Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

No time to say anything other than happy new year as we head into 2018 on the back of a whirlwind of socialising. More tomorrow, if my head allows it! G&T anyone?

Yea!!!! We managed to have a fab Christmas day!!! At last, after years of trying to be conventional and stick to the Christmas Day rules, our plans of a chilled out morning, motorbikes on Salisbury Plain followed by ham, eggs and chips for tea worked a treat - we all had a lovely day. The day didn't start as well as planned - we woke to find the boiler had blown out and wouldn't relight. Typical - keep it serviced and maintained and it goes offline on Christmas Day - what are the chances of that happening?!? We managed to get hold of our normal boiler man only to find he was away until the 30th - eek! It wasn't exactly cold but even so, we didn't want to huddle in one room with no hot water. Luckily he recommended someone in the village who was happy to come out. 45 minutes later, £104 and 3 bottles of wine lighter we were all fixed and back on track. We all agreed it was by far the best way to do Christmas - finally a recipe for us all! The rest of my Christmas...

It’s a strange feeling to have the house empty of both dogs and children. We are off to London tomorrow for my Christmas treat of Rick Astley at the KoKo Club in Camden and so we left the girls in Taunton and came home alone. Given we had been away we’d also outsourced the dogs to their normal holiday home and so it was very weird this morning to wake up without hearing expectant tails downstairs, weird and a bit disappointing for me. It was such a beautiful morning that I went for a walk anyway but it’s not the same without my mad, bad dogs to keep me company. Once I got back we did have a very nice, relaxing hour or so sitting drinking tea in the kitchen, chatting about the day and generally not getting going too fast! Since then we’ve chopped logs, sorted the house, done about 10 loads of washing (where did it all come from??), visited friends and then wrapped all the Christmas presents - not a bad day. Prior to all this peace we had the last day of term and then a wonderful cou...

It's no wonder that time seems to fly by so quickly when you have to make various decisions so early. We are mid-way through a day of school visits with Abi. This is for a school she wont start until 2020 - that's ages away!! I know its important to plan ahead, but it feels very hard to look at a school and make an assessment as to whether it will suit in 3 years. That said, we chose our schools on the basis of reputation and recommendation and I think its been a useful process. The first, LWC, we went to alone knowing that location meant it was on the long list only. Unfortunately it was lovely and as both the kids will probably have friends going there, seemed like it would be feasible. The more I thought about it though the more I worried. It would mean they would have to board and what if that's not for them? More to the point, what if its not for me?!?! We re-considered, removed another one from our list because it was the same distance in the opposite direction, ...

Blimey, it’s December already and so we head into silly season where everything needs to suddenly be completed before Christmas and every night is party night. I could do without both. We seem to have no one available at work to do anything and I’ve got a whole bunch of things that need doing. The last thing I need to add to that stress is a whole bunch of work drinks. Particularly when I have to factor in a 2 hour commute home which is bearable only because I’m not trying to do it after 3 glasses of wine at 9pm. Oh and the fact that if I do have a drink, poor Glenn then needs to pick me up as there are no taxis from my station. On the plus side there are school events to save me from some of this. Luckily for us, both the London and Thames Valley Christmas parties coincided with Abi’s school play - hooray for fortunate diary clashes! It meant I could make an acceptable excuse and not have to drag Glenn to a festively decorated tent to make polite conversation to someone he doesn’t k...

I definitely feel like we tipped the kids into bed tonight with no hope of them waking up feeling refreshed and ready for the week ahead - they are shattered after a very busy weekend. I really should have made more effort to try and balance things out, but this weekend was always destined to be a busy one and then an inevitable sleepover each got added in at the last moment and it’s a lost cause. Poor Izzy had a Laser Tag party to top it off at 5:30 this evening - whoever thought that would be a good thing on a Sunday night in winter??? Yesterday morning Abi was dropped off after her sleepover - no doubt in the hope she could settle down for some iPad and dog cuddle time - when I made it quite clear that our main task was to get passport photos sorted for them both. Cue meltdown and “I’m not coming, I don’t need a passport and I don’t want to go skiing anyway...” I made it quite clear that this would also mean no France to which I got a bit more traction but not much. Of ...

