Move complete, second time within 6 months.

A pretty bouquet from our Estate Agent David Cliff

We took some time out today from unpacking, and took the girls to the local park and explored some footpaths local to our house.  The snow arrived last night in a big flurry and laid about 2 inches thick on the ground.  Knowing that the snow clearance in the UK no way matches the Swiss standard, I know I could be in for an interesting drive/ice skate to school tomorrow, as the snow was melting this afternoon and creating pools of water on the roads.  The scenery was beautiful out,  and even Laura could not resist making a snowman and creating a snow angel, you are never to old to have a little fun in the snow.  It did make me laugh, I do feel when good snowman snow has fallen, all the dads come out to show their prowess in snow modelling skill.  At the park, one dad was chamfering the edges of his childs figure with a plastic snow shovel.  One dad produced a large snow dog complete with tail, whilst another created what can only be described as a snowman inspired by an Easter Island figure….!  Not sure whether or not that was intentional..

I love taking pictures in the snow, it has a magical quality to it, but can be quite tricky to get good results, so I had to play around with the white balance a little.  The snow lay on these red berries, they looked like they had been a left over from Christmas.  

We also did a little exploring down what must be an ancient drovers lane to the south of Wokingham.  We emerged at Grays Pick Your Own fruit and vegetable farm.  It is certainly nice to have countryside within walking distance of our new home, and to be 5 minutes away from town.  We will have to wait and see what happens with this countryside, as they have been planning for years a Southern relief road for Wokingham, and a mini town to be developed to satisfy the government building targets for the South East, a great loss if that section of green belt is swallowed up by homogenous estate housing.

The temperatures here are nowhere near as cold as in Switzerland.  I took a sneek peek back at Reinach, BL just to see how cold it was.  Wow! -15 Degrees Celsius.  It’s been over 0 to about +2 degrees C. It is no wonder that our Swiss house was so well insulated.  That is one thing I really missed initially when I came back to the UK.  Our rental house was as cold as sin, but then it was no real surprise when even though the cavity wall had been filled, albeit retrospectively, the insulation in the roof was just a layer of dust really.  Thankfully our new home even though it was built 18 years ago, has a decent layer of insulation in the loft.  I have also started to lag some of the pipes (all done as standard in our Swiss house).  The boiler room in our new Swiss home emitted very little heat.  The hot water tank did not feel even remotely hot from the outside.  The pipes, the outside of the house was externally insulated with thick polystyrene blocks, the floors thermally insulated and underfloor heated.  The windows protected by shuttering and thick glazed composite frames.  Energy wise, it was a real low user.  The UK is lagging behind in this respect really, and these aspects are now only just starting to become important here, particularly as energy bills have risen sharply over the last 5 years.  Now having to energy rate your home at the point of sale is making some people realise how leaky their homes are.  We are currently losing 20% of our heat straight out the window.  It does not help however, that our vendor took all the curtain and track fixings off every single window, and there is a 6-8 week lead time for our new curtains and blinds!

I think that the novelty of packing the contents of our house into cardboard boxes and then emptying some or all of their contents into a new abode has finally worn off.  I felt there was sufficient time in the run up for the Swiss to UK move to plan that everything run with Swiss efficiency and Swiss timing.  I knew that everything had to be wrapped up and officially stamped before leaving, so our departure would be as smooth as possible.  Our move on the 25^th-26^th January we felt suddenly crept up on us, and suddenly found ourselves a few days prior scrabbling around sorting mail redirections and changing our addresses.

We decided to reluctantly go with a local mover to save a bit of money, and boy you get what you pay for.  I am not sure our crew really liked each other that much.  Instead, the 2 days was spent with them tolerating each other.  I tried to sweeten them up with Hot cross buns, fried egg rolls, bacon and sausages rolls, but little seemed to make them happier.  Our international movers loved my food, and they were a good laugh too, making a stressful event go a little easier on the nerves.

