Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Phew, what a scorcher. It's has been wall to wall sunshine for what seems like forever, so much so that we don't even bother to check the forecast anymore, we just assume that it will be bright and sunny from 10am onwards. This is all very well but it's causing travel chaos for me. I've had to go into London 3 days this week and every day there has been a problem. There are speed restruictions from 11am onwards due to hot rails, there have been signalling problems and even trains on fire. We really don't do hot weather do we? Everything has slowed down and the dogs have taken to lying around in whatever shade they can find, waiting for the point in the afternoon where someone takes them to the woods. I took them earlier in the week and Bertie disappeared, shortly followed by a loud splash. I ran to check,thinking OMG, he's fallen in, on to find him up to his chin in the deepest part of the stream, tongue lolling out and a definite grin on his face! While...

Home alone, it's ever so quiet and I'm not sure I like it... and it's only day 1! We packed Glenn off to France on Friday at the crack of dawn, with him promising to stop regularly to make sure all the driving didn't get to him given he was doing it on his own. In the afternoon the girls and I went to the school fete (as I think I've already said, all pretence of them working at school seems to have gone out of the window already). I say we went together - as is the way these days I turned up, handed them some money and they disappeared for the whole afternoon while I chatted to various people. It's not a bad arrangement, certainly an improvement on the clingy child syndrome of the past. As is also the way Abi walked home with a friend before the end and Izzy didn't come home at all, preferring instead to go home with Amber. The plan was not for a sleep over but when I rang at 9:30pm to say she needed to be home in 15 mins or the doors would be locked,...

Blink and the week is flying by - it's Tuesday evening already and I didn't manage to write the blog on Sunday and now it's getting away from me!! This weekend ended up mostly being about Izzy and a trip to Somerset. We had planned ages ago to go down for the Bovey Tracey Craft Fair. Mum and Dad went last year and had reported back to say it was well worth the trip so despite having a very busy week and having to be in London on Friday morning, I picked Izzy up from school at 4pm and we set off, safe in the knowledge that a Friday evening drive to Somerset at this time of the year is never straight forward. In reality it wasn't that bad, taking 2 and a half hours, made much easier by the fact we quickly tuned into a talking book which was a great way to pass the journey. You might wonder where Abi was - she rarely turns down a trip to Somerset. Basically I had made it very clear this trip wasn't about anybody but me and anyone coming along was going to do what...

Whatever happened to half term?? It seems to have disappeared in a flash, do doubt partly as I was working having had 3 days off the previous week for Kerrie and Ryan's wedding. The plan was to not have a plan - both girls have exam week coming up and so our major intent was for them to spend at least half an hour a day or so doing a bit of revision. This has sort of worked - we only had one day where I got an irate message from Glenn that Izzy knows 'absolutely nothing' about her maths... we'll see. With half term comes effort grades and if they genuinely know nothing, it's not for a lack of effort. Abi did really well, keeping up her average and getting a 6 (top grade) in French again. Izzy, who we always worry is apt to cruise if allowed, got the first 5.0 average grade we've seen from either of them and 3 6's in French, English and DT - well done Izzy! I tend to assume all the kids work hard but it seems not - according to Abi "all the boys always...

What a week - no one can quite explain how emotional it is to see your child walk down the aisle and on Thursday we watched Kerrie do that with an enormous sense of pride and happiness. For me it was an absolute pleasure to see the two of them so ecstatically happy together and to be there on their special day. I am so proud of her - to have turned into such a beautiful bride - inside and out - and to see her day come to fruition after all her hard work and planning. More so to see just how much they love each other - nothing else mattered for a few hours. For Glenn it was more emotional than he could possibly have imagined (although how he ever thought he wouldn't cry was beyond me!). Seeing Kerrie in her dress for the first time, walking her down the aisle, giving her away and then making a speech afterwards - he swung from having the biggest smile on his face to balling his eyes out throughout the day, as did Ryan - every time Glenn welled up so did he - clearly ...

 My babies are growing up so fast - if only we could hit the pause button! Abi is now nearly as tall as me, and developing fast, and even Izzy is getting taller by the day. If the physical changes aren't enough (and the emotional ones), we can also see the mental developments. This one (for the most part) I can deal with more easily. Listening to them today playing together they are better equipped to enjoy time together and know when they've had enough and its time to go off and do something else. They were playing a computer game together this afternoon and while I would prefer them not to be on a screen, at least girls aren't generally killing or wrecking things while gaming. This was Sims4, which seems to focus on getting 2 people together, dressing and feeding them until they are ready to have a baby, then have said baby and then start the whole cycle again.  Feels a bit too close to life - why would you want to play that on a lovely sunny day?!? We have b...

Oh the excitement is building... only 11 days to go and the girls are quite literally counting down the minutes to Kerrie's wedding. Glenn, as father of the bride and the one who has to give a speech, is less excited. In fact, unlike the rest of the family, he doesn't even know what he is wearing! Abi and Izzy on the other hand are desperate to wear their new shoes / dresses / necklaces etc. and have spent much of the weekend trying to convince me that fake nails (for them not me) is clearly the way forward. While I would never normally condone this at their age, it's not every day that your sister gets married so what the heck - caution has been thrown to the wind and we are looking at the options as Izzy is ecstatically demonstrating in the picture. There is some method to my madness - they've been trying to persuade me to book them appointments at the nail salon which for all 3 of us would require a small mortgage and (as we discovered yesterday), at least a mont...