The final week of term turned out to be a week of conflicting emotions, excitement and anticipation and then despair and shock. On this blog, I focus on the positive times as my children’s stories are not for me to share, but the last few days have been the toughest and most heart wrenching as a parent. Its not over yet and I think this Christmas could be quite a fragile period, but we’re all here together and this is our safe place.

The start of the week was great, I had such a lovely night with friends managing to dine al fresco in December. It was remarkably mild, and with a fire and curry we kept warm whilst chatting and relaxing, a perfect evening. I also had another check up with my consultant, he was really pleased with my foot and I just need to keep doing a few strengthening exercises before hopefully being signed off in four months. The smile image above is some wall art near the clinic and it seemed apt to come across it as I was leaving.

Last week I did my Christmas lights run, and this week it was the Christmas shop windows run. I feel two of the charity shops are having a little creative competition, as both have beautiful tree mannequins. I do love the Christmas windows and the effort made to make town a little more sparkly. The pier has new lights this year and it looks so beautiful with the colours reflecting off the sea. I hope they stay, twinkling lights make us all feel so much better and with the new Covid variant of Omicron threatening another lockdown, we all need the little sparkles in life.

One of my 21for21 was to have a plant on my doorstep, during the year its been a rose and then lavender. I have a Christmas tree now and its made me very happy. I feel I may have become more of a plant person this year, my indoor succulents are thriving and I’m planning to have a few more next year too. I’m looking forward to creating my 22for22.

It was the final week of term and special school events. We had an al fresco breakfast for staff on the last morning and any day which starts with Panettone can only be good. The last day saw the premiere of our Christmas videos which were very amusing and well worth the effort and technical stress in the preceding days.

Today, I did what can only be described as a new extreme sport, present wrapping! Family and friends gifts are all wrapped and delivered but I needed to do the children’s. Normally I take one of my days off and get everything organised and done in a lovely, leisurely manner, but this year with shopping trips, the spa visit and training, I haven’t had such a day. To help find me the time, Mr S took the children out and I had less than two hours to do it all. I was organised and had all the accessories, but it was intense and far more exhausting than this morning’s run, lots of up and down ladders to collect and re-hide the presents, tidy away all evidence etc.. However its all done and I can relax again until Christmas eve when Mr S traditionally takes the children out on a few errands for me and I do the stockings and gift bags ready for the night. Its our 12th Christmas as a family and we have a slick operation!

Its nearly Christmas now and fingers crossed for negative LFT tests tomorrow, we’re off to my parents for a few days. Given the national picture, it will be very much home based, we have a few ideas of outdoor things to do, but we will be avoiding busy indoor places. After all the high hopes for Christmas 2021, it seems that a new lockdown is inevitable. My father in law has postponed his post Christmas visit and we’re ready to cocoon ourselves at home. As long as all our family and friends are safe and healthy, nothing else really matters.