Tuesday 17 September

Ten on Tuesday

The kids have been back at school for almost a fortnight now and seem settled in, if the early morning frustration of getting to the bus stop on time is anything to go by. I've been back at work for the same amount of time and my ten days' holidays seem a long time ago. It doesn't help that the weather has turned decidedly autumnal - cold, wet, windy and it's getting dark earlier every evening at an alarmingly fast rate.

Time to get back to a more regular blogging schedule, and I thought my Happy Ten on Tuesday would be a good start.

1. For the first time in months, B. and I had a whole weekend together. We didn't do anything special or spectacular, but it was a full weekend and it was lovely just to potter around and have a bit more time together.

2. One of our jobs was moving (some of) the tractors to another barn for Winter. I had B. line them up for a photo and was really pleased with how this turned out:

3. On Saturday I picked a bowl full of blackberries for dessert, and we then went to B's father's orchard and picked a load of apples, plums, hazelnuts and some walnuts. On my bike ride earlier that day I'd picked up some squashes and flowers from a little roadside stall. Laid out on the table, it just said Autumn...

Excuse the odd yellow tinge to the photo - this weekend I finally found a nice white balance setting for indoors, low light photos (this wasn't it!).

4. With the blackberries and apples, I made the most delicious dessert. It was possibly the nicest dessert I've ever made and I've already frozen some blackberries so I can make it again for Christmas. Blackberry and apple meringue pie:

5. Ordering sewing supplies for 14yo who started a Fashion and Textiles GCSE this year.

6. My first cup of coffee of the day after dropping 14yo off at the school bus stop.

7. 14yo being very enthusiastic about all her new lessons (she started her GCSE curriculum this school year). Love seeing her motivation to do well.

8. Finishing a cardigan that was knitted entirely in the round. So after casting off, there were only ends to weave in, not anything to sew up. Brilliant!

9. Noticing how my relationship with my 'little old lady' has developed over the past year. She's quite an introvert who doesn't really show her emotions, but through small things I can tell she enjoys my visits. And I enjoy seeing her too.

10. That special Autumn sunlight, that very yellow, warm light you get at the end of the afternoon. Takes me back to doing secondary school homework and looking out of my bedroom window at the garden and the long shadows. Autumn is my favourite time of year, it really is.

 

Tuesday 25 June

Tuesday comes around so quickly! I start off my 'week of happy' full of good thoughts and then forget about it after a few days. And then wonder if I'll manage to remember ten happy things! But it's not a bad thing, because it makes me stop and think and appreciate the small things.

1. 11yo ran up to me after I'd dropped them off at J's house last week with this bunch in his hands. They'd picked it earlier in the week and had forgotten to give it to me. They're my favourite flowers, I just love their colour and the whispiness as the petals fall. They're past their best now but they have cheered me up all week.

2. I taught a couple of crochet classes on Saturday - beginners in the morning, improvers in the afternoon. The two ladies attending the improvers class, had previously come to one of my beginners class. It was so nice to see how they'd carried on and used the skills I'd taught them. One of them was even teaching her daughter to crochet. That's what it's all about!

3. Yesterday we had to spend quite a bit of time in the car through my own fault - I'd left my camera in Ipswich and wanted to go and pick it up. The kids didn't complain at all, in fact, we had a really good time together. Not for the first time I thought that they're both really good company.

4. The Mini game. 11yo and I have played this game for a few years now. The rules are simple: you spot a Mini, you punch the person sitting next to you and say Mini and you get a point. You get an extra punch for a cabriolet Mini, a yellow one, a learner and a few other unusual versions (actually, yellow Minis are quite common). We only play it in the car and the winner is the one with the most Minis at the end of the journey. The thing about this game is that it is utterly pointless but can get very silly - sometimes if traffic is heavy and I have to concentrate, 11yo can leap ahead and spot one Mini after the other. But neither of us ever mind about losing, we sometimes give points away if we're feeling sorry for each other. I've played it with 14yo as well but it's not the same. It cheers me up so much that when 11yo is not in the car with me, I'm a little sad when I spot a Mini and can't score a point.

(We recently added a new rule. The person to spot J's old Mini, which was a limited edition but was sold years ago, wins for life. I don't think it's likely to happen ;-)

5. I've finally found a book again that's really gripping me. I haven't finished the last few books I was reading because they just weren't, well, gripping enough! I wanted something fairly light but sometimes it was so light it was rubbish at the same time. So I went back to Thomas Hardy, who never fails to disappoint. I'm reading Jude the Obscure and o, how you can tell it's going to end badly, but still I can't stop reading!

6. Finding I have yet something else in common with a friend at WeightWatchers. She's 20 years older than me but we share an uncanny similar taste in literature. Last week we found we enjoy the same music, this week we discovered we both like Radio 4...

7. Having a haircut and liking my hair again.

8. That moment when the radio alarm clock goes on 30 minutes sleep and you switch off the light and crawl under the duvet, knowing you'll be asleep in the next few minutes or so (I rarely suffer from insomnia).

9. One of B's cats who's normally a bit shy, jumping up into the bed to come and have a cuddle and a very loud purr.

10. Last week my 'little old lady' celebrated her 84th birthday. I popped in on the day itself but as I had suspected, she was out with her children. I left behind a present and a card, saying I'd come and see her the following Tuesday. When I turned up, she had already left two mugs and a plate of biscuits in the kitchen for us to have later. It just warms my heart that she looks forward to my visits.
('my little old lady' and 'my captain' will have a blog post of their own soon).

11. Standing on the balcony at B's house around 10pm on the longest day, watching the moon occasionally come through the clouds and marvelling at how light it still was.