A week on, and Steve set the challenge for us to empty all the local move boxes. We were pretty amazed to learn they will charge 5 GBP a box if we retain any, no wonder they are able to keep their quotes so low. We retained some of the international move boxes, as these weren’t unpacked for 6 months.  Luckily these boxes are white and our local move boxes brown, so it makes for an easy ID. I am now facing the demons of all the things that I failed to get rid of in Switzerland.  However, I do have a much wider range of charity shops here in the UK to send it all to!  My wardrobe was something I had been meaning to spring clean for some time, it’s one of those jobs that I would do anything to avoid.  I still have stuff I wore years ago.  I admit, I do have too much sentimental value attached to things.  I need more will power to throw it out.  I did do this with some cheap skirts I bought yonks ago for teaching in.  Now I have not been in the classroom for 8 years, so I thought it was finally time to let them go.  I did feel strangely better for loading it all into a charity bag, taking it to Cancer research in town before I could change my mind and think I could wear it again.

I do also admit to being a terrible food hoarder too.  After seeing how much food came out of the rental place (and the kitchen was not that big either) I was embarrassed.  However, I do have a lot of 'from scratch' ingredients and herbs for cooking.  I did vow that I would reduce the amount of excess food in the house, after about 10 or so big removal boxes came into the new kitchen, and I had to figure how an earth I was going to cram it all into the limited storage space I now have……!

Off to unpack a few more boxes no doubt...and hoping to find yet more miscellaneous missing items, and today found that the desk has been put back together with fewer screws that it was originally.  Same goes for the cupboards, let's just hope it won't all fall apart...

The calm before the storm....

This week is relatively calm, then week starting 23rd January is when you just don't want to look at the calendar because so much is written on it.  This week, all being well we get the keys to our new home in central Wokingham.  It has seemed a long time coming since exchange of contracts back in November and the offer made in September.

The process of buying a house in the UK seems very slow compared to the speed of contract writing in Switzerland.  In fact, I doubt we would have bought a house in Switzerland had we had the amount of documentation we have just waded through for this sale.  Although the Swiss have restrictions for those on some residential permits, as an EU citizen, on a C-permit, buying a house for sole use was a fairly straight forward process.  Even though I was working in a different language, I managed to understand and translate all of the communal rules and regulations, and understand the contract that we signed..  Here in the UK we have come across way more paperwork, and of course with 1 solicitor dealing with each house sale, this slows the process down.  Swiss house sales can be done through a private notary, however we found the public notary in the community in which the house was designated in Arlesheim very efficient.  The added bonus being that the land registry and the notaries are all under one roof, all the information just gets passed around the same building.  Within 4 weeks we had our Swiss sale contract complete.  Both parties meet and sign the same contract, rather then passing them backwards and forwards between solicitors that often happens here in the UK.  Then the searches with the Land Registry have to be done, and this may throw up small issues like extensions and conservatories that do not have planning permission.  In our case, the search showed that we may have some liability for Chancel repair of the local church, owing simply to the age of the land that the property sits on.  Before the summer, I had never even heard of this before.  It is best to be prepared for any liability by having an insurance policy.  This follows a case where a couple were asked to foot the bill for Chancel repairs to their local church.  These repairs totalled 1/4 million, then with legal costs of their fight ontop, the final costs were approaching 1/2 million.  It is fine in areas of land that have been well developed, like town centres, as the costs are split between the community, but in smaller settlements, a sizeable bill can land at your door and you have no choice but to pay it.  This is down to an archaic medieval law.  By 2013, all churches will have to register their interests, this could lead to a rash of claims in various communities for churches where the chancels are in poor state of repair.  It probably does not help that in many communities throughout the UK, the sizes of some church congregations are falling, and so the finances of some churches are being affected.

So, week after next for the second time in 6 months, we pack our belongings and get the house straight again.  We still have 2 rooms in a rental house that are full of packing boxes from our Swiss international move.  With such a short time lapsing, I still have not forgotten the mountain of stuff that greeted me in the kitchen once the crew had departed.  It took 3 days to get most it away.  I think its worst at the start when there is just so much of it lying everywhere, you don't know where to start.  As a reminder of just how bad it looked, I just had to take some pictures.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

I still remember a UK move that I did when Steve and I bought our first house together in Aylesbury.  We had been unpacking most of the day.  I recollected that the crew very helpfully said, would you like us to unpack your clothes?  We thought this was wonderful, so of course agreed.  We staggered upstairs at the end of a long and stressful day, and were about to collapse on our bed were it not for the pyramid of clothes resembling Mont Blanc that appeared before our eyes.  Thankfully, that night we had space on the guest bed.  Now after moving 3 times, since then, we say, 'No thanks, we'll unpack the clothes, please leave them in the boxes.'  At least that way we know what we are facing when we get to bed at night....


