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And relax?
It's been a funny old summer. Since I last posted we've spent 5 weeks without a childminder - one of those was on a fabulous family holiday to celebrate mum's birthday, but the others we've muddled through with Mike taking some days off and me taking others - ending up with me working just one day last week! During that time I've been increasingly desperately looking for childcare for when Matthew starts pre-school next week. This week he is back at Hania's for today and tomorrow and I think I may have *finally* found someone, though she's expensive and definitely only wants to do this for the short term as that many fixed hours makes an awkward dent in her availability for full-time jobs. We meet her on Friday anyway :)
Anyway, despite that stress, we did indeed have a brilliant week away at the start of August - we were staying in an amazing hobbity house in Somerset, within view of Glastonbury Tor. We had some lovely days out at the beach and Wookey Hole and we visited Em in her lovely house and had afternoon tea in the garden. We had a fab lunch out on Mum's birthday and a BBQ in the garden in the evening - there were lots of presents and cards and singing of happy birthday and both light up LED balloons and giant ones spelling 60 and it was a really lovely day. Mike and I took some long walks after Matthew was in bed and saw owls and deer and BADGERS in the lanes around the house. And we all enjoyed the hot tub in the garden and the swimming pool for guest use just up the lane.
The exciting news since then though is that I'm once again an auntie, with a brand new baby niece. Her name is Lillian Grace (after great-grannies on both James and Em's side) and she's beautiful, and I hope to get a chance to gurgle at her over Skype before very long. I suspect we shall be visiting Somerset again before too many months have gone!
Other than that the summer has contained lots of parks - especially Coleridge Rec with its splash pad and "wolf slide" and the ever popular ice cream van. Mike and Matthew had a trip to the zoo, but I don't think Matthew and I have managed anything more exotic than an afternoon at Funky Funhouse and a visit to the children's fair on Parker's Piece. There's been lots of sunshine and we even put up the tent as a den in the garden and had a barbecue on the firepit this weekend for the first time in a vary long time!
I'm taking Tuesday and Wednesday off next week to help settle Matthew in to Rainbow. He'll be going 9-3 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (when we're both at work) and 9-12 on Thursdays - so I'm going to have to find a way to amuse myself those mornings. I'm thinking of some refresher driving lessons so we can consider occasionally hiring a car. If we get all organised with childcare we're hoping to have a weekend over in Lydney to visit Evan and Gina before the end of September - and then possibly up to Mirfield at the beginning of October for a bike ride if we're lucky.
I'm *so* looking forward to once we're actually settled into a new routine with this term, and then I can relax? Yeah, right :)
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