Easter is great. I love having the kids off school and spending time with them. My job means that I work only one day a week in the holidays and so things can pile up. At the moment, I’m juggling work, kids, housework, writing and the launch of a new project! All this leads to stress dreams! Hence todays post on ideas!
Some of my ideas for stories come from my very vivid dream life. Last night for instance I dreamt about being on a flight and landing at the destination and all the people had disappeared! There were only people left who had been in transit. Not much else happened and I don’t think there’s a deeper meaning than that sometimes I think the world would be easier without all the people messing it up!
Having these dreams though reminds me of why I love to write. Anything can happen! I love the blank page and the possibilities that lie ahead. As a writer I’m a planner. I thought I wasn’t until I tried to do Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month). When I took up the challenge, I spent the month before planning the whole novel. The twists and turns, character studies and I also wrote some back story. I then managed to write most of the novel in a month! This is the novel that’s going to be released later on this year. At some point in the near future I’ll share the cover design. All very exciting!
Going back to ideas though, it’s often in allowing your mind to wander that ideas come to fruition. The what ifs. Like my dream. What would happen if everyone disappeared? What happened to them? Was it a virus or some kind of nuclear weapon? Who would survive? Who would be in transit? This leads to my interesting google search history. My writing partner Sophie and I often joke that we must be on some MI5 watch list for our strange searches!
I’d love to hear some of your what ifs! Don’t worry I won’t steal them as I’ve got four stories on the go already. What if you pushed yourself and turned that what if into a short story or even a novel. Stranger things have happened!
I’m not sure whether you were aware but yesterday was Autism Awareness Day. I have a wonderful daughter with Autism and have a few friends who also have been diagnosed later in life.
Here’s a short summary of what it means to have Autism or be Neuro Diverse (ND). There is a wide spectrum of need and so there will be some ND’s who function on a day to day basis, whom you wouldn’t know are struggling to some who are non-verbal and everything in between.
Everyone’s brains are wired differently, someone with Autism has some connections missing or rerouted. Often those without Autism are referred to as Neuro-typical (NT), this helps as we are not calling Autism a disability but instead a difference in brain chemistry, or Neuro Diversity. ND’s are often among the most intelligent people in the world. Think of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Temple Grandin, Emily Dickerson and Albert Einstein to name just a few!
For our family having a child with Autism has enriched us. As is common for girls and women with Autism it has been a battle to get a diagnosis and an EHCP (I’m sure I’ll blog about our journey at some point!). But we know the fight was worth it as our daughter is now in a school that will cater to her needs and give her an education tailored to her. It was a shock to hear certain secondary schools in the area admit to not wanting to take her with her needs. As a society we need to do better.
There’s so much I could say about those with Autism and my admiration for them. To know how much they have to cope with on a daily basis to fit in with us NT’s. Wouldn’t it be interesting if instead of them fighting so hard to fit in with us, we worked harder to make life easier for ND’s.
I’d love to hear about your experience with Autism and answer any questions you may have.
So where did we get to last week? I’d just told you about our last eviction in February 2020. We were given two months notice. So we had to be out at the end of March 2020. We were very blessed to have some friends kindly offer to help us by lending us enough money to be able to buy a home of our own.
But then lockdown happened. There were no house viewings, there was no way we could buy anywhere or even find somewhere else to rent. We were very lucky that another friend of ours had a flat we could move into. So in the middle of lockdown we packed and moved most of our stuff into storage and moved into a two bed flat.
Four kids, two adults and four rooms. We have some great stories from that time but the favourite was the day I took the kids to the beach for the morning. When I got back Sean had locked himself out of the flat and so was sitting in the hallway outside the flat on a zoom meeting!
We let ourselves in and I went into the bedroom and started to change out of my swimming costume in the bedroom. Which you should know was also the office. Sean thought this was the moment to come in for his zoom meeting! So he walks in with all the senior leadership team on the zoom call as I’m undressed! I obviously screamed and threw myself into the fitted wardrobe! Luckily no one saw anything but they definitely heard me scream!
Through this time we were organising the buying of our new home. Apparently, it’s not normal for friends to lend other friends money. Every mortgage company refused to consider it. But our financial advisor was incredible and helped the whole process to go through. He made sure we could do it without lying! It meant we prayed a lot, along with an army of our friends! Even so wasn’t until a week before our proposed moving date, while we at Adventure Wonderland, we were given the yes to go ahead! We ended up exchanging, completing and moving in on the same day!
