Family

And breathe…

March 27, 2021 by Penny Leave a Comment

Yesterday the kids broke up from school for Easter. Just getting my head properly round that statement is mentally exhausting. In one way it seems like they’ve only just gone back – and in a way the 8 March school return wasn’t very long ago – and yet in another way the Christmas holidays feel like they were a lifetime ago.

At Christmas we were so looking forward to some downtime as a family after a hectic term at school, but with actually getting Covid that just never happened. Instead we ended isolation and literally fell into homeschooling in a full lockdown the very next morning. What timing.

As a family we’re incredibly lucky. Both of us adults had full blown Covid, but were able to just look after ourselves at home. If the kids caught it (or more likely had it first and then gave it to us) none of them had any symptoms at all. None of us are suffering long term and my husband’s company paid him sick pay both whilst he was isolating and when he still didn’t feel well enough to go back for a few days afterwards. My self employed work has suffered, but that’s to be expected as there are only so many hours in each day and it’s impossible to fit in homeschooling and working whilst also juggling a toddler. I normally manage the latter two together, but all three is just too much.

The kids have loved going back too school, and despite not everything being back to normal they’re still so happy. It’s strange for me to no longer know everything that they’re up to school-wise, but they don’t seem to have any problems with that concept. The youngest is missing them during the school day, but also enjoying having my full attention again.

After over three months stuck at home I’m now very ready for all this to be over. Apart from school, essential shopping and walks round our local streets I’ve only been further afield once – a five minute drive to a National Trust site where we went for a walk and to fly the kite. It honestly felt as refreshing as a luxury holiday. We even treated ourselves to a coffee and a chocolate brownie. It was like a five star meal!

From Monday the rules change again and I can’t wait to be able to venture a little further afield for walks and maybe even meet up with some friends in the process. I’ve missed water so much and am so looking forward to returning to the tow paths of the local canals. If all goes according to plan we’ll even be able to visit attractions by the 12th April and as the kids have an INSET day that day I was thrilled to be able to book tickets for our most local model village. The kids are already incredibly excited. They’ve missed days out so much over the last year and after such a wash-out at Christmas I really hope Easter means we can finally spend some quality time together relaxing and just being a family without being dosed up on paracetamol and struggling to keep my eyes open!

The last week has seen people marking a year since the first lockdown started and I want to make the time to look back at everything we’ve been through in that last year. So much, both as individuals and as a family too. In a way we’ve done so much too, but then it also looks like time has stood still. It’s certainly been a year that none of us every expected to live through.

September – the month that…

October 8, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

… vanished without a trace!

Somehow we’re in October. Worse than that, we’re already a week into October and I only just got round to swapping my calendar over from September this morning!

The last month (and a week) has been utterly crazy in so many ways. It was a month in which I celebrated our first wedding anniversary and Master C’s 7th birthday. Both seem somewhat unbelievable as time is going so fast.

It’s also been a month in which I’ve twice been over to Copenhagen with Bonn whilst he’s been working out there. The first time was mainly so that I didn’t have to spend our first wedding anniversary at home on my own, whilst the second trip was with the aim of gaining enough material to allow me to write several travel posts on both Denmark and Sweden. I certainly gathered everything I needed and visited loads of different places that I want to write about, I just need to find the time to actually do so now we’re back.

In addition to Copenhagen and Malmo I’ve also been up to Liverpool and the Wirral and enjoyed checking out charity shops at various other places around the country. We’ve been on the lookout for vintage board games in particular, but also other toy and game bits that we can use for a bit of a new business venture into the world of re-selling and reducing landfill. More on that over on Penny Plays when I get round to writing about it!

There’s also loads that I haven’t managed to get done in the last month – possibly because we’ve been away so much. The house hasn’t got much further forward over the last month, but at least I can now say that the downstairs loo is finished. Or at least it will be when the very final picture is returned to the wall. Once that is done I can finally take some photos and share the transformation with you.

The other thing that is hanging over me are the Clothkits kits that I bought when Tube Stop Baby was just six months old and that I planned to make for her first birthday which is the middle of November. I’ve now got just a month left and really need to pull my finger out and start working on them. I’ve managed to squeeze in a couple of craft book reviews, but finding time to actually craft is another matter entirely.

