Posts in category: Personal

Last week was all about trying to get back in to some sort of routine, now the children are back at school after the Christmas holidays.

We had some lovely dry, sunny weather through the week, so I walked to collect the children from school on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

And each time we stopped off at a little park behind the shops for a play on our way home.

It really is a little park, with a few swings, a climbing frame/slide, and a seesaw, but it’s enough to keep them happy for a bit and burn off a bit of steam at the end of the day.

We’ve talked about walking to school a few times, but it’s been so cold in the mornings and we’ve all been a bit slow to get moving so we’ve not managed it yet.

Maybe in another week or two when we’re all more settled in to the routine we’ll be up and ready in time to walk.

For now though I just want to keep walking home as often as we can.  I really do think we all feel better for it, having that bit of time in the fresh air after school to talk things over and get a bit of exercise.  And honestly, I just prefer it to sitting in the car and waiting at the million sets of traffic lights that we have to go through to get home from school!

Here we are.  Another year and a fresh start with the siblings project which, along with living arrows and the me and mine project, sometimes fell through the cracks last year.

2022 didn’t get off to the best start when it came to opportunities for taking pictures of the children together.  Rhys and I both tested positive for Covid just after Christmas, so started the new year trying our best to isolate from Nerys and Steve.

Once we were free again though I did manage to get this photo when we went out for much-needed fresh air at the beach.

Nerys found this painted rock along the way, and kept hold of it until she found the perfect spot to hide it again, ready for someone else to discover.

And Rhys, well, he of course found a big stick to carry throughout the walk.

I might not be a big fan of the ever-growing pile of sticks outside our house (because of course each new one he finds needs to brought home with us), but I’m realising that there’ll be a point in possibly the not too distant future that all this stops.

One day he’ll move on from this stick phase, and I know there’ll be a part of me that kind of misses it when that happens.

I feel like I’m at least a week behind the rest of the world at the moment.

With me and Rhys both isolating over the new year and us then having (very) belated Christmas celebrations with Steve’s parents at the weekend I feel like we’ve only just really reached the end of the festive period today.

Not that that’s a bad thing.  I quite like a slow, gentle start to the new year rather than feeling like I need to attack it all guns-blazing.

We did celebrate the end of our isolation with a few walks to the beach last week, which were very much needed.

Rhys and I went together on the first day he was free to leave the house, and then we all went as a family a few days later.

Both times we managed to time it to be there when the tide was fairly far in, so we could walk along the water’s edge and listen to the waves.  Being able to pop to the beach is something I know I can take for granted at times, but I’m determined to make the most of it this year and head down for more walks as much as I can.

For now we’re trying to adjust to the new year and the children being back in school.

It’s crazy to think that this time last year we were starting another long stretch of home learning with them.  As much as I don’t like the dark, chilly morning school runs I am glad for the children that they can be back in the classroom with their friends at the moment.

They’re also both going to drama classes this term which I’m hoping they’ll really enjoy.

Nerys has been going for a while and absolutely loves it, and Rhys is now keen to give it a try too.  It’s a relatively new class that we found and the teachers are amazing, so friendly, welcoming and encouraging, I’m so happy I came across it when I did.

Nerys’ confidence has definitely improved since she started and she’s been loving learning new skills and being on the stage.  I think Rhys will enjoy it too, he’s a very creative child and expressive child, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they both go with it over the next few months.

One of my goals for 2022 is to get back on track with the me and mine project.

I really don’t know what happened last year but I kept missing opportunities to take family photos each month.  I struggled with the living arrows project too.

So this year I want to find my groove with it all again, and be more intentional with picking up my camera and taking photos of my family consistently.

We did manage to get a belated picture for December this weekend.  It was taken on my phone and it’s not the best quality, but it’s us, together, enjoying the last of the Christmas celebrations before taking the tree down and packing everything away for another year.

I think this is the longest we’ve ever left our decorations up for, and it was still really quite sad to take everything down and chop up the tree.

You really were a good tree Clyde.  We never should’ve named you.

Well this has been possibly the strangest Christmas and New Year we’ve had in a while.

We made it back to Kent to see all my family the weekend after the children broke up from school, and had a really lovely early Christmas.  It was the first time in an incredibly long time that we’d all been together and I was so worried that it wouldn’t actually happen.