It was a real rollercoaster! On the 31st July 2020 we moved into our first home that we own. Everyone involved agrees this was a miraculous provision, that if you take God out of the equation, it could never have happened.
So if you have housing needs I’d love to pray for you! I have faith for some crazy miracles to happen. Think walls of Jericho and Goliath’s being defeated!
In the last six years as a family we have moved six times! It all started in 2014 after we had our last baby. We were living in a 3 bed terraced house in Springbourne. We’d lived there for seven years and been really happy. But I had a habit of shopping on ‘Rightmove’ and I regularly would point them out to Sean! Then when I was looking after Baby four, I saw a vicarage near us for rent it was at £1200 per month and only had a six month lease on it. But I just had a good feeling about it! So I organised to go and view it on a day when I knew Sean would be busy and thought it would be a good morning out with the kids.
As it turned out Sean was free and rolled his eyes when I told him what I’d organised. When we got to the house the eye rolling didn’t stop. Even though the house was perfect for us, in fact better than we needed, it was only available for six months and was £400 more a month than we were currently paying. We walked away with the words of the estate agent ringing in our ears, ‘this place will rent at £1200 within the week’.
So that was that.
Or was it?
Later that week I would speak to a friend who would challenge me to push the door for the house a bit harder and pray about it. I did and felt I should write to the landlord, which I started to do. Sean saw me doing it and took over! We prayed about it and pressed send!
A few weeks later we had a call from the landlord who was very interested in having us and even agreed to our limit of rent! We couldn’t believe it! We moved into what was a home we couldn’t even imagine living in!
After two years we got evicted. There were tears from us all. But after gathering the family to pray another beautiful home became available, after six months we were evicted again. Again we prayed and we were offered a new home by the same landlord. So when we were evicted again after two years we gathered the kids to pray again. This time we had to find a new landlord and home. This time there was no negotiating rent but we moved in May 2019 with a promise from the landlord that it would be at least five years before we would need to leave. So when we got an eviction notice in February 2020 we were a little shocked to say the least.
Next week I’ll finish this story and tell you the incredible ending and the home we now live in.
This week has been my youngest’s 7th birthday. It feels quite a milestone as my oldest was 7 when the youngest was born. I have loved being a mum, everyone used to say to me how fast it goes. I would smile, exhausted, surrounded by toddlers and dreaming of a full nights sleep, believing them but at the same feel time wondering if it would ever end!
But it has definitely gotten easier in a lot of ways. Although the learning curve with each new age and season still feels steep, (we’ve had to apologise many times to our oldest who has been our parenting guinea pig!) I wouldn’t give up this opportunity to be stretched in every area!
So back to my, not so baby, baby boy! He asked for a croque en bouche for his birthday cake! Which is basically a tower of profiteroles! It sounds far more impressive than it actually is! But I thought I would share the recipe I used so you can have a go yourself!
Ingredients
Choux pastry
120g Butter – cubed (I use salted butter but unsalted would be fine)
300ml Water
150g Plain Flour
4 Eggs – lightly beaten
Custard
600ml Milk (I used Semi-skimmed)
60g Cornflour
150g Caster Sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
To make the Choux Pastry. Put the butter and water into a saucepan and heat until the butter melts then bring to the boil. (It’s important that you wait for it to bubble). Remove from the heat and add the flour. Stir vigorously until the mixture forms a soft ball. Leave to cool slightly, then gradually add the eggs, beating well between each addition, to form a smooth, shiny paste. (You’ll also have an aching arm! Or you can cheat as I did this time and use a freestanding mixer with the metal ‘K’ beater!)
Grease a baking tray. Use 2 teaspoons to create little balls with the choux pastry dough, put them on the tray, ensure you leave at least 1cm either side of them, and brush with beaten egg. (Before you brush with the egg I always try to make them look a bit rounder by wetting my fingers and dabbing the points smooth.) Sprinkle the tray with water (this will create steam in the oven which will help them to rise). They will look small but trust me they grow. You could also pipe them onto the tray but I haven’t been doing this as it’s more work! This recipe will probably make two or three trays worth of profiteroles so half it if you don’t need that many.
Bake in a preheated oven at 220˚C for 10 minutes then bake at 190˚C for a further 20 minutes. Leave them to cool on a wire rack. Poke a hole in each as they cool so the steam can escape.
