Posts in category: Personal

I don’t understand where November went.

You know those weekends that seem to go by in a bit of a blur, and when someone asks you on the Monday what you got up to you can’t seem to remember?

That’s sort of how I feel about November.

I think it’s a combination of the things we would normally do, like watch the big fireworks display at St Helen’s on bonfire night, being cancelled and a fair bit of grey, chilly days adding up to feeling like we’ve not done a whole lot of anything.

We did get out for a family walk in the park last week though, when the children had an inset day from school. which is when we took this month’s family photo.

Other than that I’m really not sure what’s taken up all our time this month!

We had one lovely walk in the woods with Steve’s parents, and we actually went inside their house for the first time since March last week for Pop’s birthday.

I braved town with a friend and got started on Christmas shopping.

The children got dressed up in their Christmas jumpers and recorded their performances that will replace the usual nativity/Christmas concert.

There were a few days when it was nice and dry enough to walk home from school and we could enjoy the last of the daylight in the park.

Steve bought himself a stand mixer with his birthday money and we baked a lot of beautifully soft white rolls and made quite a few pizzas.

I suppose November was a month of simple things. 

A month of the simple rhythms and routines of normal life.

School, homework, cubs, swimming lessons.  Work, housework, walks, baking.

I’m really quite grateful for it.  There’s something to be said for an uneventful month, especially in a year like this one.

I’m finding it hard to keep track of what day it is at the moment, and last week I was thrown off even more by the children having an inset day on the Monday.

It was really nice to have an extra day to just hang out together though.

We went out for a walk through Singleton park in the morning, and had great fun spotting all the new wood carvings that have appeared in the botanical gardens over the last few months.

We found families of foxes, rabbits and hedgehogs as well as trees with all sorts of amazing things carved into them.

What’s so lovely is that you can get right up close to all the carvings, walking round them to see them from all angles and finding surprises like an extra rabbit hiding in an old tree trunk.

There’s also a new little play area in the gardens that we haven’t really explored before, but it was a bit too muddy to play there last week.

We did find a wooden post with a magnifying glass built into it though which I thought was such a nice idea, perfect for examining leaves that had fallen from the trees.

The rest of the day was spent visiting Pops to wish him a happy birthday (and to eat some cake) and getting ready for the Christmas performances at school.

Both the children recorded their videos on Thursday, all dressed up in Christmas jumpers with santa hats and elf headbands.

They were really excited when they came out of school and now I can’t wait to see the end result.  I know it won’t be the same as going to watch them perform a whole concert in person, but I think this video will be something really special, and it’ll be so nice to have it to be able to watch again when the children are older.

What are your children doing at school this year?

Are they making a video for the parents to watch at home, or have they found another way to adapt the normal Christmas concert?

Well last week was a bit of a washout wasn’t it!

As a general rule I quite like the rain, but it just felt relentless last week and doing the school run in the rain just really isn’t fun.

Although saying that, it did make me laugh on Monday when I went to pick the children up in a woolly hat and a face mask that covered so much of my face that no one recognised me.  The poor teachers had to come right over to check it was me before letting Rhys and Nerys leave with me.

It was funny at the time, but did make me think afterwards about how hard it must be for the staff to keep track of everyone now we’re all wearing masks on the school grounds and lining up all the way across the yard to keep a safe distance from each other!

We did have a little break from all the rain on Sunday luckily, which made things a bit easier with the children’s swimming lessons.

Last week it was pouring down which really wasn’t great when they’re meant to arrive at lessons ‘beach ready’.  Which meant they were in their swimming costumes and dressing gowns with coats over the top and crocs on their feet, dashing across the car park.

So it was much nicer this week to do the routine in the sunshine.

When we got home Nerys was sitting on our bed waiting for her turn in the shower and the light coming in the window was just perfect for a few quick photos.

I can’t remember what Steve and I had said to her, but she really got the giggles about something and so we ended up with these photos which I absolutely love.

She has such a great sense of humour this one, and just gets our sarcasm and silly jokes and when she gets the giggles like this it is almost impossible not to start laughing along with her.

I’m impressed I managed to get these photos in focus to be honest, the amount we were both laughing when I took them!

The children have got an inset day today which has come at just the right time.  They’ve both seemed tired lately and really in need of an extra day to just relax a bit.

So they’ll be mainly having a slow start to the day while I have the strange experience of doing parent-teacher consultations for both of them over the phone.

Then we’ll head out for a walk in the afternoon and pop up to visit Pops to celebrate his birthday.  It’s also our 13th wedding anniversary today so we have that to celebrate too!

Later on this week the children need to dress up in their Christmas jumpers and wrap themselves in tinsel to record their videos at school that are going to take the place of the usual Christmas concert.

Nerys’ class are reciting a Christmas poem and Rhys’ are singing ‘step into Christmas’.  Except they’re not singing.  They’re lip-synching, because they’re not allowed to actually sing in class together.

