Hiatus on topics?

It seems like it's mainly Maggie & me posting any more, and since she and I are busy with elder care, perhaps we'll take a bit of a break from the blog until the first of the year. Then I'll return with regular topics. Sound okay?

what an improvement!

I'm in Iowa, logging in using a WiFi gadget that I share with my sister (we just leave it at Mom's house for when we visit). What a difference from reading mail & blogging via my Blackberry!

Also an improvement is Mom's health. She's still tottery but is making a bit of a recovery from the pneumonia which had her sidelines earlier this month. I've been doing a lot of cooking and just generally keeping her company. It's hard to be stuck at home with so little you can do, physically.

Care to share any good recipes for someone with little appetite and trouble with her teeth? I'd love to find a dessert recipe for something custardy and rich. Any ideas how to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal that's a little more elderly-friendly?

Bonfire Night

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

While we have trick-or-treaters on Halloween, it's not a traditional British celebration. But when kids have the chance of sweets, they're out there!
We have Bonfire Night, the fifth of November. It's to celebrate the man with the best idea as to what to do about Parliament-he wanted to blow it up.
Guy Fawkes set the 36 barrels of gunpowder in a rented cellar right under the Houses of Parliament - not the one there today, but the old one, that was there before the 1840's.
Sadly, it wasn't Fawkes that blew it up, it was a fire in the 1830's. But he had a good try. He was part of a Catholic conspiracy that disliked the new king, the Scottish James. Fawkes was captured in the act of setting the fuse, taken away, tortured and hanged, drawn and quartered. Most of the conspirators were captured, too.
So on November the fifth, we burn the guy on a bonfire, and set off fireworks. There are big firework displays, and traditional food like toffee apples and cinder toffee are consumed to celebrate the man who nearly destroyed Parliament.

A trick I'll always remember

Mother Nature played a trick on me in 1991. We had just moved to Minnesota -- it was the year of Moving Hell, moving 4 times in a year with 3 cats. A long story best told over drinks in a bar.

Anyway, we finally got out of the 2nd apartment in 2 months into our 'permanent home' (little did we know we'd only live there for 6 months but that's another tale). We moved in, started to unpack, bought the Halloween candy and ...

It snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed.

It snowed from Thursday to Saturday. 32" of snow. We didn't have a snow blower. We had me to shovel the driveway (a very long driveway) because hubby was laid up with bronchitis. I went out every hour and shoveled, came in and dried off/warmed up, then went out again.

On Saturday we walked through snow to the grocery store with our backpacks to get food. Six blocks, bitterly cold but beautiful. The plows had come through and plowed enough of a path for emergency vehicles, but otherwise, it was wall to wall snow. Pumpkins covered over by snow, pumpkin leaf bags with snow toppings, Halloween decorations all covered with snow...

It melted in April.

It's a trick I'll never forget....

Tricks ...

... and treats.

Do you have a special memory of Halloween (Lynne: is there a comparable holiday in the U.K.?) Did you have a special costume? Receive a special treat? Were you scared out of your gourd?

Share a memory (either from childhood or more recently) about a special trick ... or treat.