Just a quick post to say something for posterity rather than to write about the week. Today our little baby turned 11 - so grown up! As we feel asleep last night Glenn commented on how quickly we’ve got to this point - was it only 11 years ago we embarked on this amazing journey with our funny, special, determined, independent little girl? Seems like forever and no time at all. After a lovely day (I had the day off) I picked up the kids from school with one of Abi’s friends Freya and we went to Izzy’s friend Amber’s to play with the Shetland ponies before going for pizza. The kids were shattered when we got back so headed straight for bed. About half an hour later abi called me and said she’d like to read me the poem she’d just written about the journey home. Here it is - I love it: Bright lights, bright lights Racing through the bulb Bright lights, bright lights Pushing out the darkness Bright lights, bright lights Oozing through the headlights Seeping into view Bright l...

So after last weekend being mainly about Abi, this one was all about Izzy. Glenn dropped Abi off at Angie's for the weekend for her birthday hunt day and so we had the peace of a one child family until lunchtime today - so much more harmonious than 2 children in the house! What this actually means is that Izzy has control of the dog bed in the study instead of Abi for once. Given we have created all manner of special places to sit and relax in our house, the fact that they fight (all 4 of them in fact) over who gets 'top dog' priority on these 2 bloody cushions is beyond me! Even Bertie and Freya growl and bicker sometimes if one of them is sprawled across the cushions and the other doesn't fit - its ridiculous! Friday was a day off for me and it was the perfect day - I dropped the kids off to school after the normal routine of school breakfast and then chatted to Mum for an uninterrupted hour (no such luck normally on the weekend with 2 kids wanting to intervene), ...

Where is my little baby going - only a few days and Abi will be 11 - eek! This weekend Izzy had a party to go to at a friend who's parents are the caretakers of an amazing local estate which has all kinds of treasures to explore. They went ice skating first followed by an afternoon in the 'arcade' - a full size video game arcade with table hockey, zorbs and table football - before tea in the 'small hall' which is in fact an enormous and beautiful garden room with a table that seats 40... This party understandably needed to last quite a while given all that it entailed and so Abi cooked up a treat for her as well. On Saturday morning we dropped Glenn and George at the station for the rugby train, Izzy at Amber's for the party and then Abi and I set off on a day out for just the two of us.  Due to Abi being away more than Izzy for riding, its less frequent that I have time with just Abi so it was great to know we had the whole day ahead. She had it all mapped ...

Blink and yet another week is gone, and what a lovely week it’s been. We have had amazing weather and I’m so pleased we didn’t do what so many others did and head for some sun - I’d take a sunny english autumn day over one from further afield any week. The highlight of the week for the girls was their loan ponies which they have been very excited about. The deal is 3 days over the week where you can go to the stables and basically pretend that the pony is yours, including the need to do all the  grubby jobs as well as the nice ones. There was a bit of debate as to who they would choose. Abi was quite clear, either Jethro or Henry. Izzy on the other hand wanted Phoebe but was a bit worried about her being a bit feisty for her. Regardless this is who she went for. I was keen to have 2 ponies that worked well together irrespective of shape or size! The riding started well. We had to poo-pick first then they could get their ponies in and start grooming. We had agreed we would...

So after a week of being away Abi is home again and it appears that the person that missed her most is Izzy! Despite showing no real sign that this was the case, when she walked back through the door Izzy could barely stop herself from throwing her arms around her sister and giving her an enormous hug.  Abi pretended not to be pleased but secretly you could tell she was happy to see Izzy as well. This time Glenn picked her up and it was a marked improvement. Abi made the point to me "Have you not noticed what a good mood I'm in?" When I said that I had indeed noticed, she responded with "Daddy picking me up is so much better - he doesn't bombard me with questions"! Guess that's me told then! I did say that I only do this to show that I'm interested in her week and that I've missed her, to which I got "I know you're interested and I know you've missed me... you don't need to make a thing of it"! Oh so wise at such a young...

