After the relaxing Easter holiday, I returned to work, routines and a very full diary. I ended being late home every night this week and it did seem like I ate, tidied up, had a quick catch up with the boys and then it was time for bed. Some late returns were due to appointments, i now have lovely pink nails which by chance match my water bottle. However after a two week holiday and Inset day my son chose to inform me on the first day back that he needed new trousers and a polo shirt and it was a quick trip to town after school to purchase the items. I also had to be a proper grown up and go solo to buy a new car. This is the sort of thing that completely freaks me out. Last time I bought a car, I told my husband the make and model and the first time I saw it was when he brought it home which suited me perfectly. However, due to his brain injury he can no longer drive so I had to go to the garage and do all the practical things. Fortunately all the details of price and extras had been sorted in advance by my husband and the garage so I had the more pleasant job of having a test drive and choosing the colour and trims. It is an electric car so it was a brand new experience to drive an automatic but it was smooth and easy. I am so excited about having an electric car, with petrol prices rising daily the thought of just plug and go is very appealing. It is also so modern and stylish, I won’t ever have had such a cool car. Now we just have to wait for it to be delivered and I’m hoping by half term I’ll have a more environmentally friendly (as much as private vehicle can be) new car.

On my commutes this week I’ve been listening to the audio version of The Art of Thinking Clearly. I appreciate the short but fascinating chapters, in for example the over confidence effect, chauffeur knowledge. It’ll get worse before it gets better fallacy. It is fascinating and so interesting, the perfect commute book. I have also been loving ‘What happened that summer’ it’s a podcast true crime setting with a great twist at the end, a very easy but gripping read.

This weekend saw two family events in different households, my father in law’s birthday and my mum recovering from her hip replacement operation earlier in the week. As my son wasn’t at college, he and my husband took the train through to Bristol on Thursday night and I drove up to my mum and dad’s after work on Friday, all meeting up to come home together today, Sunday. It was a home based weekend, my mum is sore and fragile, but it was actually nice to simply have quality time together. My parents had been up to Scotland recently to see family and had brought some old family photos back which we went through together. For the first time I saw a picture of my great grandparents, on my mum’s side, including a wedding photo from 1902. I love this social history and I really enjoyed looking in the albums and seeing all the different fashions

Although we had a quiet weekend, I couldn’t miss a parkrun and went to the NENDY to my parents house at Blaise Castle. This brought back memories from the late 1990s / early 2000s when we lived in Bristol. I remembered a friend’s wedding reception in the ‘castle’ it’s a big house really, and the hot air balloons coming over from the nearby fiesta, a spectacular sight. Also we used to take our dog there for lovely walks, happy days. It was a great parkun, a bit like a cross country course across fields and through the woods but it had all the facilities you would need and a very friendly vibe. A perfect Saturday morning in the sunshine.

I’m hoping for a more relaxed week, although we do have a football game on Wednesday night which will mean a late night. It’s nearly the end of the season and I know we’ll miss the football when it’s on a break. Thankfully it’s a World Cup year!