Imagination versus reality

When I started this blog idea I invisaged sitting in Costa coffee with my laptop on the same routine morning each week, whilst the kids are at school.   Maybe one day that will be the case!

In reality, the last couple of weeks it's mainly been writing the post on my phone on a different day of the week (it's Wednesday at the moment but i won't publish this before Tuesday!) because I don't want to forget the inspiration for the post, and i'm not using my laptop much because its Wi-Fi connection even at home is so poor I daren't try it on a public wifi spot!

On another subject, when I imagined my smallest child starting school, I saw freedom on the days I don't work and my eyes lit up with images of the above and many different child free coffees!
In reality I miss my littlest sidekick and the noise he creates!  Tuesday is his first full day at school. Although I have lunch plans on Tuesdays it will be strange for the first time in 7 years not to have a child going on, talking incessantly,  moaning, asking to go in the toy shop etc!  For the first time in 7 years I will actually be able to talk to my Mum while we have lunch, and may be even try out different cafes instead of the same old one where we were comfortable because it had space, toilets, and a children's play area. 

Well now it is actually Tuesday and it was weird watching him walk into school for his 1st full day. He walked in without me too. 😔

So I'll sit here with my latte, watching people park badly outside, hoping both my kidlets are having a good time!

Xx

The sounds you don't normally hear

Well this both kids at school lark will take some getting used to I think!  It should get easier from now on as I'm back to work, only leaving me the 2 normal days off a week that I'm used to. However last week (having all week off)  after the chaos that is the school run, but being back home by 8.50 to a silent house is very strange!

I could actually hear the fridge! The filter in the fish tank! And more annoyingly, my own thoughts!

So I have a feeling that to begin with the house will be spotless! 

And I intend to make my Tuesday mornings in Costa publishing my latest posts, a regular occurrence.  By sitting here amongst all the other mothers who have just done the school run and are enjoying their coffees either alone or with their younger children, I can quite happily write this and not be bothered by the noise after all, I regularly drown out the noise of 2 children!

For the Wednesday mornings I will take to drinking Nescafe Azera instant coffees (they come in take away cups and you just add water!  Sad I know but I do love coffee in a take away cup!)  and watching 'Fraiser!'  When my son was a baby I used to watch Fraiser a lot of week day mornings whilst he was asleep. 

So happy morning coffees everyone!! Xx

Little Bow Heart

I told my 7 year old if she wrote a story I would put it on my blog, so here it is. The story of Little Bow Heart.   I hope you can all see the pictures enough to read it.

Is It Actually Peace at last?

Originally when I started writing this post, 6 1/2 weeks ago at the beginning of the school holidays, (with the plan to publish it today) it went something like this.....

The picture above i took of the wall in a cafe we were in at the beginning of the summer holiday. It's got lots of reasons for buying a coffee. The bottom line, middle, 'because I got the kids to school on time today' is my excuse today!! 😉

There are many other reasons/excuses I use to buy myself a latte but today i find myself feeling in need of one.  After nearly 7 weeks of the kids being on holiday, today they BOTH went to school. My son for the first time.   I will come to get used to them both being there and will probably wonder how I ever got anything done as for the last 7 years one of them has always been by my side. 

Sending all my fellow parents seeing their little ones off to school for the first time today a friendly emotional virtual hug!!  💜

However, now we are here, and although I have no exact idea what the future will look like, I find as I sit here having the latte I've dreamed about for the last 7 weeks,  I might need to refer to my previous blog post 'creativity takes courage' and remind myself that you only need to be brave for less than 20 seconds to change something.  Our biggest fear is the future and that it will be the same, so if you don't want it to be the same.....................................?

This remains unanswered at the moment, but I feel the tide is turning at that one day soon it will all be a bit different..  ♥♥

The Great Folkestone Bake Off!

With 3 year old turning 4 this week and a couple of celebrations as a result of this, it has been like The Bake Off round here! 