Make the crème patisserie by whisking together the Cornflour, Sugar and Egg Yolks until smooth.
Heat the milk with the vanilla until almost boiling. Pour a little of the hot milk into the egg mixture and whisk it in, gradually add the rest of the milk, then pour it all back into the saucepan and whisk it on a low heat until it thickens. This can happen quite quickly so you need to watch it carefully and whisk continuously.
Sieve it into a bowl or jug to cool (sieving it also cools it quicker and stops it cooking to much more). Make sure to lay either baking paper or cling film over the top to ensure you don’t get a skin.
Make a hole in each of the profiteroles and, using a piping bag, pipe the cold crème patisserie inside each profiterole. (I buy reusable piping bags which you can pick up quite cheaply, I get mine from Wilkinson but I know that Lakeland sell them too). Or if you don’t have a piping bag cut the top off the profiterole and spoon in the custard.
Finally add your topping, whether that’s melted dark chocolate or white chocolate. You can spread it on or drizzle it over them.
If I know I’m making profiteroles I will often make the custard the day before so that it’s really cold before I start to pipe it but you can do it on the day as well.
For the fillings and toppings the ingredients change. This time I did three different types. One was an orange for which I used the zest of one orange which I added to the custard and then topped with dark chocolate. The second was Raspberry and white chocolate, for which I used the vanilla custard and popped a raspberry in the middle of each of the custard then topped with white chocolate. For the last type I did plain vanilla custard with a mixture of the white and dark chocolate for the topping.
A long post this week. But I’d love to know how you get on if you give this a go and maybe that can be the next birthday cake!
This post is dedicated to my mother-in-law, Trish, who would have turned 67 this coming week, she died in June 2018 after losing a battle with cancer.
She was an incredible woman who led an extraordinary life. At times she drove me crazy (she was my mother-in-law after all!) but mostly she inspired me. She loved God first, but her family followed closely behind. She loved them fiercely and we still miss her. I know our lives are built on the many years of prayers she prayed for us. She has left a gap that can never be filled.
I wrote this poem in memory of her and the family she has left behind. If you have ever lost someone close to you then I’m sure you’ll recognise yourself in it.
Grief
Her joy, forever gone But it’s shadow remains A remnant, a reflection. Veiled by rosy hue.
Your own face, unfamiliar, New lines and shadows Smiling lips with crying eyes Or shining with tears for now unshed
The world goes on Callous, cold, unfeeling. Ignoring your pain ‘Get up, move on, be the same.’
Nothing will ever be the same The pain will ebb and flow Your heart will heal Scarred but whole
You remain a reflection Of your former self The outside the same But internally reformed.
I’m very fortunate that three of my kids went back to school this week, even though they only went for the mornings, it was a relief not to have to educate them myself! I don’t know if any of you have had to homeschool but I have found it really challenging. I love my kids! They are great fun. Except when I’m their teacher! Apparently at school they’re beautifully behaved! I saw moments of this but had more moments of frustration. In this third lockdown, I have found a solution. To be a lot more laid back about it all!
Whether they have learnt during this lockdown I don’t know but the reality is that they will catch up at some point. My youngest two have loved being at home and I think they would love to always be at home. I love listening to them play. They make up all kinds of games and spend most of their time laughing. I want to learn to be more like them. To find joy in the small things. Finding sticks, whizzing down the slide and following tracks on the pavement.
At what age do we lose that wonder and joy at the small things. I see my 14 year old joining in with the fun but I know if there was anyone around his age he would be embarrassed. Why is that? Do we have to be serious because the world is a serious place? Are we afraid of joy and of being disappointed? I think if we can learn to laugh at the small things the big things won’t feel so big. Or are we like my teenage son and allowing others to rob our joy, either through comparison or fear of looking silly.
My plan this week, as my kids are back in school, is to find a way to find the joy in the small things. Will you join me?
It’s so good to complete a task, isn’t it? To finally tick something off a to-do list. I have a habit of starting jobs, getting bored with them, and leave the finishing for someone else! It’s an annoying habit that means my lovely husband, Sean, will find me doing some DIY job and then leaving it once the ‘fun’ bit is done! He then has to tidy up the mess I’ve left! I think I’ve gotten better over the years but I’m sure in spite of his patience this has got to be irritating!
