Posts in category: Personal

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside!

We had a really lovely evening making the most of where we live on Thursday last week.

Rhys’ cub pack arranged to have their meeting at the beach.  So Nerys and I decided to tag along and have some fun too.

We walked down through Singleton park and dropped Rhys with his pack once we got onto the beach.  Then Nerys and I headed straight to the water for a paddle.

The timing was perfect, with the tide being almost completely in.  So we splashed around in the water for a while, before heading off for a walk along the beach.

We walked along to Victoria Park so Nerys could have a play in the recently refurbished play area.

I hadn’t actually been since it was redone, and was really impressed with how it all looks.  There’s 2 climbing frames with slides, 2 sets of swings, a tyre swing, a roundabout, a trampoline, and a really fun bouncy see-saw.

There was even a twister mat painted on to the floor and a spinner attached to the wall so you can play a few games of that if you get bored with the swings and things!

Nerys had a great time in the park, and almost had to be dragged away so we could back along the beach in time to meet Rhys at the end of his cubs session.  He had spent a busy hour and a half having a blast digging holes and playing in the sand and was covered from head to toe by the time we found him.

We had planned to walk back home again but, honestly, I was quite relieved when the rain clouds started to close in and Steve phoned offering to come and pick us all up.  It is only a 20/30 minute walk back from the beach to our house, but it’s all uphill and can be a bit of a slog after a few hours playing in the sea air!

I think we’ll be spending a few more evenings at the beach during the summer holidays though, it was such a lovely way to end the day.

We had a bit of a shake up of our normal routine last week.

I was called up for jury service, so it was Steve who did the school run every day.

I think the children really loved having their Dad be the one to take them and pick them up for a change.  And I have to be honest, I did enjoy not having to keep an eye on the clock every day and make sure we were where we needed to be each day!

The trial I was called for ran from Monday until Thursday and was a strangely mentally draining thing to be part of.  So I’m really relieved that we were told that we wouldn’t be needed again this week.

I’m now hoping for a nice, normal week back doing school runs and cracking on with work.

The weekend was a good start at getting back to normality, with time spent pottering at home and in the garden.

We all spent an hour or so out in the garden on Saturday, with the grown ups pulling up weeds and cutting back bushes while the children played with mud potions and made friends with the bugs they found.

Rhys spent quite a bit of time lifting up stones and plant pots to find this woodlouse to play with.

Speaking of which.

Does anyone else call these ‘cheesy bugs’?!

I have a feeling that name for them is really specific to the part of Kent that I grew up in, because most people give me the strangest look when I say it.  So, of course, I’m now teaching my children to call them it too!

How on earth are we already here at the middle of June?

It feels like we’ve only just really got the children back to school after all the spells of home learning, and now the summer holidays are just around the corner.  Not that I’m complaining.  After all the ups and downs of this school year I think I’m looking forward to the long summer break as much as the children are.

They had a really lovely half term holiday a few weeks ago, with trips out to the beach and the woods as well as time just relaxing at home.  And I think it got us all looking forward to more of the same over the summer.

We’ve got about 5 weeks of school to get through first, but I have a feeling they’ll whizz by.

I’ve been called up for jury service this week and next, so the children have the novelty of Steve doing the school run for a bit.  And I always find that changes in the routine like this make the time seem to go that bit faster.

They’ll also have fun things like sports day to enjoy before the end of the year.

The one thing we’re all keen to know about is who their teachers will be next year and if they’ll still be in the same classes as their friends.  Last year ended so abruptly the children didn’t get to do the normal transition days, so we’re really hoping that they’ll get to do it this year.

It would be really nice to go into the holidays with an idea of how things will look and who they’ll be with in September.

Do your children have transition or ‘meet the teacher’ days at their school, to help them prepare for moving up a year?

Well this weekend was rather glorious wasn’t it!

After a week of wall to wall drizzle and mist, it was so lovely to wake up to blue skies and sunshine on Saturday.

Yesterday morning we decided to get up and out to the beach before the real heat of the day hit.  We walked down through Singleton park, onto the beach and straight down to the sea for a paddle.

There were loads of people out in the water on paddle boards, who must’ve been braver than me because the water really wasn’t that warm when we splashed about in it!

The children had a great time though, searching through the stones and shells in the tideline for the perfect ones to throw out into the water.

It was the perfect way to spend a sunny Sunday morning, and now none of us can wait for a longer spell of hot weather to warm the sea up just that bit more so we can actually go for a proper swim.

We’re starting to put together our summer bucket list for this year and swimming in the sea is something that’s been added recently.