I’ve also been putting a lot of effort into my online blogging and social media work over the last month. Not as much as I would have liked to, but as much as I have been able to manage whilst still reserving a few hours every night for sleep. On the travel front I’ve started off my writing on Copenhagen and Malmo with details of how we managed to pop over to Sweden for dinner during our first Copenhagen stay earlier in the year. I’ve also teamed up with Three to write about how I make the most of their App when I’m travelling so that I can always work on the move and stay in touch with my kids.

Over on Penny Plays I’ve been desperately trying to catalogue and play all the vintage board games that came our way during the summer car boot season. Once we’ve played the games we’re looking to either keep them if they are ones that we can see us going back to again, or otherwise selling them over on our new ebay store. It’s early days yet, but we’re hoping this is a way to keep our board game stocks to a reasonable level so they don’t completely take over the house (and garage!). On the blog itself I’ve been writing about everything from a pre-electronics teach yourself chess game, through to Ghettopoly – a version of Monopoly set in a US ghetto. Somewhere in the middle I also wrote about a vintage Spears Game in which you are supposed to name things that begin with a certain letter of the alphabet – Tell Me. It’s certainly been varied.

In addition to all this I’ve also been trying to put some work into the Vintage Board Games Facebook group that we set up earlier in the year. It’s slow work, but with Facebook you need to really put the effort in to get the results out. I just need a bit more time for the effort part!

And lastly, but not at all least. Over on Penny Reads I’ve relaunched Ladybird Tuesday! This is probably one of the achievements I’m most proud of this last month or so. I’ve really missed my regular delves into my vintage Ladybird book collection and after losing various physical possessions during my divorce and subsequent house moves they are one thing that I am so glad to still have in my possession. There’s a huge body of work ahead of me to try and move all the original posts over from Being Mrs C, but I’m sure it will give me something to keep me out of trouble whilst the winter weather keeps us at home. The posts I’ve included this month vary from an original Uncle Mac book that I received for my birthday, through to a Learn to write workbook from the 1980s and the recent Climate Change book that was partly written by Prince Charles. Also in there was the Ladybird book about Denmark. It seemed somewhat appropriate seeing as I’ve spent so much time there lately.

What is nice though at the end of a busy month is sitting down like this and looking at everything that I have managed to achieve and not focussing on the things I failed to do. I’ve been pushing myself a lot lately with daily to do lists and sharing them on Instagram stories with the #KatyKicker hashtag to help make me accountable a bit for how much I get done in a day. It doesn’t always work, but what I have loved is reading Katy’s own monthly aims on her blog. One of the reasons I started blogging in the first place was as a way of making myself actually do things. Time to get back to using my blog like that and set myself some (achievable aims) for the month ahead.

The final stages of pregnancy

December 12, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

It’s been a while since I wrote my last pregnancy update here on Penny Blogs. Whilst the regular readers may have noticed that a new addition to the family had indeed arrived, I feel that she (quite rightly!) deserves a bit more than just a passing comment in a review blog post. But before I talk about her arrival, I’d better finish off my pregnancy story.

Back at 39 weeks I was pretty sure that it was just a waiting game as to when this baby was going to arrive. It seems that the size of my belly was to have other ideas though. My last midwife appointment saw me measuring large again for my dates, and as I was no longer following the growth curve in my maternity notes I was sent for a consultant appointment. Had this happened earlier in the pregnancy I would instead have been sent for a growth scan, but if this happens in the last week or so then apparently the sonographers say that it’s too difficult to scan and get a measurement, so off to the hospital for a consultant appointment I went.

Luckily they managed to fit me in just the next day, although when I actually turned up at the hospital there was no record of my appointment (a slight deja vu feeling with this particular hospital!) Luckily they seemed to notice just how heavily pregnant I was and an appointment was found. Even if I did have to sit there waiting for nearly an hour and a half for it!

The consultant decided that there was indeed a risk of a large baby so promptly said that my plan to give birth in the midwife led unit had to go and instead I would be booked into the consultant led unit to be induced. Bearing in mind that I still wasn’t convinced that my growing bump wasn’t due to a late pregnancy addiction to custard creams I did engage in a bit of discussion with her as to exactly when they were going to induce me. Taking into account when I would have LMC and Master C staying with me I wanted to try to plan it for a time when I wouldn’t have them with me. I also wanted to factor in when my mum could come to stay so that she could help out with school runs if I was in hospital for a while.