Things changed when we had kids. The to-do list was never likely to be finished however hard I tried, Sean couldn’t finish what I didn’t manage to do because there was always something else. Part of the reason I learnt to cook was so that at the end of each day I could say Ta-da! I achieved something! There might be toys all over the house, a washing pile the size of Mount Everest, or children in varying degrees of messiness, but there was food on the table and it was going to taste good!
When cooking dinner started to get a bit mundane and no amount of new recipes could quench that feeling of needing to achieve something. I started to write. I quietly bought an A4-lined notebook and started. It felt great to write a number ‘1’ in the top right and corner and then as I finished each page to write the next number. I used to write while dinner was cooking. Wooden spoon in one hand and pen in the other! Gradually the pages built up and still, I didn’t tell anyone. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I didn’t want to tell anyone in case it turned into a fad that I lost interest in. There had been a few of those! Like the time I wanted to learn piano, or decided to sell Mary Kay makeup (despite the fact I didn’t use much, also I didn’t like selling to my friends as I would tell them to buy it somewhere else cheaper!).
Eventually, though I admitted to a few close friends what I was doing and told them the concept. They were super encouraging and helped me with names and ideas. My friend Kerry (she’s super amazing by the way!), read sections for me. It took me about two years of quietly plugging away but I finally finished! Seems a shame that story is now in my drawer waiting for me to fall in love with it again and rework it with all that I’ve learnt since!
I hope this inspires you to realise no matter how busy you are you can find time to pursue the things you love.
Of all the books I’ve mentioned there’s one that stands out as the most important in my life, I read it every day and it changes me as I read and study it. I’m sure you’ve guessed by now that it’s the word of God, The Bible. Most people think of it as a dry dusty book to be kept on bookshelves. Or something for special ceremonies, like weddings, funerals, and Christmas. But I know it’s so much more than that.
I wanted to share with you today one verse from it that is my rule for life. It comes for the book of Proverbs which was written by Solomon. It contains all kinds of gold in it as well as some that will make you smile. A favourite is ‘Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.’! I’m sure there have been times when Sean has consider living on the roof! Especially when I was pregnant!
But seriously the verse that I love and live by is Proverbs 3:5-6 – ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.’ I have found that God is entirely trustworthy and as I stop trying to fix everything myself, and give God the chance to do what only He can do, things seem to fall into place. It might not always be what I expect or in the timing I expect but it’s always much better than I would have done on my own.
I realise this isn’t the most popular book to write about, and may make you question my sanity, but of all I have learnt and experienced, I can’t deny it’s power to comfort, teach, challenge and change. If you only read it occasionally or have never read it, can I encourage you to get it somehow. There are loads of versions out there to read. I usually use the NIV, or ESV. If I want to see a verse from a fresh point of view I use the Message or Passion translations.
If you want to ask me anything about this at any time I’d love to chat about it. Click on the link to contact me!
Next time I’m going to write about why I started writing my first novel and how I got started.
Last time I told you about a few of my favourite books. Since having kids I’ve loved helping them discover some of my favourite books from my own childhood. Roald Dahl was a big part of the reason I loved to read. It felt like such an achievement to finish one of his books as they felt so long!
My own love of writing started young. I remember telling stories to my sister when we shared a room to help her get to sleep. When I was eight I entered a writing competition at school and wrote a story about a giant bird that made the tower of Pisa lean! Then when I reached my teenage years I would write in the style of the novels that were the favourite at the time – Point Horror. Anyone who knows me now knows that’s not what I like at all! I have nightmares at the smallest thing! But I wrote my own point Horror which I would write in the evenings and then bring in to school the next day and would then be passed around the class for everyone to catch up.
Eventually though I knew this was not the kind of thing I wanted to write and so I burnt the manuscript. Not sure whether it was a great idea now. I’d be interested to reread what I’d written then but it would probably be embarrassing!
I have often secretly been writing little things, whether stories or poems. At some point I’ll tell you what tipped me over to actually attempt a novel. The idea for my first novel came from a conversation I overheard about it not being fair that someone got rain on their wedding day. It got me thinking who knows what’s fair? Who decides?
I started writing without a plan and wrote almost the whole thing by hand before typing it up. At first I didn’t tell anyone as I was embarrassed and not sure I would finish it. When I finally finished I printed it and handed it to a couple of friends to read. I know now that was a big mistake! It was unedited and raw. But for me it felt like such an achievement to finish.
More on this later. But I wanted to inspire you to have a go at whatever it is that you’ve always dreamt of doing! You never know what might come out of it.
Rachel Theunissen 