Chilled weekends

This weekend we have mainly been relaxing and taking it easy. The weeks are so busy that I'm reluctant to do much more than kick back and make the most of what has been a wonderfully mild October. We've started our annual leaf collecting marathon, as ever adopting different approaches. For me raking leaves is a peaceful, cathartic process where I can immediately see the impact of my efforts. It has the advantage of being active and allows me to make the most of the garden as it starts to bed down for winter. Glenn takes a more motorised approach (surprise surprise!). He starts up either the blower or the leaf pig and attacks the leaves with force and noise - not so relaxing!

Saturday mornings for the girls are given over to riding. Abi can't wait and is up and ready way before we are due to leave. Izzy is torn between the chance to go on a horse and the opportunity to spend more time in her PJs, preferably watching something on her iPad or doing some colouring. Given the chance she would spend the entire weekend dressed for bed! If riding is the big point, homework is definitely the low for Abi. We are still battling the English comprehension (that's both of us, I'm still not quite on the ball with 'parsing' my sentences... ) and she is just not motivated to sit on her iPad doing mathletics for hours on end like some of her peers. It's the norm that Izzy's iPad will be out of her school bag on a Friday evening and Abi's will probably remain untouched all weekend. She loves history, geography, all sorts of PE, art and so on - all the interesting, practical subjects. I just hope she accepts that Maths and English are necessary and 80% effort on these areas is just not enough.

Alongside homework the party season has started and last weekend it was Skiplex - the best party we've been to in ages. The girls got to go on a rolling ski slope and they loved it. I'm planning on booking for me - it was brilliant. Check out Izzy in her boots and helmet!

Despite the minor homework battles they love school and are so happy in everything they do inside and out of school at the moment - long may this last. Unprompted they sat and coloured in 'best mum' and 'best dad' cards for us yesterday with messages full of love - enough to melt my heart! So 3 more days and it's half term - how did that pass so quickly? The girls are very excited about all the family coming to visit over half term week, particularly Ben and Laurie. We are excited about showing off the house and seeing everybody - lovely.

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