Wednesday 24 July 2019

Operation Central Heating

When you have filled your house to capacity (and have squeezed in things right to the edges of rooms) getting a letter saying your heating is being replaced is the stuff of nightmares! For the last couple of months I have been rearranging furniture and selling excess stuff in the hope of making everything accessible. It's hard when you will have to continue living a property during major works as some jobs have to wait until the last minute. 

So this weekend I found myself dismantling beds with help from my dad. We had had lots of fun constructing the high sleeper in a box room 4 years ago and it was just as interesting to dismantle! At least my bed wasn't as tricky as it just needed some gentle persuasion:


I am very lucky to have a decent size shed that I had decluttered as it is currently full of things such as dining chairs and recycling boxes (only problem is I should have left lawn mower accessible!):


The results of all this manual labour?

Saturday 20 July 2019

Reasons to be Cheerful: End of the school year #R2BC

R2BC at Mummy from the Heart 

Gosh its the end of the school year already for us! So hopefully 6 weeks of things to keep us cheerful. But meanwhile here are just some of things that have made me cheerful this week:

1) Sedbergh Sports

It was a fabulous evening of traditional sports in aid of Sedbergh primary. My son was 2nd in his fell race and 3rd in the potato race. A smashing time (this was the egg toss):




2) Sorting out


The great purge and tidy before the central heating system is ripped out (this Monday!) has been coming on well. A couple of rooms are completely ready and others will be done by tomorrow. It's been a combination of dismantling furniture and organising things more efficiently that has helped. We now have all our board games away and easily accessible:




3) Family

My mum came over to babysit my son whilst I was out celebrating the end of year with my colleagues. This gave us a chance to get a 3 generation family selfie. Yes he is only 12 and I am 5ft 8.5!

Saturday 13 July 2019

Reasons to be Cheerful: Time, proud mum, school and a bed #R2BC

R2BC at Mummy from the Heart 

Michelle has handed the hosting baton to me for this month after looking after us for June. So I am making sure that this post is ready to go on time! It has been a pretty good week for me and I look forward to seeing what has made you happy too. So I had better kick off with just some of things that have made me cheerful this week:

1) Time with my girl

I had some extra time with my daughter as I gave her a lift to visit her friend out in the Yorkshire Dales for a drink at the pub. We also had our fortnightly social with her fellow aspies and carers. I got reminded about our wild swimming from last year and hope she is well enough to do more this year:


2) Proud mum

My son is having a good time with his fell running at the moment. His race on Saturday, he was 18th out of 55, means he finished 23rd out of 74 runners for the championship despite being one of the youngest:



He then ran at a small local event last night and was 2nd boy and 3rd overall plus nabbing 3rd place in the potato race! All his training is really coming together at the moment. Not only that but at school he has been put mostly into top sets for year 8 which shows how well he is doing there.

3) School 

I am nearly at the end of the school year. Since October I have been working 1:1 with a child and this week he told me the best thing about this year had been working with me! Just as well when we will be working together again next year... 

I enjoy the fact that not only do we do all the core learning but we have the freedom to get creative. This week we made mosaics to tie in with our Roman topic:

Saturday 6 July 2019

Reasons to be cheerful: Social, running, Kendal and otters #R2BC

R2BC at Mummy from the Heart 

Michelle has handed the hosting baton to me for this month after looking after us for June. So I am making sure that this post is ready to go on time! It has been a pretty good week for me and I look forward to seeing what has made you happy too. So I had better kick off with just some of things that have made me cheerful this week:

1) Helm Hill Junior Social

On a rather warm Saturday I joined in with many other parents and juniors for the first Helm Hill Junior social. As you can see the fun started with the warm up which was fruity themed, we were squeezing the orange at this point!


Then we went on different runs in 3 groups. I stuck with the youngest runners and my son went off with the oldest ones. On the return we had a buffet and then had a Q&A with some senior runners.

2) Long Run in the Countryside



I had a much overdue long run out on the old canal:



Due to the humidity it wasn't as long as I intended but it was lovely to be out in the peace and quiet.

3) Appreciating Kendal



I had to go into town after to work to complete some errands. On the way back I took my time to appreciate the old town centre and some of our lovely buildings: