Author: seasidesparkles

I do like to write my blog at the end of each week. Last Sunday I was all set to do it after a lovely weekend and then we had some devastating news which paused all our immediate plans. This is the first evening in which I felt able to write about last week, so here are five happy moments of my week.

I have read a beautiful book of poetry this week Donna Ashworth’s Wild Hope. After such a difficult year it was the perfect book and I will definitely be recommending it to friends. It was beautiful to read of hope.

The weather took a starring role in my week. We were really surprised to see snowfall on Thursday morning and as you can imagine working in a school this caused a lot of excitement and a lot of distraction on my PPA morning. We had a light sprinkling of snow at my school but my son’s school, which is only a few miles away from us had heavy snowfall and they closed the school. I’m not sure whether it’s fortunately or unfortunately but he wasn’t at school on that day as he was visiting a sixth form for a tour and interview. Both my husband and son really like the college so we are hoping he gets offered a place, however special needs college places are very in demand and we now need to wait for a few months to hear the decision. The boys made the most of their visit to ‘big’ town with lunch out and ended up watching Gladiator 2 at the cinema. The snow didn’t really seem to affect their day and by the time I drove home the snow was rapidly disappearing and it was an easy and quick journey.

The weather returned to the headlines on Saturday morning with Storm Bert. I always check out the weather forecast for Saturday mornings in advance because of parkrun. I had noticed that the weather looked horrendous for 9 o’clock on Saturday however as I had volunteered for car park duties, I wrapped up warm, ready for any conditions and went along to my local park run. Despite more than 400 parkruns being cancelled across the country, the conditions allowed us to run on Saturday morning. The rain never materialised and it was a mild morning. However the wind was incredible. A lot of our course is sheltered but along the coastal path, the view of the waves was stunning and well worth the exhilarating run. After parkrun I drove the boys through to the station for them to go to football and then quickly returned home as the weather had taken a very nasty turn. I had such a lovely afternoon at home on my own lots of pottering, organising and relaxing. It is so rare to have time on my own in the house and I loved every minute.

On Sunday, the weather was again awful with very heavy rain. It was a perfect afternoon to go and watch the new Paddington film, Paddington in Peru. I loved the film and its themes stayed true to the previous Paddington films. I did feel a little emotional as the children grow older in the film and the family dynamics change. I totally got the painting of the sofa, which will make sense if you have seen the film. I really enjoy going to the cinema my job as a cinema usherette from my uni days still remains one of my favourite jobs and it always feel special to see a film on the big screen. I did like how staff had decorated the Odeon sign to illustrate the films this winter, I appreciate these little touches. After the film we went out for lunch, it was such a lovely warm cosy lunch looking out onto an ice rink and little Christmas market. I had such a feeling of contentment.

I don’t really know how to write the next few lines because when we returned home from the cinema I popped over to see my neighbour and learned the devastating news that she had very unexpectedly and suddenly died earlier in the day. The news still doesn’t seem believable, as she was a very fit and healthy lady. I can’t put into a sentence or two how important she was in our family’s lives and how sad we all are at the news. We live in a tight knit community and our lovely neighbour was always at the heart of it. To me she was more than a neighbour, she was my friend, my confidante, and even my hairdresser of over 20 years. We are all so, so sad.

After a very busy week, it’s half term and time for much needed rest, relaxation and fun.

My week has been jam packed, it’s unusual for me to leave work early. I tend to leave around 4.20, which gives me an hour after the children go to tidy and organise. However this week I was gone by 3.35 each afternoon, bar our meeting night, Monday was football training, Wednesday a multi agency meeting, Thursday, a garage appointment for a new tyre and Friday an early finish so we could drive up to Bristol at a reasonable time. Needless to say my diary has been well used this week as I try to juggle all my commitments. It’s that time of year when I start to look for a new diary, I bought this year’s rather randomly at a train station shop last year and it’s been excellent. I’m off the to London by train again in a few weeks so perhaps I’ll be able to get my new diary just before I jump onto the train home!

