Apologies For Absence

I haven’t been around much at all in Blogland this month – so apologies to you all for not keeping up with your blogs.  I don’t have much of an excuse except that once more my life seems to have taken over me.

The first half term of having a child in high school has been a revelation.  My eldest has settled in well, in fact he loves it, and I can’t believe how mature (on the whole) he is behaving.  Homework is a bit of a challenge though, and although he is being vigilant at keeping up with it, he still needs help in prioritising it (and he’s asking me?)

The fact that he comes home each night and starts his homework is great though, and has had a positive effect on my youngest who is being much more conscientious about his own homework.  I’m so glad that I can be around to help them with this, even though it takes time (and patience).

October is the month of my Mum’s birthday and last year we were very organised and bought this year’s present (tickets to go and see Wicked and The Palace Theatre, Manchester) in advance.  My Dad and brother aren’t big musical fans but my husband likes to go as well as the boys.  My sister-in- law is mad about The Wizard of Oz – she even took part in an Am Dram production last year as the Wicked Witch, so it was a great opportunity for Mum to go with us and all her grandchildren (the other men just don’t know what they are missing).

I didn’t know much about Wicked except that it was connected to the Wizard of Oz.  I purposely didn’t find out much about it before we went because I wanted to enjoy it without having any preconceptions.

It was a truly magical show telling the back-story of the Wicked Witch of the West.  The two main characters (the Wicked Witch and the Good Fairy) really did carry the show. It was fabulous and made me wish that I could dance, sing or act (sadly I can’t do any of them!)

Half term has been taken up with our annual holiday.  I can hardly believe that we haven’t been away properly this year, so we booked a week in Lanzarote.  A chance to get some sunshine before coming back to the mizzle and drizzle of winter.  We had a fabulous time – mostly spent lazily on sun loungers, although there was a rather pathetic attempt to play tennis (least said about that the better). The complex was quite small so it gave the boys for a chance for a bit of freedom (while we could still keep an eye on them) and make new friends.

There was plenty of time to read, write and reflect and I’ve really got my head around what I want to achieve over the next few months. Now I’ve just got to act on it! We’ve had some brilliant family time and I’m trying my best not to bump back down to earth too quickly despite being straight back into a busy week, and all the washing and ironing!