This weekend we have mainly been enjoying the fact that I had a whole 4 days off and we therefore managed to squeeze a trip to Somerset AND a trip to see Simon & Sharron in their (now not so new) house - perfect. We made good time back and settled down in front of the fire with SCD and a bit of Horseopoly, ably assisted by Freya! Yesterday's whistle stop tour to Somerset was as lovely as ever. It was just Izzy and I and we managed to get down in good time for lunch before heading up to the Quantocks to blow out some cobwebs. We parked in Dead Women's Ditch and then went down towards Lady's Coombe and then back up to the top to make the most of the views. Izzy was fuelled on sugar for the first part but then wilted briefly when she realised I was being truthful when I said I hadn't brought the whole packet, just the ones she had in her pocket! She soon perked back up again and raced Ben up the hill to jump in the most enormous puddles together. This the same bo...

So after a week of anticipation both Izzy and I lined up for our first cyclo cross races today! I will admit that I spent most of hers with my heart in my mouth cheering her on and trying not to burst into tears - what is it with kids and emotions?! I was so proud of her for lining  up so bravely with almost 80 other kids and then taking her time around what was a twisty little course. When my time came I was cursing Glenn for suggesting I do this. My course (unlike last weeks) was all either up or down wooded single track - his perfect course and my worst nightmare! Typically he has pulled his back so he wasn't even riding it! I did my warm up sighting lap and would have happily pulled out at that point, not least given the almighty crash I'd seen in Izzy's race. However I lined up with the other novices, behind the youth race and off we went. After the first lap I realised my biggest chance of coming off was going too slowly around the corners and I got going properly ...

Hooray for Sunday nights now that I don’t always have to go to work on a Monday- what a difference that makes! This week just gone was a full on 5 day week and it felt like it by Friday. Not only did I have to work on Monday to do a client pitch (which we lost), but I also had to be in London on Friday for an all-afternoon quality meeting. Who on earth thinks that they will get everyone's attention on what is really a relatively dry subject at that point in the week? As if that wasn’t bad enough, the session was led by a Latvian partner from our global team (generally considered to be a team of very well paid but possibly not always vital partners). He started  from an assumption that we could barely spell quality let alone understand its importance, so when he was still on the title slide after nearly an hour and a half the whole room (all senior partners) he was on a losing wicket. Luckily he had enough sense to finish still before the scheduled time which was the high post of ...

So now Izzy and Glenn are feeling better, Freya is feeling poorly - is there no end to it? Poor girl has obviously eaten something which she shouldn't have and has been having accidents in the house since Thursday morning. We've had to resort to putting her back in the crate overnight which has mostly contained it (either encouraging her to wait or at least containing any damage to one place), but she's clearly feeling a bit sorry for herself. Not even Bertie's encouragements to play have been responded to. I think she's on the mend however as this afternoon he lay down next to her and she tried to chew his leg (in a friendly way) - a sign she's feeling better I hope. This weekend has been a quiet one, dominated by partial mishaps. I took the kids up to the riding stables on Friday evening, somewhat later than normal and slightly against my better judgement - it being the end of the week, 2 tired kids etc. etc. We set off as normal and headed from the road i...

We are officially in quarantine with both Glenn and Izzy having come down with the lurgy. Poor Izzy has taken to her bed, Glenn is lying on the sofa wrapped up in a blanket and Abi and I are left to be sympathetic to all. Abi isn't even trying and I'm having to bite my tongue  because when I had what I think was the same thing in the week I didn't have time to stop and think about it so it only lasted 12 hours... We went to bed last night commenting on the fact that Izzy was clearly not well and had just quietly gone to bed with minimal fuss after a dose of calpol. This was obviously the calm before the storm as at about 1am she came in to us in tears feeling like a little volcano. Luckily for me she was keen to tuck up beside me for the kind of solace you only get from your Mum at times like these. I of course like nothing more than a hot 9 year old pressed up against me to make for a restful night's sleep and so Glenn went off in search of another bed and I tried ...

