Tag: Gratitude

Introducing Pixie

Finding time amidst Christmas preparations to share an overdue post introducing the newest member of our little family, a rescue cat we adopted at the end of October.

I wasn’t really ready to adopt a new cat, and Mara was such a special cat that I knew I’d struggle not to compare another cat to her, but the kids were asking when we’d get another cat and once I’d started seeing ads for cats needing to be rehomed, it was impossible to look away. Cats are such creatures of routine and familiarity that I really feel sorry for those that experience the shock, upheaval and distress of having to be rehomed.

We contacted a couple of local rehoming centres, and I arranged to meet two cats in foster care on a Saturday morning while my husband took the girls to dance class, both cats were lovely and I hated having to choose between them (though the other one has also been adopted now). On a Monday morning, after dropping the kids off at school and nursery, my husband and I went to pick up Pixie, a three year old black and white girl cat from her foster home.

We never knew much about Mara’s past, but we were able to get Pixie’s date of birth and full medical history, and a bit about why she had to be rehomed. Sadly, she was living with her brother and the two of them weren’t getting on, I have no idea how you choose in that situation.

Pixie spent the first week mostly hiding under the couch, but she’s gradually been getting more curious, vocal and confident. She’s been very gentle with the kids, though she does tend to hide when they get too loud or boisterous, I’m not sure she had much contact with kids before coming to us, but she’s very playful. My husband put a box on top of one our bookcases, and she likes to take herself up there when she wants to watch our antics from a safe distance, but she’s a lapcat that will happily settle down with us while we’re watching TV or reading.

I still miss Mara, but Pixie is a lovely addition to our family. X

Life Lately..!

Time seems to slipping away from me as we approach the end of the year. We are so lucky to have such distinct seasons here in Scotland, early November was unusually mild but the last couple of weeks brought a cold snap full of frosts and subzero temperatures, and we’re all looking forward to the merriment and cheer of Christmas.

Our oldest daughter started school in August, and she has settled in so well, making a little group of friends, building on her number and counting skills, writing and learning to read. I couldn’t be more proud of her as she works her way through the phonics books we borrowed from the library. She’s moved up two classes in gymnastics since May and we’re thinking about looking for a competitive club because she shows such aptitude and skill, and she enjoys it so much.

Our youngest is enjoying extra one to one time with me, something she hasn’t really had since she was a baby, and she’s coped better than I expected with going to nursery without her sister. We celebrated her third birthday with a little party at the start of November, and she’s moved up to pre-school at nursery. This season of parenting is bringing a lot of new challenges but I’m leaning into it as much as I can.

I’ve also made a big change, resigning from my role in council social services to move into the charity sector. Giving up a profession and taking a paycut feels like a step backwards, but I’m hoping it will be less stressful and a better balance for our family. Our daughters will only be little for such a short time and I don’t want to miss it. My husband’s been self employed full time since February and his business has been more successful than we expected so it feels like a good time for me to try something new.

I’ve also returned to my old yoga studio after a five year gap, it’s a lovely restorative and relaxing class that’s just what my mind and body need at the moment. 

Yesterday was the first anniversary of our cat Mara’s, death. I’ve been struggling with a lot of grief through autumn, as I loved snuggling up with Mara in the evenings as she snoozed on my lap while I read, or when she would sleep between my ankles, or crawl under the duvet to snooze pressed into my side on the coldest nights. The girls had been asking if/when we’d get another cat, so we started making enquiries to see if it would be possible to adopt a house cat with small children. At the end of October, I visited a little black and white cat being fostered on a Saturday morning and we adopted her on the Monday morning. I’ll write more about our little Pixie soon, but she’s settling in well.

Life still feels fairly hectic at the moment, and our calendar is already filling up with Christmas events but I’m trying to find quiet moments amidst the hustle and bustle, and to embrace all the changes. Have a lovely week. X

An Enchanted Tradition

We recently returned from our annual trip to the Enchanted Forest in Pitlochry, which has been our tradition for over a decade.

The theme changes every year, and this year was called Luminara, which tried to capture the interconnection, balance and harmony between nature and technology. We have been to a lot of light shows around Scotland over the years but the Enchanted Forest is easily the most ambitious and technologically impressive. There were a few parts that were stunning, but overall this wasn’t our favourite theme as it felt less cohesive and a bit more spread out than previous years.

We stayed at a lodge just a few miles outside of Pitlochry and it was ideal, cosy with slightly more space than a caravan. We took a trip into Pitlochry again the next day to visit the Christmas Emporium to let our daughters choose ornaments for their Christmas tree and a lollypop from the sweetshop, before we ate a simple but tasty lunch at Hettie’s Tea Shop.

