Morning!

I was awake at 4.30 am this morning and so saw the sun rise!

Weekends

This weekend has been a blessed oasis of calm and quiet after a busy week and weekend.

CJ's parents arrived last Thursday evening. We enjoyed a trip to The Station at Richmond as the weather was dire (we even had the heating on!!) on Friday.

All the children were home for a family meal and a silly game.

On Saturday the weather looked much more promising so CJ and I took his parents off to Ryedale in search of places that they had read about in a book called The Plot.

First call was Bylands abbey,

Then it was time for lunch in Kilburn.

And a visit to the mouseman museum (The workshops were closed sadly).

The mousemans old cottage.

Then we went to Ampleforth to look at the abbey and have a drink and piece of cake.

 

The mouseman had been here too!

This town

I have lived in this town for ten and a half years....when we were looking for a house to move to we drove down the very road we now live on and I said "no way do I want to live here, it's retirementsville".

Somehow the place has been villainised in my mind for all that is not good in my life. Recently I have started to wonder if I should cut the place some slack and make my peace with it! I drove around this evening (one of those grey rainy days that blossomed into bright blue skies and sunshine late in the afternoon) with a view to taking some pictures of parts of the town that held meaning for me....the places I saw were mostly about my kids the schools and college they went to (and in some cases still going to), the route of the first paper round, Ron's music shop where guitar and drum lessons happened, the walks to school, the walk by the river, the coffee shops and cafes, the local pool and the school pools where the youngest had her swimming lessons, the cold, dank basement of the old Victorian building where Josh and I used to sit practicing reading whilst the girls learned ballet and tap upstairs with Miss Rachel, the houses of their school friends where I would drive to drop them off and pick them up, the parks, the video shop, the supermarkets, the every-day-ness of it all and I felt self conscious and silly and only took a couple of shots.

Anyhoo, there is change on the horizon as they grow into great young adults, in the next few years the reasons for living here will have evaporated and it will be time to move on, in the meantime, it's not such a bad place to live. Ok so I wasn't born here, I didn't grow up here, or meet my wonderful man here, my babies weren't born here and I have struggled to make many great friends here (and I still miss the ones I left behind when we moved here). But there has been a lot of happiness here an awful lot of changing and growing, not just from the children. So I am looking at the place with fresh eyes and trying to focus on making life here as good as it can be...because really what's the point if I don't? I look in the mirror and see the grey hairs, and all the other signs that I am getting older. I look back in time to when we first moved here, how young we all were, the children, me, CJ...but we can't go back (and most of the time I wouldn't even if I could!) we can only enjoy now and look forward a little bit...

And look what my fortune cookie of the day said...'Your home is the center of great love'. But my home is another story for another blog!!

Just dance!

Today has been a full one! CJ and I were up quite early for a Sunday and off into town....but not for shopping or even window shopping today. No today was the first of his 3 runs, his new obsession! It all started a few months ago, one of the companies his company is connected with is sponsoring a half marathon in October http://www.royalparkshalf.com/ and his boss thought it would be a great idea if she and all her team ran in  it!!!!!! I was pretty appalled...he will be 46 in September and the occasional trip to the gym and a few Sunday walks do not leave him in the peak of fitness! Anyhoo, he has embraced his new found hobby and trained seriously. Proper running shoes were purchased closely followed by running tops, shorts, socks and knee supports (the only real nod to his physical age!) He looks great for it, has had to buy new smaller every day shorts due to his shrinking waisteline and our weekend walks now involve me viewing his rear end from further and further in front!

So back to today...

getting ready.....


...smiling...but only been running for 5 minutes!

I had never anticipated how stressful it would be, being the supporter (come official photographer)! Do you have any idea how many royal blue runnning tops there are in a race with 1, 500 people?!

51 minutes and 33 seconds and somewhere near the middle of all those people and it was all over! Survived!

The next one is the day after his 46th birthday...The Great North run...

And then we booked a holiday....to New York!!!!

....more to come on that!...watch this space!

And at tea time we celebrated with our first alcohol in two weeks (another part of the training!)...delicious!

After the roast we had another music quiz and then I laughed until I almost wet myself......

 

...as my 'boys' strutted thier stuff to Just Dance on the Wii! http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/lsuOIrpVDZGNKP-14iVQumsPxZ8e_LmR

A great way to end the day!

Living

I'm spending a lot of time recently trying to figure out how to LIVE. I know keep breathing, heart pumping, eating etc....but there has to be more....

There are moments when it all makes a bit more sense, a spontaneous music quiz after the Sunday roast, a rare occasion when all five of us were happy in each others company (though still fiercely competitive!)

And any time CJ and I are out on our own together, especially if that means we are out in nature...

            

...an impromptu visit to the seaside, for a fish and chip supper, a walk on the beach...

...the realisation that we were going to see the sunset..

                           

...so we headed up to Souter lighthouse...

                                                  

                                                  

...and this was the reward...

Takes your breath away doesn't it? Nature is pretty cool...being 'in it' makes me stop and think!

Getting there!

Well I seem to have got to the bottom of most of the changes and sorted them out!

Had a very loooooooong weekend! At my last tutorial I was busy explaining how I was going to do as much work as I could before going on my pre teaching workshop and then teaching...my tutor said that she was one of the tutors on a PTW in three weeks time...I checked the diary and the date was free...various other 'signs' pointed the way so on Friday at midday I found myself London bound on the train!
It was one of the hottest weekends of the year so far...I arrived at Kings Cross at quarter to three, got the tube to Marlyebone and another train out to Chalfont and Latimer and finally a taxi to the venue for about 5pm.

The weekend was shared with ten fabulous women eight other students and two fabulous tutors (not to mention the women from the Intro to the programme weekend who were at the same venue!) An exam (must be twenty five years since I have done an exam!), lots of teaching practice, sharing good ideas, meals, drinks and lots of giggles, lots of sweating!!! (it was seriously hot and humid!) and then time to head home...

We finished at three thirty on Sunday, I shared a cab with another one of the students back to the station...where we waited....forty minutes later we were crawling at a snails pace in a hot and smelly train headed towards London, the nausea had crept in as soon as I jumped in the taxi and I felt as if I would melt into a big puddle!

It was six o'clock, after lots of changes on the tube, up steps, down steps, up escalator's and down all with a bag and a heavy case (note to self: learn to pack light!) and I finally settled myself on the homeward bound train. Thankfully I found a seat and dozed queasily most of the way home...jumped into the shower at nine o'clock and promptly fell asleep soon after! No supper, no wine, no cuddles with my lovely hubby or great kids!

So another week has begun, it's three forty five and I am still in my pj's and gathering my thoughts...

Frustrated and confused!

I am very frustrated and confused by my blog. I stupidly played around with the layout the other day and now can't find out how to return it to normal. I hated the new layouts, found a way to classics layout but have lost all the gadgets that I had I can't find out how to re-add them and I am wasting time that I can't afford to waste trying unsuccessfully to sort it out!
Argh!