Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Betty and friends OK, no idea what have happened to the last few Sundays (which is when I normally sit down to write this). As ever the weekend gets away from me and then I find myself on a Sunday evening catching up and just lose all sense of time and it's bedtime before I know it. I tell myself that it's OK and I will manage to catch up on writing it during the week, but that never happens - its Sunday or bust.  It might also be that we have had a LOT going on over the past few weeks. It really has been a time of sad losses and new additions. So, where to start? Firstly, and sadly so soon after losing Bertie, we lost our lovable piggie Bean. He was the most outgoing of the two, always squeaking as you passed the hutch to remind you that it might be a good time to feed him, (regardless of the time), so it was very noticeable. Abi had noticed he was looking off colour and we took him to the vets, only for them to confirm he had a tumour in his abdomen. We took him home and made...

Let me in! This week I feel like we have made some progress on the house, albeit nothing ever seems to progress rapidly, and there's always a drama if it has anything to do with the muppet developer. I've been chasing him for a couple of weeks after he failed to turn up to do the replacement guttering, despite all the usual promises. After multiple texts and voicemails I finally switched to the nuclear option and sent him a text message to say if I didn't hear from him then I would have no choice but to contact his mother again. It is ludicrous that I find myself threatening a 47 year old man with a call to his parents, but this is the way he rolls it seems. Sure enough, about 30 secs after the message showed as read, I get a message back to say he is coming Thursday and that he'd already told me this! Utter rubbish of course, not least it is hardly a  coincidence that it tied in to the threat of a parental phone call - he is such a child. All this was after some excuse...

So after all the emotion of the past few weeks it feels like this week has brought some peace. It's been half term and while I worked all week, the girls have been variously doing the things they love interspersed with some healthy down time. Izzy managed to get out on her bike for a day's off-roading, as well as heading off to Bristol with her friend Keira - scarier for me than her it seems! Abi of course has spent most of the week at the stables, making the most of the last days of having daylight before we get to the dark days of winter. We have had a number of biblical storms this week and so it's been nice to get out while the sun has been shining. Somerset is a county of big skies so as soon as the weather clears it's always magical - and to think it took us this long to find our way back here! Betty has been continuing to make new friends, and on Saturday I took her and her best friend Rufus out on my own for a walk. The original plan had been to take them early ...

Best of friends, right to the end Ahhh, where to start? How to share the last few weeks where I haven't had the energy to post as there has been so much happening, but so few words needed to say how we all feel. I try and post on a Sunday, otherwise the week gets away from me, but I missed this and by the time I had the chance to put pen to paper on what I might have said, our world had turned upside down and all of that seemed irrelevant.  2 weeks ago we started normally - I walked and fed the dogs and then set off for London. We'd had a lovely afternoon the day before - over at Mum and Dad's with Amanda and family. The weather was glorious and so we all sat outside while the dogs bombed around - all 6 of them - while we had tea and cake and chatted. Laurie was feeling a bit under the weather and the girls were joking he had Corona, even though he had tested negative beforehand. Turns out they were bang on the mark as on Monday he tested positive, as did Amanda. They phone...

Trapped inside so just having a  look outside via the windowsill I can't start every blog banging on about how busy things are, so this week I'm going to try and focus on something different.  This weekend we have mainly been trying to keep our hooligan pupster calm as she was spayed n Wednesday and apparently needs to send 10 days (10 days!!!!) "going for short lead walks, not running or jumping and resting as much as possible".... Hmmm. so, how are we doing? Not that well! We brought her home on Wednesday evening and to start with it was heart-breaking, She was still very dozy from the anaesthetic but refused to just lie down and sleep it off. We might have known at this point it would be difficult. The only place she would settle was outside on the lawn so I ended up getting a blanket and sitting with her outside despite it being cold and looking like rain.  Once I finally got her inside (I had to carry her), she then swayed about until she fell over. I managed to ...

I think at this rate I'm going to have to accept that if I manage to get to the blog every other week I will be doing well. Ever since we came back to Somerset life has been so full, but in such a good way that I just can't complain. Let's face it - having a horse doesn't help - it is such a time sucker. She makes Abi so happy though that I wouldn't change it.  Given all this busyness I made the executive decision this week to more some of the holiday around that I'd booked here and there and take a whole week off around half term. The girls have got the Thursday and Friday followed by a full week, and so I have taken the luxury of having the week off before their full week so we will get 2 days together, but I get 3 days to myself!! I already have about 70 things I want to do so fingers crossed I get one or two of them locked in and achieved! To get me in the mood I had Friday off this week and had booked Mum ages ago to come with me to a garden & gallery i...

Ah - kids are back to school and on the one hand, it's great to know they are being gainfully employed from 8-5 every day, on the other hand it has pushed all the things we have to do to each end of the day and it's been a bit fraught at times this week!  As ever, we do not have a 'back to school' set of photos of the kids standing at the front door, smiling sweetly in their school uniform... instead I got a "don't even think about Mum" from both of them as they headed out of the door looking very smart. I suppose I should be happy they aren't so compliant they will do anything - I am definitely raising independent girls. The school is obviously coming back with a bang post-covid and has started to lay down the rules from Day 1. This means that they are expected to join the various enrichment activities on offer rather than heading home at the end of formal lessons. We went through them and I have some sympathy with their low enthusiasm - most appear t...