Its been a lovely festive week, not for any big special events but for the way Christmas starts to seep into everyday life. I had a beautiful run on Wednesday evening, where the lights and decorations around a local village were stunning. The park where I did my parkrun this morning also has a festive village and Santa grotto and is full of decorations with that lovely atmosphere of excitement and anticipation. As I saw little children skip up to the entrance in their best Christmas outfits, I did feel that pang of sadness that my two are now too big for such a Santa experience. But, the Christmas magic continues no matter what your age, it just looks different. My son’s class had their Christmas virtual coffee morning this week and it was very sweet. They had all written letters of what they would like for Christmas and read these out to the parents. My son’s was as expected (thankfully) although he asked for two chocolate oranges as dad always eats one!

Following on from my very serious, study filled Christmas of 2020, I have embraced Christmas this year and have watched my fourth Christmas film of the season, Last Christmas. I liked it and was genuinely surprised by the twist. I also bought a book of Christmas poems by Wendy Cope. I have all her anthologies as they are the perfect books to dip into. Although short, Christmas poems is a fantastic book, there’s so much feeling and emotion in simple verses. The poem, Little Donkey made me tearful and today when I was in a neighbouring town and heard the town band playing by the Christmas tree, I too had to pause and listen.

This week I was really looking forward to ‘And Just Like That’ the successor to Sex and the City. I was in my 20s when SATC was first broadcast and it ended just after I married. I loved it and it was one of my favourite tv series. I was thinking about that time this week, I was newly married, living in a big city, working as a French teacher, I would never have imagined that when it restarted 17 years later, I would be mum to teenagers, working in special needs education and living in a very small, seaside town, more than 100 miles from our parents. Life can change in surprising ways.

And Just Like That was very watchable and it was good to catch up with the characters. However, I need time to make my judgement there were some funny bits, some sad ( Oh Big … ) but some quite stilted exchanges too and I wasn’t too sure about the characterisation of some of the main characters. The men ( v happy to Steve and Harry back) seemed far more content and comfortable with life than the female leads. However, I’ll be back on Thursday night for the next episode.

Next week, I have my 8 week post op appointment so hopefully all will be well and I can be signed off. I’m so pleased its also the last week of term next week, I’m tired and work is quite demanding so I need the break and to be away from the drama . Its not the children or my team that provide the stress, its the things I don’t have control over, like Christmas lights and a Christmas dinner! However there are lots of lovely treats planned and its definitely going to look like Christmas next week.