The four nieces came in costume! We had three witches and a kitty-cat:
We carved pumpkins American-style and the girls all helped pick what they wanted carved on their own jack-o-lantern. A couple of the girls really got into the de-braining the pumpkin process: 
We also had a pinata filled with Halloween candy. It took quite a beating, but eventually the darned thing was opened. 
Never get between a woman and chocolate, I say! 
Here are the girls with their pumpkins.
Here's Uncle Paul getting into the spirit.
Happy Halloween!
On a slight tangent, I've been thinking about the Amercian slang "white trash" and how it is really the closest thing to the English term "chav," although the analogy is not perfect. It isn't a term that I feel comfortable using as a non-English person living here. The word "chav" is used primarily to describe someone who is lower-income, dresses a certain way, and usually takes pride in the term. If you want to explore the concept more, check out "Little Britain" or "The Harry Enfield Show."
Russell Brand, a quasi actor/rocker here in England (you may have seen him in the recent redux of "Arthur") came out about how the term "chav" shouldn't be used because it was an anchor around the neck of financially deprived people and it promoted a stereotype that served only to alienate people. He called for a complete cessation of the use of the word -- even in comedic circles.
The funny thing is that there are many people who (a) probably can't stand Russell Brand to begin with but also (b) view the terminology as a stereotype that is harmless as a comedic goldmine. Comedians by the boatload have come out and called Russell Brand a tw*t (an English swear word I don't usually use, but it is pretty much a quote in this case) because of his assertion.
In England, there are some glorious days to go to the beach and soak up the sun. Unfortunately, 362 days of the year are not those three days. So today I would like to tell you all about our beach holiday to Southwold in late June and about my impressions of the English spirit and determination when it comes to enjoying a beach holiday no matter the weather.
Southwold is a beautiful little English seaside town that is a bit sleepy in nature. It has a pier, but differs from the bigger more Victorian seaside pier towns like Brighton and it also differs from cities like Yarmouth that are mainly focused on the seaside arcade-type and entertainment attractions. Sure, Southwold has a little pier with a little arcade with various video games, but the overall impression I took from it was that it was mainly known for the working fishing port, a small lighthouse, and the Adnams brewery. (Adnams is a Suffolk cask ale that is absolutely lovely!) Here is a picture of what most of the town looks like -- including the lighthouse: 
This is a view of Southwold from the sea (or rather from the pier):
Those little beach houses/huts seem to be a typical feature of the English coastline in this neck of the woods. One of the days there, we took a walk down the coastline to the working fishing harbor and found this little gem of a restaurant where you can bring your own beverages (wine) and enjoy seafood fresh out of the ocean. 
The trip also left me with an appreciation of just how determined the holiday-makers there were to have a nice beach vacation -- despite the driving wind and cold weather. And when I say wind....this is what I mean:
We were bundled up the entire time! Yet, I was amazed to see so many beach-goers. In fact, it appears as if England has invented a beach accessory hitherto unseen by anyone on California's beaches -- the wind-break. The below picture illustrates how English people, determined to have quality time on the beach despite raging wind and cold, use windbreaks to ensure proper beach enjoyment. (Note: this picture wasn't from our trip, it is just an illustration of the type of windbreaks we saw and forgot to photo.)
Even more perplexing, I've come to believe that young English boys are born with five extra layers of skin that provides extra insulation to the cold weather. These four went charging into the ocean despite the fact the rest of the world was bundled up in winter gear. 
I think it generally speaks to the iron will of all English holiday-goers that we saw many scenes like the above. We saw parents forcing children to have a picnic in the sandstorms on the beach behind their windbreaks. Of course they were all huddled in blankets. We saw couples all bundled up in scarves eating ice-cream cones that -- as they licked -- sent streams of melting ice cream in parallel to the ground flying into the faces of passers-by. We even saw one old man in front of his beach hut, lying on a beach recliner in the "sunshine" covered with three blankets while nursing a thermos of hot tea. We saw several families walking out on the pier -- children frantically trying to hold on to any stable surface to keep from blowing away -- and heard the following out of pretty much every father:
I just KNEW the robbers would take something so precious. (As you can probably guess -- it was actually sitting untouched in my bedroom as they had opted for more lucrative items.) I remember feeling scared and vulnerable and I remember just how I felt when I saw the fear in my parents' eyes when they ushered us out of the unsafe house. Here I was, a business woman in her 30s, on a business trip, with all the sensibilities of an adult -- thrown back completely to the feelings of a vulnerable 4 year old. I'm ashamed to admit I had a volley of hot wet tears running down my face.
This all might leave my American friends scratching their heads. Why wouldn't they get dryers? They're not more expensive than in the US...or hard to find. You know...I have no idea, but I can guarantee you that if you walk down a street in the winter and look in the windows of the homes -- you'll see people camped out under laundry tents in their living rooms.
I daydreamed about winter mornings where it would be warm in there and I could sit with a cup of coffee and watch the birds in our back garden.
When we had friends over for a BBQ the other day, I realized just how "American" my reaction was to this room -- as every single English person made about the same remark when they first saw our conservatory. "Ooooooh.....ahhhhh." Yeah -- I liked that part, too! Then, "this room will be so GREAT at drying your laundry in the winter!" What? No sipping coffee watching birds? Laundry?!?
Look closer and enjoy the ingenuity!:
While we had exchaged chocolate Easter eggs earlier in the morning (they do eggs instead of bunnies here) -- Paul turned ot me and said he had another Easter egg treat for me. He pulled out of his bag a kindersurprise egg. It is a little chocolate egg the size of your palm that has a little plastic capsule inside that hides a little toy. They look a little like this: 
So I unwrapped the egg and gave Paul a bit of the chocolate and when I opened the trinket capsule -- inside was a beautiful and sparkly engagement ring! Paul proposed and I said YES! 
Neither one of us could stop smiling! We're getting hitched!
We've been busy on the allotment and even enlisted the help of two of our friends, Hitesh and Angela, in the effort to get our veg in the ground before it gets too late in the year. Thanks to their help, we now have 60 potatoes in the ground ready to grow. (And let me tell you -- it was MUCH harder work than we thought because the trenches we dug were FULL of blackberry roots -- some about as thick as your wrist!) 
We also planted the back part of the plot with various vegetables. We have sugar snap peas, bok-choy, spring cabbage, zucchini/courgette, pumpkin, butternut squash, rhubarb, beets/beetroot, and even some melon. Just today Paul's sister brought us some more plants so we'll have tomato, lettuce, cauliflower, and brusselsprouts. 
We still have the middle 1/2 of the plot covered in blackberry stalks and dead grass so we'll keep working at that little by little each week to get it ready for winter planting. That's if the blackberry regrowth and bindweed don't keep us too busy on the other parts!
Here is the same vantage point earlier this month -- after all the clearing had been done last year we went back to burn the dried out bramble remains this year. The large amount of rain we had in January and February had done their magic -- bringing us now an entire plot filled with grass.
We came back just last week and pulled up some carpet that a former owner must have put down over 5 years ago. It was buried underneath a layer of dirt and many new grasses and plants, therefore pulling it up was hard work. Here is a picture of the pile of carpet we pulled up. 
Here is the state of the entire plot from the same view as the above pictures -- note that you can now see the entire building behind the allotment...and.....and.....DIRT! Hooray! 
We sprayed a bunch of round-up on the grasses and are heading back later this week to take a peek at how things are going. We have seed potatoes chitting (such an awesome word) in the window-sills at home right now. We will be planting those in the coming weeks.