Once we have the new house in process, the handover of our rental property ensues.  We have to ensure that all the light bulbs are functioning, otherwise we get charged for the bulb and for contractor time to change it.  I suppose that is where the Swiss are quite sensible, when you rent, you are just supplied with the bare wires coming out the ceiling unless you arrange to buy the previous tenants lights.  This means no lights or bulbs to check.  We made the mistake of not buying the previous renters lights, forgetting that the ceilings are made of reinforced concrete, and a mighty drill of great power is required to get through that stuff.  It cost us the same price as the lights were worth to get them installed!
My UK checkout should hopefully be fairly stress-free as I have to supply the property back in a 'professionally cleaned' condition.  This helps me out, as it means I do not have 2 properties to clean simultaneously!  The house, the oven and carpets will all have to be done.  However, the prices are perhaps a little less than in Switzerland, I know some expat friends of who spent almost the same as their deposit to  ensure there were no deductions on handover.  I spent 3 days with my mum, and got about 180 CHF in deductions, mainly for picture hook holes in the wall, costed per hole and a dishwasher service.  In Switzerland, the tenants have to service the appliances before return, however in the UK, the landlord has to ensure they are in working order.

It will be nice once more to get our own space back....

Dreikönigstag, 3 Kings Day

In the UK, the 6^th January perhaps is a day like any other, the only significance being that for those of us who are superstitious, the Christmas decorations must be tidied away, otherwise bad luck will follow. In Switzerland, they will be celebrating Dreikoenigstag.  Alice loved last year, as she was king twice over, so that meant being able to tell everyone what to do and having 2 plastic kings hidden in her bread and wearing 2 different crowns.  Alice has a good memory and reminded me it was the 3 Kings Day in Switzerland today.  Of course, today would not be able to go by without the making of a Dreikoenigskuchen.  Easily bought in Switzerland in bakeries and supermarkets, but the expense led me to start making my own in the last 2 years of our 8 year stint there.  I started my dough off this morning before taking the girls on the school run, and completed the rise and bake when I got back.  I was also thinking of Kim who I know will be going to Kueblers in Aesch to get an exclusive Fasnacht figurine bread, very special.  Normally, though a bread circle consisting of 8 or 9 buns baked together are eaten on this day.  I like to add lots of sultanas and some ground almonds or marzipan to my dough, I am missing the high gluten flour they use called Zopfmehl  and their mini blocks of fresh yeast which makes for very soft bread.

My recipe for  Dreikoenigsbrot or 3 Kings bread can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55816924@N00/4250748400/in/set-72157623726439904

With Christmas in the bag, we are now feeling suitably relaxed as the hectic preparations, buying and wrapping has ceased. …  Surely none of us would be thinking about how long we would have to wait for Christmas 2012….. or may be not….

A question asked by my youngest last night as she lay in bed thinking of good excuses as to why she shouldn’t be asleep;

 ‘Dad, how many days is it until next Christmas?’  

My husband cunningly turned it into a maths question, and she almost worked it out, had she not realised it was actually a leap year this year…

I would not perhaps necessarily be thinking of when Easter will happen either, but it seems the minute Christmas was complete, Tesco and Morrisons both got their Easter displays out the second the wrapping paper was emptied from the shelves.  I found that a little depressing.  There is no breathing space now between major celebrations as there was before, even hot cross buns are available all year round.  In Switzerland they could not do this, as they had Valentines Day and Fasnacht Lenten Carnival scheduled in before Easter, so Easter eggs came into the shops nearer Easter time, the Swiss seem able to wait til March.  We have Easter eggs on the shelves in the first week of January, that just seems wrong to me.

We decided to have a quiet family Christmas, and squeeze in seeing the family either side.  Although my mum always insisted on breaking the Christmas Day dinner Turkey rule, I still like to cook turkey on Christmas day. I am not sure whether it’s because I am a stickler for tradition, or whether it’s because as a child we were given anything but Turkey at Christmas time, and perhaps now subconsciously, years later, I am now making up for that.  I do agree with my mum that Turkey is essentially quite a boring meat, so why an earth do so many people want to eat this on such a great day of family celebration?  We ate everything from goose, to pot roasted pheasant and ribs of beef and they were, I must admit, way more tasty than a Turkey dinner.