In the past 9 days I have made blackberry and apple crumble twice, 2 chocolate birthday cakes and 12 cup cakes!  Photo evidence below!  I think all were a success.

I've got to admit that, although all home made, the dinosaur toppers were purchased from Amazon!  Very impressed at around £3 for 12 from The Party Company.  I also cheated on the green icing, Tesco ready to roll!

Got 7 year old involved in all baking, with tempers running high at the point of trying to get her to use a ruler to make the '4' stencil used for the green 4 on one of the cakes!  And once we had found ruler, let's just say I hope in year 3 at school they teach them to use a ruler and what the actual point of it is!!

So after having now 4 year old's birthday play date this afternoon I now need a sit down but unfortunately the hoover is calling me!!

Have a good weekend everybody.  Xx

Kent in bloom

Ok so the pictures in this post are only from 1 garden, but it is in Kent and it is definitely in bloom!

I don't know the technical names for them all either but they're very pretty!

As mentioned in my previous post 'Not just a pink plate' this is Grandma and Grandpa's garden.

For the time being 'gardening' is not my thing, yet anyway.  However I am quite happy wandering around on a Saturday afternoon, while the kids are busy wearing Grandma and Grandpa out, taking pictures of all the pretties! This includes aiming the camera and waiting there like the Paparazzi with the hope of eventually getting these next 2 shots!

This just reminds me of being this age and running round my grandparent's garden, getting lost amongst the plants. 

The game they were playing at the time, was 'café.'  They run back and forth to/from the sandpit, filling all different containers with sand and serving it to me and Grandma saying it's apple pie, or a latte or something! 

I do like the way that Grandpa was the only one who was actually charged for ordering something at this café!  My son has high end prices as well, £6 for an ice cream!

As always, when we left to come home, we left with a selection of odd shaped carrots, some blackberries and apples and there was also an offer for corn on the cob!  All home grown, the carrots by the kids themselves as they each have a little garden box at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  2 planting boxes side by side and the differences between the 2 is amazing.  My daughter's sunflower is 3 times the size of her, but my son's is short and hasn't flowered yet.  My son is the one who is harvesting a brilliant crop of odd shaped carrots, but my daughter has yet to pull one out of the soil that is bigger than a pin!  My daughter's lettuces got eaten by slugs but my son's flourished.

The kids have loved growing all these things though.

Happy Sunday evening everyone, I'm off to cook some odd shaped carrots! xx

Not just a pink plate

It's amazing how the sight of a pink plate can take you right back to your childhood in an instant!

This pink plate to be precise.

It was my Grandmother's and when she passed away in 2007 it went to a cousin of hers.  Now that she is no longer here either, it was at my parent's house.
The second I saw it I was back in my Grandparent's house. I can still see every inch of it.  The green bathroom, the way the living room seemed to feel comfy even before you had sat down, the seemingly massive dining table, my Grandfather's paintings and artwork everywhere, the many pots with paint brushes standing in them in his studio, the conservatory with the giant grape vine all round the ceiling and a garden that felt like you could run round it for hours and never be found, so many hiding places.

These days of course, Grandma and Grandpa's house, for our children, is my parent's house.  The rocking horse made by my grandfather now resides at Mum and Dads and is frequently used by our children.

But to myself and my brother, it's somewhere totally different,  different sight, smell, everything.  A little old bungalow that in the end, if you had touched it with your little finger it would have fallen down, and of course now is no longer there. 

38/33 years of growing up memories brought back on the sight of a pink plate!  I can even smell the Sunday dinners as a child in the dining room!

I think the last time i was there was probably just after we got married in 2006, my husband of course I met in my grandparent's garden 2001!   But that's another story!

I can only hope that our children grow up making as many precious memories as we did at their Grandma and Grandpa's house. Also that the various handmade toys that link directly to our Grandparents such as the rocking horse,  hobby horse (named Marmite!) and dolls house continue to be played with for generations to come. Xx