Posts in category: Personal

Another month, another set of windswept photos of the children together on the beach!

I can’t get my head around the fact that this time last year the post I wrote showed no signs at all of what was just about to begin.  I wrote about world book day, and Rhys going away on a residential trip, and life sounded so wonderfully normal.

It’s so strange to think what’s happened in the 12 months since then.  I couldn’t have imagined back then how special it would feel to go for a walk on the beach, with the children and my in-laws.

There have been some signs of normality creeping in over the past month though.

Nerys has been back in school, and even got to celebrate world book day with her friends.  This year was wonderfully stress-free, thanks to her deciding to go as Hermione Granger, which just required her one-piece costume being thrown on over the top of normal clothes.

Rhys was still doing home learning at that point, so opted out of dressing up altogether which was fine by me!

Now he’s heading back into school again next week too, and hopefully things will start to settle down into the old/new routine of both children in school.

It feels like all I’ve seen all weekend is people talking about the end of home schooling and the children all returning to school today, and it feels so strange when things are different for us here in Wales.

Nerys has already been back at school for a week and a half, and we’ve still got another week of home learning with Rhys before he heads back to the classroom.

All things considered, things went well for Nerys with her first full week back in school last week.

She had a few wobbles, but went in every day with a smile on her face and came rushing out to meet me with a big hug every afternoon.

We managed to surprise her one afternoon, with Rhys and Steve coming with me to collect her.  I went in the usual gate to pick her up, and the others walked round the outside to meet us on our way out on the other side of the school grounds.

It was a really lovely afternoon, the children had their scooters, and we walked the slightly longer way home through Singleton park to make the most of it.

I’m hoping the weather will stay mostly dry this week so we can walk home again most days; it’s something I’ve been really enjoying doing while it’s just been Nerys back in school.

Next week though things will change again and I’ll have to see how easily I can carry 2 scooters with me to collect both the children once Rhys goes back too.

I have the same kind of mixed feelings about him going back that I did 2 weeks ago with Nerys.

I’m happy that things at school are as safe as they can possibly be, and I know it will be good for Rhys to be back in person with his teacher and his friends.

I’m also very much looking forward to having more time in my days to get work done in peace.

But there’s definitely still a fair bit of worry in my mind, as well as a strange ‘end of an era’ feeling.

If your children are heading back to school this week, how are you all feeling about it?

We have lockdown birthday bingo.

After just slipping through last year and being able to have a wonderfully normal birthday party with her friends at our house, Nerys joined the rest of us in having a birthday during lockdown at the weekend.

Luckily the sun shone all day for her and she had a really lovely day.

We were able to meet up with my in-laws for a walk, and the local park was quiet enough for her to be able to have a play while we were out.

She chose cinnamon rolls for breakfast, pancakes for lunch, and pizza for tea, so I was in carb heaven with her all day!

And she was thrilled with all her presents, especially the kidizoom watch we bought her that she can use to take photos, play games, and count how many steps she takes in a day.

She also humoured me and let me carry on my tradition of taking a photo of her lying on her baby blanket for her birthday.  At the moment she says she’ll let me keep doing this until she’s 18, but we’ll see how that pans out over the years!

Looking at those old photos, I just can’t quite get my head around the fact that she’s 7 now.

In some ways she seems a fair bit older than that, with the way she handles things and how she talks at times, but then there are still glimpses of the little girl she used to be.

She wanted to sleep with me on her birthday night, so we went up to bed together and then Steve moved her into her room a few hours later when he came up.

Having her lying there beside me brought back so many memories of the nights she would sleep in with us when she was a baby, when I would curl my body around hers after middle-of-the-night feeds.

And now here she is.  Seven years old.  Where did that time go?!

After a January that seemed to go on and on forever, February came and went in the blink of an eye.

It was a month of change, with Nerys heading back to school and all of us getting used to the new routine that came with that.

She’s only been back in for 3 days, but so far it seems to be going well.  She’s been brilliant about it all, and even though I know she’s been nervous and misses us all during the day, she’s been going in each day with a smile on her face.

I think it’s helped that the weather has been sunny and dry, so we’ve been able to walk or scoot home from school every day.  It also meant we could get out for a family walk in the sunshine on her birthday, which is when we took this month’s family photo.

The restrictions in Wales are slowly lifting, so we were able to meet up with Steve’s parents for this walk, which was really lovely after so long of not really being able to see anyone.

We walked to Cwmdonkin park for a little play, and then through Brymill park and Singleton park before heading back home.

As far as lockdown birthdays go, it was a pretty good one for Nerys, and a load of her friends sent video messages over wishing her a happy birthday which I’ll put together into a compilation to keep and look back on.

And now we’re heading into March, which looks like it will be another month of change.

