Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

So now we are back from France it's a social whirl for the girls, and I have had to resort back to the normal summer spreadsheet to keep up! Tonight both girls are away, Abi has gone off for a second week at Angie's riding, Izzy will join her for a few nights on Tuesday, and Izzy is at Mia's - pretty much their second home these days. On Thursday Glenn needed to get into London so the girls opted for a day with their extended family, JoJo and the tribe. Regardless of the fact that they don't see them as regularly now as they used to they still love to catch up and it's like they've been together always. Abi immediately took charge of Eleanor and refused to let anyone else push her around, and Izzy and Edward were back to being as close as ever. Jo is brilliant at recreating old photos to show how they've grown - just one more to add to the picture these days. In addition to this they've been to the cinema, swimming and made the most of the generall...

What can I say, our lovely holiday in the Dordogne is over and done with for another year and despite the fact that we stayed for 10 days rather than the normal week it felt like it passed in a flash. Happy memories though. Highlights of the week included meeting our Woolton Hill neighbours for dinner and a pool party - they had coincidentally booked a holiday for the same dates just up the road from us! The kids loved showing off the house and playing in the pool with Grace and Finn. I managed a passable BBQ for them while Simon and Glenn went riding, they proceeded to cremate ours when they got home - nothing to do with the 3 glasses of wine I had in the meantime I'm sure!  Both girls loved seeing Jerry and Pauline, and catching up with the horses again, This year Combostel, Bel Ami and Tulin were joined by Amigo, a lovely skewbald. They managed a couple of rides in between the hottest days, the last of which almost ended u in a disaster when Tulin spooked and unseate...

Goodness me it's the last week of term already and finally we have some sunshine. It feels like the rain would never stop - the garden has been decimated with heavy downpours and while the grass looks green, it's all a bit soggy underfoot. The kids don't care but we are fed up of still having to wash the dogs off after a walk when it's supposed to be summer!  Of course this is all about to change as we are off to France this time next week - cue unbroken sunshine and a wilting rather than washed out garden! I can't wait to go but I'm also very conscious that it will be over in a flash and then a whole year before we can go again. It's the one holiday that I look forward to all year round - the joys of familiarity! The good news is that we do have various things to look forward to after we come back (apart from back to work and the rest of the school holidays of course). It's our 10th anniversary next month and after a lot of discussion as to what we ...

What a week. Despite the fact I normally keep these blogs very much to what's happening inside our little family, this week's event have been so monumental it's worth recording how we feel even if we can't yet record the impact. So this week after much hype and one of the most scandalous campaigns ever (so much tosh delivered by both sides as what might happen), the country voted on whether to Remain or Leave the EU. We all went to bed on Thursday evening very much expecting the result to be Remain - that's what all the bookmakers and polls predicted....and woke on Friday to find we had, by a very narrow margin, voted to Leave. Who would have thought it - 72% of the country voted and Leave won by a few percentage points. The last 48 hours have been somewhat mad - Cameron stepping down, half the labour cabinet either sacked or stepping down, votes of no confidence everywhere - as I said, slightly surreal and mostly bonkers. Social media has been on fire...

So, where did the last few weeks go then? I know, it's the time of year when everything speeds up beyond light speed to warp speed and you just have to go with it. So what have we been up to? The biggest thing about the last 2 weeks was that last weekend I did my charity trek for work. It was, as they say - epic - possibly for all the wrong reasons! The adventure started when we spilled out of the Monarch 'Hen / Stag party flight' where we were the only people not half cut before the flight to get on a bus with 40+ colleagues to head for the hills beyond Malaga. Everyone was inevitably hungry so we pulled into a service station and of course the effect of the sun meant pretty much everybody had a drink.... or two - start as you mean to go on it seemed. The first and last night we were staying in the Spanish equivalent of Fawlty Towers. The 2 star hotel served us what turned out to be one of the funniest meals I've had in long time. Everything wa...

 So, apparently we've just had a week off...where did that go then? The girls set off on their annual May half term pilgrimage to Taunton as we did the same to France. I think it's fair to say that they had the better weather - typical! We drive 800 miles south and get cloud and temperatures way below the norm. They head down the road and spend the entire week in the river playing with the boys and making the most of the balmy temperatures. Despite the weather (and we can't complain, Paris had it's highest floodwaters in 30 years and people died in lightening strikes across Europe) we had a lovely break. We managed to do Ventoux again, relaxed and got some sunshine and really enjoyed being away together. It's amazing how little stress there is when its just the two of us and no little ones to push the boundaries. The kids also had a lovely time, although I think Mum had to read the riot act a few times - not bad given there were 4 kids most of the time and ...

There's nothing like a bit of sunshine to get everybody out of the door and today is no exception. Despite the forecast being pretty patchy for the weekend its been lovely this morning and while Glenn cleaned out his van after yesterday's green laning expedition to Gloucestershire, the kids and dogs 'helped' by sitting on everything as it came out of the van and generally getting in the way. Bertie in particular will take any opportunity to sit on anybody who's willing to have him and much as I think we shouldn't encourage this, it does make me smile to see them all in a happy heap. This morning was also about recharging batteries. The girls stayed over again at their friend Mia's house on Friday and once again I think they may have gone to bed at an almost reasonable time, but not slept until a good point later. I don't so much care about the time they go to bed as ling as they get enough sleep and it was blatantly obvious when I picked them up tha...