Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

No time to say anything other than happy new year as we head into 2018 on the back of a whirlwind of socialising. More tomorrow, if my head allows it! G&T anyone?

Yea!!!! We managed to have a fab Christmas day!!! At last, after years of trying to be conventional and stick to the Christmas Day rules, our plans of a chilled out morning, motorbikes on Salisbury Plain followed by ham, eggs and chips for tea worked a treat - we all had a lovely day. The day didn't start as well as planned - we woke to find the boiler had blown out and wouldn't relight. Typical - keep it serviced and maintained and it goes offline on Christmas Day - what are the chances of that happening?!? We managed to get hold of our normal boiler man only to find he was away until the 30th - eek! It wasn't exactly cold but even so, we didn't want to huddle in one room with no hot water. Luckily he recommended someone in the village who was happy to come out. 45 minutes later, £104 and 3 bottles of wine lighter we were all fixed and back on track. We all agreed it was by far the best way to do Christmas - finally a recipe for us all! The rest of my Christmas...

It’s a strange feeling to have the house empty of both dogs and children. We are off to London tomorrow for my Christmas treat of Rick Astley at the KoKo Club in Camden and so we left the girls in Taunton and came home alone. Given we had been away we’d also outsourced the dogs to their normal holiday home and so it was very weird this morning to wake up without hearing expectant tails downstairs, weird and a bit disappointing for me. It was such a beautiful morning that I went for a walk anyway but it’s not the same without my mad, bad dogs to keep me company. Once I got back we did have a very nice, relaxing hour or so sitting drinking tea in the kitchen, chatting about the day and generally not getting going too fast! Since then we’ve chopped logs, sorted the house, done about 10 loads of washing (where did it all come from??), visited friends and then wrapped all the Christmas presents - not a bad day. Prior to all this peace we had the last day of term and then a wonderful cou...

It's no wonder that time seems to fly by so quickly when you have to make various decisions so early. We are mid-way through a day of school visits with Abi. This is for a school she wont start until 2020 - that's ages away!! I know its important to plan ahead, but it feels very hard to look at a school and make an assessment as to whether it will suit in 3 years. That said, we chose our schools on the basis of reputation and recommendation and I think its been a useful process. The first, LWC, we went to alone knowing that location meant it was on the long list only. Unfortunately it was lovely and as both the kids will probably have friends going there, seemed like it would be feasible. The more I thought about it though the more I worried. It would mean they would have to board and what if that's not for them? More to the point, what if its not for me?!?! We re-considered, removed another one from our list because it was the same distance in the opposite direction, ...

Blimey, it’s December already and so we head into silly season where everything needs to suddenly be completed before Christmas and every night is party night. I could do without both. We seem to have no one available at work to do anything and I’ve got a whole bunch of things that need doing. The last thing I need to add to that stress is a whole bunch of work drinks. Particularly when I have to factor in a 2 hour commute home which is bearable only because I’m not trying to do it after 3 glasses of wine at 9pm. Oh and the fact that if I do have a drink, poor Glenn then needs to pick me up as there are no taxis from my station. On the plus side there are school events to save me from some of this. Luckily for us, both the London and Thames Valley Christmas parties coincided with Abi’s school play - hooray for fortunate diary clashes! It meant I could make an acceptable excuse and not have to drag Glenn to a festively decorated tent to make polite conversation to someone he doesn’t k...

I definitely feel like we tipped the kids into bed tonight with no hope of them waking up feeling refreshed and ready for the week ahead - they are shattered after a very busy weekend. I really should have made more effort to try and balance things out, but this weekend was always destined to be a busy one and then an inevitable sleepover each got added in at the last moment and it’s a lost cause. Poor Izzy had a Laser Tag party to top it off at 5:30 this evening - whoever thought that would be a good thing on a Sunday night in winter??? Yesterday morning Abi was dropped off after her sleepover - no doubt in the hope she could settle down for some iPad and dog cuddle time - when I made it quite clear that our main task was to get passport photos sorted for them both. Cue meltdown and “I’m not coming, I don’t need a passport and I don’t want to go skiing anyway...” I made it quite clear that this would also mean no France to which I got a bit more traction but not much. Of ...

Just a quick post to say something for posterity rather than to write about the week. Today our little baby turned 11 - so grown up! As we feel asleep last night Glenn commented on how quickly we’ve got to this point - was it only 11 years ago we embarked on this amazing journey with our funny, special, determined, independent little girl? Seems like forever and no time at all. After a lovely day (I had the day off) I picked up the kids from school with one of Abi’s friends Freya and we went to Izzy’s friend Amber’s to play with the Shetland ponies before going for pizza. The kids were shattered when we got back so headed straight for bed. About half an hour later abi called me and said she’d like to read me the poem she’d just written about the journey home. Here it is - I love it: Bright lights, bright lights Racing through the bulb Bright lights, bright lights Pushing out the darkness Bright lights, bright lights Oozing through the headlights Seeping into view Bright l...