It’s always interesting to chat to the locals while we’re in the area, who have a bit of an ambivalent relationship with the Enchanted Forest as it brings a huge amount of tourism and money to the local economy, but locals always complain about a month of parking restrictions and none of the locals we spoke to had been to the show themselves.

We stopped at Active Kids Adventure play with the kids on the way home, our girls had a hoot climbing up and sliding down the indoor tree house, then we went outside for trampolines, go karts and crazy golf. I think this might become part of our annual tradition too while the kids are young.

This was our last trip for the year, we’ve been so lucky to have had some lovely holidays from our visit to Northumbria in Spring, our Summer holiday in St Andrews, our glamping trip in September and finally The Enchanted Forest. Every time I’ve loved seeing the kids’ excitement about staying in a caravan or lodge, exploring somewhere new or returning to a favourite place together.

Have a lovely week. X

Finding Hope in the Garden

Despite being the most urban-dwelling of our families, we are still a very outdoorsy family and the garden has always felt like an extension of our home.  The kids love their slide, swings and the little mud kitchen we set up under the pergola on the patio, but our little garden offers so many other opportunities for play, learning and discovery too.

As a child, I remember the delight of picking fresh strawberries from my mum’s garden every June, and I started my own strawberry patch to share that simple joy with my own daughters. I find peas will grow almost anywhere so I plant them everywhere, and the girls love picking them fresh from the pod as a snack. We grow cherry tomatoes in the green house, which our girls also love picking as soon as they turn red. We’ll never be self-sufficient but growing some of our own fruit and vegetables is a great way of teaching our children about food production.

I’ve tried to make our garden as child and wildlife friendly as possible, and we’re always delighted to see bees bumbling and butterflies fluttering around the garden, as well as worms wriggling, caterpillars crawling and so many other insects just going about their daily business. At time when there is increasing alarm about the decline of insects, I like to feel we are doing our bit to help the insect population, offering them food, water and shelter, and my kids already understand that we need pollinators if we want to keep eating so many of their favourite foods like strawberries, raspberries and apples. My kids often help filling up the little trays of water we leave out for insects and birds in hot weather, as well as the bird feeders, combining their scooping and pouring skills with another lesson in taking care of nature. We’ve had lots of butterflies in the garden this year from small whites nibbling my kale and red admirals feasting on our plums.

Over the years, we’ve had a few hedgehogs visiting the garden much to everyone’s delight. Last year we helped fatten up a little hoglet that found his way in over the summer before he moved on elsewhere for the winter. We haven’t seen any hedgehogs this year, but I hope they’ll find their way in again.

I know that one small garden can’t save the world, but when so many young people are struggling with climate anxiety, our garden reminds us that it’s not as hopeless as the headlines make out, that nature is abundant and generous, and that humans can live in harmony with nature. Our garden is a little sanctuary in the city where we can escape from the hustle and bustle to play, learn and grow in every sense, a place where we can enjoy the sweetness of strawberries, chase butterflies, count bees and marvel at how tiny seeds grow into tall sunflowers. 

Have a lovely week. X

Spring Things

A whole season seems to have passed since I last found time to update my old blog. Spring has been exceptionally sunny and warm this year, and we’ve spent so much time outside.

I’ve been delighted to see the first bumble bees in the garden, the first peacock butterfly, hoverflies, blossom on the apple and plum trees, and daffodils bringing the first colour to our garden after winter months of dreary grey skies and brown earth.

I sowed the first tomato seeds at the start of March, and the seedlings have now been planted in a raised bed my husband built inside our new polycarbonate greenhouse. We said farewell to our old glass greenhouse after Storm Eowyn smashed several panes of glass, putting it back on Gumtree where we found it a few years back and gave it free to a couple who will hopefully appreciate it as much as we did.

Tomato and courgette plants in the greenhouse

In the raised beds outside, we have peas, spinach, radish, lettuce, beetroot and carrots sprouting. My husband is also growing potatoes in sacks. Inside our home, the windowsills are full of sunflower, nasturtium and courgette seedlings not quite ready to go out yet.

The kids have been out on the swings and slide or making pine cone soup or washing shells at their mud kitchen, or riding scooters and bikes around our quiet cul-de-sac almost every day. I’ve loved spending so much time in the outside, especially in our own wee garden as it is such a restorative place and I always feel better for an hour or two pottering around or just watching the wildlife. Our little garden is such an antidote to all the gloomy headlines in the news.

Last weekend, the rain brought an end to the prolonged stretch of sunny weather, bringing much needed water to all the plants in our garden, and to our rivers and reservoirs further afield.

Have a lovely week. X

Spring Break

March has flown by and just finding some time to share a post about a little weekend away we had.

Our previous two summer holidays were in East Lothian but we decided to travel a little bit further down the East Coast and cross the English border into Northumbria on this trip.

