Skip to main content

Whirlwind travels

Room with a view - a return trip to SA is def on the cards!
The last 2 weeks have passed in a blur as I have kicked off the start of a series of work travels to try and get to see the Group in action and our business first hand. Last Sunday was a busy day, with a Yoga workshop in London in the morning (more on this in a minute) and home before heading off to Heathrow to catch a flight to South Africa. This all following a busy week at work - there really is quite a lot going on at the moment!

So, first a lovely day off mid week and a chance to meet Amanada and the boys at Cribs Causeway. What is great is we can now arm them with some cash and send them off for a few hours together while we had a relaxing cup of coffee and an uninterrupted mooch around John Lewis (still a pleasure) on our own - bliss. We then all came back together for lunch before the kids made the obvious suggestion that the girls should go back to Taunton for a few days rather than coming home. All great, except for I wish they would decide this before we head out the door and so not leaving us with the dilemma of "Yes, but your clothes are 60 miles in the wrong direction!" Glenn was given the choice of taking clothes to them or having them at home for another 2 days so decision clear - he ran down a bag of clothes for them and that was the last we saw of them for a few days!

By all accounts they had a fab time - even Izzy made it out of bed every morning to walk dogs and help Amanda with the horses - was this really my child?!? On Saturday I then went to Mum and Dad's to collect them which is easier than going to Taunton (sort off - does mean the A303 on a Saturday), with the added the advantage of seeing Mum and Dad of course. 

Sunday was up early to go to London and a Forrest Yoga workshop. Despite the fact that I wouldn't normally want to do a Sunday in London, this was a chance to attend a workshop delivered by the person that invented to yoga I have come to love and so too good an opportunity to miss. Unfortunately with my very full brain and general absence of navigational skills, I should never have been left in charge of booking a parking space. Somehow I had got it into my heads that we needed to be at the Oval (large cricket ground) when instead we should have been at Lords (another large cricket ground, easy mistake to make)... Ash and I parked up, congratulating ourselves on how much time we had to spare, only to realise our mistake (after we'd kicked back over a cup of coffee) - arghhhhh! We then had to hot foot it across London to the proper venue, arriving 30 mins late and more than a little stressed., In the end it was no bad thing as that was the highlight of the day - the yoga was a bit strange, nowhere near as good as our local class, and so we laughed it off and chalked it up to a lovely day with a bit of yoga thrown in!

From this it was back, frantic pack and then off to LHR to fly overnight to SA. The trip was a whirlwind of seeing people, our regional head office and the business and it was brilliant - just what I needed to more fully understand some of the challenges of embedding processes at the frontline of our services. SA itself is beautiful and I've promised myself I will go back with more time to actually see the country, albeit not just yet given I have a number of other trips coming up to do before I think of return visits.

Before I'd even scratched the surface I was on my way home to a lovely long Easter weekend. I'd made sure we had limited plans and thank goodness - it's been just what I need to relax a bit in what 
has been a scorcher of a long weekend. The weather is perfect - sunny days and warm evenings - it feels like mid summer rather than Easter! On Friday we headed over to Simon and Audrey's for lunch and the kids made the most of the pool, with Izzy perfecting her back flips and Abi perfecting her "Even in the pool I don't smile for the camera!" That is of course unless she is photo bombing her sisters back flip photos!

So it's Sunday evening, we still have another day of sunshine before a short week at work and only 2 days in London. More importantly (as far as Glenn is concerned) it's back to school after what feels like a very long Easter holiday. It's Izzy's birthday week as well - always lot's going on. All this said life may be busy but I'm making the most of the opportunities and I'm loving it all - long may it continue. 




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