at the weekend, with well oiled adults standing in their gardens late at night shouting their heads off and letting off rockets. [And what is it with grown-ups and rockets?]
The reason it's been so quiet is because local police have clamped down on youngsters getting hold of fireworks or shops selling them before a certain date. They are also warning shopkeepers not to sell eggs or flour to under eighteens, and posters are being distributed by our local churches saying Please Don’t Call Here for householders who don't wish to participate.

Four years ago I ran out of treat bags. We’d moved into another neighbourhood so as well as new children calling, the boys from my old address trekked across town and came to our door in various states of disguise.
The lit pumpkin in my front garden signals friendly intentions I suppose, but these days I only get a few tinies carefully guarded by their parents.

Rather than increasing in popularity as Halloween has done in the USA where it’s a multi-million dollar industry and second only to Christmas for sales, over here, at least where I live, Halloween as manufacturers would like us to celebrate it, appears to be dying on its feet - and I’m not surprised.
With fireworks or tickets to firework displays to buy and then Christmas hot on its heels, another cynically hyped up celebration and one that gives some youngsters a good excuse to run amok and vandalise cars and properties, isn’t what most hard pressed families need.

Although I love to see the little ones at the door and thoroughly enjoy pretending to be scared by their costumes, if the evening turns out as quiet as anticipated I shan’t be downhearted.
As I sit through another round of television adverts, I’ll break into a bag of left-over treats smug in the knowledge that in our area at least, Halloween has been a smack in the chops for the advertising Johnnies. And if you knew me, you'd know just how happy that makes me feel.

OPINION: Take Bathrooms for Instance.

I’m still trying to make my mind up about getting old. On the whole I lean towards not liking it, although on the plus side, having worn the T-shirt quite a few times, there are few nasty surprises left, which is a blessing. If the phrase ‘chill out’ wasn’t coined by or for the older generation, then it should have been.
Life becomes far easier when you learn that it’s pointless railing against what’s chucked at you and I can say with confidence that I’m wiser, although wisdom without the burden of wrinkles, glasses, stiff joints and grey hair would be fantastic.

One of the downsides of coming from an earlier generation is realising that the world and technology has speeded up to such an extent, that on some days - especially when I’m chilled out - I doubt I’ll ever catch up. But if I did, would it be worth it?

Take bathrooms for instance.
If you’ve spent the first twelve years of your life without one, and the tin bath, brought in from its hook on the back garden wall once a week was the closest you ever got to being wet all over at the same time, a beautifully appointed bathroom never ceases to give pleasure.
I love the latest designs with deep, free standing baths and sinks that look as if you’ll be taking a leap into science fiction every time you use them. I’d really love a wet room, and I wish someone had come up with the idea of burning scented candles whilst wallowing in an endless supply of hot water when I was young. And as for Jacuzzis and hot tubs in the back garden!

But hang on a minute. Aren’t we supposed to be having water shortages in a lot of areas? Hasn’t water been classed as a precious commodity not to be taken lightly, and we should take a quick shower rather than a bath? Aren’t we being asked to switch off lights if we’re not in the room; use energy efficient bulbs and turn off appliances at the plug, because leaving them on standby wastes a huge amount of electricity every year?

If things are that desperate, I can see all these power hungry aids to modern living eventually becoming obsolete, and I wonder if the powers to be in their efforts to avert an inevitable power crisis, would take the drastic step of banning any household item classed as an unnecessary luxury.
I find it hard to believe that in my lifetime we’ve nearly come full circle when it comes to ‘all mod cons’, but this is where being older and also born working class could really come in useful. I know all about having to wash in the kitchen sink, and popping kettles and saucepans on the stove to hot the water up for a Sunday night bath.
Remembering my childhood, they could ban bathrooms altogether, and bring back public baths for those who live in a flat and have nowhere to hang a tin bath.

Despite popular misconceptions, our mothers kept us squeaky clean, you could eat off our floors and we didn’t drop like flies from nasty diseases because there was no running hot water to wash our hands. We coped perfectly well, even thrived without most of today’s necessities.

So, despite being labeled old fashioned and a drain on the public purse by many of today’s generation, being old means we’re a fountain of knowledge when it comes to waste not want not. We could show the youngsters a thing or two … I quite like the idea of that. I’m up for it if you are.

PROTEST: Someone Knicked our Sweetcorn.

On one of my earlier posts, I mentioned picking the pumpkins we'd grown for Halloween. It was a bit early to harvest them, but they were huge and hard to miss, so there was a good chance they would get pinched or vandalised once we got into October.
Yesterday we went to our allotment to pick the last of the sweetcorn, and every remaining cob had been knicked.
It leaves me short of things to say, because most of what we thought and wished on the thief is unrepeatable.

Thankfully the pumpkins have survived being stored in the garage. The largest is going to our two youngest granddaughter's school for Harvest Festival, and will then be used for Halloween.
Grown with love, given with love, and enjoyed.