Skip to main content

August hols - week 1, part 2


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 stables only to have Izzy say "not yet, later please" so back home and then back up again to finally extract her at 3.30pm. By the time I'd done all of this Abi's supposedly good mood had crashed and she had taken herself to her room where she wasn't speaking to anyone and certainly not me! It was definitely my fault she felt like this - I quote when I asked her how it makes me feel when she comes home in this mood after a week away: "well how do you think you make me feel Mummy... you obviously don't love me or you'd let me stay there...!"

Luckily her good humour started to be restored in the morning after a decent night's sleep and a big breakfast and by today she's back to her normal self - helped by the offer of another morning at the stables where she and Izzy this time got to pretend they owned the whole yard as we were the only people there. We had another lovely ride, the only downside of which is that they want to do it every day... will be cheaper to buy our own ponies at this rate!

It's been absolutely lovely having a week at home and we've had the most amazing bank holiday weather - wall to wall sunshine and 25 plus degrees - very uncharacteristic for an August BH! We even managed to sneak in an evening with the neighbours cooking home made pizzas in their outdoor pizza over.

This evening Glenn arrived back after a successful if slower than normal bike ride. They had easily done the 175 miles from London to Paris, only marred by the fact that they had to ride as a group and Simon broke his bike before they left the UK - 10 hours 40 minutes of cycling over 22 hours - not his preferred speed! He was a tad grumpy at the time but pleased to have ticked another challenge off the list when it was done. The kids were very excited to have him home and spent all afternoon planning a restaurant style meal of home made burger and chips with all the trimming. Abi looked up a Jamie Oliver recipe and made the burgers herself with a super sized one for Daddy after his ride. They tasted great and he was very chuffed with all the attention, even if he was expected to eat the moment he walked through the door!




Comments

Post a Comment

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Decluttering

Girls buying baby clothes - this could get addictive! It's Easter weekend already and we still haven't completed!! However we have made some progress, most importantly with the paperwork which has not been Steve the Builder's forte throughout this process. Stags finally got their act together and got in touch with the planning office and got an update from the Planning Officer. Apparently she is broadly happy with the application, and is prepared to pass it with only a few minor modifications which we are completely comfortable with. The Building Control Officer also came and did all of what he needed to, which means the final certificate should be issued which allows the warranty to also be issued. On our side we finally tracked down the paperwork (or more correctly got the BC Officer to come out again and do a second assessment) for the outstanding BCC on our windows (which went in 6 years ago but due to an admin error were never registered) - nothing is straightforward i...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more