Coming home?

We spend a very merry Christmas in Somerset with my parents. The kids are old enough now to make Christmas special and enable us to recreate the Christmas of our childhood, complete with being yanked out of bed at 11pm on Christmas Eve to see Dad (now Grandpa) preside over Midnight Mass in the local village church.

"Will Grandpa come back with us?" whispers Joe after the service.

I assure him he will.

"Will he put his clothes on first?"

On our return to Lancashire we take a detour via Sheffield for the funeral of Joy Hope, an inspiring 101-year-old and close family friend. We're a bit early and it's too wet for the park so we pop into Sainsbury's to kill some time. The post-Christmas toy/chocolate/clothes sale are a materialistic argument waiting to happen, so we steer the kids down the vegetable aisle instead. The only pretext I can come up with is buying a carrot for the guinea pigs (waiting patiently in the car). Funny looks at the check-out are a small price to pay for happy children who are allowed to hand over 20p, share the change, and give half a carrot each to Holly and Nutella.

Joy gets a good send off at her church. We sit precariously near the front and there's a tense moment during the address when the penny drops for Joe and he asks in a stage whisper, "Has Joy died?"

But all is soon forgotten over sausage rolls and cheese straws.

We continue our journey to Lancashire in the dark and I wonder what it will feel like returning to our rented farmhouse. Will it feel like coming home?

Well, no. Not immediately.

Then we pile into the house, open the post, light a fire and suddenly we are home. Rosa's happily telling a barbie story, Joe's happily transferred to bed, the guinea pigs are happily coo-ing in fresh sawdust.

And Malcolm and I? I guess we're happily here and happily us and curious as to what 2012 will bring.

Knowing the neighbours

We host a jolly mulled wine evening to get to know our neighbours better. Inevitably the conversation turns to our other neighbours,

the sheep.

"Did you hear about the tup a few weeks' ago?"

Tupping. I've learnt that one. Tup must be a male sheep.

"No, what happened?"

Turns out the tup had died, probably a side-effect of competitive headbutting. Our friendly neighbour notified the farmer, but he already knew.

"I'm waiting til dark to remove him," he explained. "I don't want to upset the new people."

Did he reckon the sight of a large sheep being dragged unceremoniously by a quad bike would have been too much for our kids? Or was he worried it would blemish a Londoner's romanticised view of the countryside? Either way it was very thoughtful. I'm just glad I didn't spot him dragging the carcass under the cover of darkness. That would have seemed far more sinister.

But apparently not all sheep lying on their backs with their legs in the air are heading for the knacker's yard. They may just be 'rigged' (or stuck to us newcomers), particularly heavily pregnant ewes who haven't been sheared because of the cold. Like beached whales, they just can't get going again without a little help.

Our friendly neighbour describes the technique for righting a rigged sheep. Sounds tricky. Alternatively, just phone the farmer. 

Rosa's observations, number 3

The bar along the top of the aga makes a perfect ballet barre.

Snow castles

It's actually snowing!

"Shall I tell the kids?"

"Don't bother them now. They're just going to sleep."

So I go and tell the kids. They're slightly interested.

Next morning I'm first up, looking out the window.

IT'S SETTLED!

I tell the kids and they're quite interested, but they'd rather hold the guinea pigs.

I finally get them outside in the snow. It's only just getting light (sun rises late in these parts) and it's blooming freezing. The kids humour me for a few minutes before escaping back to the warmth.

I grab the camera and enjoy the frosted views and crunching footsteps for myself. Slowly, reality dawns. School starts in half an hour and it's a 10-minute drive away. I've never driven in snow. Certainly not down a pot-holed farm track.

"This will be fun!" I tell the kids from behind the steering wheel, trying to convince myself. The farm track is ok, but ahead cars are struggling to make it up a small, icy hill. One by one, they give it a go, then slip back down and park at the side of the road.

Put it in second gear and rev it, a distant memory informs me.

Yes, yes, go, skid, eek, go, skid, eek, yes!

We've made it up the hill but I'll be blown if I'm going to risk driving my darlings down the other side. Pull in. Think. Chat about the weather. "Isn't this fun!"

The kids aren't fooled; they know I'm panicking.

Salvation comes in the form of a shining white 4x4, transporting a friend from Rosa's class. I flag it down and Rosa jumps on board. That leaves Joe and me kicking our heels in the snow, buying essentials from the village shop and waiting for enough cars to slush up the road so that we can drive home safely.

"Mummy, can I have a bucket and a spade?" Joe asks when we eventually make it back. Poor boy, I think. He has no memories of snow and he must be a touch confused. But actually it's a brilliant idea. We spend the rest of the morning making snow castles in the garden and kicking them down with glee.

Oh, I do love snow. So long as I don't have to go anywhere.