And there you have it, 10 happy things and a bonus one!

Pop back tomorrow for the first guest blog post I've ever written, about cycling in Norfolk.

Tuesday 18 June

My happy things for this week:

1. 14yo getting a place on the communications team at school. It's been obvious for a while now that the arts subjects are her strong side (following in her mother's footsteps!) and lately she is showing more and more interest in writing. She will now contribute to the school blog and newsletters, and represent the school at other schools. If she is serious about pursuing writing as a career, she has made a step in the right direction, and I'm very proud.

2. Staying the same weight at the WeightWatchers weigh-in yesterday - considering how much I'd eaten over the past fortnight...

3. The latest addition to the collection:

Picked up from Wales last weekend - a rather rare Bolinder Munktell

4. Spotting three red kites while in Wales. I know they're getting more common these days, but it still felt very special.

5. Listening to the rain on the roof of the lorry cab when we'd stopped in a small village on the way to Wales to have a sleep.

6. Getting lost on the way to our destination but finding this:

So, so different from the rural churches in Norfolk that I normally visit

7. Picking up parttime dog for a walk on Monday evening and noticing he excitedly barks his welcome before I even get the chance to knock on the door.

8. Finishing a job at work that I have been working on for the last 4 or 5 weeks. Although I have really enjoyed it, it also feels good to hand it off knowing you have done your part.

9. Spotting this on my Sunday walk:

A bell on an old rectory in Somerton

10. The beauty of Wales. B. and I have been there three times now and every time we agree it is a stunning country.

Photo taken from moving lorry, so excuse the blurriness and lack of composition!

Tuesday 11 June

 

I had a bit of a grumpy weekend. Actually, the weekend wasn't grumpy as such, but it left me feeling grumpy. It started off okay, with a pre-run meeting for the ladies tractor road run in July on Friday night - I'm getting to be a bit of an old hand at it, this year being my fourth run, but it's always good fun to meet fellow tractor drivers and to get into the spirit for the event.
Saturday was a lot of ferrying around of children. All parents know they will reach this phase at some point and I'm happy that my children have a busy social life, but when you have a day off, the last thing you want to be doing is constantly keeping an eye on the time and jumping in the car to take/fetch yet another child to yet another social engagement.
On Saturday night, at B's, I discovered I'd left my camera at home. My camera is such an important part of my bike rides, that I thought there and then 'why go for a bike ride at all?' but I told myself not to be silly. Come Sunday morning, all dressed and ready to set out, I have a puncture. Years ago B. put on some extra tough tires and I rarely have punctures, pretty amazing considering the number of miles I do - I think this was the third one. He offered to fix it for me but then we found we had a mixture of different puncture repair kits, but none with a tube of glue. As the weather was gloomy, in contrast to what had been predicted, it just seemed everything was set against going on a bike ride. So I gave up on that idea, but never managed to settle down to something else. Before I knew it, the afternoon had gone and it was time to go and pick up the children, and I had nothing to show for my weekend.
To blow a few cobwebs away I dragged 11yo and parttime dog off to the beach at Felixstowe which helped a lot, but come Monday morning and I was still grumpy about my unproductivity. I emailed a friend about feeling grumpy and she told me to make a list of 10 things that had made me happy that weekend. At first, my grumpiness made me struggle a little, but then I got going and as I emailed it to her, I thought 'this is a good one for the blog'. So here goes, ten things that made me happy this weekend.

1. A lovely meal this weekend: Jamie Oliver's Panzanella Salad and Broccoli Risotto (from his Italy book). That's when I discovered my camera was still at home - no photos! but oh so good, specially the salad. Followed by an Italian style fruit cake, full of dried fig and dates. Yum.

2. On Sunday morning I didn't wake up till 8.30am. I'm usually awake around 6.30am and although I don't mind that, waking up a little later was a pleasant surprise.

3. A clean car. 11yo wanted me to buy him a hoodie at M&S on Saturday and made a bargain that he'd clean my car in return. He has yet to do the outside, but the inside looks a lot better.

4. I enjoyed watching parttime dog who momentarily forgot he's rapidly heading towards old age and ran around like a dog possessed on the beach.

It's just so nice to see that by doing something so simple, you can give him so much pleasure. Apparently he sits behind the front door every afternoon from about 5 onwards, waiting for us to fetch him for a walk.

5. Pretty stones on the beach

 6. On Friday night I received a compliment from someone who knows about these things, that he was impressed with the tractor I'll be driving at the ladies tractor road run, as it is a difficult one to drive.

7. I enjoyed spending a few hours with just my little man on Sunday night. Both of them seem like a different child when they're on their own and enjoy having undivided attention.

8. On Sunday night, 14yo wasn't asleep yet when I went to bed, so we both kept our bedroom door open and chatted to each other for a bit before falling asleep.

9. At the weekend, B. told me that the duck who we thought already had a brood, had a new brood of very small ducklings. They seem to have settled on the pond behind his house and watching them swim around, paddling furiously with their tiny little feet and almost running on the water to catch insects, never fails to raise a smile. Neither did the 'quack' by mother duck to gather them, followed by a louder 'quack' when they didn't all listen, followed by a very loud and stern 'quack!' after which they all immediately turned up to mother's side...

10. B's dad has two cats who are mother and half-brother to the two we have. Oddly enough they are very similar in colouring too, sometimes we all have trouble telling them apart. When I went to say hello to B's dad over the weekend, both his cats were curled up and fast asleep in a flower pot next to his front door. Silly cats.

Life isn't so bad after all!