Hazy days of Summer….

So it’s September. Leaves are falling and I swear you can smell Autumn in the air already. I can’t believe the summer has gone so fast. Three months. Over like that (snaps fingers in case you didn’t get that!) Someone asked me today what we did this summer and to be honest, I couldn’t really answer (except for our little holiday). It’s not that we’ve sat at home doing nothing (the weather’s been too good), but not having a car really does keep you to the local area. So to remind myself more than anything here’s a little round up of what we’ve done over the past three months.

Parks

So many parks! We’re really lucky where we live, in that we’ve got load of parks, many within walkable distance. They’re also free and provide opportunities for my active son to throw himself around. When he’s not on the swings (always with the swings). What’s not to like?

Happy on the swings at High Lane

Action shot in Grayshott Park. Plus the only one we found with a properly lockable gate. I love this park 😉

Loving the space at Hammer Park

Peekaboo in Lion Lane Park. It’s the only one we don’t really enjoy. When I say we of course, I mean me. It’s only really due to the busy roads that surround it. I’m He’s just not really ready for this one.

And while not technically a park, we loved our trips to Applegarth!

The Garden

A bit like the park, but without the swings and the potential for him to break free and head to the road. We love our garden and this year it really has become the boy’s domain. Even the veg aren’t safe from those little hands. Suffice to say we’ve had very few tomatoes this year!

Oscar’s Garden

I’ll ‘help’ Mama!

Watering the ‘brees’ (strawberries)

Oscar through the tulips

We had so much wildlife in the garden this year. including tonnes of beautiful butterflies

Space to run

Hmm, after pulling up the onions he parked his cars in the bed….

… and then transplanted the fledgling tomatoes to the strawberry planter. Sorry Daddy!

Finding fun in everyday things

Several times this summer, on days when we’ve stayed in the house, he’s suddenly become bored of the toys he has. That’s when we raid the cupboards and see what we can find to have some fun. Again it’s cheap, or in the case of water play, free. Yes it might not look the most thrilling to us, no exploding baking soda fountains or ooblek (not that I don’t want to try these one day) but to the boy it’s just dandy!

Hoovering up lentils is supremely satisfying! I have no idea why!

Spaghetti and a bottle. And Cheerios

Shorts & wellies? That’s my boy

Burying and finding things in boxes filled with old cereal

Pouring

Playdates

When did the term ‘playdate’ even come into being a thing? I don’t remember it from my childhood. Ho hum, I guess it does accurately describe what we’re doing. Making a date to play. And play we have. At our house, at The Hen House, in friends gardens, in parks. There hasn’t been a week this summer when we’ve not had various people over or been out visiting.

Our friends Lou and Leia visited from Texas.

Spending time with Autumn in her garden

We had the NCT girls over several times. Rudy & Sammy thoroughly enjoyed the teepee

First go on a trampoline in Matthew’s garden

Having dinner with the bestie

Some days were busier than others. But if it doesn’t go in the diary it doesn’t happen!

Holiday

This year we took Oscar on his first holiday to Moonfleet Manor. I’ve written about it at length here, but suffice to say it was a super experience. Either side of the break we had something of a staycation, which involved trips to the park and ice cream at Dylans.

Perfect evening in Weymouth

The boy had chocolate, I had Raspberry Ripple.

New friends

This summer we made various new friends. Katy (aka@ModernMummy) and her girls, as well as another Katie and her son Charlie. But, this summer we have also made some tiny weeny new friends. So many of our friends have been pregnant/had babies this summer I’ve been to three baby showers and had loads of tiny baby cuddles. This summer we’ve welcomed Mollie, Lawrie, Georgia, Ella and Esmée to our world.

Mollie & Me

Baby Georgia

Handsome baby Lawrie

 

Phew what a busy time! And yet when I was asked, I couldn’t say what we’d done! I guess it just goes so fast, it all blurs into one. It’s made me realise just how fast time can pass. As I’ve said before, Oscar starts preschool in January. It’s only four months away. And if it goes as fast as the summer, well we’ll be there in a blink of an eye. We don’t really have any plans for this ‘term’. I’d like Oscar to have as much fun with me as possible, playing with cars, or crafts or whatever he fancies and always focussing on language development (he starts a Chatterbox course at the local Sure Start centre at the end of September especially for this purpose). But sometimes I’m sure the days will pass in a blur of cheerios and Thomas the Tank Engine. I hope to have days out and I hope to see him play with his friends. Then there’s Christmas and all the potential for fun that comes with that (yup I already have a Christmas Pintrest board going).

But really, I’ll just be happy if he’s happy.

Grubby, but happy

 

Toddler on holiday at Moonfleet Manor

I’m sorry for the radio silence over the past week. When we decided to go away for a couple of days, I chose to take a weeks holiday from everything, including blogging and Slimming World. I have to admit I missed writing terribly. The whole time I was away, I was making mental notes on how to describe our trip. I’ll write more about how I found the break from Slimming World on Friday (after I’ve weighed in eeek!), but for now I want to tell you about our trip to Moonfleet Manor.

You may remember, a few weeks ago, I talked about holidays and more specifically holidaying with my toddler. If you missed that one you can read it here. Anywho the crux of the post was that we decided to take a leap of faith and try out a very different holiday for us. One that we hoped to speak to all our needs.

Which is how we found ourselves zooming down the A3, towards Weymouth, last Tuesday morning.