My motivation for driving down on Friday was so I could do some parkrun tourism. Severn Bridge parkrun has been on my wish list for a long time. However it does need to be done in certain conditions so I had been following the forecast for the past week or so to decide my venue, I had a few reserves as my father in law lives conveniently between a number of parkruns. However on Saturday morning the weather was perfect and I headed over to Chepstow for the run. It is an iconic parkrun, you run across the Severn Crossing across two countries and through three counties. There are so many great touches, flags on the bridge to indicate the border, amazing street art in the tunnel in which you finish, flashing fairy lights on the finish sign and a witty briefing with good natured Welsh / English rivalry. To me whilst being unique, it was also a little journey down memory lane. I did my teacher training placements in South Wales and had my first teaching job there too so I was used to crossing the bridge on my commute. I broke down on it and also got to use the new Severn crossing on the morning it opened, which you can see beautifully from the bridge. The morning was brilliant and I am so pleased to have ticked Severn Bridge off my wish list. I love that wherever you are, you can find a local parkrun on a Saturday morning.

After the parkrun, we had a lovely family lunch out with my father in law before a walk in the warm, autumn sunshine. It was unseasonably warm, short sleeves weather, whilst it’s nice it’s also a further sign of climate change.

On Sunday my son and I went to the driving range, watched by two keen former golfers, my husband and father in law, no pressure there. This was a little more high tech than our usual range and we loved the gizmo which brought up a golf ball for each shot.

As we’ve been staying with my elderly father in law the pace has been slower and given me the chance to rest. I finished Dear Edward which was an excellent read and well recommended. Edward is the sole survivor of a plane crash and it follows his recovery and new life following the crash and the impact of others on his new life. It’s definitely a life affirming book and is not as maudlin as my description might read.

I also used the weekend to start thinking of Christmas. Half term is my kick start to the season where I start to write my lists and plan, not simply presents but specials events, card ideas, themes, menus etc.. I have the Libby app, so read the Christmas editions of Good Housekeeping and Woman and Home to inspire. I also ordered a few decorations that were in my list from last year, some houses for my Christmas village and paper stars for a simple vintage look.

Whilst we are still with my father in law, tomorrow we travel to my parents for a few days followed by other plans for the rest of the week, including all those appointments that teachers always do at half term and a few fun things for my son.

Again much of life is taken up with trying to get our child all the help and support that they need. Whilst my weeks look empty, I’m a furious keyboard warrior in the evenings sending letters to fight their case. I have to admit that AI has been a really useful tool, one letter in which I needed legal references was beautifully written by AI, although I am awaiting how successful it was in affecting the case.

I am in a period of preparation. I have planned and purchased some accessories for our trip to ABBA Voyage. I’m loving the heart glasses which I have for the girls in our party and the headband is delightfully sparkly.

I have had my flu and Covid boosters this week. I made the decision to have them to protect the very medically vulnerable children we have in our SEN school. I arranged it for a Saturday so if I had any ill effects I had Sunday to recover. I did feel a little rough but nothing that stopped my day. I always feel so grateful when having such a vaccination.

We have been putting the final touches to my daughter’s bedroom, it’s had all new furniture, paint and furnishings and looks so much better. I do think a nice rug would complement the room and will be in the lookout on future shopping trips.

After my family admin, I have been doing lots of reading in the evenings as a perfect distraction. Ghosts by Dolly Alderton was excellent, the ghosts were a boyfriend and friends disappearing from life with no real reason or contact. I really enjoy Dolly’s work, it has strong female leads and characters you root for.

This weekend I did find myself with some time alone. This is so rare in my life, except for my weekly parkrun, and I was determined to do something useful with my time. After dropping the boys at the station, I popped into town for a tea and cake and potter and then came home to finally put away my summer clothes and get out the warmer, winter clothes. I do feel nicely organised for the coming months. The time was over so quickly and I picked up two very happy boys at the station as their football team had beaten Arsenal.

