We’re into the embers of the year, which for us are always a balance of wrapping up warm for walks to feed the squirrels and ducks at the park, kicking our way through crunchy leaves and splashing in puddles before heading home for cosy evenings of warming meals, cartoons, crafts, bubble baths and bedtime stories.
We’ve been making an effort to get outside as much as possible whenever there’s a break in the rain to feed the squirrels and birds, or to play at the park. Our local park is particularly lovely at this time of year when all the leaves turn, and the fallen leaves create a colourful, crunchy carpet. I love the Scottish seasons and how they remind me to pause and pay attention to nature and the world around me.
This autumn has been filled with little adventures, time with our extended family and so many of the ordinary little moments that we often take for granted that make up the fabric of life. Reading the news lately I’ve been struck by how lucky I am to be able to play in the park with my girls, take my oldest to her football class and my youngest to sensory group, read bedtime stories together and tuck them in every night, it’s easy to take our relative comfort and safety for granted when it’s all we’ve ever known.
As autumn treads towards winter, our calendar is filling up with festive plans and we’ve made a few small preparations for Christmas, buying a few new baubles and decorations, baking our Christmas cake and picking out presents for people.
This week has been a big one in our little family as we celebrated our youngest daughter’s first birthday. We had a little party at home with her grandparents, she needed a bit of help to blow out the candle on her cake, but enjoyed chasing the balloons, unwrapping her presents and playing with her new toys.
In many ways she still seems like a baby, but in other ways she’s grown and changed so much in such a short time. In the last couple of weeks, she’s taken her first wobbly, wide-legged steps (though she still prefers to crawl most of the time), and shouts “Mara” whenever she sees our cat (and sometimes at dogs and squirrels too). She’s a curious, little explorer, who is usually into every unlocked cupboard and drawer while I try to keep up with the housework, and she’s covered in bumps and bruises from tumbling around, but she loves anything noisy or musical and playing peekaboo.
Our youngest adores her big sister and follows her around trying to join in with whatever her sister is doing, often wrecking the game in the process. For her part, our oldest has also taken the adjustment from only to oldest in her stride with only the odd wobble, and we’ve been so proud to see what a generous and fun big sister she’s become. It’s not always easy juggling the needs of two young children, but it’s definitely worth it, and I’m so grateful for it all.
Last week instead of taking our girls out guising for Halloween, we visited our second light show of the season, Glasglow at the Botanic Gardens.
It’s always fun to see somewhere so familiar where we’ve strolled and fed squirrels during the day all lit up at night. The theme this year was “Ghostbusters” but there wasn’t any jump scares or other spooky parts that would upset the kids.
Our favourite part was actually inside Kibble Palace, a glasshouse home to the national fern collection, which had been filled with lasers for the event, it was spectacular.
Having been to a few different light shows over the years, and regular visitors to the Enchanted Forest in Pitlochry, Glasglow is one of the few that is worth visiting with a clear theme, making good use of the space, and conveniently located for us.
We’re disappointed that Elfingrove, the other winter event Itison hosts, will not be on this year as we all loved ice-skating and the ferris wheel but I’m sure we’ll find some other festive fun at the Christmas Market instead.
I read a real mix last month with two children’s books, two Japanese novellas and two contemporary women’s fiction.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
This is the story of a town that sacrifices the youngest baby every year to a witch that lives in a forest, and the witch accidentally feeds one of the baby’s moonlight which gives her magical powers. The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a story about sorrow and grief, and of how we can close off and harden our hearts to protect ourselves from heartache, or we can open them because love expands and can heal all our hurts. I found the back story told in bits a bit hard to piece together, but this is a gentle fairytale that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, though I didn’t love it quite as much as The Ogress And The Orphans.
Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
This is the third book in this series, and this one changes locations from a cafe in Tokyo to the coastal city of Hakodate, but this cafe also has a particular seat that allows the customer to return to a moment in the past (or future) to meet someone who has also visited the cafe for the time it takes a cup of coffee to cool. These books are interesting explorations of grief and learning to live with the past it, and I really appreciated the new location with its descriptions of view of the marina and the hustle and bustle of the cafe, but it did require a bit of suspension of belief about how easy it is to become a comedian in Japan and how many young women die suddenly from obscure illnesses.
Crookhaven: School for Thieves by J. J. Arcanjo
This was an impulse purchase, but one that turned out to be a hit. Crookhaven: School for Thieves follows an orphan called Gabe who lives with his gran and happens to be a talented pickpocket. Gabe is eventually invited to Crookhaven, a boarding school that trains the students in the art of forgery, lock picking, pick pocketing, parkour, hacking and other skills they’ll need to know become the next generation of Robin Hoods. Along the way, Gabe starts to search for the parents that abandoned him and disappeared without a trace. This was a very refreshing take on a boarding school story full of friendship, found family, adventure and mystery that I thoroughly enjoyed and I can’t wait to read the next one.
The Last Library by Freya Sampson
I don’t read a lot of contemporary fiction, but I found this completely captivating and heartwarming. This is the story of June Jones, a socially awkward and reclusive library assistant, who has been lost in her grief for ten years after her mother died. When the council threatens to close the library where she works, she finds herself pulled into the protests and campaign to save it, finding friends, community and romance along the way. I was absolutely rooting for June from the start, a really lovely story about grief, friendship, community and libraries.
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
I was a little underwhelmed by the second Japanese novella I read last month. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop follows a broken hearted woman who quits her job after finding out her boyfriend is engaged to someone else, and goes to live with her uncle who runs a secondhand bookshop. The book is split into two parts, the first is about the narrator learning to love to read, while the second part is more of a slice of life as she gets to know her aunt better and finds a new love interest. I felt like this book couldn’t decide what it wanted to be and was too short to really try to follow two different story lines.
A Very Distant Shore by Jenny Colgan
This was another impulse pick from the library. I don’t read a lot of contemporary fiction but I’ve been craving heartwarming stories to counter the increasingly bleak news reports. A Very Distant Shore follows a woman caring for her father who lives on the distant island of Mure that is struggling to recruit a new GP and a Syrian refugee who is offered a fresh start on the island. This is a short book but I felt it handled the issues of asylum seekers sensitively, and while the details are deliberately vague it doesn’t gloss over his trauma. I really enjoyed this short, poignant story and I’ll definitely be reading more by Jenny Colgan.
Lovely and Grateful 
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