With a date agreed I was sent off, crossing my fingers that the two sweeps I had booked in before my induction date would do the trick. I also went a bit mad planning big walks for B and I to do in an attempt to. bring in labour naturally. I think the dawning realisation when we were furthest from the car park on a trek along the top of the Dunstable Downs frightened him a bit and I thought it wise not to point out that my due date five kilometre trek through Wendover Woods resulted in us being out of mobile phone reception for a while!

Despite the best attempts of the midwives performing sweeps (and their comments about my cervix being “favourable”) my due date came and went with me feeling incredibly well and not at all like I was about to give birth. Damn! I even got my mum down to stay with us should things kick off naturally.

Every FaceTime call to my kids when they were at their Dad’s had Master C asking if the baby had arrived or not yet and each time there was a look of disappointment on his face when I told him that I was still pregnant. It’s hard work explaining to a six year old that babies don’t arrive to a timetable.

And so the date of my induction arrived. I’d spent the day before wandering around antique and charity shops in Hitchin with B and my mum, and desperately hoping that things would happen naturally. As I set off on the school run that morning (still driving at this point!) I still felt no where near giving birth. I hugged the kids goodbye, not sure exactly when I’d be seeing them again, but knowing that I’d soon be getting a phone call telling me when to head into the hospital to start the induction process. It wasn’t how I was planning this pregnancy to end, but you don’t always get a choice about how things happen in life. Horror stories about other people’s induction experiences were going through my head and at this stage I couldn’t help but feel apprehensive about the whole thing and also annoyed that my body hadn’t made things happen naturally.

Improving underwater confidence with Zoggs

June 19, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

I’m a firm believer in children learning to swim. It’s just a life skill that all kids should have. That’s why I’ve always insisted in Little Miss C and Master C attending swimming lessons – even those weeks when it’s cold and seems like more hassle than it’s worth to get there in time. They attend weekly lessons at the local pool and each week put on their coloured hats complete with Zoggs logo on the side.

I’ve written before about how my opinions of Zoggs have been changed over the last year – and I certainly no longer look at them as just a logo on a swim hat. The last year has also seem both kids come on in leaps and bounds in the pool. Master C is already up to ASA Stage 3 and LMC spends her half an hour doing lengths of the 25m pool in Stage 6.

I’m incredibly proud of both of them, but it has made that half hour of “fun swimming” that we all do together around their lesson a bit more challenging for me. Their confidence levels are such that they want to be all over the place and under the water as much as possible. With my changed (and changing weekly) buoyancy status(!) it’s getting a bit harder to keep up with them. Luckily Zoggs have come to the rescue once more.

I’m keen to keep encouraging them in the water – especially when it comes to going underwater. Master C might have bit of a way to go in terms of refining his swimming strokes, but I’m keep to capture the enthusiasm he has right now. I saw another family in the pool using a set of Zoggs Dive Sticks and had one of those lightbulb moments about how perfect they would be for us right now.

Thanks to Zoggs the last few weeks I’ve gone to the pool with a bag full of their dive sticks and dive rings and it has totally changed how the kids use that family swimming time we have together. I always like that precious time in the pool together (away from distractions) and they have made it even better.

We now spend our time with me coming up with various competitions and challenged for the kids to do with the dive toys. It might be something like “find me a ring and a stick of a matching colour” and then I throw everything into the water in different directions. The kids then love going off to see who can complete the challenge first. There’s a great competitive spirit between them, and all the time they’re also improving their underwater swimming.

As for the toys themselves – they’re lovely bright colours, very tactile and the quality that you know and expect from Zoggs. For slightly older kids who need a little bit more stimulation and motivation when swimming for fun they’re perfect. Each toy has holes in specific places so that when in the water they fill with it, and then sink to the bottom of the pool. When you take them out the water then pours back out of the holes again.

If new swimming toys wasn’t enough LMC has also decided that now that she’s in Stage 6 it’s time for a slightly more grown up swimming costume. Zoggs to the rescue once again with their amazing Wonder Woman swimming costume. It has to be one of the coolest costumes I’ve ever seen, as well as being perfectly practical for all the swimming that she’s doing. My only complaint is that they haven’t made one yet in maternity sizes! I’m pretty sure everyone in my aquanatal class would have one if they could.

Disclaimer: We were sent the Zoggs products featured in this post. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.