A Mother's Ramblings

Flyfour and I started thinking together about our word of the year a couple of weeks back. One of our evening walks was peppered with one or the other of us suddenly exclaiming a word and then continuing on with whatever conversation we were having and pretty soon it spilt over into us just shouting random words at each other waiting for the others approval or a reason as to why that word wasn't any good. We knew what we wanted our word to mean.

I told you back in September that I was lucky to get a new job as PA to the Principal and Marketing Manager at a local High School and well, it turns out that it's my dream job. I actually feel a bit guilty because it doesn't feel like work, I mean not guilty enough to refuse my pay at the end of the month, but enough to mean that I log into my work emails far too often at the weekends and late evenings and get told off far too much for working when I should be relaxing. I could give you one of the usual stories that I give those that ask. It doesn't take me five minutes to check all my email accounts  It doesn't actually feel like work I like to be busy Everyone else in my home is on an electronic device but they aren't really the truth.

As I'm sure is the way, over the last twenty years of marriage, both Flyfour and I have had many friends and co-workers, who for one reason or another we haven't kept in touch with and to be fair they also haven't kept in touch with us! These are people who meant a lot to us, at one point in our lives. People that we shared meals with and had inside jokes with. We went to each other's weddings, to mutual friends weddings, we celebrated births and new jobs and then just one day you realise they aren't a part of your life any more.

Christmas was different this year, but also exactly the same as it always has been. I woke up super early and sat as close to under the tree as I could, reading my book before retreating back upstairs to the warm bed, where I promise I didn't stick my cold feet on Flyfour in an attempt to wake him up because I was bored and didn't want to read more of my book. It didn't work. Eventually, Flyfour did wake up and we woke the children up with breakfast (Pigs in blankets in rolls) and opened our Stockings together, before getting dressed and going downstairs to open the gifts under the tree.

On Christmas Eve, the people delivering the Advent tags to me made themselves known. I was right in my guess in whom they were but they asked to remain anonymous because the gift tags each day were not about them, not about the mystery of whom they were but about the love they were given with. Love of the Saviour. Love of the season. Love of service to their fellow man. Love of Scripture and knowledge and understanding.

It's that magical week where nobody knows what day it is, what time it is or if they are more potato than human. The good news for me is that Flyfour is home this week, so as long as we both know what we are supposed to be eating, we'll make sure we eat at some point! The bad news is that does mean other than Saturday we may end up eating a variety of meals not on this meal plan/not in the right order. It's okay though because who cares! We don't know what day it is! We don't know if it's day or night! And if all else fails, there's always toast and chocolates and leftover cookies from Christmas.

Christmas Day is one of my most favourite days of the year and even though this year we aren't spending it how we normally do, I wanted to jump online and wish you all a very merry Christmas. We are lucky that we will be together as a family of four, and will be placing calls to our loved ones that we won't be able to see today, as we're in tier 4, but even if we weren't we'd made the choice to stay home to keep our loved ones safe. Please take time today to reach out to those you know who may be alone, or who may be feeling down or who just come to mind. We hope that today and the next year bring you as much joy as you bring to us, as much love as you give to others and all the things that your heart desires. With love from all of us here at A Mother's Ramblings x

I can't believe that it is already Christmas Eve. I honestly feel like this year has just got started and somehow we're here at the end of it. Advent has been different for us this year, not because of all the things that the pandemic has brought about but the children are getting older and so their ideas of Christmas fun has changed.

As I finished work for the break yesterday, I may have lied a little to those around me and said I planned to do nothing for the next two weeks. I lied. I actually intend to clean the house from top to bottom, get rid of as much junk as I can, record some podcasts, schedule a load of work tweets and Facebook posts and work on the website, watch all my TV shows and Christmas movies, hang out with my family, finish Top Ender's scarf and work on my next mad idea... It's going to be so much fun!