Perhaps I stick with traditional because it is also easier.  I always like to have the tangy cranberry port and orange sauce along with pigs in blankets, and devils on horseback, which my girls love to eat; prunes wrapped in bacon. I adore parsnips, and in Switzerland and in France, these neglected root vegetables were relegated to pig food status, mainly as this was the only option available to many during WWII.  Now parsnips are not universally adored.  The low demand meant that my parsnips cost me about 5GBP for 2-3 rather large and woody specimens!

  Even though I am not a big fan of Brussel sprouts, those lovely little green spheres of goodness still get an invite to be part of my dinner.  Alice my youngest loves them, but not surprising considering she likes everything cabbage.  My eldest, Laura takes more convincing, although she did add an extra sprout to her obligatory minimum of 2 this year, purely voluntarily I might add.  I think it’s important never to give up retrying flavours with children.  I always tell my two if they don’t like it, they have to try it at least 20 times before they can say they don’t like something (I back this up by saying that they have researched this, and of course they never count how many times they have actually tried something, so it’s a clever rouse….).   Yesterday was testament to this, as the cranberry sauce that both of them declared that they did not like on Christmas day was sweetened with a little sugar and had slow cooked red onion and balsamic vinegar added, and that went down very nicely.  In fact, seconds were asked for!  This was loosely based on an idea from Jamie Oliver, see this recipe:

http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/popular-cuisines/british/sausages-with-threeveg-mash-and-cranberry-onions-recipe

 I possibly like the post-Christmas relax more than the day itself.  I suppose like my mum, I now realise how much work goes into the day, and it’s hard to sit down when there are so many things to prepare, and this is not something that I associate with Boxing Day, leftover day.  I do admit to speeding things up with my 2 willing helper girls this year.  Both armed with kitchen knives they helped me prepare the vegetables whilst listening to the choir from Kings College, Cambridge.  I will make a note of this and hopefully it will become a Christmas family tradition, rather than me cooking in the kitchen all on my own.  My husband definitely loves the Christmas dinner the best, however I still like the left overs in the days that ensue.

With an emphasis on reduction of food waste these days, I relish the chance to make the amazing amount of food generated by Christmas last for as long as possible by making turkey and or ham into something tasty to eat.  On the day, the carcass gets put straight into the slow cooker, and the remaining meat divided into small bags and frozen so there is less risk of OD from turkey.  We ate a Kelly Bronze free range bird, this year, so yes the meat was more expensive that the run of the mill supermarket bird, but it enthuses me more to make good use of the meat.  So my Turkey plan as follows:

Christmas Day:  Roast Turkey 5.25kg bird cooked and partly eaten

Boxing Day:  Cream of Turkey soup and rolls made from slow cooker stock

27^th December: Meal for 8 from leftovers with my sister-in-law, so make Delia’s leek and turkey flan: http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/flan/turkey-flan-with-leeks-and-cheese.html

Using the frozen meat:

Succotash turkey,  http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/succotash-turkey-bake

but being frugal, did not buy the soup but made the Corn chowder for the base, as I had all the vegetables, (see last post on this thread:  http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/recipes/705297-Does-anyone-have-the-Covent-Garden-soup-recipe-books/AllOnOnePage  )

Then added some grated cheese to the top, leftover from the cheeseboard.

Turkey Pie: Vikki just for you, here is a chicken pie that I like, you do not necessarily need shortcrust for the base, I just make a single crust pie with a puff pastry lid (if you can get Betti Bossi’s Butter Puff pastry all the better for my Swiss readers…) http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/22949/country+chicken+pie

I also bung in the leftover stuffing into this pie too.

Turkey curry is also planned with some Naan I got for less than half price as no one wanted Naans for Christmas day dinner it seems.

Then one more bag of Turkey to think about what I will do with, by then everyone may sick of turkey by then! That will also be 7 meals out of my Turkey which is not bad going…..!

