Marriage in Mathews County (2)

Believe it or not, we've now been married for over a year! In honour of our first wedding anniversary, John and Kristal (and Kristal's mom) very kindly arranged for us to stay in a beautiful little cottage over their wedding weekend. It was a fantastic place with everything you could possibly want, including cinnamon raisin bread in the fridge for breakfast. The large lawn just outside ran down to the Piankatank River, with a long jetty from which we spied ospreys and jellyfish.

After the wedding on Saturday, we strolled along Bethel Beach, a narrow strip of sand between the Chesapeake Bay and some protected wetlands. We helped a kite surfer launch his enormous kite and were amused by the antics of some fiddler crabs. These lopsided critters have one claw bigger than the other. They sit in little holes in the sand or mud, and if you stand still for a few minutes they all start popping out to take a look around.

As we drove back into Mathews we wondered what an evening's entertainment might consist of out here in the sticks. We soon found out: it's a crowded pizza place with handmade pies and local beer, crammed full of music from a five-piece band. Both the musicians and the customers were having a great time, and so did we. We thought for sure we'd found the most happening place in Mathews that night... until we drove home past Donk's Theater, which was offering a "Salute to Jimmy Buffett". There were cars and people all over the place!

It was hard to leave the next morning, so we took it gently and drove cross-country to Williamsburg, once the capital of Virginia. The big attraction here is "Colonial Williamsburg", a whole network of streets and buildings preserved as they were in the 18th century. You can pay some extortionate price to go in all the buildings and talk to all the people in period costume, or you can do as we did and just wander around for free. I rather felt for the interpreters dressed up in hot-looking 1750's fashion. You have to have some admiration for the people who settled a whole new country wearing 3-piece suits or 6 petticoats.

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Advent 2022

It's the first Sunday of Advent coming up, and for once I feel fairly well prepared! Of course, the proof is in the (Christmas) pudding - whether I actually do all this remains to be seen. If you haven't even thought about Advent yet, do grab an idea to join in with. None of them require any advance preparation except for downloading, printing or book ordering - and one of them doesn't even start until 20 December. Something to do I recently went to a Mindful Advent workshop, run by the lovely Stacey and Ella from Create and Connect . We spent a happy couple of hours folding origami envelopes to make our own Advent calendars, with a few mince pies to nibble as the November rain poured down outside. I'm filling my envelopes with a short activity for each day, a Bible verse from the Christmas story, and a tiny treat for each of us. Thinking of 24 different activities was harder than folding 24 origami envelopes! Mine range from "listen to your favourite Christmas car

Catching up

I know some of you appreciate the family news I post on here, so here's a quick summary of what each of us has been up to over the last couple of months. Toby - went to his first Cubs meeting on a night when they were eating hot dogs and marshmallows, loved it, and was very proudly invested as a member just before Christmas. - spends his spare time writing stories, designing vehicles, and playing Super Mario Bros. - has a large collection of beer bottle caps (any donations welcome, as his primary provider was an ex-work-colleague of Graham's). - plucked up courage to go on a zipwire at the playground, and discovered it was great fun. - enjoyed Lego, lots of books, penguin pajamas and a remote control car for Christmas. Theo - likes playing on the bikes and in the home corner at school. - is now right at home with phonics: "I can spell cat! Cuh, Ah, Tuh." He's also been telling us about digraphs, at which point Graha

Matcha Green Tea Cake Mix

Some blogs are full of posts which start: Recently, *big company* sent me three pairs of expensive shoes / five bars of delicious chocolate / a free holiday ... This is not one of those blogs. But, recently, a company so small I'm not sure it really exists yet sent me a free cake mix, on the condition that I filled in a survey about it and took a few photos. Blogging about it was not a condition, but just in case the owner makes it to the big time, you heard it here first! So the Hope Makes It Easy Matcha Cake Mix popped through my letterbox on my birthday (good timing to start) and the rather pretty package sat on my counter for a few days until I'd assembled the ingredients. Most cake mixes require a few extra ingredients, but this one needed milk, eggs and butter, plus cream and possibly white chocolate for the icing. Not exactly all-inclusive. On the plus side, it helpfully provided a cute origami cup for measuring the milk, a line to show you how much butter

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

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