Last weekend Max and i got a weekend away for the first time in almost 3 years; the last time we had a night off was the night Joey was born and i think the fact i’m refering to that as a night off means its been too long! With Joey breastfeeding for so long, even without being dependant on it, i didn’t feel like i could leave her, she just wasn’t ready to be without her mummy. Maddy was similar, though she stayed away when Amelie was born, or rather, just before, out of neccessity, but it was too early for her. However, this time, we asked Josie what she thought and she immediately said she wanted to go so long as she could sleep in the same bed as Fran. Fran was happy to oblige, so we went with it. So far as i know, she was fine the entire 3 nights they were away, she certainly seems to have been.
Max and i spent the first night away here
at Bosworth Hall, near Market Bosworth, which was fabulous. We lunched in the town, went to the hotel, swam and spa’ed, lounged around reading the paper in the bar (a bizarrel uxury to sit in silence and read a paper but really nice) had a fabulous dinner, talked and talked, regenerated by about 5 years, slept all night, lounged some more, had a swim and some breakfast and eventually got on our way, feeling amazingly happy and rested.
To top off the romantic weekend, we then went to IKEA 😆
So the afternoon was filled with furniture building and house organising (more bookcases!) and a lazy dinner. I’m still struggling to see how the net gain of the weekend for me was 6lbs, seems a bit unfair, but there you go. I shall have to carry a tent around for an evening dress soon 🙄
On monday i worked all day, in peace and spent the afternoon with a bloke again 😆 Organised BM some more, set up some advertising in a magasine which felt a bit grown up and serious; we went out for dinner again in the next village and then tuesday i blitzed the house and moved things into storage. Decided to move the last box of baby bits into the store, which would be fine as it was all crated up, then tripped on the stairs, fell down the last few, landed on one crate and threw the baby one up into the air which then rained down all around me 🙄 So the cleaners arrived to find me sat at the bottom of the stairs in tears (due to the crate landing on one foot and me on the other ankle and i’m no lightweight 🙁 ) and surrounded by small babygros. Ho hum 🙄
Anyway, kids then arrived back in fine fettle and had had a lovely time with mum, dad, greer etc i think Josie and Rowan moreorless made it through too 🙂 Thanks all.
***pauses to draw breath***
One reason i’m blogging less is that i’m not over keen on this new laptop. You have to hit the keys very hard to be sure of getting all the letters in and i forget and then spend ages correcting it all.
***are you sitting comfortably?***
Wednesday the children had a remarkably autonomous day, in all the best ways. They found a laminated A4 set of cards from ages ago (the week before Josie was born i believe) that jigsaw together to make a body, so they did that all together, then they went off and got out a roll of newsprint and made body shapes of each other complete with, depending on who was doing what, body parts or clothes. Went on for hours and was lovely. I stayed well clear, so no photos, because i didn’t want to spoil their flow.
I think that was also the day we tried out Gelli Baff in a paddling pool. Surprisingly a lot less yucky than i imagined it would be and even more amazinly, Maddy had fun in it, a fact that didn’t astonish me nearly enough until later when i thoguht of her covered in blue gunk for 2 hours and my jaw dropped! It washed away fine, didn’t kill the grass and they were remarkably good about picking up the few lumps that were left lying about. So all in all, it got a 7/10 from me and that’s not too bad because even if i have been selling it on Amazon, i only got some to make up an order i needed to do and i was deply dubious about it!
Thursday was more of the same; Fran is devouring factual boks liek there is no tomorrow, anything she finds on the shelf; Time Traveller, various other Usbornes, Horrible Histories, Science books, the lot. She’s racing through the Lemony Snicket books, reading a heap of animal books, reading Felicity Wishes on the side and read some of Watership Down in a compliation book. Quite some progress. I find books all over the house now! The others are making the most of Max’s reorganising of the book shelves and looking at lots of Ladybird boooks; Amelie copies from them all the time.
Friday i have temporarily forgotten; oh no, MF, Mini-Violet’s mum and i left all 6 girls with Aunty Sue and went to clear Great Gran’s house out for Sue. Very odd, actually lots of fun to do something together (though they do both call me Meredith) and weird in several ways. Must remember to declutter regularly from now on so as to reduce things for people to roll their eyes at after i’m gone. However, it was nice to do something in the company of two familiar without knowing each other that well,sort of people and we had a nice time, brought away treasures and did a good job on clearing it. Now it will have to be sold, but that will be less our stuff and more Sue, Max and Joe’s stuff to deal with. Feels very serious, clearing a home like that, like there is no longer any adult bffer between you and harsh reality. I know there isn’t, i know i’ve done much worse, but it’s like a sweeping aside of a curtain in some strange way.
I’ll do the weekend and today (which was lovely) tomorrow. Am pledging to get back to blogging properly; i’m suddenly feeling much more like me again. Yesterdays blog post really helped, it was like it cleared the air in my head. I’ve been like that all my life, until the stuff is out it isn’t normalised, i just don’t do internal very well at all. I have to talk it out, stitch things into the fabric of everyday reality and then it becomes okay. We’re not all like that, i know, but i am. 🙂
That’s a blog and a half!
What could be more romantic than Ikea 😉
I’m sure you’ll lose the 6 pounds quick enough, you’ve done well already – I’m slowly losing weight too, it always takes ages after I have a baby, not until they’re atleast 18months, so much for breastfeeding helping you lose weight – you’d think still breastfeeding would help, but no, my body goes into panic mode of conserving fat to produce Jersey gold top 😀
I hope you’re not hurting too much after your fall, it sounds really unpleasant, falling on the stairs is always scary, even if it is the last few steps!
I’m not doing well, i’ve put everything back on now and i don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. I know how to eat sensibly enough to lose weight but even if i do that, i stay the same if i’m lucky and an ordinary week seems to have me putting on 2lbs a week. It’s awful, i’ve got no idea at all what to do. Neithercycling nor eating well does any good, which rather begs the question, why bother?
How can 3 meals and 6 units of alcohol possiby equal 6lbs? It doesn’t make sense 🙁
I agree, Merry, that doesn’t make sense and it’s just plain not fair either :-X could it be anything to do with your contraceptive? I know that they can do that to some people which is really unfair but was something I was willing to acept when I used to use it.
Oh, and I can only deal iwth “stuff” outside my head (as you will probably have noticed by now with the ragingly hormonal posts I come up with sometimes!)
Hope the bumps and bruises are settling down.
Erm we’ve not been away on our own since Z was born (she’s neary 11!!)
Ouch to the fall, hope its not too bad.
Personally I think its something to do with Home ed, until then I was very skinny and now I’m not!
People deal with ‘stuff’ in different ways, what’s right for one is’nt always right for another.
Hmmmm – Tbird’s right, could be contraception?
When I stopped eating wheat and dairy I dropped a stone in a couple of weeks (which really is too fast, so not ideal, but it really made me wonder about how my body responds to wheat and dairy – the weight loss has slowed down since and is pretty stationary having lost a stone and a half – I could do with a couple of stone more off though).