First post of 2016

Just like a gym membership - but free - this blog has been nagging at me. Urgh, the guilt. I started writing here as a record, however haphazard, of O & C's formative years, something they can look back on and see the funny, challenging and most memorable bits. 

So with renewed motivation I'll recap November to January... Building work has been A Thing. A fairly constant, noisy, dusty, expensive, decision demanding thing, so it's hard to remember the other things going on too.

Christmas happened but it was so mild I sort of missed it. I went through the motions but my heart didn't get frozen enough to be truly in it. Two weeks of visitors, lunches and changing sheets happened then it was school and now we're planning half term. Time is flying while I enforce spelling test practice over porridge.

O is hugely into Lego and has enough to build a house within our house but still that's not enough. I lied and told him he needs to sell some if he wants any more.

C is trying out drama after gymnastics which followed ballet and is planning on football next time around. She is 5. She'll have nothing left to try by the time she's 6.

Sleeping, or rather, staying up till 10pm on a school night is an issue. Unless a parent sits outside their room saying 'marble' whenever one makes a sound louder than breathing they don't go to skeep. I presume all parents have this.

At least we have (relative) lie-ins. 7.30 is a lie-in, right?

Happy 2016.

Living on a Building Site

You don't think it'll be too bad - before it starts. You wonder why people having building work done - creating their dream home and adding £££ to their million pound property in the process - can complain about it all the time. You (naively) think you won't be one of them. How, you wonder, could a little thing like home improvements end in divorce?

Then, 14 weeks and three days since the builders lopped off the back of your house, you know the answer. 

Whether it's due to living in a confined space with your loved ones, having to go into the building site to get a pint of milk or supper, or the stress of being £10,000 short, whatever the reason, there's a dawning realisation that this could well be the end of your marriage.

There are the shifting deadlines to cope with too. The '4 weeks from now' kept being '4 weeks' even when 4 weeks had long passed. Now we're on the promise of the optimistic sounding 'end of November'.

See for yourselves. Does this look two weeks away to you? Didn't think so. 

Harry - day 3

Surprised myself & surpassed days 1 & 2 with Harry the school bear. Today, dear readers, Harry went to the Olympics. Well, admittedly not The Olympics. But The Olympic Park.

Sure, he didn't get to see Chris Hoy win gold nor Tom Daly get a medal but he did hang upside down outside the velodrome and go into the Aquatics centre (without getting wet - learnt a lesson from you, The Reluctant Lauderer). 

Here he is enjoying his day out plus some scenic pics of the park. 

Harry the diamond class bear

After weeks, no months, of near-tears over the absence of Harry, the diamond class bear, coming home with us for the weekend, Caitlin has her claws on the coveted fur ball. For. A. Whole. Week.

As luck would have it, her turn has fallen at half term. So the challenge is to see if we can do better than the other school kids who've had the bear and taken him to:

- the park

- the supermarket

- a petting farm

- an Easter egg hunt

I've got a whole week. So far, on day 2, he's been pictured on the Tube, at HMS Belfast, on London Bridge and at a Mini Makers Imagination Faire in Oxo Tower Wharf. 

I'm exhausted. 

And Caitlin's in love. 

Asked about why she loves Harry so much prompted the response: "I get to do really exciting things with him". 

I think I've shot myself in the foot there. Days 3 to 7 might well be "Harry chilling at home". 

Voting

Quite excited to exercise my democratic right today. 

Summoning the energy to leave the house and cast my vote, I was reminded of a small, free exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery on the suffragettes. 

What stood out was the lengths these women were prepared to go to get the vote. Vandalising masterpieces, risking arrest, imprisonment and making the ultimate sacrifice. 

Even though I'm a flip-flop voter that no party would want to be depending on (too easily influenced by blatant propaganda in the 6 weeks before the election), it's still thrilling that we get the power to decide who gets to run the country. 

Easter hols

2 weeks with the children off school are coming to an end.

2 weeks of unbelievably great weather -summer doesn't get better than this -spent in parks, on beaches, visiting friends, having friends visit. 

Hard to believe it was just 2 weeks, feels more like 4. Which makes the next school holiday, 6 weeks at summer, seem a little daunting. But I'll worry about that nearer the time. 

For now I'll just enjoy the sunshine. 

Here are a few pics from Lyme Regis last week and Notting Hill today. Blue skies all round. Woo hoo. 

Legs Eleven

And in other noteworthy news, I got my legs out on the weekend. A moment newsworthy for the fact that this hasn't happened in ooh about, let me see now, where's my diary... 23 weeks and 2 days, or something like that. 

Between late September and early March - that's five whole count 'em months - my pins have been concealed by denim, occasionally fortified by a further layer of manmade fibre leggings to provide insulation on sub zero days. That, my Friends, is what living in England is all about. And that is why I'm noticing with glee some changes around me and not just in the wearing of skirts.

It's with a spring in my step that I'm welcoming signs of, erm, spring... the cherry blossom, crocuses/i and daffs do make my heart sing, fa la la la la! No longer the grey skies and chill winds do blow, (well, they do but not every day) and hello to petals, lambs, blue skies... and legs, blue legs... oh. Dear.