Bank holiday blues

It must be a bank holiday - it's been tipping down most of the weekend! To give the weather some credit, Friday was absolutely lovely - beautiful sunshine and the first signs of being able to throw open the doors and live a bit more freely. Before we could even begin to appreciate it though, the heavens opened and the rains came, and it's been torrential since. Much as the sunshine is great, and I'd far rather have it dry than not, I wouldn't swap Britain for anything. There's something about walking in the rain or just afterwards that's completely invigorating. Both yesterday and today I've taken the dogs out in bright sunshine glistening on still wet roads and paths with everything sparkling and clean - it's mornings like that that make me appreciate why being a morning person is so special. This evening Abi and I walked in a window of dry weather, with the clouds gathering darkly for another go round. Facing toward home was still bright but behind us it was black and thundery - very atmospheric but a good incentive to get home quickly!

This week we made the decision to have Scooby's lump operated on. We know it's cancerous and it's been getting bigger, so much so that we were all worried it would get knocked and cause him problems. On a routine visit to the vets they said they thought they could take most of it out without too much trouble so we decided it was the right thing to do. Luckily it coincided with Abi having a school trip - something to take her mind off her best friend (along with Bertie) going under the knife. I promised to text her teacher at lunchtime to let them know how it had gone. Izzy was less concerned - she trusts us that we've made the right decision and doesn't angst in the same way as Abi. Thankfully it all went really well and 4 days later he's just frustrated with us as he's not supposed to be running around so we've had him on a lead. How on earth is he supposed to keep an eye on his baby (Bertie) when we have him on a lead?! Not impressed!

Today is Easter Sunday and despite not observing any hint of religion, I am expected to do Easter egg hunts. I started a tradition a few years ago of making up clues for the hunt and this is now an expected part of the day. We don't generally bother with big eggs but instead lots of little ones. In fact, Izzy this year has declared she doesn't do anything but white chocolate so she had a mix of this and haribo. Abi is less fussy and will eat any chocolate you give her, as long as it's not dark (my favourite). So breakfast this morning was an Easter egg hunt, chocolate and haribo - parenting only gets worse on Christmas Day!

Easter also marks the end of the term - that's come round so quickly! Both girls maintained good effort awards, although it seems Izzy has developed a phobia for times table tests. Despite being completely competent at home, when she comes to the school test she goes to pieces, so much so that on one test she scored 1/24! When I sat down with her it's clear she's got it into her head that she can't do it so we are going to have do some remedial confidence building work over the Easter holidays. We feel partly to blame as well - because Abi needed some extra help from the outset, we worked hard with her. Izzy was good to start with so I think we just assumed it was all still OK. Live and learn, and it's early days so not too late to get sorted. I still can't believe they've only done 2 terms - they are so settled and even the teachers say they can't remember a time they weren't there.

This holiday I've done less planning than normal. The girls are happy now hanging out in the house, listening to music and playing with friends or each other. We've reached that wonderful stage where they do still want to be with us, yet are easy to have around. We noticed in the morning they will wake and instead of immediately crashing into our room they will lie in bed reading. Yesterday Izzy read for an hour before getting up! I remember that lovely feeling of reading in bed in the morning, something I so rarely do these days (probably once a year). I am genuinely delighted they are developing a love of reading for themselves - something that should last a lifetime.