This coming week is the last before half term, of course half term is busy so it’s another week of organising days away and packing ready to relax. I’m really hoping that I may get to do one of my bucket list parkruns whilst I’m away, but given its location the w rather will decide my venue. If I don’t do it I will be going to another new parkrun for a little tourism.

A very quick recap as it’s nearly time to write my next post. I prepared the collage last week and then I’ve been busy each evening since so haven’t written it up. It’s this time of year when not much seems to be happening. I’ve a busy time during half term and some lovely plans for the weekends after so plenty to look forward to but for now we’re just doing some jobs around the house. Of course what started as let’s paint the bedroom has developed into more of a project with furnishings and a new bed purchased and I’m now searching local shops for a vintage wardrobe. Thankfully it’s our daughter’s room and as she is away at present we have been able to work in it in a more relaxed approach. As well as the nice jobs of choosing colours and looks, it’s been quite physical too, we have had to chop up her old bed and wardrobe which were both well beyond donation. Her wardrobe was one of the first pieces of furniture we bought for our first house in 2000, so there was a little bit of nostalgia when we were getting rid of it, remembering the lovely excited feeling of buying it originally.

The week did start with Monday night football. The logistics of this are complicated but somehow we managed to coordinate it all, even with the added ‘surprise’ of my son’s school taxi breaking down en route home. I was able to make a quick detour so our plans weren’t too badly affected. The game was entertaining and a good win for our team, however it was a really late night, getting home around 11.40pm ( the reality of rural life ) and there were a few tired days following. It does say something about the Premier League when the first Saturday home game of the season kicking off at the traditional 3pm is not until November.

After a busy Monday, I really needed a quiet week and spent a few nights on the sofa, snuggled up under my blanket reading a few magazines on the Libby app. I love this free app through my library and it saves me a fortune in glossy magazines.

I’ve also been doing some school work in the evenings. I like the creativity of my job and made some sensory activities to accompany a story. The felt carrots are buried in green rice and the task is to harvest the carrots using tweezers for fine motor skills. After working in leadership for many years, I am relishing the fun of being in the classroom.

On my daily commute I have been listening to the audiobook Frankie via my Spotify account. It’s a book by Graham Norton and I don’t often go for a celebrity fiction writer. But he is so good and I loved the story of Frankie, who you are rooting for throughout this book, she really deserves a happy ending. No spoilers but this book was excellent and brightened up my journeys.

Finally it was parkrun’s 20th birthday on Saturday. I celebrated at our home run and was treated to a beautiful sunny run and a morning with all the vibes. I did like the car with the registration plate RUN 5K, obviously a very big fan of parkrun.

So that’s me up to date now. Not long til the next post is due.

Life is quietly ticking along and after some very difficult months, I am very grateful for the rhythm of daily life.

This gentle approach means this week’s 5 things are very homely. I’m really appreciating the little things in life bringing simple joy.

I have now been doing Wordle since the pandemic and it is the first thing I do when I wake up. It’s the perfect little mental challenge to start the day, I have also incorporated it into my daily tutorial with my class. After many hundreds of games, and I reckon I may even top 1000 games played, I have a strategy to my game and use the same two starter words daily, teach and pious. They have all the vowels and contain some good digraphs. Pious was the wordle a few months ago but last Sunday, teach always my first choice was the word and I got it in one! I was ecstatic, and many members of my class teams over the past few years also messaged me on the Sunday with their excitement at their success in Wordle. I had to screenshot my result and genuinely think it will make it to our photo book of the year, I was so amused and chuffed. Old habits die hard though and I am still using my two favourite starters although both have now been done. I need a new strategy!

