Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Home made dog food!  I should probably rename the blog to "Betty and Doug, the glory years" because its fair to say I have more stories and photos involving them than I do of any other member of the family. No matter how many times I try and take photos of the kids, they evade me, and despite them taking 100s of selfies everyday, I'm not allowed any of them. This weekend we have mainly been rushing around as ever. Yesterday we split up and Glenn and Izzy went one way for a day on the bikes, while Abi and I went to Newbury to meet Zsara and Aran. The grand plan was to go by train but it was cancelled at the last moment, which meant we had to suffer the range anxiety of an electric vehicle and take the Jag. It's a fab car o drive but it comes to something when you can't get to Newbury and back without having to plan in a 30min stop to recharge. No matter, it worked quite well and we stopped at Tot Hill services (after a false start in Andover) and had coffee while l

I was sure I write the blog last week.... but, it seems another 2 weeks have flown by and now we are staring down the barrel of the Christmas holidays and the end of the year! Currently it's all about Doug and what a star he has proved to be so far. He has now been with us for 3 weeks and he is (so far, I keep thinking at some point it will change) a pretty chilled out puppy. As a second dog he has been thrown in at the deep end and has been to Sunday lunch with Alan & Sarah (which he loved), socialised at home with friends and their dogs, met babies (he loved Elsie) and started to go for walks. The walking has been a bit different to our previous approaches with new dogs. In the past we have ventured out carefully, making sure that our new baby only walks a short distance so they can experience all the new sights and sounds. Doug's first walk was after Sunday lunch last week, just him and 8 other dogs for bout 45 mins - he loved it! In our defence we didn't let him wal

Betty and friends OK, no idea what have happened to the last few Sundays (which is when I normally sit down to write this). As ever the weekend gets away from me and then I find myself on a Sunday evening catching up and just lose all sense of time and it's bedtime before I know it. I tell myself that it's OK and I will manage to catch up on writing it during the week, but that never happens - its Sunday or bust.  It might also be that we have had a LOT going on over the past few weeks. It really has been a time of sad losses and new additions. So, where to start? Firstly, and sadly so soon after losing Bertie, we lost our lovable piggie Bean. He was the most outgoing of the two, always squeaking as you passed the hutch to remind you that it might be a good time to feed him, (regardless of the time), so it was very noticeable. Abi had noticed he was looking off colour and we took him to the vets, only for them to confirm he had a tumour in his abdomen. We took him home and made

Let me in! This week I feel like we have made some progress on the house, albeit nothing ever seems to progress rapidly, and there's always a drama if it has anything to do with the muppet developer. I've been chasing him for a couple of weeks after he failed to turn up to do the replacement guttering, despite all the usual promises. After multiple texts and voicemails I finally switched to the nuclear option and sent him a text message to say if I didn't hear from him then I would have no choice but to contact his mother again. It is ludicrous that I find myself threatening a 47 year old man with a call to his parents, but this is the way he rolls it seems. Sure enough, about 30 secs after the message showed as read, I get a message back to say he is coming Thursday and that he'd already told me this! Utter rubbish of course, not least it is hardly a  coincidence that it tied in to the threat of a parental phone call - he is such a child. All this was after some excuse

So after all the emotion of the past few weeks it feels like this week has brought some peace. It's been half term and while I worked all week, the girls have been variously doing the things they love interspersed with some healthy down time. Izzy managed to get out on her bike for a day's off-roading, as well as heading off to Bristol with her friend Keira - scarier for me than her it seems! Abi of course has spent most of the week at the stables, making the most of the last days of having daylight before we get to the dark days of winter. We have had a number of biblical storms this week and so it's been nice to get out while the sun has been shining. Somerset is a county of big skies so as soon as the weather clears it's always magical - and to think it took us this long to find our way back here! Betty has been continuing to make new friends, and on Saturday I took her and her best friend Rufus out on my own for a walk. The original plan had been to take them early