A few of us at work were having a conversation the other morning about Christmas and Christmas shopping. The only man in the conversation was joking around with us and said that he had purchased two gifts that year, one for his wife and one for a family secret Santa and was pretending to be very bitter about it. The group giggled about it and shared stories of how the women in the group had similar experiences where they purchased everything and their partners normally purchased... well one gift and that was usually at the request of their wife! It's the same in our home. We only buy five gifts for each other as we follow the something you want, need, wear, read and one other theory on buying gifts. Of course, we do buy a few gifts for friends and family and take part in the odd secret Santa with work colleagues and because I was a stay at home Mum, I had plenty of time to work out what we were purchasing and source the gifts (and wrap them!). It wasn't that we were following s

Dear Secret Advent Delivery Friends, I have no clue when you decided that this year you would secretly deliver an advent to me. I have no clue if there was a conversation we had, or if you picked up on things I'd posted on social media that I'd been having a bit of a moment this year... I'm guessing though that actually you listened to the Spirit and acted because that is the kind of people I believe you to be. Let me just clear up one thing, I think I know who you are.

Another week over and I'm so not ready for the end of term! I've been talking with my friends at work that I'm someone who likes routine, but I think really I just like my job... and obviously, the people I work with and the joy they bring me (and hopefully I bring them) plus if I'm not busy I might have time to stop and actually work through my thoughts and we know how crazy my thoughts are, I don't think we need to examine them! Still, there is the usual Christmas excitement at work, so it's an exciting last week. Anyway, here's what we are eating this week.

I am so lucky. I never thought that I would have a job that I enjoy as much as I do the one I currently have. I never thought that I would have friends that make me laugh as much as my friends do. I never thought that I would wake up each morning eager to go to work.

Yay! I'm back and I've missed you all, and blogging and just getting my thoughts out. Here's what we're eating this week. Saturday - Hamburgers and chips Flyfour was after these, so that's what we've got! Sunday - Lasagne Flyfour wasn't sure if he wanted to make Lasagne or Shepherd's Pie today, so as the ingredients are so similar we decided to buy the couple of extra items we'd need so that Flyfour could change his mind at the last second. He's assured me he's making Lasagne, so I've moved the other meals around so we don't eat Pasta two nights in a row!

I've been feeling a little underwater the last couple of weeks. I haven't been able to work out why but I was acutely aware of everything just seeming a little out of my control, life was speeding by and causing me to feel like I was constantly chasing my tail and unable to catch up with all the things I need to do, like feed my family and shop and clean and get ready for Christmas and then I took the last two pills of my medication and realised they were the same size... I'd been taking too small a dose of my thyroid medication for the last two weeks! No wonder I was feeling so underwater. Oh well, I'll be back to feeling normal in a week, but until I am feeling fully here it's just a quick run down on what we are eating this week, rather than my usual waffle! Saturday - Curry Sunday - Beef Pie Monday - Salmon and Crispy Potatoes Tuesday - Noodles Wednesday - Pizza Thursday - Fish Finger Sandwiches Friday - Breakfast Next weekend, we'll be putting up our Christ

Everything the A Mother's Ramblings family did last year over Christmas and the following New Years period was a little untraditional for us. We didn't decorate outside our home with lights. much to the disgust of one of our young neighbours. We didn't leave anything out for Santa, like Cookies and Milk and a carrot for the reindeer and yet he still came. We didn't worry too much about remembering to move the Elves every day, but they still moved and got into trouble.

I've been thinking about Remembrance Day and Armistice Day a lot over the last few weeks. Top Ender and I signed up to distribute poppies to our local neighbours as there weren't going to be as many collections in stores (although I've seen several) and of course, I get to help organise the collections at the school I work at too. I was walking to work one rainy morning a week or so before Remembrance Day when I saw something that caught my eye having been placed between two fence panels almost exactly at my eye level.

On Halloween, the family had decided that they didn't really want to do anything as a family. No watching spooky movies, no playing family card games or singing along to our favourite songs on the Halloween playlist. I was slightly grumpy about it, but only slightly because I'd been wearing my Halloween shirt and my costume all day (I was Damien in disguise at the assembly towards the end of Mean Girls), I was set up on the sofa with my laptop and I was in charge of the remote control which meant I could watch whatever my little heart desired. We had purposely not put up any decorations as we hadn't wanted to encourage Trick or Treaters so were surprised when the doorbell rang.

