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Admin nightmare!




It's been one of those evenings where we realised too late that we hadn't got our act together on the school admin on Friday night. Cue much frustration and last minute washing...

Abi had been selected for the local schools Under 11s Netball tournament and so of course we thought (she thought) it would be sensible to tie that into having 2 friends for a sleepover "so their Mums didn't have to get up early the following day". This meant a chaotic houseful after school, added to by Izzy going to Tavie's straight from school so they could go to gym club together. Glenn picked her up at 6:30pm and forgot to get her stuff out of the car... and so it is that he's doing the ironing now at nearly 10pm. When do the kids start to think about this for themselves??

The rest of the weekend has been pretty relaxed. The tournament was actually quite good fun - basically a reunion of people we know from St Gabriel's, swimming lessons and the village. The kids made the most of the parents catching up and moved through the assorted snacks and treats like a herd of locusts - goodness knows how any of them managed to run round the Netball Court! Izzy (not playing) admitted afterwards that she had consumed 2 big cookies, 2 doughnuts, 2 cheese strings and assorted sweets - all before lunchtime and after a bacon roll for breakfast. Needless to say she wasn't interested in lunch. The girls played really well with Thorngrove A (Year 6) picking up the overall Challenge Trophy and Thorngrove B (Year 5) getting into the play offs for the runners up plate. Despite hanging around until the end Abi then decided she wanted to go home with Emma and so Izzy and I headed home alone to do some glass making.

In amongst all of this I noticed a couple of missed calls from Glenn and rang him back to find he was stranded up at Faccombe having had 3 punctures in quick succession - he'd only managed about 5 miles! He was cold and feeling miserable, unsurprisingly, so I had to dash off to get him, leaving the girls at the Tournament. Not getting his ride in didn't help his mood much so we packed him off again on a different bike to try and help matters - it did the trick - the wonders of exercise.

Today was my turn and I went off this morning for my weekly long run. I've been doing ok on the running front recently. Without really trying I've managed to knock out a 2-2.5 hour run every weekend for the last 3. I think that the combination of not doing it in preparation for some big event, and giving myself permission to walk the hills has made all the difference and I'm actually enjoying the longer length - even if after 12 miles the idea of a cup of coffee starts to get really good! I didn 14 today and felt great afterwards. I'd say that I've had quite a chilled day but looking at my step counter it would tell a different story - 55,000 steps today - it soon adds up!

So after a really hectic week last week - 4 days on the trot in London with some difficult meetings, this week is looking a bit better, not least I'm in Reading tomorrow morning which is always a better start to the week. I can't believe we only have 2 weeks left and then the kids are on holiday again - how can that be?! I'm looking forward to Easter - the balance of a secondment to Burberry on top of all the normal parts of my job are adding up and I feel slightly out of control with work which isn't a good feeling. I'm looking forward to Easter weekend when the secondment comes to an end and I can start to refocus. I'll miss being there - I've really enjoyed it - but I will enjoy having some time back. No doubt it will be snaffled up by something else almost immediately but I'm hoping for a small window of sanity in between! So Easter, Yorkshire, New York and then we will be looking forward to France again. That's the problem with my birthday passing - its the point in the year where the FF button officially gets pressed!

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