So the fact that we managed it was so special and something that I’m really grateful for.

Especially considering the fact that in that weird time between Christmas and New Year Rhys and I both tested positive for the coronavirus.

We’ve been really quite lucky all things considered, and haven’t been too unwell with it.

Rhys had about 24 hours of fever and headaches but managed to sleep it off with the help of some Calpol.

I mainly felt like I had a head cold, with a bit of a chesty cough.

Through all of it we’ve tried our best to keep away from Steve and Nerys and, for now at least, they’re still getting negative results on lateral flow tests.

It did mean that the New Year sort of slipped in quietly for us and it feels like we’re about a week behind everyone else in terms of the festivities.  Our Christmas tree is still up and will hopefully keep its needles long enough to stick around until next weekend when we’ll have a late Christmas day with Steve’s parents.

The children have both been amazing through all the isolation.  I think there is just this strange acceptance that this is the way it has to be, so we may as well just try and get on with it.

Rhys and I watched all 4 seasons of Jessie on Disney+ last week while trying to keep away from Steve and Nerys.

There’s also been a lot of time spent playing wordscapes and water connect puzzles on my phone and the iPad.

Nerys I think has secretly quite enjoyed having the run of the living room while we’ve been hiding away.  She’s been able to watch whatever she wants on the TV, and she’s taken over the rug with a big jigsaw puzzle that she got for Christmas.

I actually think it’ll take all of us a while to get used to all being properly together again once we’re free and clear!

It’s a case of better late than never with this week’s living arrows post.

The weekend disappeared in a blur of Father Christmas visits, show rehearsals, swimming lessons, and roast dinners.

And now we’re almost at the end of the last week of school before the holidays.

It was Christmas dinner day at school today, so the children got to wear their Christmas jumpers again.

Rhys had the actual Christmas dinner, and said he enjoyed it, while Nerys decided to stick with her normal packed lunch.

I wanted to still make it a bit special for her though, so she had sandwiches cut into star shapes and some mini gingerbread men and chocolate coins in there.

She performed in her end-of-term show for her drama class on Monday and was absolutely brilliant.

All the children did such a great job, especially considering the class has only been running for a couple of months.  They did a panto-style show called ‘Once upon a fairytale’ with a few dance routines and songs that they had all worked really hard on.

One of the songs they sang was ‘when I grow up’ from the Matilda musical and they did it so beautifully, it left me quite emotional by the end.

I’m just so incredibly proud of Nerys for getting up there, for working so hard to learn all her lines, and for really committing to it in every sense.  I think they’ll wait until the end of the summer term now before they do another show, and I am so excited to see what the children will all be capable of by then.

The last month has been (for the most part) a lovely, fun one for the children.

There were a few days of poorliness which, luckily, wasn’t covid related.  And other than that it’s been fun, festive activities galore.

First of all they went to see the lights at Margam Park, which looked absolutely magical.

They spent a little over an hour there with their grandparents, taking their time wandering round the grounds and seeing all the light displays.

Then last weekend they went to Gower Fresh Christmas tree farm to see Father Christmas.

They’ve been every Christmas for the last few years and it’s always a really lovely experience.  There’s a winter wonderland grotto that you walk through on the way to see Father Christmas, with loads of things to see along the way.  This year Elsa and Anna were there and the children were able to sit and have a photo taken with them.

One thing that Nerys was particularly excited about was the fact that she could take our elf with them to meet Father Christmas.

This is the second year that we’ve had an elf on the shelf, after I relented last year and let one into our house.  I always said I didn’t want one, but seeing Nerys’ face each day when she spots where Jingle is hiding has made it worth it.

We don’t have a particularly naughty elf, she tends to just move around and occasionally eat some of our chocolate, and I can deal with that!

The children are normally incredibly careful around our elf, making sure they don’t touch her in case she looses her magic.  But on the day that they were visiting Father Christmas she wrote them a note saying that, for that day only, she had extra magic that meant they could hug her and take her out with them.

It seems like such a small thing, but being able to take her along to the grotto made the whole thing even more magical for the children.

Do you have an elf on the shelf?  Can you touch yours or do you have to be careful around them?!