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Happy Birthday Abi!

Where on earth is this year going? Suddenly it's a month until Christmas, the kids have less than 3 weeks left at school and I'm starting to panic that having got this new job I'll be a bit rubbish at it and why did they think I'd be any good anyway?!


Luckily this last one I know is just me having a perfectly normal crisis of confidence - everybody I work with now has said how much they'll miss me and that I will be fab in my new role so I should take confidence in that. It's been so long since I've had to actually work a notice period that I'd forgotten that the more time between accepting and starting there is, the more scope for doubt to creep in. It helps that pretty much every day something happens at work to remind me why I made this decision in the first place - lucky me I only have to endure 3 months not 12!  Thursday was a really long day for me - on the train at 7am and then a full day followed by a retirement do which meant I didn't get home until gone midnight. The good news is that I suspect there will be very little in the way of evening events in my new job - the Group HRD said she doesn't even know how people can spare time for consultant lunches let alone anything else - sounds perfect to me!


This week was obviously Abi's birthday and as is often the way she spent the vast majority of it in school. At least this prepares them both for later life when having a birthday doesn't mean you're special, it just means you get to do everything you would normally do with cake thrown in if you are lucky. She set off for the day with trays full of cupcakes, loads more I'm sure than needed for her class but apparently "just enough to go around". As it was a Wednesday they had hockey matches and I promised to pick them up as soon as they were done and take them to Pizza Express. Before we had even started to get ready (it's beginning to be a thing that they take much longer than we do), we got a call from one of Abi's friend's Mum to say they were stuck on trains / in traffic and could we have Emma for a few hours. This worked perfectly as we just added one to the number and Abi got to take a friend out for her meal as well. As a special treat (for us rather than them), I rang the restaurant and asked if we could have 2 tables - one for them and one for Glenn and I. When we got there they seated us quite close together, so after a few minutes Izzy was nominated to go and ask if they could sit a bit further away - I think we were cramping their style! It was lovely to watch them ordering their food, chatting and laughing and behaving brilliantly. When 3 ladies sitting nearby worked out we were the parents the commented on how lovely they were - if only it were the case all of the time!


This weekend has been the normal round of working out who is supposed to be where and when. Izzy went off to Jo's on Saturday afternoon for a sleepover - 10 years down the line and she still loves seeing them just as much, while Abi had a friend over for the afternoon and I was (as normal) expected to ferry them into Newbury for a few hours of browsing the shops and drinking overpriced / oversweet Costa milkshakes. If there was ever a reason now not to move it would be this - I can see this being a thing for many years to come yet - and clearly it will be an expectation on me not Glenn. Apparently despite being "much better than me at everything" he is excused from this activity - I knew I had my purpose!

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