The Christmas cake was simply decorated in random snowflakes by the girls this year, mainly because all of my cake equipment is sitting in removal boxes.  Hopefully by my next post our move to our new house will be complete and for the second time within 6 months I will be unpacking removal  boxes!

Festive cheer running a little thin….?

This year I feel OK, perhaps even verging on smug, thanks to the proliferation of Internet shopping, I no longer have to troop around stores looking vaguely up and down the shelves for divine inspiration.  Many years ago, I remember going shopping in the nearest town, and going into Boots to get my Mums favourite, Fenjal oil bath.  However, on entering the store, it seemed everyone else had gone into slow motion; meandering up and down the aisles, some older folk completely unintentionally blocking them with baskets whilst gazing blankly at the shelves.  I can remember my sister and I becoming very irritated at this, we knew what we wanted, we would have given anything to just buy and get out of there.

In Switzerland, if we wanted to do Internet shopping, we either had to order really early from abroad, or go through the Swiss German sites, in which case you had to know exactly what you wanted.  Buying for our families whilst abroad also involved local buying ‘on behalf of… ‘as the cost of sending parcels overseas from Switzerland is astronomical.  Even a small gift can be about 13 CHF or about 10 GBP to send. It rapidly becomes nonsense to send low value gifts this way, as often the postage started costing way more than the gift.  It does tend to take the shine of Christmas, as I always like the giving part of Christmas, especially if I have thought of a good gift to send.

It could be that Christmas cheer is running a little thin on the ground here in the UK, due to the fact that Christmas run-up started back in August.  I noticed that my local Morrisons was stocking the biscuit tins and Christmas chocolate packs, back in the summer.  I used to enjoy the Swiss supermarkets at Christmas, they only started to really get the Xmas stock in when they had finished the Autumn marketing and Halloween campaigns.  Then early December comes Guetzli (Christmas biscuits) making ingredients.  I will miss making these this year, as some of my cookbooks and cutters remain in removal boxes.  Fudge; I will be making this year.  I made 4 bags for the girls’ teachers at the end of the school term.   It was pretty inexpensive to make, just requires a little patience and lots of stirring!

  I have noticed of late, there has been a distinct rise in the number of bickering couples in the shops.  I told Steve to shoot me the moment we start arguing over whether we should buy a flimsy Baco Turkey foil roasting tray.  I am not sure why this particular couple were having an issue in Lakeland, but the man, thought (all be it wrongly) that the tray would be too small for the turkey (I might add not sure why they would specifically market a Turkey Roasting tray if it was going to be too small for one, but there you go…).  The wife did not take kindly to this pearl of wisdom from her husband  (perhaps because the husband was invading her cookery territory), saying it would be fine.  Personally, I am not sure I would have worried arguing about an aluminium tray that cost 1.50 GBP and that is so flimsy it would need supporting underneath with another tray.  Besides, they must make Bisto gravy, as you cannot use the brownings in an alu tray like that…. I have an anodised tin that I put straight on the hob and make the best gravy from the brownings left at the end. If I am really lucky I get giblets too.  My mum was told last week in Tescos (after asking politely for the lady to move her trolley aside) to ‘JUST WAIT!.  My mum announced that she ‘didn’t wait for anyone’, especially when she was using most of the aisle up stretching across her trolley to reach something on the shelf. Last week, I was shopping and there were 2 customers waiting to be served.  A older looking man yelled.’ Where is the manager?’  ‘ I want to see the manager, we should not be waiting like this, these ladies should not have to wait to get served’.  The cashier tried her hardest to placate this man, ‘I suggest using one of the self check-outs Sir, if you do not wish to wait’.  ‘I don’t come in here to check out my own shopping, you’re meant to do that’. He continues in a loud suitably embarrassing voice;  ‘I want to see the manager, where is the manager? He’s never here is he?’.  A poorly suited man approaches, ‘Are you the manager?’.  ‘No, I am the deputy manager’.  ‘Where is the manager then?’.  The deputy manager does not think about how his answer could be misconstrued, he said, ‘He’s not in this morning, he had a late night last night’.  This did not go down well.  I am not sure how he managed to get this man placated, but in the end, they were having a more amicable conversation, and the man eventually got another checkout opened for him to speed him out the store.    Ahhh…Christmas, a time to think of others?  A time of goodwill towards men (or women : in the PC version)?

