Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Phew, sneeze and it's all over, all but the final few days of 2015 that is. Izzy and I had a lovely time in Lapland, despite agreeing it probably wasn't our thing. The reality is that we are not a Christmassy family, and so Santa hunting isn't going to cut it, and we prefer a more balanced holiday than this. The cold weather meant that you are either out doing something organised, or inside eating or vegging. Given we weren't doing enough of the first to deserve the second, it didn't feel like the best use of time for me, but we did enjoy the proper snow, we loved the big wide expanses of snow covered forests and the Reindeer racing was great fun. I'm still stunned but how quickly you can knock up a proper snowman when you have proper snow, and it was great to have one on one time, albeit for Izzy this meant watching reruns on Animal Planet mostly. It's also a long way, and eye wateringly expensive. I'm glad we went, it didn't make me wish I'd ...

4 more days to go - almost there! This weekend we have mostly been drinking tea and catching up with family. On Friday we snuck the girls out early from school and headed to Taunton for Christmas Part 1. Of course the girls couldn't imagine seeing Christmas presents with their names on them without asking in a range of endearing ways if they could open "just one". And of course, when one is opened it's fair game and they want to do the lot. As far as I'm concerned I would rather they open presents over the course of a few occasions - at least this way there is a small chance they pause and reflect on what they've been give and by whom. The theme was very appropriately a mox of babies and horses - perfect for our two. While we concentrated on catching up with everyone and quick site visits to see what home improvements have been completed in the last 6 months (all looking very smart), Glenn ventured out on the Tri Ride which we used to do every Saturday mor...

We are definitely into the final dash to Christmas and it's getting busier by the day. Why is it that at this time of year, regardless of your line of work or activity, everything needs to be packed into the last few days of December? I was reflecting last week (as I tried to fit yet another meeting into an already rammed diary) that at no other time of the year do we do this. There's something about the turn of the year that stops people from putting time into the diary post new year - it's as though it's invisible! At least this should mean I have a few quiet days before next year starts to rev up and disappear before our eyes. The last week or so has been overshadowed by all things four legged. Amanda, Alex and the boys spent a lovely, if brief, 24 hours with us last weekend. They are currently feeling a bit sore after making the incredibly difficult decision to take Lily back to the rescue home she came from, a decision made after a long series of events of dete...

Happy birthday to our beautiful baby girl - now 9, wow!  She's definitely no longer a baby, although after a very tiring weekend she certainly slept like one last night. As I said goodnight to her she asked for a last cuddle, when I said I would just put the sheets on our bed and then come back as I often do her response was:"Now Mummy, I'm going to be asleep in less than a minute!" and so she was! We were supposed to be going off to Angie's so Izzy could meet the horses and Abi could ride, but true to recent form the wind blew and the rain came in (as did the first drops of snow of the year!) and so we abandoned in favour of something a bit more civilised. We decided that instead we would head for pottery with a friend each, then Bill's for a birthday tea, then home for sleep over.... best laid plans. So all went well with pottery - cue more china tat in the house, as did the meal, particularly given Glenn got a golden pass and I took them on my own. We m...

Ah, village life. Our big night out on Saturday was to the village hall at the invite of  our neighbours for an evening of wine tasting and cheese. I will admit that when I asked I didn't enquire too closely as to the details - it was ages ago for a start. The fact that some of our friends locally had also been asked and were up for it was enough so I said yes and left it at that. Of course when Glenn asked about the detail all I could tell him was that it wine tasting, started at 7:45 and we should probably eat before hand to be on the safe side... So we arrived at the allotted hour (dead on, me thinking it wasn't something you turned up early for, which caused some heated debate as Glenn still likes to be early), to find ourselves standing quietly outside a room of septuagenarians wondering whether we were in the right place. Turns out the wine tasting was tagged onto the end of the East Woodhay Society AGM and we were catching the end of some very long speeches - thank g...

 This weekend has been all about Abi and her choice of short trip in lieu of the big Lapland trip that Izzy and I will be going on in a few week's time. Rather than waste time travelling to the frozen wastes, Abi opted to stay closer t home and in a torrential downpour on Friday we headed off to Tollard Royal, a tiny little village beyond Salisbury for 3 days of riding and messing about with horses. The forecast could not have been worse. On Thursday night I looked at a combination of heavy rain and 50mph winds - perfect for a late autumn hack in the countryside...  The original itinerary was to ride Friday afternoon, all day Sat and then Sunday morning. Friday was a wash out when we got there so instead we got to know the horses and drank tea / ate cake - relaxing if not quite the planned events. we then snuggled down in a lovely warm log cabin to watch rubbish TV and chit chat about nothing much.  On Saturday the weather was even worse so instead of riding we set o...

Much as it was lovely to get away for a few days, holidays like that are weather dependant and so with an increasingly poor forecast of torrential rain we decided to cut our losses and came home 2 days early. This isn't surprising for us, we often end up missing home sooner than we are due to return, and we are clearly passing the feeling to the girls as well. Despite the lack of sunshine we did have a good time and have some lovely memories of rock pooling on the coast, eating ice-cream and playing cards in the pool house to name a few. Glenn and I both leave with slightly stronger legs having braved the hills to get some running in - there is no such thing as an easy run in Tenerife - you run uphill for half the total distance you want to do, then turn around and run back down again! To date the longest run I have done is 7.5 miles. 26 miles still feels like an unachievable distance but as I keep telling the girls - nothing worthwhile in life is easy and its worth putting in...