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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Busy, busy, busy

Full English brunch for these two! Life is VERY busy and I don't feel like we have stopped for weeks (or is that months?) It seems like the 'to-do' list is endless and while I know we don't have to do it all at once, I have taken on the unenviable task of trying to get the Muppet to finish all the work he promised / we have paid for and that has been like pushing a mountain of water up a very steep hill. We've got to the point where I think we have got all of what we are likely to get and the rest we'd rather finish ourselves anyway. The electric gates are clearly a work of his imagination based on the gates / the electric cables he spec'd and the cheapo motor mechanism - there is no way they'll work so we have decided to not bother and source proper gates that do the job and look better as well. Knowing that we are almost at a point where we sever the ties feels very liberating. Looking back this last 6 months has been incredibly stressful and just didn...

Bank Holiday sunshine

Off to meet FiFi and Grumps for a walk (and yes, she is on the seat) Finally after weeks of rain and cold weather, the tide has turned and we have glorious sunshine for the bank holiday weekend and half term - hooray, it's about time. Also just in time is half term as the kids were definitely ready for a break. They have both done brilliantly settling into the school, making new friends and finding their feet in an unfamiliar environment. Izzy has just had her exam week and felt it went OK given she hadn't covered all of the syllabus, and Abi's exams start as soon as she is back next week. I hope she's done some revision as she left for Devon with Claire, Adam and Mia today and isn't back until Saturday. There is talk of looking at some of her notes but who knows. My view is that a bit of R&R will probably be at least as beneficial if not more so than cramming all week so she should take the time to relax and have some fun - she deserves it. So we packed Abi o...

Half term

Whatever happened to half term?? It seems to have disappeared in a flash, do doubt partly as I was working having had 3 days off the previous week for Kerrie and Ryan's wedding. The plan was to not have a plan - both girls have exam week coming up and so our major intent was for them to spend at least half an hour a day or so doing a bit of revision. This has sort of worked - we only had one day where I got an irate message from Glenn that Izzy knows 'absolutely nothing' about her maths... we'll see. With half term comes effort grades and if they genuinely know nothing, it's not for a lack of effort. Abi did really well, keeping up her average and getting a 6 (top grade) in French again. Izzy, who we always worry is apt to cruise if allowed, got the first 5.0 average grade we've seen from either of them and 3 6's in French, English and DT - well done Izzy! I tend to assume all the kids work hard but it seems not - according to Abi "all the boys always...

Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

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