I thought I sounded a bit down last Saturday reading back, and yes I was a little but I reminded myself that there is no point in focusing on the negatives and so made sure to think of ten great things each day that I have achieved, or I am thankful for in order to keep myself not being sad about my leg! It's worked! I'm a lot more upbeat and after a few nights off and a few short walks, my muscle is repaired! Hoorah! Now, I have the new problem that yesterday I got drunk on sugar and emailed some work colleagues... yup they read the emails and responded. I feel I may need to avoid work for a while. Like I'm looking for a new job now kind of avoid! Who am I kidding? I love my job, I'll just have to learn to live with the jokes that are going to come at my expense. Luckily it's not the most embarrassing thing I've ever done!

Flyfour and I have got to the genius mind-melding point in our relationship, where one of us starts to verbalise a thought and the other knows where it is going almost immediately. It's not that we're psychic (although I really am), but more the sort of situation where we have grown so close over the last twenty-one years of knowing each other, that we're symbiotic!

I'm giving up being nice to Top Ender and random strangers, because every time I do something nice for them, something terrible happens to my car and I'm fed up of being nice and it costing me big bucks! I'm being serious! It started back in 2019 when I took Top Ender to a local shop to buy her a loom so that she could continue to make baby hats for the baby unit at the local hospital. That's a nice thing right?

A few weeks back, the youth had organised a Zoom game of guess the baby. I had said it was a little bit of a cheat, because these youth had grown up together and so knew what each other looked like and of course having known each other for years, having hung out in each other's homes, they knew what most of the parents looked like as children too, so adding some photos in of Youth Leaders (who are mostly parents of Youth) wasn't a confusion really either. However the youth, like me, love games like this and as it was a big giggle, I made sure to send in photographs of Top Ender and Dan Jon and me.

I was hoping that this last week would give me a time to relax and recharge and I would be full of life and vigour by the time this weekend rolled round, and ready to be the most amazing whatever it is I am at work. I have had time off this week, I have relaxed and attempted to recharge, but I'm mostly feeling down about whatever injury it is I have done to my right leg and the fact that the nightly walks have turned into a torture session. It's not fair! On top of that, with our Trunk N Treat cancelled, I'm feeling very sorry for myself as I'm missing my annual "It's okay to dress up, as everyone else is!" session. I'll have to go back to cleaning the house in my ballgown or Elsa from Frozen costume!

Flyfour and I love going for an evening walk. We get to be out in the err, dark starlight and see cats foxes and comment on the weather like true British people love to do and occasionally jump out the way as Robots come trundling down the hill intent on killing us whilst we were looking up at the sky to see if it is bats flying above us or some weird birds. There have been a couple of issues though.

We hadn't really talked much about Halloween this year, I mean I'd decided that we'd be doing a few fun things, such as watching a film together, eating a spooky-themed meal and probably going for some kind of spooky walk, but that's normal for Halloween in our house. With the Trunk n' Treat cancelled, I figured we weren't going to be doing anything Halloween wise, no costumes, no trick or treating (although I have purchased plenty of treats for the four of us to split!) the most we were planning really was when Top Ender and I purchased tickets to go to a Drive-in Cinema the night before Halloween to see Beetlejuice.  Then Top Ender asked if I could buy her a couple of items of clothing if I went near Primark during Half Term. A white tank top and a black pleated skirt were all she was after because she needed them for her Halloween costume. Despite a global pandemic, it seems it is business as normal with regards to costume planning. Roughly a week before Hall

Last week, I took Dan Jon to the hospital for his tri-monthly Diabetic Check-up. Everything is fine, it's just a normal check-in and check-up to make sure that Dan Jon is okay, that we are coping well, to make changes that we need to make to his basal and bolus rates and just making sure that his hbac is going in the right direction! Dan Jon and I had a nice chat on the way. We masked up, headed into the hospital and then we had a good chat with the nurses we knew whilst we were going through the normal check-up items of hbac blood test, blood pressure, height, weight and downloading our data from our handset which we can't do at home because all our PC's are too "new" and so don't work with the downloading programme.

It is finally half term week and I'm super pleased! It isn't because I want to have a week off, mainly because this week I'm going to work a little on a few projects I have planned at work, but because this week I plan on relaxing with my family, I plan on doing a fair bit of tidying in the garden and I have a huge pile of books I want to read! So, here's what we're eating this week.