Sausage anyone?

"Practise saying 'no' in the mirror," a mum friend belatedly advises.

It's not even that I said yes, I just let slip that we have a BBQ and that Malcolm has the day off on Friday. Well it was the Deputy Headmistress...

So I've lumbered my husband with barbecuing 100 sausages in the school playground. In December. In Lancashire.

The morning of the school fair, panic sets in over the small matter of buying charcoal. In December. In Lancashire. Sainsbury's? No. B&Q? No. Various friends and acquaintances? No. The random garden centre in our village that we've never visited before? Yes, yes, yes! (We also discover an old man called Arthur who runs a model shop up the rickety steps of the old mill building - a little boy's and big dad's treasure trove - but I digress.)

As the rain sets in, we overcome the next hurdle: fitting the BBQ in the car. We think we're home and (not so) dry but there remains the biggest challenge a man can face. Making fire. On a freezing, wet and windy day. (Did I mention Lancashire in December?)

While the kids drag me around the cosy, packed and buzzing school fair, Malc struggles on alone in the cold. A whole pack of firelighters later and there's a glimmer of a glow. He puffs... and he puffs... and he puffs... and eventually there's a sizzle, sizzle, spit.

THE SAUSAGES ARE COOKING.

Fast forward two hours. The BBQ coals are burning bright. There's an abundance of well-cooked sausages. And most people have left the fair. Some never even knew there was a BBQ.

That evening I look in the mirror, carefully form the word 'No,' and check I don't have MUG written across my forehead.

The cathedral challenge

I don't know what makes me think the candlelit Advent Carol Service in Blackburn Cathedral will be suitable for a five-year-old and a three-year-old. Maybe it's the prospect of singing carols, or the word advent with all its calendar-opening anticipation.

Anyhow, ignoring the fact that it's a service and that it's an hour and a half long, I persuade my family to miss Strictly Come Dancing and jump in the car for an adventure. I'm in grave danger of overusing the word adventure.

Luckily for us, Joe falls asleep on the way, stays asleep as we carry him past the slightly intimidating Blackburn youths, and doesn't stir throughout the first half of the service.

Luckily for us, we're seated in the north transept. The service starts in semi-darkness, with the candlelight and choristers gradually making their way around the congregation. The north transept is their last stop, so we have plenty of time to whisper to Rosa and feed her snacks.

The singing is sublime. Piercing medieval plainsong, crunchy modern chords, lilting Victorian melodies, all in an impressive modern cathedral with underfloor heating.

Then the moment of truth. The bishop, the choir and the candlelight reach the north transept just as Joe wakes up with a coughing fit. I hold up his favourite plastic dinosaurs to distract him, at which point he noisily bashes their heads together (silly me for choosing a herbivore and a carnivore). So I frantically unwrap a Kit-Kat - crinkle crinkle - and thrust it into Joe's hand. Sticky chocolate silence.

More singing, a few prayers, another Kit-Kat, a reading and then... a hymn. Allelluja! As the organ pipes up and the congregation scrape to their feet I make a getaway with Joe to the loos in the crypt.

We process out at the end of the service and notice that ours are the only children present, with the exception of the choristers. As we shake hands with the bishop there's a familiar feeling of foolhardy triumph.

Bucket and spade

We decide to go to the seaside for the weekend. In November. In Lancashire. We're not being over-optimistic, just nurturing our sense adventure.

We drive to a chocolate box town, leave the car and take the train across rugged farmland, past Railway Children stations, a brief pause in respectable Lancaster then on to the end of the line. Morecambe.

I admit I'd only heard of Morecambe because of the cockle pickers. And even then I thought it was in Kent. In fact it's a stunningly situated seaside resort, with views across its extensive bay to the hills of the Lake District.

I've looked up what to do if it's raining and the best I can come up with is tea at the elegantly restored Art Deco Midland Hotel. Well I have married an architect. Fortunately the sun is out, albeit very low in the wintery sky, turning the exposed mud flats into a vast lake of molten silver. We make straight for the beach and issue the kids with a bucket and spade each.

That's the next two hours taken care of, as if the bucket and spade are magic keys to a world of harmonious pottering. And curiously the perfect castle-building sand takes second place to the mud and gloop and seaweed and unmentionables that constitute the ingredients for 'chocolate pudding'.

It gets cold and pretty dark by 3pm but before we succumb to the allure of the Midland Hotel we happen upon an accordion player on the pier and a maze cut into the stone: more harmonious pottering, now with a musical accompaniment.

It's the simple things in life. We reach our B&B hardly noticing the amusement arcades, the Wacky Warehouse, the discount stores and the derelict buildings. I haven't a clue what the rest of Morecambe's like (apart from a surreal dog show on Sunday morning), but the seafront on a sunny day is pretty special.