A mid week break to the beautiful Gower

Hi folks, so I went to visit my sister in the beautiful Gower on Monday because I wanted to keep her company for a few days while my mum and dad were on holiday and because it's just nice to get away from time to time, have a change of scenery and have some delicious vegan dinners cooked for me (yes my sister is giving veganism a go!  How awesome is that!).On Tuesday we visited Weobley Castle which is situated in North Gower and dates back to the 13th century. It was a beautiful sunny (if a little windy) day, we enjoyed the lovely views and speculated about the purposes of the different rooms of the castle.  

Tomorrow is St David's day so it seemed apt to share my day out, (not something I do very often on this blog) So "Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus" to all my wonderful Welsh family and friends.

Vegetarianism - one year on

Don't tell anyone, but I don't even like animals that much.  generally they smell unpleasant, I don't like being licked by them and have a strong aversion to their hair when it gets anywhere other that attached to their bodies.  But what I really cannot abide, what I cannot stand, what I refuse to participate in is their suffering. There is enough suffering in this world without me contributing to it by proxy of eating their flesh.  Today is my one year anniversary of becoming a vegetarian and I can say with some certainty that I will be vegetarian for life.

I have learnt a lot in my year of being vegetarian, a bit about myself, and a lot about other people.

With regards to myself I have learnt that I don't miss meat, I have learnt that I am equally healthy on a meat free diet than I was on an omnivorous diet, maybe even more healthy. I have learnt that I can have a great deal of compassion for animals and their captivity, I actually feel a much stronger connection to animals and see all animals, not just the ones we choose as pets, as sentient beings now, I have learnt that the meat and dairy industry is even more horrible than I previously thought it was.

What I have learnt about other people is that they don't like to be made to feel bad, they don't like to change their habits and they refuse to believe the truth when it conflicts with their core beliefs.
One thing that people prefer to believe is that the cruelty and suffering that can happen to animals in the meat and dairy industry doesn't happen to the animals THEY are eating. I used to believe this too, but I was in denial because I didn't WANT to believe it, just like I didn't want to believe that animals kept in captivity aren't happy, and how I didn't want to believe that there is no such thing as humane slaughter. And why didn't I want to believe it? Well quite simply because the implications were huge. The implication was huge, it meat totally changing the way I ate, it meant not eating meat. again. ever....no ham sandwiches, no roast chicken, no pork pies, no pepperoni on my pizza, no bacon or sausages in my fry up, no chicken soup, no turkey for Christmas dinner, no steak and ale pie.  And for someone like me, who really liked meat it would have been a really good idea to continue being in denial about the meat and dairy industry, to dismiss the fact that animals have feelings, to dismiss the damage it causes the planet, to dismiss the way it causes suffering to other humans the other side of the world, but that would mean not only un-knowing everything I learnt through films like this, this and this, but also it would mean being incredibly hypocritical and selfish.  Hypocritical because I claim to care about the environment, because I claim a desire to end suffering in the world and because I claim to love my neighbour.  Selfish because at the end of the day, why was I eating meat?  It's not necessary for health (in fact it's positively harmful for health), I simply enjoyed the taste.  And it struck me that simply liking the taste of something in my mouth was not a good enough reason to cause suffering to animals, to cause harm to the planet and to deprive other humans that I share the earth with.

I can't end world hunger, I can't stop humans hurting other humans, I can't live without using up the planets resources, but there is one very simple, very easy thing I can do which has a direct and immediate effect on the world and the lives of animals, that is really easy to do, and even benefits my own body, and that is to never eat meat again.  There is a great sense of peace in knowing I am taking peaceful action to change the world and it is so so easy to do.

Won't you join me?

Fun Things to do With Toddlers - Snow Theme Activities

My husband and I have decided that we will most probably be home educating Boris and Biscuit in the future.  Of course home education doesn't start when a child turns three, or four or the term after their fifth birthday or whenever the local authority says it should,  Home education happens all the time and we are already doing it every day of the week. 

Sometimes, however, I get a bit overwhelmed and worried about the responsibility.  I don't want to let my boys down; neither of them go to nursery at the moment so their education is already solely in my hands, and I get all panicky that I am not doing enough and I don't know where to start, so I have joined a ton of Facebook groups for support and encouragement and to ask questions (What would I do without my beloved Facebook?).  One group I recently joined is called "Weekly book and activity challenge for HE".  Every few weeks they have a new book/theme to follow and members share photos of what they have been up to. I liked this idea because it gave me something to focus on with the boys, I was getting myself into a bit of a muddle. 

The first theme was The Snow Queen/Frozen.  So I borrowed a copy of the Snow Queen from the library, we watched Frozen and we did some snow themed activities.  Here are some of the activities we did.  This theme is totally still relevant, I was so hoping it would snow, but it wasn't to be, but it would be awesome to do some of them if it was also snowing outside. 

1. First we made little plasticine snowmen from plasticine that Boris got for Christmas, I did most of the building here, but Boris told me what colours he wanted for what and what clothes he wanted his snow people to wear.  I love that he made me make babies for them.

2.  The old corn flour and oil snow activity which we have done before only this time I used baby oil instead of rapeseed oil so our snow was white rather than the slightly peculiar looking yellow snow we had last year!

The mixture of the two ingredients (1 cup of each I think) results in a snow that is crunchy and mould-able, just like real snow, you could even put it in the fridge to make it chilly for the full sensory experience. 

I am not going to lie, this activity ended up with shouting and hoovering.

3.  Plastic snow confetti.  I bought this from the supermarket a while ago, not really knowing what to do with it, but thinking it might be fun for something, so just put it in a bowl and let the boys have a dig around, it did make a bit of a mess and had to go away when Biscuit started eating it. 

4. Snowmen skittles, what fun!!  Boris helped me to draw on some of the faces (cue Tim Burton style snowmen) and he stuck the noses on.  We stacked them up then sent them flying with a plastic "snowball".  A fun game for a while, but Boris found it more fun to break the polystyrene cups into bits when I was out of the room. 

5.  This was a pretty awesome activity, Boris and I dipped cotton wool balls in equal parts flour and water then baked in the oven for 45 mins.  He then hammered them to crack them open and broke the the coating with his fingers.  The sensory experience of opening the crunchy hard coating and revealing the soft fluffy centre is out of the world.  I am tingling just thinking about it, and even took some to my Bible study group, so they could share in the sensory wonderment.  I was hoping they would look more like snowballs when they came out, but they were a little browned.  (Again, called time on this activity because of eating)

6. Puffy Snowman painting - I made a mixture of shaving foam and a dollop of PVA glue and mixed it together to form the base of the "paint".  Boris scooped the mixture onto the black paper into some circle outlines I made and then we added the embellishments on together, buttons, bow, beads, boggly eyes etc.  The snowman looked great when it was finished, really fluffy like meringue.  Fascinatingly the next day the snowman had continued to puff up under the dried outer layer so began to look like he had gained a few pounds and even had some stretch marks!! Boris asked why and I replied "science".   When I was out of the room, Boris used the foam that was leftover to sty his hair.  

Four days later and much poking from Boris and it looks more like a sorry burns victim,and a little bit creepy.  We are still waiting to see if it goes crusty. 

So there you have it, four fab snow themed activities.  This week our theme is Space.