Skip to main content

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.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...