Fudgetastic!

This week, I have been mostly boiling up big pans of sugar to obscene temperatures and trying to create yummy things to eat, with varying degrees of sucess.

I love the fact that such simple ingredients (butter, milk, sugar) turn when heated into something with such a completely different texture to its component parts, and something so yummy to boot. Fudge is my kind of thing. Unfortunately, I'm not particularly good at it.

There's been a great deal of excitement this week as my friend D was having a birthday. I've been collecting little presents for her since July, so you can imagine my delight at finally being able to wrap and assemble them. I located some pretty Cath Kidston wrapping paper, prepared all my parcels, sat back and looked at them...and there was definitely something missing. It felt All Wrong. I needed to add something that I'd actually made, something I'd lovingly slaved over, something that said "I'm thinking about you!" a bit louder than stuff I'd bought from shops. After all, on my birthday D surprised me with a huge tin of sparkly cupcakes - the least I could do was return the favour!

So, fudge it was. I blithely promised our other friend L that I would simply prepare a batch of fudge quickly on Monday evening, ready for D's birthday on Tuesday. How hard could it be?

On Monday I bought plenty of sugar, plenty of butter, and plenty of milk and created my first panful of sweet stuff. Everything was going ever so well until suddenly the bubbling lava-like stuff turned dark brown, started spitting cruelly and quickly became inedible toffee right before my very eyes. I said something rather stronger than "bugger". Then I said it again. Then I cried a little bit. Then the husband calmed me down and encouraged me to try another batch.

Second batch looked MUCH more promising. All golden and gooey and bubbly when WHOOMP - dark brown and curdly-looking and smelling burnt, before the thermometer even showed the correct temperature. I didn't even bother swearing at this batch. Resigned and pink-eyed, I opened the laptop and fired up Google to find a different recipe.

The recipe I found had slightly different proportions and advised heating the mixture at a lower temperature to begin with than my first recipe had recommended. I didn't hold out much hope, what with me being Fudge Doom, but I thought I ought to at least try. So I weighed out yet more sugar and butter and got to work.

Imagine my delight when my third batch of fudge mixture turned with textbook-like perfection to creamy golden bubbles and gently reached the required temperature without me needing to swear at all. I quickly added almond essence and chopped glace cherries when I'd taken it off the heat and crossed my fingers as I poured it into the waiting dish. A couple of hours later I went to slice the fudge and knew I'd finally achieved success.

Apart from D's birthday itself, that fudge success was the highlight of my week. Let's all cheer the little things...

Letting Go

Oh, it's all over the media, this topic. Are we smothering our kids, creating a next generation of obese couch potatoes because we're afraid to let them out of our sight and create safe, screen-based havens for them within our own homes instead? For every article alerting us to sinister paedophile rings and internet child-stalkers, there's another article beseeching us to start re-creating childhoods similar to our own, where days were long and roads were quiet and we roamed free, returning home ruddy-cheeked and glowing only when darkness fell.

It was all quite interesting while it was an academic debate. I used to veer from "but they're my babies! They must remain cossetted by my side or at least within my eyeline until they attain marriageable age!" to "absolutely, they need their freedom. The sooner the better, if you ask me. Mumble, grumble, never be rid of them, still living with us at forty in weird "Stepbrothers" style, need to develop independence in natural way learning from world around them, and besides they are very loud and I love to have peace from time to time". But it didn't matter, because all the time I was vacillating and veering, none of them was old enough to go anywhere without me anyway. Moot point.

Now, though, Egg is days away from being eleven. She is sensible and confident and tall. Since September the crowd of other mothers with whom I once chatted daily outside her classroom door has gradually dwindled to half a dozen who either have younger children at the school too (like me) or live too far away to make walking an option. In other words, nearly all the other children in Egg's class walk to and from school alone now, in readiness for next September when all of them will travel alone, by bus or on foot, to their respective secondary schools. It is the Done Thing.

And so, little by little, I have extended the locus of Egg's freedom beyond her piano teacher's house (100 non-road-crossing yards away, practically next door to Grandma's), down into the town, and now as far as the school, which is around a mile away and involves a couple of roads (gulp). Yesterday, for the first time, we arranged before school that she and a friend would walk home together and that is what they did. I collected the younger children and waved at Egg and her friend as they laughingly set off from the other school gate; twenty minutes later they appeared at my door, pink-cheeked and smiling, clutching paper parcels of chips. It was fine. She got exercise and a sense of responsibility; I felt a little ping as another apron-string gently snapped. I'm not going to lie and say that an exciting world of errand-running possibilities didn't expand in front of my mind's eye even as I felt that ping, though. I've already decided she can fetch the weekend papers for us now. Sense of responsibility, you understand.

It IS huge though, really, the growing-up thing. During this last year we have abandoned first nappies, then the cot, and now the pushchair for Tig, who has also joined her siblings at "school" in readiness for the real thing next September. I'm on the verge of no longer having "young" children, just "children", and as friends get married and have babies, I realise how far away we are from those milky, timeless baby days now. I panic a bit if I think about it too much. As my mum used to sing to me, "Turn around, and they're one; turn around, and they're four; turn around and there's an adult, walking out of the door".

All About Me

I like blogs. I admire them. I think of diligent, witty people sitting down and writing interesting things, for free, for people like me to read and empathise with and giggle over. One of my "besties" has a blog, and it's one of my favourites, and I told her so. "You should blog!" she said to me a couple of weeks ago. "Hmmm..." said I. And here I am.

The three little piggies are, of course, my children, little trio of tribulation-causers and wrinkle-adders that they are. Eldest Girl (EG, or Egg) is going to be eleven in a fortnight's time but has delusions of teenage grandeur. The Boy (we call him just that, the Boy) is six, has just lost his two middle front teeth and has an adorable lisp as a result, and likes the Sarah Jane Adventures and the Simpsons. The Tiny Girl (TG, or Tig) is three, and living up to the "threenager" tales in some considerable style. Lots of shrieking happens in my house, and it's usually her.

(Can I point out here that I had my eldest child when I was just 18? Vanity compels me to clarify the fact that I am still in my twenties. It's utterly wrong that I care about this. I do, though).

I have a proper grown-up job doing reasonably important things for thirty whole hours of every single week, but it's as a mummy and a wife that I define and see myself. I think I'm a bit odd in this respect. Life for me is my chaotic house and the three loud little piggies and the husband who lumbers home every day, shabby briefcase in hand, causing me almost-equal measures of irritation and joy. (I'm afraid irritation usually wins the "which emotion to display" contest - marital strife at 6pm is the order of the day round our way, and I expect the children would be perplexed and troubled if they didn't hear at least one hissed expletive from me at about that hour). I think I'm going to be a careery sort of a person, I do have ambition somewhere, but that'll be later. Maybe when they are all at university (I'll need to be careery, what with the fees). Or when they're doing whatever else they choose to do when they're too old for milk and cookies and pyjamas after tea. That's when I'll do career things. I've done the exams already, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Friends are a very special thing for me. I have to mention them as well. I wouldn't be me without J, L, D and the other people who have the daily treat (if you're reading girls, it is a TREAT! It is not a CHORE!) of my rambly texts and occasional telephonic moans. On the plus side, when I make cakes I always try to think of a way to get at least a slice, if not a whole cake to those friends, so there is some benefit to them in knowing me. After all, I make rather a lot of cakes.