just another morning here

We’ve been counting calories fairly seriously here since the beginning of January, and being quite successful so far at losing a bit of weight … but anyway, I decided that I needed a monthly ‘ditch the diet’ day, and today was it

We had a fairly standard Saturday yesterday with orchestra, suzuki violin group, and then a choir concert to facilitate; Steve and I watched a vampire film somewhere inbetween all that. Abbie had a friend to stay, because Anna was away at a SWMS strings residential for the weekend. Oh, and we finished moving the remnants of Steve’s house improvement leftovers out to the garage, having sold the folding camper …

So, anyway, today after church in various places we did some homework (yes, me too), and watched another film before heading up to meet Anna at Kilve where she’d been staying. It was great to hear the results of the residential – some fabulous music performed by some very talented youngsters. We’ve not really heard much SWMS music, especially not any standard classical stuff, so it was interesting from that point of view – and very very impressive.

Anna had had a wonderful time and she even volunteered information about it on the way home ! We stopped for dinner on the way back and blew the calorie counting with curry and a rather large dessert – and now home we have a glass of wine and are sitting in front of the third film of the weekend. Yum

Back to the discipline tomorrow though … the next ignore the diet day is at the end of February!

Another fabulous production week ends today; I’ve just come home from dropping the girls’ food round for the after-show party. We actually went to see them in Cinderella on Wednesday (first night) and I helped with the Front of House team today – the girls have been rushed off their feet all week. Abbie had her first ‘principal’ role as the back end of Dobbin the panto horse, as well as being in the chorus for a few songs, while Anna was in the chorus with a couple of extra songs to perform in – singing and playing her cello too.

The whole show was very well done as usual, but the stars of the show for me were two of Abbie’s friends who played Cinderella’s mice, Bubble and Squeak. They were simply brilliant throughout and sang their song (Anything you can do I can do better) stunningly! It was fab that the producer/musical director wrote in the cello song; another of Anna’s friends in the chorus did some proper pointe ballet as part of that piece too – so everyone’s talents were involved even if they didn’t have a main part. Oh and the little ones were just gorgeous – there were a lot of them and they looked so, so sweet on a number of occasions!

Josiah, as usual, was serious throughout and said at the end ‘well, all pantomimes are just the same, aren’t they?’!!

Can’t say I’m sorry it’s over, though, as the girls can do with their time back. We’ve said that Anna has to have a year off next year for exams but I can see me dithering about that when the time comes because they do enjoy it so much and get so much out of it. Anyway. Tomorrow is a catch-up-with-homework day as a result of a very very busy week.

We got home to find upheaval at home as Steve had decided to make some, erm, home improvements. The less said the better, as I was unprepared for this and I find the upheaval of his changes rather unsettling, to say the least.

Photos to follow …

Last week it was Anna’s 15th birthday. It was a fairly non-event, since I had to go back to work, and she’d already opened pretty much all her presents with my family the week before! Steve gave her something she’d been wanting for a while, and Grandma and Grandpa visited with a gift in the evening too.

Her present from us was a set of tickets to see One Direction in Plymouth two days later – so she already knew about that too, obviously. At this point I need to back track and tell the whole story of the One Direction tickets …

Back in October we found out about the concert and she said she’d like to go as a birthday present, but I realised that I wasn’t going to be near a computer or phone when the tickets went on sale. So, I enlisted two kind people to both try and get a set of 4 for us – and they both managed it (I had no problem selling on the 4 I didn’t need!).

Then, to cut a long story short – I have two girls in my class who are also One Direction fans and had got tickets, so I cooked up an idea whereby we could all go to the concert together. Anna was up for sharing her birthday party, so I carried on planning.

Just after half term (in the second week of their half term), Anna and her friends came into my class to meet the other two girls, and they spent an afternoon decorating a banner together for the concert and generally getting to know one another. Then on Thursday we all bundled into one of the school minibuses, along with an extra mum and an enabler, to go down to the concert.

When we arrived they did the whole screaming fan thing together outside the back of the Pavilions, then came back in dribs and drabs to hurriedly eat a packed tea on the bus before heading off again. At this point the groups split up with Anna and her friends going off together and the other two with their carers – they were gutted when their banner was deemed ‘too big’ and not allowed in!

It was absolutely fantastic for the two girls from my class to do something together with a group of teenagers, and I have to say that Anna and her friends were brilliant with them – they were all singing along to the 1D album on the way there, then all chatting about the concert etc. on the way home. And I don’t think they really realised how much of a big deal it was for the two from my class to be included in a trip like that. I was really proud of them

While I was dropping them all off I was given a flier for a free coffee in a cafe opposite, so I sat there with my book for the evening, and was joined by the girls from my class when they came out of the gig a bit early – I was very impressed they made it through as far as they did given how exceedingly loud it was! We waited for the other gang of girls to extract themselves and then drove on home, getting back around 11.30 – not too bad really.

We then had 6 teenagers upstairs while Abbie slept on the sofa They were all asleep by 1am which wasn’t too bad really. The next day was a bit of a blur all round though!

This weekend has been our last ‘holiday’ weekend, with no orchestra or choir commitments, and it has been quite lovely … Steve and I worked a bit in the morning, Anna had a piano masterclass at SWMS, Abbie did homework, Josiah had a Suzuki group lesson, then Steve and I went out to the cinema at teatime to celebrate our anniversary (more chance of me staying awake but I still didn’t quite manage it!). Got the ironing done for the weekend during the evening, so today was quite relaxed too – church for Anna and I, then I went out caching while she finished off her homework; Abbie had a friend round, and Josiah went on a choristers’ panto trip. Not entirely sure what Steve has been up to all day other than trying to plan a summer holiday and getting depressed about how expensive it will be …

Having not really had a family holiday this year, we decided to push the boat out at New Year and booked a break at Center Parcs. Gulp! It was embarrassingly expensive but we have had a lovely time together. The children didn’t have Christmas presents from us this year; instead they chose activities to do while we were away.

Abbie chose a horseriding lesson – she loved this as she got to canter and do a small jump as well, things she hadn’t attempted before. Having had horse riding lessons for birthday and Christmas, she is hooked (and I am very worried about this!).

Joe chose laser combat – so Steve HAD to go with him This actually looked like loads of fun and I wished we’d all gone!

Anna chose to come to the spa with me – I don’t usually go in for that sort of thing but it was quite relaxing I suppose … and very lovely to spend the time with Anna She will kill me for posting a pic but she did love the waterbed

We didn’t go out to the New Year’s Eve party (bah humbug) but cooked enchiladas at home, did our jigsaw, and then sat in bed listening to the fireworks. Instead we celebrated New Year’s Day in style – the kids all had a session aqua-jetting before a champagne buffet brunch with live jazz band. In fact we had live music twice as there was a classical guitarist playing in the restaurant where we had dinner in the evening, which was great too. During the afternoon Steve had booked pool tables so we enjoyed chilling out there.

Lots of swimming, sauna, and relaxation in-between all the activity.

Very much enjoyed the weekend Having said that, even though we all enjoyed it, I’m not sure we’ll go back in a hurry – it’s fantastic, but as we are limited to peak times these days, it is very expensive! I missed exploring the countryside and seeing something new of the world, something we usually do wherever we are on holiday, even just in the UK … we are trying to decide what sort of holiday to have in the summer but perhaps, having read the offer in the comments on the post below, we won’t need to book a holiday for the summer at all