When we go away, which as you know isn't often, the one thing that always sticks out to Flyfour and I is how much family time we get. The trip to the Lake District, saw us eating at a dining table every mealtime and even though we do eat together at weekends, we realised that there would be much more opportunity to be together at mealtimes if we had a proper dining table area and if we had more seating in the living room, we could all sit comfortably to watch a movie or a TV show together. The only issues are the dining table is in the way of where we would put more seating and the one other place we could put a dining table is an area we refer to as the den.

When we were in the Lake District, we explained to both children that we wanted to make more of our weekends and our time together as a family and that we'd like to further our time together by ensuring that each weekend we went for at least one walk as a family and maybe give us a chance to spot some hidden sights that we wouldn't normally see, like this mural of a Bluetit on the side of a home we saw at the weekend. The children were accepting of our plans, I think mostly because they thought that they would be able to blow off going with us, but Flyfour and I had a plan and nothing was going to stop us, so just before we went to bed we sent a family group whatsapp message informing everyone that a family walk would be taking place the next day and that attendance was mandatory. Flyfour followed this up with a message explaining that there would be a treat halfway though the walk, which did lead the children to think it was a trip to IKEA, but our plan was far more cunning t

You know that one daydream you have? The one that you return to again and again and each time you build upon it a little more and develop it because you know one day, one day it is going to happen? Well for Flyfour and I that little daydream is building our own home. It's something we've talked about, dreamed about and researched for probably as long as we've been married, but we've never been as close as we might be right now. Several years ago, we did look at plots in Milton Keynes. Every time we drive past them, my heart does a little flutter at the thought of "We could have lived there" until I remember the plots were too expensive and too close to a main road. The ideas didn't stop there. If we couldn't buy an empty plot, why not rebuild our home? Well, for a start it's attached to the one next door and my idea of finding a way to get our next-door neighbours to give us their home and then knocking them down so we could build a house was deeme

Flyfour and I were talking on our walk the other night about things we had been doing at work that day. We both use the walk, not only as a way to exercise but as a time to use each other as a sounding board, to problem solve and to reassure ourselves that the decisions we made that day were the right choices. As we were discussing the various problems and successes of the day we both came to a sudden realisation. We're grown ups and very mature and adult like. So, with that, it's going to be only serious grown up meals from now on... Okay, you got me there is no way I could ever always be a mature grown up!

The best thing happened in the last week, and I really wanted to share, but first a little bit of preamble. You see because I have a new role at School, I finish thirty minutes earlier and because I finish thirty minutes earlier, it means I can get to Rainbows before it starts (especially if I leave work on time!). With things happening in other leaders lives, it meant that the Rainbows unit attached to the Brownies unit I'm a Brown Owl at needed an extra pair of hands and somehow I volunteered myself. Firstly, I want to lay the blame on Top Ender as it was her who four years ago who started volunteering as a Young Leader in the Girl Guides and three years ago, was helping out at Rainbows and Brownies and two years ago gave me the puppy dog eyes meaning I felt I should volunteer to stop the Brownies unit from having to close because there weren't enough leaders. I'm so pleased that she got me involved. That she used her pester power for good.

Sometimes I'm amazed at how quickly things come together. Flyfour and I started looking for a place to stay in the lake district just a couple of hours after he had mentioned wanting to walk in the rain in the Lake District. I found a converted Church, with three bedrooms in our price range in Kendal and within a couple of hours, we had it booked and Flyfour had worked out which walks we were going to do. Which mean on Friday just gone, we were found whizzing up the M6 to Kendal so that we could enjoy a weekend in the Lake District.

This last week has been fabulously fun. It was my first full week of my new job, I had Youth night and Brownies as normal and even managed to schedule in some time to video chat with my friends. This week is shaping up to be just as great, with lots of family time, an opportunity for the children and I to do some volunteering and of course plenty of time for us to hang out together and do things which are important to us.

