Hello from the last full week before half-term, when the whole of Essex seems to run on Haribo and hope.
Monday started with a costume brief.
Indie announced over breakfast that for nursery's Halloween day on Friday she would be "a bat, but a sparkly one, but also a cat". I asked if she meant a cat dressed as a bat. She looked at me like I had completely missed the creative vision.
The other one, meanwhile, wants to be "something nobody else is being". At ten past eight on a Monday morning. With four days' notice. No pressure at all.
Tuesday was the costume hunt.
I did the classic mum circuit. The supermarket aisle that had already been picked clean. The charity shop. And finally the dressing-up box under the stairs, which turned out to contain one witch hat, a single fairy wing and a lightsaber with no batteries.
So we are building a sparkly bat-cat out of a black leotard, felt ears from the craft drawer and the lonely fairy wing. Pinterest would weep. Indie is thrilled. That's the only review that counts.
Wednesday the slow cooker came out of hibernation.
There is a very particular autumn smugness in throwing everything into a pot at nine in the morning and pretending you have cooked by five. Sausage casserole, two kinds of beans, zero effort. I would like an award.
John walked in, sniffed the air and asked if we were "doing winter now". We are, babe. We are doing winter now.
Thursday was Storme Diaries day.
Recorded in the spare room with a blanket over my knees and the door wedged shut with the laundry basket. Halfway through a really honest bit about how the darker months creep up on your mood, the doorbell went with a parcel for next door. Live, unfiltered and very on brand.
That conversation stayed with me afterwards, though. How many of us feel ourselves going a bit flat when the light disappears, and just file it under being tired.
Friday was the last day of term, and it arrived in a cloud of glitter.
Non-uniform for the school Halloween disco. The bat-cat at nursery drop-off with one ear held on by a hair clip and a prayer. I got a photo of the back of her wings as she marched through the door, and honestly it might be my favourite photo of the year.
Pick-up was pure end-of-term energy. Book bags stuffed with soggy paintings. A very sticky handprint spider I am now contractually obliged to keep forever. Two children high on disco squash and the word holidays.
I poured a glass of wine at quarter past six and nobody said a word. That's the half-term rule.
Saturday we wandered into town for new wellies, because somebody's feet have grown again overnight, the way children's feet only ever do the week after you've paid for something else.
And then Sunday. The clocks went back.
Every year someone in the group chat says "ooh, extra hour in bed". Every year I am reminded that small children do not own watches and do not care. Indie was up at what her body thought was six and the clock insisted was five. The other one followed shortly after, asking if it was officially half-term yet.
Extra hour? We had an extra hour of Bluey before the sun came up. Which, to be fair, I quite enjoyed with a hot coffee under the big blanket.
By half four it was dark, the lamps were on and the house had that cosy, slightly feral Sunday feeling. I lit a candle, put my phone in the other room for an hour and actually sat down. Small win. Taking it.
So that was the week.
One sparkly bat-cat. A dressing-up box audit. The first slow cooker casserole of the season. A podcast with a doorbell cameo. Glitter on absolutely everything. And the clocks going back, stealing our light but giving us a reason to light the candles early.
Here's to half-term, early nights by choice rather than exhaustion, and finding the little bits of light in the darker days. 🦇🕯️