I’ve been making the house cosy for autumn, there is a chill in the air in evenings so my blanket is out as I can’t put the heating on til October and will hopefully last out until half term. The knitted pumpkins are from our local craft shop and the wooden mushrooms from another local shop. I haven’t finished my display yet but it’s coming together, I just need to source a few other bits and pieces to bring it all together.

This year with Mr S still needing lots of rest and early nights post accident, I have been switching off the tv in the evenings and listening to music and reading (and a bit of scrolling) . My latest read, Faking Friends by Jane Fallon was a brilliant story, funny with a perfect twist of revenge. I’ve never been disappointed by a Jane Fallon novel, she is a very good writer and it’s always a treat to read her latest book.

I remain a huge fan of Vinted and after getting the sparkly Converse pumps I wanted for a very reasonable price these pink velvet Converses also popped up, a snip at £6 for pumps in mint condition. Vinted is becoming my go to now for clothes, and it’s benefitting me on so many levels, but especially for financial and environmental reasons.

It’s time to say goodbye to September, my new year and welcome October, the month of spookiness and birthdays.

So much of life is unwritten at present. I don’t feel this is the medium to write about the challenges of our children. However they are needing so much support at present and away from work I spend so much energy fighting a broken system, too many agencies talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. CAHMS has been the biggest disappointment of all the agencies involved in our case and I am very angry. Not angry for myself but for our child who has been so let down.

However this blog is for sparkles in daily life and somehow in all of this there have been lovely moments.

The ‘what if I fall’ poster was an image I posted to my child this week who has been taking baby steps to good health. It’s so hard to say the right words sometimes, too easily taken out of context or misunderstood but this quote from Erin Hanson said beautifully the words of encouragement and trust I wanted to share.

This week Saturday was a day full of nice things but also incredibly busy. My organisation skills were tip top and amazingly everything fell neatly into place. The day started at parkrun as most Saturdays do but this week I travelled to ‘big’ town so I could fit in an eye test too. My parkrun buddy joined me at the parkrun, where we both got our fastest times of the year and best age gradings in our groupings. Unsurprisingly it’s a pancake flat course as opposed to our v tough home course. It did feel nice to simply run and not have to worry about upcoming hills, just the 5 in our normal run! It is a beautiful course around a park and lake and the weather was gorgeous and it really started the day positively. One of the reasons for doing this parkrun is there is a sports centre on the edge of the park whom allow you to shower post run and with a busy day this was definitely needed.

I went to Boots for my eye test and I have been going here for my last 3 biannual tests. I am so impressed by the quality of the test and the clear information I have been given. Unlike other opticians I do not feel it is about sales but eye health. They picked up something on my first test with them for which I now have 6 monthly checkups at the eye hospital. As expected I needed a new prescription for my reading glasses and I quickly chose a pair and will have them shortly. I was given a QR code for feedback which I will do as great performance deserves recognition.

After a very busy day. I was home in time for the start of Strictly, my ultimate comfort tv with Bake Off which returns next week too (yay) I loved that they started with Earth Wind and Fires’s September. I knew the relevance and had listened to the song on my parkrun , what else would you be doing on September 21st? This is one of my favourite songs and in my make believe world where I appear on Desert Island Discs it’s definitely one of my eight choices. Such a happy, uplifting tune.

Hopefully I have a quiet week coming up, I would love an ordinary week, simply about work and family. Fingers crossed 🤞

I’m so behind in my blog entries, just the annual July combination of birthdays, end of term events and daily life … oh and an England Euros final. Sadly it wasn’t to be this year, but we had a great night in the pub and fun memories were made, followed by the despair, and the eternal hope that the team is young and one day ‘football’s coming home.’ I did really enjoy the Euros, it felt like the first real tournament post pandemic, with huge crowds and a great atmosphere coming through the television and social media. I love football so tried to catch as many games as I could and there’s not many matches that I didn’t watch a little bit of (except the final group games which are played simultaneously)

These first few weeks of July have been also fantastic for my political geekiness and I have read in depth the analysis of the election and looked with pride and satisfaction on the appointments, priorities and drive of the new government.