Even the checkout lady in the supermarket was groaning on Friday.  I said that Christmas had not even started yet, and we were by no means in the worst week yet, yes the week before Christmas.  Last year, my mum said that she had the sense to steer clear of Tescos in the 2 days prior to Christmas.  A perfectly normal society breaks into a state of sheer pandemonium and ‘grab and go’ mentality. The first to go is milk.  Most people can get by on perhaps 6 litres of milk for the period.  But when the shops close for one day, it seems necessary to stock up perhaps with three times the normal required, whether it’s needed or not,  get there too late and you will see the shelves stripped bare.   Cars queue for spaces, snaking out of the car park and congesting the roads beyond.   All this, because the stores will shut, in some cases as late as 10pm on Christmas Eve, and reopen on Boxing Day some as early as 08.00am in the morning….! What makes me laugh is that because of strict Swiss Sunday trading laws, for the last 8 years, I was perfectly used to going upto 3 days with the shops closed over Christmas if the closure period fell over  a Sunday . Closure on a weekend is a weekly occurrence, so the Swiss are conditioned to shop closure  (except those close to the mainline stations in the City and service stations, these are allowed to remain open under restricted Sunday opening times.)  unlike in the UK.   This year most Swiss can shop til 5pm on 24^th and then will not go shopping again in a supermarket until 8am on 27^th, and guess what? People don’t starve.  Plus they can’t get 18 litres of milk, because they only come in 1 litre containers J.

Although we missed seeing our families at Christmas, I always used to secretly (rather selfishly, I admit) like staying in Switzerland over the Christmas period.  Reinach and Basel used to have this tranquillity fall over it, it was positively relaxing.  Most families went away for skiing and our development fell blissfully quiet.  We created the family tradition of going to the outdoor ice skating Rink at Margarethen Park, Basel, early in the morning on Christmas Eve, as most Swiss families are readying themselves for their main celebration.  The rink was never that busy, and it felt really festive and wintery whatever the weather.   With our Familienpass card, it was also 1 of 2 free entries too!  I am not sure the indoor rink at the John Nike Centre Bracknell is going to have the same kind of feel, or be free, but there we go!  The 25^th for the Swiss doesn’t hold the same significance as in the UK.  I hope to overcome the insane UK shopping frenzy by being organised.  Even on 23^rd December, the Swiss supermarkets were mildly bustling, but people always had a sense of purpose, no dallying, they just got on with it, and waited patiently as is festively possible at the checkouts.  The great thing was that due to the Swiss time keeping, you could accurately predict almost to the minute when everyone was going to do their shopping.  Outside Christmas, on a Saturday, most Swiss would head out at 10.30-11.30am to do their shopping.  I always went at 9.30-10.00am, my neighbours probably wondered why.  The shop was always virtually empty at this time.  At Christmas, everyone starts about 30 minutes earlier.  It’s great living with such predictability, as you can work around it.  


Histeria? 

Well, I think I will avoid that altogether, it just adds to the Christmas stress……………..

Donation Fatigue....

The sun is shining, it’s very cold (last night dipped below freezing) and today I was missing our cosy  underground Swiss shared garage.  I was spraying the screen with de-icer and my hands were turning to blocks of ice in the process.  I should be feeling good on account of the sun shining and all the great work we have done recently, but I reckon we are suffering from a condition I would coin ‘donation fatigue’. 

Relatively new to being back in schools in the UK, I started to whole heartedly get involved with charitable giving through the girls primary school, whether it be for the PTA (parent-teacher association) or for external charities.  When the first sponsored event came along a few weeks into September, I was not phased, so we duly roped a few family members in to contribute to the Maths challenge at school for the NSPCC.  It was educational, the girls had to answer as many of their set math questions as accurately as they could. 20 GBP raised.

I take all of Alices old summer clothes to Cancer research in Wokingham.    ? ? GBP raised!

Next is the appeal for cakes to sell on behalf of the PTA at the school disco to raise money.  Cakes made, but found out that my 15 cakes although all sold (probably due to the rather bright sprinkles that adorned their tops) were only sold for 20p each.  I think someone does not realize that a pack of butter now costs 1.30 GBP alone. 3 GBP raised.