It’s such a little thing, and the children won’t even think anything of it really, they’ll still have a blast dancing and mouthing the words to the song.  But it feels like one more little thing, after a year of things being different and uncertain, that the children have had to adapt to and it just reminds me again of how resilient they are, how they’re just, somehow, taking things in their stride.  And I’m slightly in awe of them to be honest.

Last Tuesday was the 10th of the month, and so I took the big camera with me on my travels that day to take my 10 photos for my 10 on 10 project.

If you’ve not heard me mention it before, it’s a photography project I’ve been doing for a while now where I take 10 photos on the 10th of each month to try and capture life as it is on that day.

And life on the 10th of November was a pretty standard school day so most of the photos were taken on the walk home from school.

I took a few pictures of the children as we headed into Singleton park, and then Nerys asked if she could have a go at taking some.

So this week’s living arrows photos are actually the work of the children.

They took it in turns to take photos of each other, and then got me in front of the camera with them too.

I had sorted out the settings on the camera, and showed them how to lock the focus and take the photos and then let them get on with it, and I’m so impressed with the results!

Nerys in particular took control of the situation, posing me and Rhys on the grass with the last of the autumn colours in the background.

I love seeing them so interested in photography, with it being something I’m so passionate about.

I think it’s about time I let them take on some photography projects of their own to help them learn a bit more about it and just have some fun with it.

There’s something special about seeing photos that your children have taken, to see the world through their eyes in that way.  I’d love to let them do their own version of the 10 on 10 project, to see what they think is important enough in their lives that day to photograph.

We’ve come to that strange time of year where things seem to move and change quite quickly.

All of a sudden it’s almost dark by the time the children and I get home from school.

This month’s siblings project photos were taken just a few weeks ago and already the sun seems to be setting much earlier than it did then.

We took these in the park as the sun had almost disappeared from view, as the gorgeous golden light shifted to the blues of dusk.

By the end of this week it was really getting dark by the time we had walked home and, even though it happens every year, it has still caught me off guard.

And the days getting shorter is just the start of it.

All of a sudden bonfire night has been and gone.

Remembrance day passed so much more quietly than normal.

The Christmas parade is taking place (virtually) today and there are already some festive foodie huts in the town centre.

We’ve had a message from the children’s school with a list of inset days, odd-sock-wearing days, parent-teacher consultation dates, non-uniform days and a whole host of other things to make this term a busy and fun one for the children.

I think each week will have something different for the children to look forward to, and before we know it we’ll be at the end of term and heading straight into Christmas.

The children have coped so well with all the changes they’ve faced this year, I just really hope they get to enjoy the rest of this term and don’t end up having to miss any school like they did last term.

I’ve been so grateful to all the staff at their school and how hard they’re working to make it a safe, enjoyable place for the children to be.  Both Rhys and Nerys absolutely love their teachers this year which has been such a relief because, honestly, I was quite nervous about them having teachers we hadn’t crossed paths with before.  And all three of the teachers they had last year were tough acts to follow.

Everything is still so uncertain and I don’t know how the rest of the year will go for the children, but at the very least I know that their teachers will do everything they can to make the best of all the changes and make this a Christmas term we’ll always remember.

Things feel really quite strange at the moment.

We’re coming out of our 2 week firebreak lockdown here in Wales, as England are heading into their first full week of something similar.

Not that the lockdown ending here will change all that much for us to be honest.

We’ll be able to see Steve’s parents again now we’re back in an extended household with them, and swimming lessons for the children are starting up again this week, but other than that things won’t be all that different for us.

I think the fact that the schools stayed open this time round meant that life felt pretty much the same during this lockdown as it has been since September.

Last week we had a run of sunny, dry days so I walked to meet the children from school each day.

On Friday they both picked up sticks along the way which quickly became magical Harry Potter wands (and fun props for a few quick photos in the park!).

By the time we got home on Friday we were all worn out from the first week back at school.

The children also both had their flu vaccinations in the week which left Nerys in particular a little bit more worn out that usual with a lovely runny nose for a day or two.

They’re happy to be back in school though and it’s lovely to hear how much the school is doing to make sure they’re all doing well emotionally as well as academically.

They’ve been doing everything they can to mark special occasions with the children, so even though they can’t do things like harvest festival the way they normally would they still made it special and fun in different ways.

We didn’t really miss out on all that much this summer; we didn’t have a holiday booked that had to be cancelled or anything like that.  But now we’re reaching the time of year where we have a few things we’d normally do that can’t go ahead this year.

Bonfire night for example.

We would normally walk down to the big fireworks display at St Helens, but obviously that was cancelled this year.

I thought the children might be upset about missing it, but they were brilliant about it.  Steve took Nerys out in our carpark for a bit to spot all the random fireworks that were being set off in people’s back gardens, while Rhys did a fun zoom session with his cub pack.

Then we went out to join the others and spent a chilly 30 minutes spinning in all directions to catch where different fireworks were coming from.

It was so simple, so different from what we would normally do, but somehow still so special.

Did you do anything to celebrate bonfire night?  How different was it for you this year than other years?