It’s looking likely that Rhys will be able to go back into school at some point over the next few weeks, so that’ll take a bit of adjusting to.  It will be nice for both the children to get that little sense of normality again though.

I just can’t quite believe that we’re coming up to the one year anniversary of everything shutting down for the first time.  It’s almost a year since I last saw my parents, when I caught a coach back to Kent for a visit just before we were told not to travel any more.

If you’d told me this time last year that one of the children would still be doing home learning a year on I think I would’ve laughed.  Or cried.  I’m not sure.  But I’m almost certain I wouldn’t have really believed you.

There is definitely a feeling of hope in the air heading into March this time around, with more and more people getting vaccinated and case numbers going down, and a general feeling that it has to better than last year.

I’m not sure any of us will ever look at the month of March quite the same way again now though!

We’re all feeling a bit anxious today.  A bit apprehensive.  Just that little bit unsure about what this week will bring.

Rhys is back to home learning on Wednesday (our school have planning days today and tomorrow) and Nerys is due back at school.  We went back and forth quite a bit about what we thought was best, and have ultimately reached the conclusion that she will be going back in.

And I do feel anxious about it.  And apprehensive and unsure.

I trust our school though.  I trust that they’ll do everything they can to keep all the children and the staff as safe as possible.  And I know that Nerys will do well being back in the classroom, spending time physically with her teachers and her friends.  I just still have that niggling feeling of worry about it all.

Nerys is nervous too.  After all this time at home she’s worried she’ll miss us, and she knows that things at school still won’t be anywhere near ‘normal’, which upsets her a bit.

So I’m pleased we have these extra two days to spend together at home, after a really quite lovely half term break.

We managed to get out to the local parks and to the beach most days last week and the fresh air did us all a world of good.  It’s hard to worry about going back to school when you’re on a windswept beach, chasing a football and taunting the tide.

The half term break was also full of Harry Potter films and Roblox games, a little bit of crafting for Brownies, and a few late nights.

It was a really welcome break from home learning and the children loved being able to just relax a bit, before heading into the next half term which is likely to bring with it more changes as older children start possibly heading back into school again too.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty about what’s happening, and I know it’ll take us a while to get used to this new routine for a bit of Nerys being in school and Rhys still doing work at home.

I’m looking for the positives though.  With just one child at home it should be easier to juggle home learning and my own work, and Rhys can have a bit more of my attention during the day when he needs it.  And then Nerys can have a bit of time one on one with me too, on the way to and from school.  I’m hoping the weather plays ball so we can walk home from school most days this week, to buy us that little bit of extra time together.

Are any of your children heading back to school this week or is it back to home learning again in your house?

Oh half term, you are a sight for sore eyes.

I woke up on Saturday morning to Nerys dancing on the landing, singing about it being the start of the holidays, which sort of tells you all you need to know about how the children are feeling about the break!

They have coped so well with this latest spell of home learning, just getting on with things (for the most part) and joining in their live lessons each day with smiles on their faces.

We broke up the last week of term with a very chilly walk in Singleton park last Wednesday.  Not that you would know that it was particularly cold given the fact that Nerys abandoned her coat half way round the park.

I think all the running and then climbing all over these tree stumps and giant logs really warmed her up, while my fingers were slowly freezing as I stood around taking photos!

Worth it though, when I get pictures like this of the children together.

Now we’ve got a whole week ahead of us with no school work to tackle, other than a bit of Welsh homework for Rhys, and we are all so ready for it.

I’m not entirely sure what we’re going to do all week, considering the facts that Steve and I both still need to work and we can’t actually take the children anywhere when we do have time!  The main thing for me is to let the children have a chance to relax, to switch off a bit.  So it’ll most likely be walks to the beach and trips to the park when the weather plays ball, a bit of baking, some fun with card games and board games, and still more screen time than I would like!

Have you got any plans for half term, or ideas for fun things to do with the children at home?

Can someone explain to me how January seemed to drag on and on (and on), but February already seems to be flying by?

I’m just glad I was organised this month and took some photos of Rhys and Nerys together for this siblings post, so I wasn’t caught out by the middle of the month suddenly appearing!

We took these pictures one afternoon when we walked down to the beach after they’d finished their home learning for the day.  We timed it just right to get there at high tide and what was meant to be a quick ‘hello’ to the sea turned into 45 minutes of digging in the sand and attempting to skim stones in the sea.

A few weeks ago when everywhere else in the country seemed to have loads of snow and we had nothing at all here, I told my sister I was jealous of her having a good amount to play in where they live.

And her response was that they might sometimes get some snow there, but we get to enjoy the beach whenever we want here, and honestly it was just the reminder I needed of how lucky we really are!

Now the children are that bit older we can walk to the beach in about 20 minutes, and when home learning and work all starts to get a bit too much it does us all so much good to be able to get out and breathe in some sea air.