Best of friends, right to the end Ahhh, where to start? How to share the last few weeks where I haven't had the energy to post as there has been so much happening, but so few words needed to say how we all feel. I try and post on a Sunday, otherwise the week gets away from me, but I missed this and by the time I had the chance to put pen to paper on what I might have said, our world had turned upside down and all of that seemed irrelevant.  2 weeks ago we started normally - I walked and fed the dogs and then set off for London. We'd had a lovely afternoon the day before - over at Mum and Dad's with Amanda and family. The weather was glorious and so we all sat outside while the dogs bombed around - all 6 of them - while we had tea and cake and chatted. Laurie was feeling a bit under the weather and the girls were joking he had Corona, even though he had tested negative beforehand. Turns out they were bang on the mark as on Monday he tested positive, as did Amanda. They phone

Trapped inside so just having a  look outside via the windowsill I can't start every blog banging on about how busy things are, so this week I'm going to try and focus on something different.  This weekend we have mainly been trying to keep our hooligan pupster calm as she was spayed n Wednesday and apparently needs to send 10 days (10 days!!!!) "going for short lead walks, not running or jumping and resting as much as possible".... Hmmm. so, how are we doing? Not that well! We brought her home on Wednesday evening and to start with it was heart-breaking, She was still very dozy from the anaesthetic but refused to just lie down and sleep it off. We might have known at this point it would be difficult. The only place she would settle was outside on the lawn so I ended up getting a blanket and sitting with her outside despite it being cold and looking like rain.  Once I finally got her inside (I had to carry her), she then swayed about until she fell over. I managed to

I think at this rate I'm going to have to accept that if I manage to get to the blog every other week I will be doing well. Ever since we came back to Somerset life has been so full, but in such a good way that I just can't complain. Let's face it - having a horse doesn't help - it is such a time sucker. She makes Abi so happy though that I wouldn't change it.  Given all this busyness I made the executive decision this week to more some of the holiday around that I'd booked here and there and take a whole week off around half term. The girls have got the Thursday and Friday followed by a full week, and so I have taken the luxury of having the week off before their full week so we will get 2 days together, but I get 3 days to myself!! I already have about 70 things I want to do so fingers crossed I get one or two of them locked in and achieved! To get me in the mood I had Friday off this week and had booked Mum ages ago to come with me to a garden & gallery i

Ah - kids are back to school and on the one hand, it's great to know they are being gainfully employed from 8-5 every day, on the other hand it has pushed all the things we have to do to each end of the day and it's been a bit fraught at times this week!  As ever, we do not have a 'back to school' set of photos of the kids standing at the front door, smiling sweetly in their school uniform... instead I got a "don't even think about Mum" from both of them as they headed out of the door looking very smart. I suppose I should be happy they aren't so compliant they will do anything - I am definitely raising independent girls. The school is obviously coming back with a bang post-covid and has started to lay down the rules from Day 1. This means that they are expected to join the various enrichment activities on offer rather than heading home at the end of formal lessons. We went through them and I have some sympathy with their low enthusiasm - most appear t

Beautiful smiley Elsie  This week has been a great illustration of why we wanted to move back to Somerset. Of course it's still the summer holidays (will they ever end?) and so part of the challenge is finding things for the kids to do., Long gone are days of putting them into kids camp and breathing a sigh of relief that they are someone else's responsibility all day! Luckily they are pretty good at amusing themselves. Abi spends a good few hours every day at the stables - yesterday going up about 2:30pm and getting picked up 5+ hours later, and Izzy s just good at whiling away the hours in her own way, writing lists of things she might someday do or making something - rings, bracelets, cookies or the like.  Pause.... its been 3 weeks since I wrote that - back into the time warp again - how do the days and weeks pass so quickly? Having written 3 weeks ago that the kids were doing well at passing the summer holiday time, they are back to school tomorrow! I'd say there are s

  Despite seeming like it was only yesterday we got her as a little pup, Betty turned one this weekend! She celebrated like very one year old by running around too much in the heat and throwing up - brings back memories of toddler parties! You would think that being one would make her a bit more sensible but it seems not. We took her for a walk on Thursday evening and let her off the lead as normal as we got to the field. No more than 5 mins later a deer broke cover right next door to her and she of course gave chase without a moment's thought. The crops haven't yet been cut so all we could see was her head popping up every so often as she charged across the field and straight through the hedge! Abi went one way and I went the other (probably not the most sensible thing given all that did was confuse her) and after about 15 mins she finally came back absolutely knackered but clearly grinning from ear to ear! The problem now is that I cant let her off in the field without her tr