I have read a few books, Seven Summers was a fun, YA book which had me hooked and happy, a light read which I needed in such a busy time. I chose Barcelona, a series of short stories, as I am off to the city in a few weeks. I knew it was fiction, but I wanted a story to reflect the ambiance and culture of the city. What I got was a very strange collection of stories with an underlying theme of dissatisfaction and animal cruelty. I did keep on reading thinking it may get better, but not a collection to recommend.

Despite a busy diary I have maintained my parkrunning and have attained my Volunteer 50 award. In all the hustle and bustle, Saturday from 8 – 10am is my special time which I cherish, even if I have to run a lot of hills to get this ‘me’ time!

Finally this week, summer arrived and it has been a beautiful week. There is no better soundtrack to the summer days than Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life which has been on repeat in my car this week. It is my ultimate summer album.

With summer comes summer fruits and our fruit bowls have been frequently refilled over the week, as who can pass a bowl of cherries or berries without dipping in? There is something special about the taste of juicy summer fruits, I try to only buy seasonally as the taste of strawberries in winter just isn’t the same.

Another sign of summer were the bees in our garden, I took a few minutes to simply watch them darting in and out of the flowers. Nature is wonderful when you take the time to pause and look.

Its been a monumental week for our daughter, she finished her GCSEs and therefore school and celebrated her 16th birthday. As her birthday fell on a weekday there was little we could do en famille. However, she and a friend spent the day on the beach and I picked her up on my way home from work. We stopped at the fish and chip shop for a chip supper enjoying it and a platter of mini cakes, macarons, chocolate covered strawberries before all settling down to watch the football as England played Denmark. Today, I have taken her shopping to spend her birthday money. It was a very successful trip and she has some lovely clothes for our holiday. I also picked up a couple of things and I am loving my new lemon dress, I think its perfect for our on shore visits around the Mediterranean. The countdown is really on now, my reports are written and I have more time to focus on our holiday.

I have kept lots of what is going on in my life private recently and again this has been a really tough week for our family. I keep focusing on good times ahead and that this too shall pass.

In all of the darkness I needed something to look forward to so on Monday night I bought tickets for my son and I to go to Camp Bestival for my birthday. My husband isn’t a fan of big music events and my daughter doesn’t know her shifts yet, however she’ll be welcome to come with us too if she’s free. I’m really looking forward to seeing Sophie Ellis Bextor and Pete Tong and the Heritage Orchestra. I love his Ibiza classics albums, it’s the perfect running soundtrack as well as reminding me of happy, carefree days and nights. We live close to the site so we have day tickets and we get to sleep in the comfort of our own beds. It’s also during the school holidays so we can have a late night and the luxury of a lie in too. I’m very excited!

This week marks the 6 month anniversary of Mr S accident and his medical ban for driving was lifted this week following a successful medical with his GP and authorisation from the DVLA. I cannot express how lovely it was to be a passenger in the car yesterday. I drive so much and to be able to sit back and relax was wonderful.

So far this summer the weather has been very mixed. One morning I left a little earlier than normal and had time to stop at the beach to take such a gorgeous picture of the early morning. Most of the week has been grey, cold and windy but strangely everyday has started and finished with a little sunshine.

As our cruise becomes more imminent, 50 days to go, I am trying to eat more healthier to be comfortable in myself. These cherries were delicious, so juicy and fresh and nectarines are also in season at the moment, I do find healthy eating so much easier in the summer with all the delicious summer fruits.

On Friday the Euros started and I love a football tournament especially in the early days when there’s 3 matches a day. My son and I have spent lots of time watching football this weekend and are eagerly awaiting the England match later tonight. My son is such a football fan and knows so much he makes an excellent companion. With the election and Euros soon to be followed by the Olympics this is going to be a great summer, now if someone could just sort the weather out we would all be very grateful.