Sometimes I say things to Flyfour that means he looks at me a bit weirdly. Then sometimes Flyfour says things to me that confirm to me how much I love him and remind me that I married the man for more than his looks, but definitely not because of how much I influence him! Recently I've been suffering a bit of a Fernweh like feeling, (It's a German word for far sickness, sort of the opposite of homesickness) and I'm pretty sure it's because we had to cancel our trip to Italy earlier this year and with the summer being spent at home I didn't get a chance to have a little bit of an adventure. All I wanted to do was go for a walk at a shopping centre that the family and I have been to a few times, nothing grand but just something that help positive memories for me, and yet Flyfour looked at me as if I were nuts. Then a couple of Saturdays ago, Flyfour explained that he had a craving to go walking in the rain in the lake district, that he wanted to see views and that fin

Every year the Church I go to runs a Trunk N' Treat on Halloween, or near Halloween if Halloween itself falls upon a Sunday. As a family, we love this tradition and not just because we love being creative and dressing up, well that is part of it, but mostly it's because of the time we spend together in organising our trunk and costumes and then the time we spend together on Halloween itself. It may seem a bit odd that a Christ-centred Church has a Halloween party each year, but it's a great way for the ward (the parish) to come together and have a bit of fun and to invite those who live around the Church building to come and have some fun with us and for some find out a little about us too.  As a Church, we are all about family and this is most definitely a family event. Plus, we're normal people, we like having fun and we like sweets too!

 At the start of lockdown, like most people in the UK, Flyfour and I would go for a walk each day. Actually, we decided to go for a walk each evening as we figured there was less chance of bumping into people and we could guarantee that we'd be free after our evening meal. As lockdown went on, and we were back at work more frequently we slowly fell out of the habit, but then a few weeks ago we somehow mutually agreed, without talking about it, that we should get back into the habit. That we should walk each day we were home and we agreed that we would spend this time talking together, catching up with one another and telling each other about our day and about things we'd heard or seen or had been thinking about and that we'd go even if it was raining. Only it didn't rain on any of the times or days that we were walking (If Flyfour is staying in Bristol, we don't walk together and it did rain on a couple of those evenings) so we were feeling a little lucky.

Another week, another meal plan and another argument over what we're eating! I had organised for us to have Fish Pie on Sunday, but the family decided that they actually wanted Meatball subs... so the meatballs I had purchased for a meal later in the week have gone to that and I've moved the Fish Pie to later in the week because they aren't getting out of it! The weather has turned a little here this week, so I've got a lot of comfort foods, plus a lot of foods that are easy to prepare or can be cooked in the slow cooker during the day because despite having a new job I still seem to stay later than I'm supposed to. Anyway, here's what we're eating this week.

Being the Receptionist at a senior school meant that I got to see all of the deliveries that were coming into school, and was the one that would sign for the huge bouquets of flowers that had been sent to celebrate various loved one's anniversaries or birthdays or even in the case of some, "just because I thought it would be nice". And, well I was a little jealous. Flyfour knew this and so thought he would surprise me with having some flowers delivered to me at work on our anniversary. It was almost my last day as a receptionist, and so he thought it would also be a bit of fun for me to receive a delivery that was for me too!

Today is the 19th anniversary of the day Flyfour and I made our best decision ever, to make our relationship official on paper as well as in our hearts. So, I just want to say to the love of my life... I'm sorry, not sorry.

Flyfour and I love going for a walk. Every night we try to go for a little walk around our neighbourhood and each weekend we try to go for one a little longer, so when Flyfour heard that Cold War Steve , a British collage artist and satirist, had an exhibition in Riverside Country Park, we decided we needed to go and see this exhibition and combine it with a walk as an early celebration of our wedding anniversary. In usual AMR Fashion, we decided to combine the walk with two other events so that we'd have a little holiday in a day for the two of us, and well we didn't invite the children to come with us, not because we didn't want them to come, but Top Ender is still isolating and Dan Jon's favourite thing to do is not go for a walk!

I wrote this blog post nice and early, so I wouldn't have the last-minute rush of last week in getting the meal plan up and ready for the family to have a look and see what we are eating each evening.. actually saying that since I've started putting what we are having on the whiteboard each morning the children haven't been checking the blog half as much, which is probably a good thing as now I can talk about them! So, here's what we're eating this week!

Thursday last week, Flyfour received a three-word WhatsApp message from me. I smashed it!  And because of the time, he assumed I was bragging a little and that my interview had gone well. What I was trying to tell him though was that I had just been offered and accepted a new role at the school I worked at. I've spoken before about how worried I was about applying for the position, and I was. I like my current role, I like being the first face most of the people who visit the school see, I like being friendly and open and welcoming and bubbly and being told off for not being what a school receptionist normally is. Yet, this new role? This role so appealed to me. It appealed to me because it's an area I am interested in. It's an area that I honestly think I understand. It's an area that I think I could make a positive change to society and my local community in. Yet I'm getting ahead of myself.

