Following Mr S accident last week, its been a pretty full on week. I’m working full time (over 4 long days), and have returned to being housekeeper, cook and driver whilst he recovers. Its frustrating but I always try to make the best of all situations. It has been a busy week, with another family birthday, the end of term for both children, an end of year treat for the scouts, a trip to London, an important medical appointment and the week culminated in supporting our son at Saturday’s cricket match followed by watching a friendly football match for our local league team. I’m not sure full on quite describes my week! Oh and there’s been a heatwave and the hottest day ever.

This week’s highlight was my son and mine’s trip to London. We had planned it for the Spring of 2020, but it became a casualty of the pandemic. Since the pandemic there has been so much to catch up on (we’ve still 2 weekends owed) that it was wonderful to finally do our visit. I chose the very first day of his holiday, as his sister was still at school and I had my day off, so it had little impact on others. My son has been a little worried about visiting London, as living in a small seaside town, it seems quite daunting. However, he actually took it all in his stride, so much so by the end of the day, he asked to go on the Underground which he had been very unsure of.

When he was little, my son had a small picture book on London and he loved looking at the illustrations. It is the most beautiful book and is one which I kept for the happy memories of reading and looking at it together. I surprised him with it on the train and we looked through what we might see (I had a fully planned itinerary, organisation was key to see all we did) Our big trip was to the Imperial War Museum, military history is my son’s passion and he was so excited to see a spitfire and all the other exhibits. I found it a really interesting museum just the right size and the air conditioning was very welcome on a hot day in the capital. Thankfully it was 15 degrees cooler and cloudier than the 41 degrees and blazing sunshine of Monday. After the museum, we walked on the South Bank, so vibrant and bright and then crossed over to Trafalgar Square to see Nelson! There was a giant ice cream on one of the plinths and the music from the buskers filled the square with such a lovely atmosphere. We then walked onto Leicester Square and had fun finding the statues, my son was particularly delighted by Mr Bean and me by Paddington. We had a potter around China Town and then headed off to Covent Garden, where we stopped for a much needed sit down and some delicious crepes. My son then asked to see Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street, so we walked there via Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey, before our trip on the tube back to the station. Needless to say we walked a lot, 30k steps, but it was worth every single step, we had an amazing day and have a few ideas for our return trip.

Its been a lovely week of making memories with my son, we had London which was one of our best ever days together and then due to Mr S injury I got to take him to see his football team who by chance were playing my team, another brilliant experience. Yes its been a tough in places, and a mad, crazy week but one where there have been very special times which I am so privileged to have enjoyed.