Month: April 2025

This is an excellent half term, only 5 weeks long of which 2 are 4 day weeks. When you add in a DofE camp, lots of special events and a more outdoor curriculum, I’m a big fan of the summer term. We had a nice lazy day for Easter Monday, as I wasn’t able to go to the gym, I went for an early morning run and pleasantly surprised myself with the distance I ran and how comfortable I felt. As I’m unable to make the gym this Monday again, I repeated the long run with an extra mile on Sunday. After my run, which wasn’t comparable to 26.2, I watched the London marathon, one of my favourite races of the year and was amused to see my dad’s name on the leading British runners. I did text him the photo and a little jokey message but he didn’t read the names on the screen so it was a bit lost on him… Marathon Sunday is always so emotional and inspiring it makes you in awe at how brilliant people are.

As the boys were at football on Sunday, we popped over to the garden centre on Saturday afternoon for a few things. Gardening is not my thing but fortunately my husband loves it. My job is to simply sit in it and admire the flowers. The bonus of a trip to the garden centre is that has a great cafe, gardens and gift and farm shops so it’s not a bad way to while away a couple of hours. I did replace an indoor plant, which I had managed to keep alive for a few years until a rather enthusiastic watering killed it off (not guilty) I picked up a book a few weeks ago too so fingers crossed I can cultivate my little indoor garden. I do like to have plants indoors, they give a sense of wellbeing.

Although this hasn’t been the best of weather the weekend saw a change, typically post parkrun, and it’s been lovely to take time outside. On Sunday afternoon, I sat in the sunshine with my book, it’s always the simple pleasures which are the best.

Earlier in the week, on the rainy Bank holiday afternoon, I enjoyed playing on AI. After having fun with family photos, I asked it to adapt a photo of our home into a Beatrix Potter inspired photo. I like the result although the kitchen extension appears to be missing, perhaps it’s showing me what the house would have looked like in Potter’s lifetime.

Finally back at work and we made good progress on the mermaid tail hunt, finding four. It’s a fun activity and our display board is filling up with our photos. I’m really interested to see how many we manage to collect in the next half term.

Whilst next week js a 5 day working week, when you have a long weekend to look forward to it always feel a little more light and fun. I have a few busy nights so will be grateful for an extra long lie.

This has been such a busy Easter holiday that very unusually for me, I did not decorate the house and whilst I did a roast for Easter Sunday dinner, today, it was not one of my special menus. We only had a few days at home after Cornwall before we spent some time in Bristol with family to celebrate my father-in-law’s birthday.

The week started with a few days at home. After a long drive home on Saturday, Sunday was a day for unpacking, laundry and booking our next holiday. As soon as we had unpacked it seemed to be time for packing again. I do feel that I have mastered the art of packing but it’s an art my husband and son need to learn. I had one neat weekend bag with all I needed, they shared a huge holiday bag and still needed more room. We are flying out to Rome to start our summer holiday and the boys will need to carefully pack to be in the weight luggage limit. I’ve been tracking the ideal capsule wardrobe on Pinterest and have started my planning.

On Monday night, I took my son to football ( a win ) and tracked down the first mermaid tail in an art trail raising funds for the local children’s hospice. It’ll be my little challenge in the coming weeks, I also managed to find one when shopping on Saturday.

On Tuesday the boys returned to the stadium for more football, the development squad whilst I stayed at home for a plumber to fit a new cylinder. It was one of those odd days, I couldn’t do much as it was a big job and as the cupboard is at the top of the stairs I was restricted to down stairs and then there were times with no water or electricity and a lot of noise. The plumber was fantastic, so helpful and tidy and it was a good job to tick off. As I knew I was likely to be in all day, I did an early run along a windy seafront. I did enjoy the Dr Seuss inspired beach hut.

On Wednesday we headed to Bristol to celebrate my father-in-law’s 93rd birthday and spent a few days with him. It is a gentle pace with him now, so a quiet few days. On his birthday we were joined by other members of the family for lunch. It was great to see everyone and my son certainly benefited in Easter eggs.

Although I had hoped to have a few days driving free, I needed to take my son shopping on Saturday for some essentials and to pick up a few orders. I popped into Boots to print off some photos from our Cornish holiday and am already displaying them on my bureau. I also picked up a full length mirror, something missing from our house since we did some decorating and recycled the wardrobes with the mirrors. I’m quite relieved at this as checking your appearance in a window reflection is not really the best way to check your look!

After a fortnight of family fun and seeing all our extended family, it’s been nice to have a very quiet Easter. I did refill the Easter tin with sweet nibbles but this was my only real seasonal nod. This is just a temporary pause on celebrating Easter because of a busy holiday, all my decorations, menus, treats and more will return in 2026.

So again, I’m catching up with my blog. The last two weeks of the term were very busy with life and not much to record. As the Finding Nemo cartoon above shows I just kept fully focused on writing reports over a weekend and a number of evenings. I love teaching special needs but the amount of report writing / evidence commentary is intense and dominates my life for the final fortnight of each term.

I am really focused on my wellbeing this year and even in this busy time I have made sure that I found time for daily walks and the gym. I have always detested the treadmill and avoided it. However since joining my local gym I have taken tentative steps to use it more and think I may actually be enjoying it. I can’t believe I do a 30 minute session on it each time. The training videos do help to motivate and challenge. I really like the instructor in the video so cheerful and motivating without being OTT.

In this period I have also read two books Piglet and Yellow Face. Both left me wanting more answers at the end, Piglet especially, what did her fiancé do? Both were good reads but not on my to be recommended read lists.

Also on this timeline was Mothers day, my early flowers lasted remarkably well and only had to be thrown away the day before we went on holiday so had nearly 2 week’s vase life. If I had them on the correct date, I would only have got to enjoy them for 5 days. On Mothers day I got a handmade card from my football mad son. It was done with great care and although it had a footballer on it, he is significant. His name is Antoine Semenyo and he is my favourite player, the photo in Bristol City colours is a lovely nod to my old team.

The last week was a crazy mix of two nights out on mum duties including watching a football match, our team lost, which meant a 12.00am bedtime and I was still up for the gym at 5.45am, not quite sure who this person is sometimes. There was also holiday packing and organisation and the fun events of the final week of term. Our holiday is much needed.