Mandarin, good friends, and time flies.

1) With sponsorship from the Confucius Institute, M’s class have been learning to speak some Mandarin. They will also be performing a couple of songs at a concert in a couple of weeks time.

The other morning I discovered that M has obviously teaching A some of the words – as they got ready for school, I had the joy of listening to the pair of them singing together in Mandarin!

2) Friends came to visit last night. It was lovely to catch up and spend time together, but even more because they know us well, and love us anyway. Neither of us were feeling completely well and we both found ourselves struggling to concentrate, but it was all okay 🙂 .

3) I really wasn’t looking forward to going bag-packing today, but we needed all hands on deck and, as Chair of the committee, I felt compelled to lead by example. I was pleased to discover that the experience wasn’t as bad as I expected, and the time flew by!!

Discussion, omelette, and to bed.

1)  An interesting discussion with friends about juggling (and yes, we even tried proper juggling) and finding balance in our lives.

2) Our milkman has started delivering eggs as well as milk, and we’ve taken advantage of this. Lunch was a delicious ham, cheese and chesnut mushroom omelette.

3) Zumba tonight was hard work (I assume I was just more tired than normal), but the walk home was refreshing, and I’m off to bed now 🙂 .

Shopping, full circle, and view.

1) K and I enjoyed our annual Christmas shopping day today. As usual, we went through to Glasgow, and enjoyed a pleasant browse through various shops and markets. We found some fun and quirky bits and pieces, got some inspiration, and generally found the day to be a good one.

2) We met a friend for lunch – someone we knew from our Glasgow days, who moved away around the same time we did, but has recently moved back. It was lovely to spend time together back in the old place, and nice to start creating new memories too.

3) Standing at the top of Buchanan Street, I looked down to see a street awash with people, lights, colour and music.

Improvement, cake, and fun.

1) Yesterday my Pilates teacher came over and asked me to try a trickier exercise 🙂 – the one I’ve always done is too easy for me now.

2) At my meeting this morning, a birthday cake complete with candles appeared. Thank you to the lovely ladies who pulled off this complete surprise 🙂 .

3) K and I spend an enjoyable evening cooking and baking. Tomorrow is my birthday party 🙂 .

Quieted, good use of time, and cast on.

1) This morning I was visited by (amongst others) by a very small fractious boy. Cuddled in his mummy’s arms, he eventually succumbed to sleep.  When he awoke, he was a much happier baby!

2) I was doing Parent Help this afternoon, and had several jobs to do. Frustratingly, for a time, I was stopped on all the tasks the teacher had asked me to do. Then I realised that I could put the time to good use, and completed a task of my own (photocopying flyers for the Christmas Fayre!). By the time that was done, the people I needed to talk to had returned, and I was able to complete all the teacher’s tasks too 🙂 .

3) To finally cast-on for a wee project for my boy – he asked me to knit him a cover for his mobile phone 🙂 .

Tea? Impromptu, and celebrations.

1) I’ve been up at school a lot over the last few weeks – doing PA related things, or parent help related things. I happened to be doing a lot of photocopying last week and twice one of the helpers offered to make me a cup of tea!  I really must be becoming a part of the scenery!

2) An impromptu dinner with friends on Saturday.

3) Some of my friends took me out yesterday for Afternoon Tea, thus my birthday celebrations started a whole week early 🙂 . I feel very blessed to have such lovely friends! We all appreciated a child-free afternoon – and those who made said child-free afternoon possible!

Relief, no need to cook, and mincemeat.

1) The relief on my friend’s face when the news broke that the Ineos plant was no longer going to close…

2) An unexpected dinner invitation for this evening.

3) I’ve finally found time to make my Christmas mincemeat, and now the whole house is filled with the warm spicy aroma which reminds me of dark winter evenings, warm cosy houses, and family and friends.

 

Homework, takes me back, and nice.

1) M arrived home from school and settled down straight away to do her homework, without even being asked!

2) Lemon bon bons. A taste of childhood, bought at the Traditional Sweet Shop at the Crich Tramway Village when we visited at the weekend. I’d forgotten how yummy they are (and how much better they are than the scarily blue raspberry ones – yuk)!

3) Nice comments on my blog earlier encouraged me, when I was feeling a little despondent. Thank you to those who commented – I love to hear from you!

Catching up.

1) School restarts after the half-term break tomorrow. It’s been a lovely holiday though, and we were all glad of the break.

2) The holiday was a nice mix of time away and time at home. We caught up with family and friends, celebrated birthdays, had a couple of daytrips, and enjoyed an evening at the wonderful Enchanted Forest, and a night in a camping pod!

3) Today was spent catching up on things around the house. I’ve organised paperwork, laundry, planned meals and sorted all sorts of school stuff. Now for an early night 🙂 .

Coffee morning, non-walk, and surprise meeting.

1) A huge dining room table, laden with plates of cupcakes, layer cakes, muffins, shortbread, chunky chocolate chip cookies, and pots of tea and coffee. The room was full of laughter and chatter.

2) It started to rain, and we were both tired, so we abandoned our walk and went back to the warmth of the house, a comfy sofa, and a cup of hot tea.

3) K has been in Bangkok all week.  Before he left we were surprised and delighted to learn that our brother-in-law (resident in New Zealand) was going to be there at exactly the same time. They had dinner together on the day K arrived.  A couple of days ago, we learned that a friend of ours (resident in Zambia) was just leaving home for a few days in Bangkok!  Imagine our surprise!  They met up for dinner this evening 🙂 .