Life360 Car Journey Tracking

When Joshua passed his driving test just over a year ago, all the stars seemed to align and it made 100% sense for him to have his own car. At the time, he was travelling backwards and forwards to Chelmsford College by bus and train most weekdays, and when he wasn't at college, he was working. He also had access to his trust fund, which gave him some capital towards buying a car, alongside his monthly wages to help cover the running costs.

So, rather than simply adding him as a named driver to one of our cars, it made far more sense to help him get his own set of wheels and enjoy that independence.

Fast forward a year or so and Brandon has now passed his driving test, but the circumstances are quite different. He doesn't rely on public transport to get to college, as he's doing his sixth form at Beauchamps, and unlike Josh, he doesn't currently have a job or access to his trust fund. Consequently, he doesn't really have the financial means to run his own car just yet.

It therefore didn't make much sense to buy another car for the household when we already have three sitting on the drive! Instead, we've gone down a slightly different route with Brandon and added him as a named driver on Tina's car. Since Tina moved jobs to Tesco on the Wick, her EcoSport is hardly used, so it seemed the ideal solution. Brandon gets the freedom and independence of having access to a car without having to take on the financial burden of owning and running one himself.

Fortunately, the insurance on the EcoSport was due for renewal on 1st November, so the timing worked out perfectly. Unfortunately, the financial pain has landed firmly on me! The monthly premium just to add Brandon as a named driver is around six times what I was previously paying for just Tina and me. Yes, apparently the privilege of having a newly qualified teenage driver in the household doesn't come cheap! 😳

So, as of last Sunday, Brandon is officially able to take the car out on his own. You'd think that would be a straightforward cause for celebration, but it's actually introduced a whole new level of stress and a few more grey hairs for Tina and me this week!

The reason is that Brandon wants to drive himself to school, which also means he's taking Holly along for the ride. So we're now in this rather strange position where our two youngest are leaving the house every morning, jumping into a car and heading off to school without either of us being there.

I'm sure we'll get used to it eventually, and it's great that Brandon has the independence to do this while also helping Holly out with her journey to school. But I have to say, the adjustment is proving harder for us parents than it is for them!

From the moment they leave the house, Tina and I have been glued to Life360, watching that little car symbol make its way across the map. Every time it slows down or comes to a stop, I swear my heart briefly stops too, as I immediately start imagining some sort of incident!

Of course, there's usually a perfectly innocent explanation, but that doesn't stop us checking every few minutes to make sure they're both getting where they need to be safely.

I suppose this is just another one of those parenting milestones where you have to learn to let go a little and trust that you've taught them well. Brandon gets his newfound independence, Holly gets a lift to school, and Tina and I get to spend our mornings nervously monitoring a little car icon on a phone screen.

Who said parenting gets easier as they get older?! 😂

Halloween 2026

A relatively low-key Halloween for 2026, as I mentioned in my previous blog, with the kids seemingly losing more and more interest in all things Halloween. This year, Holly was the only one of the three kiddies who bothered dressing up or getting involved with carving a pumpkin. The boys have clearly decided they're too old for all that now!

Holly had originally planned to go trick-or-treating with some of her friends, but unfortunately their plans were cancelled at the last minute. I have to admit, I was secretly quite pleased about this, as I wasn't particularly keen on the idea of her roaming the streets of Wickford with her friends just yet. Selfishly, I was also hoping she'd still want to go out trick-or-treating with me.

It seems I enjoy it more than the kids these days, though, and Holly eventually decided she didn't fancy going out either. This officially marked the first year since the kids were old enough to walk on their own that we haven't gone trick-or-treating! A bit of a milestone, although perhaps not quite the one I was hoping for.

Thankfully, Holly was still happy to dress up and help me man the front door to cater for the hordes of trick-or-treaters who descend on us each year. I still went ahead with decorating the outside of the house, as our front garden seems to have developed a bit of a reputation locally for its Halloween display. We regularly get comments about it being one of the best displays around, so naturally there's a certain expectation to maintain!

This year I had a little extra help with the garden decorations — quite literally! Tina managed to get hold of some store signage from Tesco that they had finished with and were due to throw away. These came in very handy and helped us transform the front garden into our very own "House of Halloween".

And when I say we had a lot of trick-or-treaters, I'm not exaggerating. I reckon we had well over 100 children knocking on the door between 5:30pm and 8pm! We even had people driving around in their cars and parking up outside just to let their children out to visit our house. Clearly, the reputation is spreading!

Holly and I had a pretty good system going. I'd answer the door wearing my Jason Voorhees mask and attempt to scare the living daylights out of the unsuspecting children, before Holly came to the rescue as a rather cute little witch, handing out the sweets and restoring some order.

Holly was a little concerned that I was getting perhaps a bit too carried away with my role, as a few children took one look at me and promptly legged it back out through the garden gate. We even had a couple burst into tears! Oops! In my defence, it is Halloween, and surely a little fright is all part of the fun?! 😂

Once the trick-or-treaters started to thin out, Tina was finishing work and I'd already chucked a load of Aldi's Halloween-themed nibbles into the oven to put together a little frightful buffet. We had black burgers, samosa fingers, bat nuggets, some rather interesting bao buns and various other spooky snacks.

At this point, Brandon and Josh finally surfaced to take advantage of the food, although other than that we barely saw them for most of the evening! I think their idea of Halloween these days is more about turning up when there's food involved than actually participating in any of the festivities. 😂

We'd originally planned to make a few Halloween cocktails and toast some s'mores around the fire, but somehow ran out of evening, so we'll save those for another time.

