Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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. ...

Diary management!

This part of the summer is definitely typified by me trying to remember who is supposed to be where and when. Abi likes to be off doing something with someone while Izzy is happier to know she's close to home and so for the last week they've gone their separate ways. Abi has been down in Somerset making the most of Ben and Laurie being about. From what I can tell she's having a lovely time. Apart from the covert phone call one evening to tell me she was 'starving'  (Mum was cooking for the hordes and so it had been delayed), I've barely heard from her. The few calls I have had have very quickly ended in "can I go now" like I'm making her speak to me! Today she switches from Mum and Dads to a night or two with Kerrie - not sure who is more excited! Izzy didn't want to be away for that long so she opted not to go. She's very conscious that Abi and Laurie are joined at the hip when together and Ben has his own things he wants to do so she ...

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...