It was the longest journey we’ve taken with the kids in the car, and we decided to break up the journey by stopping off at East Links Farm Park for lunch. We’d visited East Links on our summer holiday last year, but now that our youngest is bigger and more mobile it was even more fun. We had a great time riding on the little train that circles around the farm with sheep and lamas coming up to say hello, racing around on go karts, exploring the fort and tumbling around in the soft-play barn. Then it was back into the car for the last leg of our journey.

We stayed in a caravan park, on the edge of a little lake that had swans, ducks, coots, and geese waddling by our decking to our daughters’ delight.

It’s still early spring, and the weather did dictate our activities a bit, but still managed to find plenty to do. One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Northumberland Zoo, a small family run zoo, where the capybaras, armadillos, Arctic fox and tiny harvest mice were the unexpected stars of the show.

I also couldn’t resist a visit to Barter Books, somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for ages, which is a huge second hand bookshop built in Alnwick’s old Victorian railway station, where we all found a book.

As is often the case with UK holidays, the sunniest day was on our way home so we decided to take advantage of it to visit one of our favourite beaches, Coldingham Bay in the Borders. My husband and our oldest daughter went searching for critters in rock pools, while I built sand castles with our youngest, before we regrouped to climb Homeli Knoll and collect sea glass on the rocky beach on the other side.

Our holidays are always fun, but never the relaxing or peaceful break we imagine with two little rascals pulling us in all directions. After our travels, there’s something really comforting about returning home and settling back into our familiar routines, but we’re already thinking about our summer holiday.

Have a lovely week. X

Gardening through the bleak midwinter…

January is often a quiet time for us, settling back into our routines and slowing down after all the excitement and excess of Christmas.

There isn’t much growing in the garden at this time of year, but there are still lots of little jobs and tidying up to do. There’s a silver birch and Concorde pear tree waiting to be planted where the bamboo used to be. While the bamboo was a bit of a deadzone for wildlife, I’m hoping the birds and insects will appreciate more native trees and shrubs.

One of the other big changes is the double swing my husband built for our daughters, which they absolutely love and has proven to be reassuringly sturdy so far. In the winter months, we often feel cooped up so swings and the slide give us something to do in the garden when it’s too cold or wet to go the park.

My husband also built a compost box out of pallets and wood leftover from other projects, and we’ve already starting putting our tree clippings, cardboard, fruit and vegetable peel in there to rot down and turn back into nutritious soil.

We spent a couple of hours pottering around in the garden last week, and it was so peaceful without any of the pressure I often feel during summer. Then at the weekend, everything shut down when Storm Eowyn arrived, and we spent a whole day inside watching the storm rage outside and trying to keep two small kids entertained without any of our usual activities. The wind smashed a few panes of glass in our green house, but we were extremely lucky that we didn’t lose any tiles from our roof or fence panels.

As always, very grateful for our little patch, and so looking forward to spring. Have a lovely week. X

New Year, Same Old Me

The crossover from one year into another was gentle in our house, the kids slept right through while my husband and I started rewatching the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings (and we drew the trilogy out over the next few evenings). 2024 left me feeling a bit bruised and tender, and I wasn’t feeling celebratory on New Year’s Eve, so we saved our champagne for the evening of New Year’s Day instead.

While others are making resolutions, setting fitness goals and planning holidays, I find myself craving peace and rest after a turbulent year.

I returned to work last January after a year off on maternity leave and immediately regretted it because so many people had moved on that it was like joining a different team. I started a new job in June but it’s felt like jumping out of frying pan into the fire as it’s much busier and less specialised than I’d hoped, and certainly not the change of career I’m seeking. I was diagnosed with ADHD in the spring, and while it explained so many struggles I’ve had through life, it also brought a wave of fresh self doubt and regrets as well. Finally, in November, we lost our lovely cat Mara, after nine years of her companionship, and I have been struggling with grief and guilt ever since. It’s by no means the worst year I’ve endured, but it’s taken a toll on me nevertheless.

The highlights of 2024 were mostly moments with our family such as our summer holiday, visiting the Enchanted Forest and other daytrips, and just the joy and wonder of seeing our daughters grow. Our oldest turned four in February, she is so bright and confident, and she’s all set to start school in August 2025, which is as exciting as it is nerve-wracking, and will be a big adjustment for us all. Our youngest turned two in November and has become such a little chatterbox, already full of opinions, and ever eager to keep up with her big sister.

It rained all morning on New Year’s Day, but cleared up in the afternoon so we braved a wrapped up trip to Lunderston Bay for our traditional beach walk. I’ve been feeling a bit maudlin lately, and a walk on the beach was such a balm for my weary heart.

