Auntie Knows Best

This week has included a poorly Little Miss, a busy week at work and school, Betty the cat bringing her offerings to The Mister and leaving them in his shoe.

The Little Miss also had to do the Kick Challenge at swimming and she completely smashed it – the competition was who could swim 8 lengths with a float and short fins and she managed to do it in 3 minutes 31 seconds. She completely turned it on!

The Mister also squeezed himself into his tux and went out to a work awards do and on Saturday I went out with Dad to a charity ball. We were all shattered by Sunday but it was a good week. I discovered the Little Miss had been taking selfies with my phone with me asleep in the background.

The weather this week has been atrocious, wet and very windy.

The week has been the first full week back to work and school which means after school activities are back with a vengeance! Swimming, dyslexia day centre, tennis, music centre and youth club.

We also had the kids first trip to the opticians. They were absolutely fantastic whilst they were in there and then they started behaving like absolute eejits in a shop afterwards.

I had Ladies Strength class at 7.30am on a Saturday morning (true dedication), shelf building and out weekend ended with the fastest ever Cub Scouts AGM (7 minutes) and bingo.

Sunday night ended with online book group with my old university friends and we exchanged Secret Santa gifts. It was a fun evening.

It was a good week.

Week 1

Whilst I am not going to post daily. I am going to try and post weekly. Just a photo update so I can keep track of what goes on in this year.

This week has seen New Year’s Day, time off, a trip to the soft play area, back to school, back to work. Dad’s 75th birthday party and an 180th birthday party.

Written on New Year’s Day after our return home!

New Year’s Eve started with exercise for me – I went to a ladies strength class at 7.30am! It is my favourite class of the week and I always attend when I can. I really appreciate Jemma who is the instructor – encouraging but not shouty. Perfect!

This evening we went to our friends Emma and Martin’s house. We all brought food and booze. The kids screamed about the place and played games on the Wii…. and they all managed to stay awake until midnight. One of the usual families wasn’t able to attend and much missed but we had a lovely time anyway. I hugely appreciate this lovely group of friends and the fact that our children play (mostly) so beautifully together.

Midnight was seen in with fizz and smiles and a lovely group photo. We stayed overnight and this morning started slowly with a cooked brunch. Unfortunately the weather was pretty rough so we didn’t get out usual new Year’s Day walk but The Mister and the kids and I went for a quick breath of fresh air on the way home.

2022 was a year full of ups and downs but mostly it was just day-to-day normality. The bump and grind of daily life, kids activities, church, exercise, sea swimming, friends, family and a wonderful holiday to Kenya… the real highlight of our year.

So… onwards to 2023. Who knows what it will bring.

One thing I do know is that I won’t be carrying on with a picture a day. I have lost the pleasure of it, it has become a chore not a delight. I will still post, but not so often.

Happy New Year everyone x

We have had a lovely chilled out day doing a bit of shopping and we even had time to stop for lunch.

Lovely to have a bit of a breather in a busy world.

The Christmas decorations have been packed away (bah humbug!) and I have been tidying up cupboards and drawers. Today the booze cupboard was sorted…. although The Mister will not let me bin some of the booze bottles that he brought with him when we moved in together. They are about 15 years old and unopened and come from Peru so I assume would taste absolutely rank. I reckon if I binned them secretly he wouldn’t notice.

This evening we went to a friends house for chilli and games. As ever Cards Against Humanity is one of the favourites… especially after a few drinks. Our friend Emma won and we only had to explain one term to her which makes a change!

This evening was our annual trip to the panto which was staged by our local theatre group GADOC. It was brilliant – really professional and there were some outstanding performances.

Only one or two of our party were less than keen but they are not am dram fans at the best of times!

Boxing Day kicked off with the annual charity swim at Cobo. There were at least a couple of thousand people there. I haven’t been able to swim for a few weeks as I have been busy, the weather has been bad and I have been poorly, however it was lovely!

This evening we popped into my Dad’s side of the family for an hour or so before going to my cousin Richard and his wife Liz’s house for tea and games. It was lovely to see so many of my cousins and the kids had a fabulous time haring around together.

I ended the evening my successfully completely by Christmas jigsaw 🙂

What a lovely day.

What was less fun was being invaded in bed by two very excited children at 7am. I could hear them earlier than this shouting at Alexa and asking her what time it was as they had been told they were not allowed in our room until 7am! Once Father Christmas presents had been opened and the children dispatched to the lounge to watch TV I had a couple hours more sleep!

The day was quite relaxed and we dragged the kids out for a very short work. My sister and family, Dad and our friend Kayleigh all came over in the afternoon and we had a lovely meal at 5ish. Lots of hard work but very much worth it.

We have such a lovely family and friends and are very fortunate. Happy Christmas everyone x

<