Next came Poppy appeal, we take our money in and the girls come back happy with their poppies. 70p raised.

Next came Children in Need, bring in your Teddy Bear and a donation.  Both girls managed to forget their teddies on that morning, so we did not donate on this occasion. 0 GBP raised.

Next comes the Christmas raffle tickets for the PTA Christmas Fayre, we bought 5 tickets, 5GBP raised.

Then we have non-uniform day, an excellent way of getting tombola gifts donated for the PTA Christmas Fayre.  Come in non-uniform in exchange for the gift.  I tell another mum a week back that I have been really organized and got my tombola gifts whilst there are half price offers in Morrisons.  I buy something that I would not mind winning  myself, a big tin of Quality Street and a tin of cheese biscuits from Jacobs.  The reply was, ‘ahhh….you obviously have not understood about the tombola…. Last year I spent 20 GBP and in return got a box of stock cubes, a value tin of beans and a half drunk bottle of wine….. what? A half drunk bottle of wine?  It is surely better to donate nothing than donate something that should have been tipped down the sink…?!  A similar story from another school where they managed to collect in a few packets of out of date biscuits, and….yes you’ve guessed it, a half drunk bottle of wine.  

OK, that’s 10 GBP donated in prizes.

It is double donation day, as they need more cakes for the PTA.  Well thinking about the pricing last time, I donate something that was quick to make, and easy to transport.  Thought everyone would give cupcakes, which are my usual specialty, but decided not to spend hours on fancy decs if they are selling for 20p a cake.  Make millionaires shortbread.  4 GBP donated in a cake costs.  Stick a label on the cakes saying , ‘please do not undercharge, these cost 15p a slice to make’.  Hopefully someone will get the idea of how high they need to go on the price.  It’s a little demoralizing to put in the time and not really get any more money than the cost of what it was to make back.  You can’t even get a value uniced cupcake in a shop for less than 20p…..!

Next week, I need to provide some savoury food, but think this will be minimal, as it happens about 2 hours after they have had their Xmas dinner at school.  It is for Year 3 Christmas party, then it's Year 6s turn a few days later, some food required for that too…..

This week was hunting through my packing boxes, and came across some printer cartridges, looked them up under http://www.eachonecounts.co.uk/

Found that my old HP cartridges could have value for our nominated charity, Guide Dogs.  This one was satisfying because these were things I thought I had thrown out in Switzerland, and was quite surprised to see them lying in the bottom of the box, plus they could have a new lease of life and be worth something! Upto 7GBP raised with giftaid added. 

Buckets will be rattled at the end of the Year 3 Christmas play next week, money will be collected for The Rainbow Trust  http://www.rainbowtrust.org.uk/. 

Buckets will be rattled again at the end of our Christmas concert, to raise money for the Mayors’ Charity in Wokingham.

There seems to be so many charities all vying for funds here in the UK.  Not a week goes by here in the UK without a prepacked bag dropping through the door asking for clothing for charity.  It was a lot less pressurized in Switzerland, perhaps they get more state support, I am not sure, but we were only ever asked every year by local school children to buy a 5CHF badge/chocolatecoin for Pro Patria : http://www.propatria.ch/index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=10&sobi2Id=1152&Itemid=80   and support the Surbaum Treff where classes took it in turns to do a BBQ twice a year to raise funds for the Klasse kasse  (The class money pot).  We had a few clothing sacks to fill for ESB (local charity, clothes recycling). Apart from that, we were never asked for that much for charitable giving.

I now quake in anticipation as to what is in store for the Spring and Summer, and thanks, Veronica, for telling me it will get worse when Laura hits secondary school!   Don’t get me wrong, I love supporting my named charities, especially Salvation Army at Christmas and Cancer Research, but you can only give so much, and this last 3 months, I have definitely started to feel a little fatigued, the last 3 months have been expensive…….

Guy Fawkes night

It was certainly nice to be back in the UK to sample the fireworks on November 5^th.  We went with good friends of ours to the local charity fireworks display in Cantley Park, Wokingham.  We were wondering, like the organisers whether it would actually go ahead, we had bought our tickets in advance.  Right up to the day before heavy rain was forecast, but instead the Unicorn Club in Wokingham was blessed with a dry night and the place was heaving with people to come and see the fireworks.  It was a really good display, and the bonfire had an Olympic runner with a torch that was lit containing fireworks, which fizzed for while setting the bonfire alight.  The Unicorn Club raised a whopping 23,000 GBP on the night for their nominated charities, including Prostate Cancer and Berkshire Air Ambulance.