Tolly getting bigger by the day! This has definitely been the '2 week cake break' - I need to go back to work and break the cycle of my daily dose of a whole myriad of yummy cakes. some of which were well deserved, others of which...well, I am on holiday! Despite thinking I'd not planned much, I have packed a lot in. I've seen lots of friends and family, I've finally managed to walk in Thurlbear Woods (somewhere I've been aiming to get to for ages), I've taken the kids somewhere individually and had a bit of time with each of them, and I've made it out on my bike with Glenn more than once which always reminds me how much I love cycling. I've been to the seaside, been to Glastonbury, and been on a cruise (for a few hours, no booze). In fact just about the only thing I haven't done is sit down for more than a few minutes! I've had a lovely break and while I'm not ecstatic to go back to work, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and th

Afternoon tea at Hestercombe with Zsara It's second Thursday of my 2 weeks off and the time has flown by. Although I didn't think we had much planned, we have packed in something every day and if I think back (if I can remember it all) then I've actually done pretty well at ticking off some of the things I wanted to do. Importantly I've not looked at my work emails and I've managed to see plenty of friends including Zsara, Lucy and Nicki, as well as spending lots of time with family. I may not have cycled massive miles or run (at all), but I've walked miles and miles and miles (average steps per day over the last week: 27,000).  The one place I can certainly say I've spent plenty of time is the stables. Abi has made the most of me being off and we have been almost every day (I think I managed to skip out once) and we have found some lovely walk / rides for her to do on her own once I'm back at work next week. She and Nula are getting along brilliantly an

Elsie Louise OK, so if I ever thought that there weren't enough hours in the day then I was just kidding myself. I am the embodiment of the book I used to read to the kids 'A Squash and a Squeeze'! I am the lady who thought her house was too small until she squashed various animals into it and then realised she had only been kidding herself. The lady in question managed to then ditch the animals one by one and suddenly her house seemed enormous. No such luck for me I imagine. Before we get onto just why it's so busy lets pause for drumrolls and celebrations - Kerrie and Ryan have had their baby daughter!!!! Elsie was born just 6 hours after her due date exactly the way that Kerrie planned and all went amazingly smoothly - they were home that afternoon. They have both taken to parenthood like professionals, dealing with everything in their stride it seems. Even Grace who they were very worried about has accepted Elsie immediately and spends a lot of time guarding her (as

It's Sunday evening again, and yet another weekend has passed in the blink of an eye. I have failed to get out on my bike, run or do a yoga class, but I have made at least of one of my children very, very happy. I guess that's an achievement in itself.  The week passed very very slowly for Abi as she counted down the days to Saturday when she, Amanda and I were off to the other side of the country to pick up apparently the only available horse in the world. We started well, everyone up in time and raring to go, only for Amanda to ring and say that the gearbox on her van was bust - eek! Luckily it seems that everyone in the horse world is very kind, and one of the girls at Milligan's offered up her box instead. So poor Amanda had to hot foot it to Wivey to collect said box, and we met back at her house, only an hour and a half later than planned, to start or road trip.  The Sat Nav said it was a 2 hour and 58 min journey. Of course the Sat Nav thought we would be doing the s

Last night's sunset - this I do slow down for I'd like to just reflect now on what used to be a busy but organised life, one where we generally had enough time to exercise, see people and even have a bit of down time every so often. Not now though. Between the constant house stuff that we are doing (we could slow down but feels like we need to get on top of the essentials as soon as possible otherwise we'll just accept them), the kids stuff (more on this later) and then of course work, there is quite literally not a moment to spare just now. This weekend is a perfect example. On the one hand I feel like I've wasted it because I've neither ridden, run or even made it to my normal yoga class. On the other hand it's been jam packed with all kinds of variety - here's just a selection: Saturday - lovely dog walk then off to Izzy's school commemoration morning, then home for lunch and to take Abi to local horse shop and then on to Mum and Dads to drop Abi and