Making the most of Halloween in 2020

 I know it's been 2 weeks since Halloween ended but I thought that everything that I tried to make happen needs to be documented and that I tried to keep things as normal as possible in a pandemic.

Usually, on Halloween, we go around our neighbourhood and go trick-treating with friends which is the highlight of Halloween! The whole month of October, we go to various Halloween related events and get in the mood. We also do a lot of arts and crafts and decorate our home with it.

This year, we did the crafts and decoration but couldn't do much else. We did go Flip-Out for some scary jumping, The London Tombs again to be chased by psychos and on a Ghost bus Tour which was very informative and funny! But we couldn't trick-or-treat so I had to improvise. Thankfully, we now moved to a house with a lot fo space which means more hiding places. This gave me a wicked idea. What about a spooky sweet hunt around the house!!! I do this every Easter so I had clues to recycle and created more clues. As the days went by, my idea of a hunt became more and more bigger. 

Why not start the hunt with the kids beating a piñata which had some clues? So we made home-made pinatas, thanks to Pinterest for ideas and instructions, which were much more easier to make than I thought.

I'm also on this wonderful group on facebook called 'Housebound with Kids' where parents share a lot of thing including arts and crafts ideas. So with the help of this group, I made mystery box which basically was Amazon boxes with a square cut in the middle. In the mystery box, the clues where hidden in terrible things which the kids didn't know. I filled a bowl with orbeez, spaghetti loops and olives. The kids face was a delight!

We had to take our dinner in between as the hunt took longer than expected. We had dinner  by candlelight where we switched off all the lights. It was quite an experience! The final clues were in  a cream pie which the kids had to get to with using only their mouth! It was very messy but the shrieks of laughter from all of us was great!

The kids dressed up as Snappy from Goosebumps and a dead Indian bride. We also did introduction videos for each one of them! It was really spooky and innovative!

2.5hours later we were exhausted ad ready for bed but i was glad that the pandemic didn't affect our favourite time of the year. The kids even thanked me for delivering a fun Halloween night and how they can't wait for next year's halloween!

Traditions

 As Deepavali is upon us, I thought it'll be a great time to talk about our family traditions. This inspiration came from a fantastic book I read called 'The Happiness Project' by Gretchen Rubin which inspired me a lot to do a a number of things especially to collect memories. You'll see a lot of reference to this amazing book in my blog from now on.

What urged me to create blog is because I love writing but this is also my way of venting, sharing and basically being 'book' for my kids to look back on their memories, should I not be here for them to remember things (I know a bit morbid but in my line of work, there's not a day that goes by, where the fragility of life is reminded everyday).

Anyways, so while I was reading 'The Happiness Project' , I loved the passages about traditions personalised to our families. It made me think... what traditions do we have? To my shock, I couldn't remember much! I have failed as a parent was my first thought! What kind of loving, happy environment am i providing that all i can remember as family tradition is the deep cleaning every 1st of the month and watching a Tamil movie during the weekend. 

But then I remembered that I have 2 guinea pigs, which I'm trialling my parenting skills on, who I can ask those questions. To my utter surprise and pride, my kids rolled out a list of our uniques family traditions. How we celebrate all important religious dates as one, regardless of what religions. Our New Year Eve tradition of wearing new pyjamas, making home-made crafts for everything and decorating our home with these and much more (I can't reveal our family secrets).

This exercise was enough to make me confident as a parent and that I'm providing them with a warm environment where we are all creating happy memories and traditions! 

A lockdown too late!

 A 4 week lockdown has been announced in England over the weekend! I knew it was going to happen with all the covidiots roaming around and useless governments 'initiatives' but it came a little too late.

Just a warning that you may not agree with everything I have to say but would happily have a healthy discussion but no abuse please!

I knew a  lockdown was going to come when the 'Eat out to help out' scheme was announced when we still had the virus chasing us over summer! And the cherry on the top is when the PM accused the public for spreading the virus by using the scheme! Hahahaha! As I drove past restaurants from Monday to Wednesday, the queue were astonishing! But there were in nowhere longer than the ones I saw outside pubs at 5pm when the government announced that pubs need to close by 10pm. So not only have I had to weave through overcrowding on pavements, with most people in the queues with no masks or/and not socially-distancing, after work (not mentioning people getting drunk much more earlier), I've had people at 10pm still very drunk on the pavements and roads, disturbing the neighbourhood and helping spread the virus even more! But guess what, we still helped local businesses at the expense of our health! So it is a totally win-win situation for us.

We had a very expensive track and trace app developed and promoted as a big breakthrough to tackle the pandemic. However, it failed.... miserably. I still don't know what the point of it is to be honest. The biggest joke of it is that we are still paying towards it!!!!!!!! 

As someone working in the NHS, staff had to have weekly swabs. Although I personally hated being swabbed (bad gag-reflex), I did it for the safety of my patients and my family. But guess what, mid September came and staff testing couldn’t be done regularly anymore because there wasn’t enough testing kits! We are paying millions towards an app that doesn’t work but we don’t have enough money on buying more swabs! Ouch! 

Schools reopening. My kids and me were relieved when they went back to school. Not for the education but more for their overall wellbeing! When I said another lockdown was going to happen, my daughter said that she couldn’t deal with another 6months at home! Although as a working parent, I was half and half about them going back to school but I’ll do whatever to make my kids happy so I was happy that schools are remaining open. But parents making pick up/drop offs twice a day, how is that going to help with transmission rates? Also unis. Why are uni remaining open when all their lectures are mostly done online?? Isn’t it safer to send uni students at halls back home? Imagine students, unable to go home, stuck in their flat?! I’m thinking illegals rave parties and a great breeding ground for the virus! 