The girls loved their present from Kate, a pair of luminous glow glasses, they were very easy to see in the crowds and distracted them completely from the fact that we had to wait another quarter of an hour to get the crowds in through the gates, genius Kate….genius… J

I really like going …’oooh’ and ‘ahhhh’ so enjoyed taking some pictures of the fireworks at the big display, however as they only explode in seconds, it is actually quite difficult capturing them at night when I only have a small Lumix camera (which always copes admirably in low light conditions) and no tripod, which you need for slow exposure shots really. 








A yellow tinged firework looked great, even though I did not manage to capture all of it!

We did of course, also have some of the obligatory fireworks at home.  It's every mans duty to advance on a box of home fireworks and light them to the amazement (or underwhelming disappointment) of their families.  Well, no expense spared, we used some of the fireworks left in the garage.  We thought that they looked fairly dry, and so we went ahead on the next day and lit some....

...most of the fireworks you buy tend to be labelled 'Roman Candle: A shower of golden sparkles'.  'Traffic light, a shower of coloured sparkles'.  I am sure that some of the fireworks we let off were not garden fireworks, but they shot up and let of a tremendous boom, we all jumped out of our skins!  We left a few to set off in the New Year....

Alice and Laura both had a healthy respect for the sparklers (they had both had a safety talk on them at school assembly on the Friday before), not something they have had much of a chance to experience up to now.  I am surprised that with all the Health and Safety regulations in the UK, that they still sell fireworks and sparklers, the ultimate hazardous experience of the year.

Halloween come and gone already....

Couple of weeks back  saw Halloween come and go, and as usual, the girls were both excited about Trick or Treating.  I did try and lower their expectations by saying we may only end up with 1 sweet each.  In Switzerland, they usually ended up with enough sweets to last a whole year!  In Switzerland, our local neighbourhood was much smaller, and we knew practically everyone who lived on our development and the neighbouring one.  A note was circulated every year, and if any family wished to participate, then they simply put a lit pumpkin outside the door.  Everyone else was left in peace for the evening.  When we first arrived in Switzerland, Halloween was a relatively small affair, confined mainly to expat developments.  As we had quite a few American families nearby, we attracted a fair amount of Trick or Treaters from the International School Basel.  The first year I decided to bake gingerbread Halloween cookies, as I bulked at the Swiss prices of sweets.  However I started off with only one batch, which for the first year was enough.  However year on year Halloween seemed to grow in popularity (or our area did), the amount I was baking seemed to get a little ridiculous, and every year I ran out earlier and earlier, until baking over 100 cookies was not enough to last 1 hour, I decided to quit!  I know that some friends of mine got bulk loads of confectionary from the States during holidays in preparation for the onslaught!  I must admit that I did get a little annoyed when I saw parents driving up to dump their kids off into our neighbourhood, so we ended up with half the expat population on our doorstep! 

I cannot say I was best pleased when Steve announced he would be in London for evening meetings on the 31^st.  It was down to me to take the girls out.  Halloween in the UK, you have to be more wary.  Some people really don’t like the evening, mainly in part due to groups of intimidating teenagers taking to the streets and the tricks being disproportionate to the fact they were not given any sweets….  Steve suggested that I should go even as far as parking the car in the street to avoid the issues associated with people keying (scratching) your paintwork.  I didn’t do this, as our neighbour was having a party and the road was already full.  I also think that the problem is compounded as no one really knows each other (or particularly wants to know each other perhaps..) in the UK neighbourhoods any more, and that was where it differed in Switzerland.  Everyone talked to each other, and helped each other out.  We had lovely neighbours there.  In Wokingham, on our estate, I think I only saw a few older children, but it was not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be.  There were lots of young children all enjoying the evening as it should be.  Both of my girls ended up with a full bag of sweets by the end of an hour and a half, we met some really nice people on the way round and everything had finished uneventfully by about 8.00pm.