 If we can still walk together liked we walked this afternoon when Abi is 14 then I will be happy. I had such a lovely walk yesterday that Abi was keen to join me today and so off we went up onto Wayfarers territory where the skies are big and the pheasants plentiful. Despite telling me I was a rubbish mother only hours earlier (I hadn't immediately conceded to her demands to judge her show while I was midway through the washing up), all our cares were blown away by the stunning landscape, total lack of anybody else around and wide open fields of corn stubble to walk through. The dogs had an absolute blast chasing as many birds as they could, as fast as they could. Luckily they are completely scatterbrained about it and didn't mange to get even close but it certainly tired them out, they had to crash into the cool grass afterwards and they're currently snoring loudly on their cushions, what more could they want? While the dogs roared around Abi told me about school, abo...

As expected back to school has resulted in the world speeding up again and so I missed writing the blog last weekend. Who knows what got in the way - I think I was dashing around getting sorted for Monday when I needed to be up early, on calls and then out of the door for an overnight work thing in some old peoples home in Kent. Clearly once upon a time the hotel we were in had been a very grand house. Now it's more faded grandeur with many staircases and freezing cold or boiling hot rooms. The meeting room we had on the Monday afternoon was in what used to be a nun's bedroom and it was brassic - thick walls and small windows have their place but in a listed building it doesn't make for easy heating! On the plus side the grounds were lovely and I found time to get out for a run so its not all bad. The rest of the week I think was ok - work is an odd place at the moment but where isn't. It seems everyone I talk to who works for a large organisation is suffering in so...

Back to work and back to school - hey ho, where has the summer gone? While Glenn can't wait for peace and tranquillity to be resumed, I'm feeling a bit more reserved about the idea of going back to the rat-race. The last few nights I haven't slept as well as normal, not struggling to fall asleep but waking up in the middle of the night having had dreams that could be attributed to work worries. Alternatively it could simply be that I haven't had enough to do and so my brain is going off on its own little journeys - who knows. I do know that once I get back into it, it will be fine, it always is, but for the moment I'm not looking forward to the pace of life speeding up as of tomorrow morning. The good news is that as of this week I start my 4 day week so that's something to look forward to. I always knew I'd have to be a bit flexible on having a regular Monday off, particularly in the start as I get my diary sorted around meetings which have been in for a ...

What a treat to come home from a lovely few days and for it only to be Wednesday and therefore to have half the week still to go with a bank holiday to look forward to as well! Having got home late afternoon we settled in and unpacked and I got to take the dogs out as well - happy to be back with my babies. Glenn was off to a funeral on Friday and then had his London to Paris 24 hour bike ride to do over the weekend, so with Abi still away, Izzy had the bright idea of seeing whether we could take one of the riding school ponies out for a hack. We were allowed to so off we went to spend a very happy couple of hours pretending this was her own pony - in your dreams! Saturday was a round of pick ups and drops offs before Sharron arrived for a well overdue catch up. I had to drop Izzy at the stables, drive to Cranborne Chase to pick up a tired, smelly but not too disillusioned Abi before driving back, dropping her at the house for a huge dog love-in. I then headed back to the stab...

With Abi safely off to Angie's for the week Izzy and I headed off to North Devon for our getaway. We braved the A303 on a Sat morning in August (foolish people!) and after we'd sat at Stonehenge for the obligatory hour or so we motored smoothly down the rest of the way, stopping in Taunton for a break. We had lunch at Mum & Dad's before heading off to see the tail end of Laurie's riding lesson and to meet Amanda's new horse. Despite Amanda trying to persuade us to stay down for dinner we managed to extract ourselves and reached our destination at Northway on the coast just after 7pm. We settled in nicely making the most of the peace and quiet before Zsara and Aran tuned up the following day. In the morning I left Izzy in bed and went for a stunning walk along the coastal path - something I repeated every day we were there and it was a fab way to wake up - amazing scenery on the doorstep. This was followed by Izzy heading out with the owner Bob to feed his...