Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Sunday evening, phone goes ping and it's one of the Mums in Izzy's class asking if anyone has the Latin prep for the test tomorrow. "What test?!?" I ask Izzy, "Have you learnt yours?" "Oh, I don't know where my sheet is" she says, like that's OK! So I duly print it out (thank goodness for someone having mentioned it) and within 2 mins she has run through it and is pretty much word perfect - I guess that's the verbal bias kicking in then. Abi also has a test on Tuesday - science - and also seems not to know where her sheet is to revise. Why do neither of my children see the need to bring these things home - it's not for want of us telling them how important it is! This weekend Abi has been off hunting at Angies and so Glenn whisked her out of school on Friday a bit early (missing games not science) and so as to miss the traffic. They've developed a bit of a routine for this - Glenn now takes her on the back of the bike and ...

 It's raining, what else do you do but go outside! Just when you think you have it all squared away, some new piece of information or event comes along and throws up everything into the air. This week it was the next school debate being re-opened for all the wrong reasons. Abi has been now for a few weeks saying she doesn't want to go to a boarding school. It's not so much the boarding aspect, but the fact that boarding schools are 6 days a week and quite frankly she has no desire to spend 6 days a week in school when there is an option to only be there for 5. It's also not that she doesn't like school it's just that she values her time away from the classroom and has other things she loves to do over and above team sports. I've been quite clear, if it's not Pangbourne College (which I thought we had all agreed on) then it's back to St Gabriels - the only sensible day school choice for us. That would mean going back to an all girls school, but...

Ah, this is not uncommon these days - leave my phone for a few minutes and someone has nicked it and taken a variety of selfies! I'm not sure what the joy of a selfie is really, but that might be because I no longer have perfect skin and a perfect smile. Actually I don't mind, I love coming across these little moments of happiness and as long as its only 3 rather than 300 photos I can live with it. This week has potentially been one of cross roads. I've been meeting a few people with a view to taking on new roles or responsibilities and so I've been very focused on trying to be the best I can be, at least while under interview conditions! It's also meant that I've felt quite a lot of pressure so the bits of light hearted relief we have managed to get in  between has been just what I needed. On Monday this included a quick trip to Somerset to see Mum and Dad in the new house and allow Glenn to top up the chutney stores. We had to laugh on arriving to find th...

OMG what was I thinking allowing Izzy to talk me into hosting a disco for 25 10 and 11 year olds without any back up?!?! Utter madness! This all started fairly simply with "I don't want any fuss, just music and lights and my friends...." and ended up with requests such as "Can I have a red carpet?" on Thursday morning having already bought balloons, room decorations, food etc etc and hired lights suitable for the hall we'd had to hire as the normal one was already booked out. I was still relatively calm about it until Saturday afternoon when Abi seemed to have disappeared, we hadn't fed Izzy and I was clearly going to have to do all the set up pretty much on my own. Glenn was doing man things (in charge of setting the lights up) while I was single handed blowing up 60 odd balloons and putting down the essential red carpet. It's amazing what you can get in 24 hours armed only with the internet and a debit card. The appointed hour arrive and bang ...

Argggghhhh - give me strength! 9 weeks I've been saying "where is all your uniform, have your tried it on, what needs replacing?" The stock answer - "it's all fine Mummy, stop being so annoying" Cue this evening and (a) we can't find half of it and (b) the half we can find doesn't bloody fit. I don't know why I bother. I have one in tears (Abi) and the other (Izzy) faring better because of course she can just inherit all of Abi's cast offs. To top it all Abi has also just informed me the school shoes she has had for no more than a week are too tight. I may explode. Having just gone to the school uniform supplier's website they are also out of stock of everything we need. Abi will be going back in whatever she has to hand. It doesn't bode well. h well, iof I can't buy it at least I don't have to go through the whole conversaton of how they can justify charging so much for a school shirt - I'm about to start campaigning f...

I'd love to say that this post will have loads of pictures of the kids together given this week has mainly been dominated by Ben and Laurie's visit, but no - getting a photo of all of them together now is almost impossible... and a photo of them all smiling together is definitely impossible. Givent his we have settled for a photo of Izzy and Chloe at the football, but more of that later. So despite misgivings from Amanda and Laurie (Ben was super cool about the whole thing) - the boys got on the train at Taunton and concentrated very hard on not missing their stop in Newbury. Thank goodness it all went to plan and they arrived safely on Wednesday lunchtime to much excitement from the girls. I had already decided that they could make camp in the playroom and all sleep in there, so without further ado they set to sorting out beds and bedding with no help from me - surplus to requirements!  I was very clear - just remember Glenn has a short fuse and running around inside...

Another whirlwind of a week - I'm looking forward to everything settling back to normal so that I (we) can all get some routine back in our lives. This time last week we set off on a bike adventure, the first proper one since before the kids were born. We headed to France with Simon and Sharron, only for she and I to discover that our first stop was actually Belgium. We should have clocked this - after all we knew we were going to go to the Menin Gate - but somehow neither of us had realised that this was not France... good job we weren't navigating! The weather forecast had looked poor and Glenn was in a quandry before we left as to what combo of gear to wear. I only have one set of bike clothes so for me it was a much easier decision. As it was although we left in rain by the time we reached the M3 it had dried up and by France it was warm again. We finished the journey complaining about being too hot - just can't please us! The Menin Gate was a really sombre...