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All change

It's been a busy few weeks since half term and I've completely failed to put pen to paper on the blog - a sure sign that too much is going on. What's new?! The week after we got back from France was a whirlwind of activity, with me being in Switzerland for the first part of the week and then London for the rest, so Sunday evening disappeared in a pitch prep session in a restaurant on Oxford Street. Last Sunday I was recovering from Velo Wales which should have been a relatively straight forward 85 mile closed road bike ride. Instead it turned into one of the worst rides I think I've ever done. I had horrible stomach pains for the last 35 miles, so bad that for the first time ever I pulled over, rand Glenn and burst into tears. He (quite reasonably) pointed out that with closed roads he would be hard pushed to come and get me, but would try. I put the phone down, pulled myself together and limped in to the finish line feeling very sorry for myself. I think on reflection it was mostly psychosomatic. There was no food at any of the stops and I talked myself into the fact that I was going to feel dreadful because of this and sure enough so I did. Lesson learned - take more food in case this happens and recognise that actually I did get round on less than I'd liked so I can do it next time. Still learning, even at my age.


While we've been on fast forward, the girls are rolling up to the end of their time at St Gabriel's with mixed feelings. Both girls are now very excited about Thorngrove and the new friends they have already made. They will however miss the very good friends they have made at St Gabs. We can't wait. We haven't said it to Abi and Izzy but we have given up and can't wait for school to finish. Year 3 is still hit and miss. Abi's teacher is part time which seems to mean that homework allocation is equally part time. I can't remember the last time she came home with a reading book and the homework she does get seems to be history - we know more about Anglo Saxons than I ever needed to and I'm looking forward to ringing the changes. The school have still not tried to speak to us - I guess we've all given up now. This week was moving up day and so we set off on Tuesday morning for Abi and Izzy to see their new classrooms, meet their teacher and new class mates. Abi, having made her decisions at the taster day, skipped into class without a backward glance - very unlike her. Izzy, normally so confident, crumpled, burst into tears and clung to me sobbing her heart out. I felt awful as she quickly got to that great big sob stage where you can hardly catch your breath. Luckily it was short lived and since then all I've heard is "Mummy, can't we go to Thorngrove today?" I think it all started when she realised she had left her school shoes at St Gabs and she didn't want to be the odd one out. My tears nearly started again later when we did the uniform shop, leaving £500 lighter with some things still to get - ouch!


So while it's all change here, every day is pretty much the same for the dogs. They currently spend as much time as they can in the garden, playing tag with an orange toy. They did also have a soft toy called Mr Fox, but he met an untimely end when tag became tug of war and he was decapitated and strewn across the lawn. Bertie is now King of Tag and poor Scooby chases him around until he gets too hot and has to sit in the shade. Bertie isn't stupid, he lets him have the toy just often enough to keep him interested. Bertie is definitely improving behaviour wise, albeit he has his moments which are all too frequent for my liking.  He has just about learnt not to pull on the lead, as long as there is nothing too interesting around. He still jumps up when he shouldn't, and while he will disappear off if he sees someone in the distance, he will now come back - eventually! I'm sure the improvement will continue if we haven't shouted ourselves hoarse by then!


So 2 more weeks and then the long holiday. I think we are sorted with the kid's plans - having thought it all through months ago I then did nothing about it so today was a rush of trying to get everything into place so Glenn doesn't find himself with 3 weeks straight amusing small ones. Not sure that would make for happy families!





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