Skip to main content

Heatwave

This week has definitely been an improvement on last when I was a bit doom and gloom, albeit every way I turn at the moment it's all a little more stressful than I would prefer.  Glenn has his big 350 mile ride next weekend so we are into the last minute panic / resignation of the fact that it's going to be long, boring and painful.  Having just checked the weather forecast it looks like it will also be wet - oh joy.  At least this time next weekend it will all be over (hopefully) and he can relax while soaking his bottom in a vat of recovery cream!  The next layer of stress is our house renovation which continues to crawl onwards, seemingingly one step forward and two back.  This week we got confirmation that the structural engineer (as now expected by everyone given the time that has passed) has messed up our RSJ calculations. On the plus side better to know now than when the house falls down, but its still a real pain and it means more mess, more making good and more time before we get everything finished. Ho hum, at least the company responsible have accepted liability and we aren't arguing that one.  The final stress is work, which was better this week - I know it will just take time.

As ever our antidote to all of this is our girls who have made the transition to summer holiday mode with ease and are now pushing the envelope on bedtime as well as everything else. We've definitely slipped and it's noticeable so I've spent the entire weekend repeating "tonight will be an early night" and then failing miserably.  Last night we promised them camping in the garden so of course it was never going to be an early one.  Despite all of the excitment we did manage to get them into the tent and asleep by 9pm which isn't that bad. Amazingly they then slept until gone 7am - much better than we thought and so we are inspired to take them camping proper when we have a spare moment.

We are in the middle of a heatwave at the moment and this coupled with the brilliant coverage of the Commonwealth Games means they have been recreating various events in the garden. Yesterday it was triathlon after watching the Brownlee brothers win gold and silver. I had to laugh as I timed them 'swimming' through the paddling pool before racing round to the back garden to ride round on their bikes and finally a quick change over to run round the same loop. Cue tears from Izzy "I'm always last" and shouts of joy from Abi so we had to put them into different classes to make it fair. We have tried giving Izzy a head start but it still doesn't work as she hasn't yet learnt to cheat as well as her sister. She'll learn!

Their other big joy is their new ride on buggy which was (almost) thrown in as a freebie with Glenn's new ride on mower.  They spend hours driving round the garden in it, picking things up, dropping things off etc etc.  I have to hold my breath as they charge under the trampoline, both ducking in the nick of time.  I did draw the line when their friends came over and they went to do the same thing - I'm not ready to explain a large bruise on the forehead of other people's children because they didn't know to duck!  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All about Izzy

This weekend has mainly been about Izzy, mostly because Abi has been off riding again and so we've hardly seen her. This has its pros and cons - on the one hand Izzy gets lots of attention and the choice of what to do. On the other she misses Abi and when big sister arrives home we have the inevitable few hours of resettling which seems to involve tears as a matter of course. I did have a moment of despair this evening when I looked across to the table just before Sunday dinner - normally a happy time - to see both of them, heads on arms, holding back tears. Luckily a bit of food and a game of 20 questions to share what everybody had enjoyed about their weekend and we kind of managed to get back on track by dessert. When asked what she wanted to do, Izzy immediately shouted "Jo Jo" so my task was to sort out a visit with Jo, the boys and Ellie. No matter how much time passes they still love to see each other and the first task is always the same. Edward and Izzy have t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ypres

Walking around the lake in Ypres while waiting for the rugby to finish! A wet Monday evening after a lovely long weekend away in Ypres - just the two of us and just what I needed after what has been a relatively stressful few months of decision making. The decision is now made however and on Monday I resigned my job in order to join a new company in January. This will be the same role, but a company that hopefully offers more long term stability than my current one. It's been hard going through the initial round of telling people.Despite only being there for 7 months I've made some good friends and very quickly become established and everybody who I've told has been happy for me but very sad that I'm going - it hasn't made it easy. I do feel like I've been through the mill a bit this year - what with leaving EY, ramping up to a big new role, finding out it probably didn't have the longevity I was looking for and then going through the process of finding ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Welcome Albert James!

So this week has been full of new things - Jess and Chris have welcomed Albert James Wilkinson Rayner to the family, a tad early but all doing well apparently (and so cute!!), I started my new job, Abi has her new shed and Dad got sorted on a phone that wasn't invented before the kids were born!! I always knew this week was going to be full on and it certainly has been. The first thing I had to do was try and sort out my diary which had been filled from dawn to dusk by my predecessor with meetings. I decided to set out as I mean to go on and immediately took out those that started before 9am. While I can get into  the office for 8am , it's a pain and requires me to be on the 6:30am train which is just a bit much every day (stating the obvious). I then made it clear that we don't need to be joined at the hip for the next 4 weeks which is a sensitive process - even though he is retiring it's hard to let go and he is understandably keen that the team are looked after. ...
Post a Comment
Read more