We knew it would happen to us eventually. Flyfour and I had spoken about it at length. What would happen when I was the one who brought Covid into our home. I had assumed, that it would be me, as working in a school on the Reception desk, I come in contact with so many different people and students and teachers that it just seemed like a matter of time before the track and trace system alerted me to have been in contact with someone with Covid 19. Only it wasn't me that was alerted, it was Top Ender.

When I got my job as a Receptionist, I was ecstatic. I really mean it, I was so chuffed to be offered the position because I didn't think I was going to be able to find a job that would play to my strengths, I didn't know that I was going to be any good and I felt that I had tricked the people interviewing me into giving me the job because there was no way that I was actually qualified for doing the position... despite my oodles of experience as stated on my application form. I'm sure the two, what I assume at least as I've never seen them, kickass letters of recommendation from the head at the Primary school I was a governor and volunteer at and my Bishop (because all the other companies I'd worked for in the past no longer existed or the people who knew me had moved on) wrote for me also helped. Over the next few weeks and months, as I slowly learnt the job and my way of doing it I found out that I really enjoyed the job. I wasn't too bad at it and I could see

Something that I like to do each Sabbath day is read over the notes I make during Sacrament meetings. Sometimes I find a specific speaker or a talk that I've been thinking about, or a subject that I've been drawn to over the last week or two, other times I just flick through and see what drawing or word art jumps out at me. I found a talk from around a year ago, where a former Bishop of my ward had shared some thoughts he'd been having about small changes, based upon some observations he had made about machinery and it put me in mind of what is happening at the moment in my own life.

 A quick one, just before midnight because I'll forget what's for our evening meals this week if I don't! Saturday - Meatloaf (yes I forgot to get the mince out yesterday!) Sunday - Pork Chops Monday - Fish Finger Sandwiches Tuesday - Pasta! Wednesday - Toasties Thursday - Salmon Friday - Sausages and Mash

Last Friday I finally felt like myself. I know what a starter eh? The truth is during the lockdown and the summer holidays I got a little lazy and well a little lonely. At work, I got a little used to only working half a job and I got used to an easy pace. It wasn't that I wasn't working hard, heaven knows I kept busy with things that I could do, and things that needed to be done even without the children in school, but everything was just easier without visitors each day and without telephone calls every few minutes. I got used to not going to Brownies and Rainbows and used to not seeing the girls each week. I even started to think that maybe I should give up volunteering as there wasn' really anything that I was getting out of it, there wasn't anything the girls were getting out of it. I got used to not going to Church, I got used to not going to Youth nights and hanging out with the Young Women other than via WhatsApp messages and the occasional zoom meeting and post

For our last Summer "Hurrah", the family and I went to the Harvester to have a meal out. We had a great time, we enjoyed our food and the company but decided to go to a local supermarket to get dessert because the meal out had already cost enough and there wasn't much for those who were dairy intolerant or coeliac. Top Ender and I headed to the doughnuts, which is what we'd been thinking about and Dan Jon and Flyfour headed off to the ice-cream which is what they'd been thinking of. Everyone got something that they were happy with and we headed to the checkout and then home. Once we were home, Dan Jon asked if I would help him serve up his ice-cream and that's where the trouble started.

At some point, Flyfour heard Gary Barlow singing "One more year in Yorkshire" on the radio and played it to the children and I. The time I most clearly remember it being played was whilst we were in a traffic jam in Ireland and the whole family were singing along. The song is amazing, it is and I'm pretty sure always will be, one of my favourites from all musicals and personally I think it is one of the cleverest openings to a musical, in this case, it's the opening to " Calendar Girls The Musical ". Not too long after our trip to Ireland, Flyfour found that the musical was coming to Northampton, which is just up the road from us here in Milton Keynes and we decided that we would totally be going and so purchased four tickets. We joked on Facebook before we went into the theatre that we were sure we were going to be the youngest people there, but we didn't realise that we really were going to be the youngest people there!