Anyway, that's another Halloween done and dusted, albeit a slightly quieter one. I suppose these traditions inevitably change as the kids grow up, although I'll probably keep trying to drag them into it for as long as I can get away with it!

Now the countdown begins for Holly's birthday, followed by Christmas. The remainder of the year always seems to disappear in a flash once Halloween is out of the way. Before we know it, we'll be taking the decorations down and wondering where another year has gone! ❤️

Holly's dress that she wanted for Hlloween 2026.

Only two pumpkins this year and I concede that Holly's is better than mine.

Mine and Holly's pumpkin lit up.

For a special Halloween lunch Tina had bought a Cornish pasty, scone and biscuit gift box.

Oh my word, that was one delicious lunch.

Highly recommend these.

Holly's pumpkin modified with the hat pumpkin she bought from Marsh Farm.

As usual I tried to make an effort with the outside decorations ready for the trick or treaters.

A little Extra help with the decorations - "House of Halloween".

Our little pumpkin display just waiting for the sun to go down.

All lit up and ready for the trick or treaters. 

Our neighbour made this fantastic display for outside the garage.

Hot dogs with pumpkin skin.

Various bao buns.

Our little spread courtesy of ALDI.

Samosa fingers and bat nuggets.

Mini black bun burgers with hot BBQ and cheese sauce.

No sign of Josh and Brandon dressing up this year, Tina wore her outfit for work!

Next year will we even have Holly get involved or is this the last?

Pumpkin Picking at Night

As the kiddies get older, they seem to be becoming less and less interested in Halloween, pumpkins and all those little seasonal activities that I used to enjoy doing with them. It’s getting increasingly difficult to persuade them to join in, and perhaps I just need to accept that they're growing up and let some of these traditions go. Maybe the reality is that I'm trying to hang on to these memories more for my own benefit than theirs! 😂

Anyway, in an attempt to mix things up a little this year, we decided to try a night-time pumpkin-picking event at Marsh Farm. Joshua wasn't particularly keen and was tired after work, so it was just me, Tina, Brandon and Holly making the trip.

I have to say, the set-up at Marsh Farm was pretty impressive. They'd effectively created a whole little village experience, complete with various funfair-style activities. There was archery, ball toss, ring toss, beanbag throwing and a few other games to have a go at. Best of all, these were all included in the admission price, rather than the usual funfair approach of charging you an arm and a leg for every activity!

One thing that never fails to amaze me is just how many different varieties of pumpkins seem to appear at these events each year. Back when I was younger, pumpkins were pretty straightforward: round and orange. Job done! Nowadays, you can apparently get them in white, yellow, orange, green, grey, black… and don't even get me started on the shapes!

Some of them barely resemble pumpkins at all. The strangest one we spotted this year looked like an albino starfish! I'm not entirely sure who decided that was a desirable pumpkin shape, but each to their own! 😂

Anyway, we had a lovely evening and it was nice to get everyone out of the house for a few hours. We enjoyed a drink while we were there, Holly indulged in some chips, and eventually we picked out our pumpkins before heading over to the shop to pay for them.

It was a shame Josh didn't fancy coming along, but I suppose that's just part of the kids getting older and having their own lives and priorities. And as I said earlier, perhaps these outings are becoming more about me wanting to preserve those family memories than the kids themselves wanting to make them.

So I'll take what I can get! I managed to persuade Brandon and Holly to come along, and even better, Tina was free for a rare evening when she wasn't working. Four out of five isn't bad, and I'll happily take that as another little family memory banked. ❤️

Night time pumpkin picking at Marsh Farm.

A rare sight of normal round orange pumpkins!

Some impressive displays before entering the village itself.

Got to love Autumn colours.

Is this me and Tina growing old trying to hang on to Halloween traditions.

Some of the weird and wonderful pumpkins.

Brandon was complaining the piano was out of tune (not sure how he would know!).

Really - a pumpkin?

R.I.P Brandon.

Just about got a smile from Holly, she wasn't keen on photos today.

More impressive dispalys.

Me and wifey.

Eerie setting of the nighttime village.

Knocking the ducks down with 5 balls each.

Oh how I want this in my back garden.

Beanbags in the pumpkin mouth. Harder than it looks.

The ducks were too easy for Brandon as he cleared them all.

Archery time. Missing the bull/gold meant doing a forfeit.

All those years of Cubs and Scouts finally paying off.

Me, Holly and B.

I think we all failed at throwing the hoops on to the bottles.

Since when were pumpkins white?

Just two baldies hanging out.

Another old collectable vehicle that would be much better served in my ownership.

4 out of the 5 of us.

A slight mist in the air really added to the atmosphere over Marsh Farm.

There was a lady performing with fire and doing some fire eating tricks over there.

She was good, but Holly thought Matt was better.

Hot chocolate time to warm u the hands.

Themed hot chocolate with a pumpkin marshmellow.

Holly and B.

The albino starfish pumpkin!!!!

Me and wifey again. If only I could take that vehicle home!

Is it sad I was more interested in the old vehicles than the pumpkin experience?

Who knew they grew in star formations in the field.

Holly bought this little pumpkin as a hat for her main pumpkin carving.

Brandon posing and being worried whether his jeans would get dirty sitting here.