For nearly 5 years now, I've been wondering how I would, hell, how my kids would have made better decision/policy-makers than the cloys we currently have in the circus that we call a government. They could have prevented this lockdown by being proactive. They could have prevented this lockdown by using their brains. They could have prevented this if they cared about us. Ours did things for the sake of doing it! The government doesn’t give a hoot about us and who’s going to pay for it??!! 

Brighton

 This year, we didn't have a shortage of beautiful hot summer days. We only went for a day trip with a friend. The trains were surprisingly quiet (we did go midweek so that could explain why). 

We had planned a heavy day to fit it all in in a day. Our first stop what the Sea Life Centre. I thought it was smaller than the London ones but it had everything the kids wanted to see. It was a beautiful setting too located in an old building. Some exhibitions were closed due to covid but it was still great.

When it got to midday, we jumped in the waters. Well the kids did and I took a break from swimming. We spent a good 2 hours on the seaside before we got lunch from a local chippies on the seafront.  

To burn off all those calories from lunch, we walked to the Toy museum, located below Brighton station. It was a cute little museum with entry prices in the single-digits. they had a trail going on which made it more exciting. Our favourite part was the puppet section which was beautifully set. They also had a nice section with model  trains. It was a nice walk down memory lane too recognising toys i used to play with as a child. 

We then headed back to the pier via the iconic Royal Pavillion. Unfortunately it was under construction so didn't see it in all its glory but your can still admire the building. Back at the seafront, we splashed around to cool ourselves down after the good touristy walk. 

We ended the day by going on the rides on the pier. I bought advance tickets online a couple fo days before as it was cheaper and it was an all access ticket. we did most of rides twice and some where really cool especially the rollercoasters right at the end of the pier as it felt like we were going to fall in the water. We did some rides twice too as it wasn't busy at all. 

We had an exhausting but fun day in Brighton! A perfect day trip!

Fruit Picking

A perfect playdate opportunity during the summer without being closed off within 4 walls. With friends, we spent a great afternoon chasing kids through sweetcorn crops and trying to stop the kids from eating all the fruits. We went fruit picking at Parkside Farm in Enfield. Due to the coronavirus, we had to pre-book online but the slots only open  days before and they were flying like hot cakes. The entrance fees are not expensive and the cost of it will be taken off your final bill after you picked your fruits.

A whole afternoon wasn't enough to be honest but due to restrictions, we couldn't spend a whole day there. The time we went, most of the crops were ready to be picked and boy, did we pick a lot. I didn't buy any fruits or vegetables for about 2 weeks from the supermarket. There were a wide range of fruits and vegetables to pick from. We had 4 excited kids running and playing across the crops including cheekily hiding and putting fruits right in their mouths instead of in the basket!!! They loved picking crops with lots of instructions on how to pick different fruits/vegetables best. 

The prices were so cheap compared to the supermarket prices.

We rounded the day with having ice cream from the shop and relaxing after a heavy day of being a fruit picker!

Hobbledown Farm

 I came across this adventure park/farm in Epsom randomly through browsing a website. Looked like some much needed active fun we wanted to shake off the lockdown blues. 

Not far away from London, the farm wasn't busy which was good to know. We first headed to the mini farm/zoo to see the various animals including meerkats, peacocks, wallabies, etc.... The farm lead us to the massive adventure playgroup with lots of wood houses and big slides. I couldn't resist the kids having all the fun so i joined in and god wha a work it was. I'm glad that despite me putting some kilos on, i still fit i those small tunnels and holes. It was so much fun running after the kids chasing them up and down those gigantic wooden houses. 

To catch our breath, we then headed for the bouncy mat which was fun. My kids have decided that there weren't done chasing me around so hey chased me around the bunny mat too which again was excellent exercise ti get rid off my belly fat. 

There was another play area where kids got to dig for gold and another play area with dragons and what looked like fairy houses which I couldn't climb into, much to my dismay.

There was a maze which was fun to run around in and the kids had a dizzying time in the zorbs!

We ended the day by doing a Go-ape obstacle course. While Mahi completed the course like a pro he is, i fell, much to my kids amusement, half way through and had to be rescued. It's ok, i still zip lined like a superhero!

A day trip to Margate

 On an extremely hot day in August, we decided to travel down to a beach. We wanted to go somewhere we never been before and not too far from London. We therefore picked Margate. I know, the news kept saying how busy it was however we went there bright and early around 11am and there was no-one so we picked the best place and made our territory so we could socially distance! Unfortunately, Dreamland wasn't open so not ride for us this time.

I didn't know there was a swimming pond right next to the sea which was very convenient for when I just wanted to read a book. Once we settled in, we went to dip our toes. It was full of seaweed and algae which rather put me off swimming in the water but that didn't deter the kids. Once the kids pulled me through the algae and seated, the water was so refreshing and clean in the hot weather. 

We needed  a break from the sea so we headed for lunch and the seashell grotto. The grotto was small but stunning. The grotto was made entirely of shells with a bit of history to it too. It was reasonably priced and not too far away from the seafront. The gift shop wasn't like any other gift shops with quite nice and rare gifts.

We then returned back to our place which became quite full however since we had our borders, nobody was close to us. We spent the rest of the afternoon in and out of the water and before we knew it, it was time to go home.

It was a day well spent!