I need to actually get all our ideas down on paper before I start to forget them.

For now we have things like visiting the LC, eating fish and chips by the sea, having a picnic in the park, going to Folly Farm, and making brownies.

What sort of things would you put on a summer bucket list?  I’m always looking for new, fun things we could add to our list!

Here we go.  The final stretch.  Five and a half more weeks until the end of the school year.

I think the children are both ready for it, after a really lovely break over the half term holiday.  Although they do have an inset day today so we can really ease into things this week!

Last week was full of sunshine and blue skies and all things joyful, and was just what we needed after a long term at school.

On Monday we parked by Blackpill (just in time before the car park filled up completely!) and walked from there all the way along the seafront to Mumbles.  It was a gorgeous sunny day, and walking along the prom with the tide in was a real reminder of how lucky we are to live where we do.

We walked all the way down to Mumbles pier before turning back and stopping for a Joe’s ice cream.  That was one thing we were planning on putting on our summer bucket list for this year, and something we’ll definitely do again now we’ve all remembered how good that ice cream is!

On the way back to the car we stopped for a few minutes at the lido at Blackpill, and then promised Nerys we would go back in the summer break so she could play properly.  It was absolutely rammed when we were there, so we’ll plan to go nice and early one day in the summer holidays.

The weather was still beautiful on Tuesday so we headed out again, this time to Clyne woods.  We hadn’t been there in months so it was really lovely to go back and have a good wander again.

We also popped down to the marina on Thursday for a walk around to see the boats and then a little stroll along the seafront.

We don’t tend to get down as far as the marina all that often, but each time we do I think we should make more of an effort to do it more.

There are some lovely pieces of artwork installed along the front there, and lots of different spots to stop and look out along the bay.  And if you keep going there are some lovely paths through the sand dunes that are great for exploring with little ones.

The children ended the week with two nights sleeping over at their grandparents’ house.

They went out to the park at Singleton boating lake on Friday and then to Wiggly’s farm in Bridgend on Saturday, and were well and truly worn out by the time they came home yesterday!

So now we have today to just chill out (and finish up bits of homework that have been sadly neglected with all the fun going on) before we’re back and raring to go for the new term tomorrow.

I don’t know about you, but I am absolutely ready for this half term break.

After seven weeks of school runs and packed lunches and generally adjusting to the children actually being back in the classroom full time we’re all really looking forward to this week to just relax a bit.

We don’t have any real plans, other than the children going for a sleepover with their grandparents at the end of the week.

It’s at times like this though that I remember quite how lucky we are to live where we live.  We don’t need to make plans for days out to the seaside, because the beach is just there.  With the weather looking pretty warm and sunny for the week I think we will be popping to see the sea once or twice, and maybe heading for a walk in the woods which we haven’t actually done in ages.

Yesterday evening we went for a little walk in the park after dinner, making the most out of not having to get up and out to school this morning.

We only went out for about half an hour but it was so nice to be out with the sun dipping low enough to create that lovely golden evening light.

I hadn’t taken any other photos of the children over the last week (other than the quick headshots that we do every night), so took these pictures while we were out.  It was only when we got back home and I had them up on the computer that I stopped and realised quite how much older they’re both looking all of a sudden.

We’ve been noticing lately how much taller they’re getting, and I really don’t now how much longer I have before they catch up with me!

Another month done.  How on earth are we nearly halfway through the year already?!

After the ups and downs of April, May felt like a relatively calm, quiet month.  And with a strange spell of chilly, wet, and windy weather that felt more like autumn than early summer part way through, it was so nice to end the month with blue skies and sunshine!

We popped out to the park after tea yesterday to make the most of the warmer weather and take this month’s family photos.

May saw us get settled back into the routine of the children being back in school and things like cubs and swimming lessons being up and running again.  Rhys was promoted to sixer at cubs and has been really loving being able to go back to pack meetings in person.

They’ve been meeting outside at the back of the scout hall, trying things like grass sledging and having big water fights.  He’s also been working on his chef’s badge at home, cooking a meal of pasta and sauce and baking a courgette chocolate cake that was so much tastier than it sounds!

The children also moved to new times for their swimming lessons this month, after Rhys was moved up to swimming lengths instead of widths.  They’ve both adjusted to the change really well, especially with Nerys now being in a class with one of her friends from school.

I’m hoping they’ll really get their confidence in the water back up to where it was before, so that we can all enjoy spending time in the pool and the sea in the summer holidays.  We didn’t go swimming at all last summer and it was something I think we all really missed, so that’s definitely on our summer bucket list for this year!