I waded into the water in my wellies, which is as close to a dash and a dook as I’ve ever gotten, but there were some other braver folk who went for a dip. As we were beach combing for shells, the sun broke through the clouds and cast a golden glow over snowy mountains in the distance, the shimmering water and the sandy shore, reminding me how grateful I am to live in such a beautiful country, and how lovely winter here can be.

We’ve filled the first few days of 2025 with play dates with our daughters’ cousins and nursery friends, swimming at the local pool and a final visit to the Winterfest to ride the carousel and Santa’s train (the helter skelter was closed due to ice!). It’s been a bit of a blur, but I’m grateful for so many of these moments of joy, laughter and connection, and hope 2025 will be full of more. It’s back to work and nursery tomorrow, but wishing everyone a belated happy New Year. X

Romjul Reflections

Finding some time after an extremely busy festive week to relax and reflect on December.

Through December, we enjoyed our oldest daughter’s nativity at nursery, and a family trip to Blair Drummond where we saw sea lions, rhinos and finally saw the two beautiful tigers. We also took the kids on the fair rides at Blair Drummond and the Christmas Market in Glasgow, with our little thrill seekers thoroughly enjoying the spinning cups, Helter Skelter, carousel and mini roller coasters. 

I ended up working late on Christmas Eve due to a last minute crisis, arriving home as everyone else was finishing dinner, but just in time to put our two excited girls to bed. Before a last minute gift wrapping session, filling stockings and sorting presents into piles.

Our daughters woke up at 5.30am (as usual) and were remarkably patient as we let them watch cartoons in bed before letting them check if Santa had been and giving them their stockings to open before they woke up their grandparents and tore into the rest of their gifts.

My husband outdid himself with Christmas dinner this year, in addition to our usual Quorn roast and sage and onion stuffing, he also made a butternut squash and chestnut wellington and Yorkshire puddings (apparently a controversial choice).

After lunch, we took the kids to the park, before heading home to watch Julia Donaldson’s Tiddler and try out more of the kids’ toys and games. Gymnastics equipment, train sets and games like Pop Up Pirate have been big hits with our daughters this Christmas.

We’re still missing our little Mara so much; Christmas isn’t the same without her, she always loved the festivities from playing with tinsel and hunting for spiders in the tree to getting stuck into her stocking for new toys and treats. 

Now that our extended family have gone home, I’m glad we have some time off together just the four of us to settle back into our routines and find some calm after all the excitement.

Wishing everyone all the joy and peace of the season. X

Sleep well, sweet Mara 🐾

This is a post I’ve been dreading writing for some time, but on Monday 25th November, our lovely cat Mara passed away.

It all happened so quickly that I’m still in shock. A couple of weeks ago, I’d been worried about Mara’s teeth as she’d started to become a noisy, messy and picky eater, all very out of character for our little snaffler. Unfortunately, the vet diagnosed squamous cell carcinoma, an incurable and terminal cancer of the mouth. We agreed to try pain management but even so, Mara went downhill quickly, stopped grooming and struggling to eat anything except soup.

Mara’s last few days

On the morning of Monday 25th November, we called the vet to arrange having her put to sleep, because we couldn’t stand watching her waste away and prolonging her suffering. We let the kids say their goodbyes and I took Mara to the vet, while my husband took the kids to the park. I stayed with Mara to the end, who true to form was headbooping me and purring until the sedative took effect. She slipped away peacefully without a twitch or whisper, it was so peaceful for her but heartbreaking for me.

I’ve been in a fog of grief ever since, our home feels unbearably empty without her, and all our routines seem off-kilter.

Our four year old daughter has taken it well, there have been some tears but I helped her write a letter to Mara about all her favourite memories to help her remember but it is hard when she says she wishes we could visit Mara. (Same, kid.) It’s been harder to explain to our two year old who keeps asking “where’s Mara?” and looking for her around the house. We’ve spent a lot time huddled round phones looking at photos and videos of Mara. Mara was such a big character in our family that it’s hard to imagine our story continuing without her.

It’s impossible to explain to anyone who hasn’t let an animal into their heart, just how much love and joy they bring to our lives and how much sorrow we feel when they pass. Mara was a resilient character who overcame more than her fair share of adversity from losing her previous owner (that led us to adopting her) and the amputation of her tail when we found a mast cell tumour on it. Mara was very much a family cat, whether stretched out on my lap or rolling on her back to let the kids tickle her tummy, she actively sought us out, and she had an enormous capacity to give and recieve affection.

I can’t think of a stress that couldn’t be soothed or a hurt that couldn’t be healed by some time snuggling with Mara. For nine years, Mara has been one of the things I’ve been most grateful for, and my world feels like a worse place without her. Yet, deep down I know she was a happy cat, we gave her a good life, and it was the kindest thing to let her go.

Sleep well, my sweet Mara. You’re part of our family and home forever. Xx