We had chosen (on recommendation of a friend) to try out one of the chain of Luxury Family Hotels. They have eight properties dotted around England, all of which look like grown up country hotels, but which place equal importance on the needs of all their guests, whatever their age. We chose to go to Moonfleet Manor in Weymouth partly because of personal recommendation (thank you again Michelle) and partly because it was no more than 2.5 hours away. We often travel to see family in Devon, which at 4.5/5 hours really is pushing the boy’s (and our) limits of how long he can stay in the car, so 2 hours sounded just right. As it turn out the journey there and back passed without incident and we timed our departure to mean he slept for most of the way for both trips. Bonus!

We arrived before check in, but were made to feel welcome straight away, being shown into the garden and supplied with lunch. And this set the tone for the rest of the stay. The staff couldn’t be more helpful and no request was too much. When we realised we’d left Oscar’s bottles at home for night time milk, we tentatively asked reception if they had any we could borrow. They did and bought him a bottle of warmed milk, up to our room, within minutes. Had we remembered his bottles (and marked them with his name) they would have also taken them away to be cleaned and (if we still needed them to be) sterilised.

Our room was a double, described as a “compact room, with a double bed and room for one cot/single bed”. We were pleasantly surprised with the amount of space this ‘compact’ room came with. We requested a proper wooden cot for Oscar (yup we still have the bars up at home) yet there was plenty of room for all of us. The room was well equipped, with a bath (important if your bedtime routine includes one as Oscar’s does), a TV & DVD player (again great if TV is part of your bedtime routine – we planned to use our iPhones, but the Wi-Fi signal was patchy. I would definitely take DVDs of any faves if we were to visit again) and the most amazing view from the balcony. Which was another little detail we loved. The balcony was a beautiful, and solid, five foot high twisted willow barrier. It meant we could happily leave the patio doors open with no worries of him falling/climbing/flashing the neighbours. Perfect.

Super view from the super safe balcony

The attention to detail continued in the dining room. All the tables were generously spaced apart, with highchairs provided. As soon as we sat down for high tea (Oscar usually eats at 5 so we stuck to this while away, although we could have chosen to eat later at 6) a bowl of carrots, cucumber, pita and humous were bought out to stave off any hunger grumps until dinner arrived. The children’s menu had something for every taste (from baby purees to Naan bread pizzas) and age (with toddler and older child size portions). The boy is a big fan of carbonara, so we thought we’d give the mac’n’cheese a whirl, to much success. We chose to take our own bag of toys and colouring books to every meal time, but we really needn’t have bothered as the dining room had their own supply.

First Mac’n’Cheese

Food for the grown ups was just as well thought out. The menu changed one starter and two main courses every night, meaning you always had the choice of something different. The first night I tried Salt Cod and went completely off plan the second night with delicious Pork Belly. The dining room in the evening was a very different place to the day time, with candles on every table and no young children, largely thanks to the baby listening service available in every room. We (read I) was a little anxious at leaving Oscar the first night. Would he settle? We kept his routine as much the same as possible then put him in the cot. I read him a story, explained I’d just be downstairs and left him, to minimal grumping. I must admit I did jump up like a meerkat every time the receptionist walked through the lounge for the first hour (and actually went to check in with her before we went into dinner. She showed me the bank of phones all plugged into the baby listening service, not one of them making a noise!) but I needn’t have worried. He settled brilliantly and although I did see reception come find a couple once during the evening it wasn’t us!

Time for ourselves was one of the most attractive features of Moonfleet, as not only do they have a baby listening service, they also have a crèche, which we booked him into (for two hours a day) when made our reservation. I was so excited to drop Oscar off on the Tuesday afternoon and he ran in without a second glance back.  However, I know my son and to be honest should have known that leaving him with strangers for the first time ever, on the day we bought him to a place he’d never been was a BIG ask. He managed an hour before having a complete spontaneous melt down. The staff realised this wasn’t a momentary outburst and, quite rightly, rang reception who came and found us in the lounge. Retrospectively I am really proud he managed that hour at all, but at the time I was convinced that the crèche would no longer be an option for us. But we followed his lead and took him again on the Wednesday. We planned to only leave him for an hour, but when Ben went to pick him up, he was so busy having a whale of a time we left him for the full two hours.

I’m so glad we didn’t give up on the crèche as it gave us the time to do things just for us. Things like read, sit quietly and avail ourselves of the spa facilities. The spa staff were just as friendly as everyone else ( I spent a very pleasant hour chatting to the lovely Chloe while she did a super French pedicure on me). One of my favourite memories was Wednesday afternoon. Oscar was in the crèche, Ben was in the Spa and I was alone. I found a comfy armchair, ordered a cheeky glass of Prosecco and read a paper. It just felt so decadent.

Decadence

What else can I say? I could go on for days. I could talk about the indoor playroom, as big as a barn full to the brim with fun. I could mention the swimming pools or the cinema room or Snoopy the hotel dog, but you can read all about those on the website. For me the thing the trip gave us was time. Together and apart. Oscar is by nature a curious chap. He needs to know exactly where he is and what’s going on to feel comfortable. He’s also a runner and constantly tries my blood pressure by running away from me. I knew taking him away could potentially be very stressful. And the first day had it’s moments. But, I don’t know, after his nap on the second day he seemed to wake up with a new attitude. One of ‘OK I’m here and I like it’. He stopped running off, he lead the way to the garden or to our room and held my hand if we needed to walk across the car park. Seriously, it was like watching him grow up before my eyes. He was so much more relaxed. And you and I know that happy bambinos mean happy parents.

Time well spent

Would we go back? Definitely. For longer and out of season. Two nights was great, but we were just getting settled and then had to leave. More nights would also give Oscar the time he needs to adjust. Going out of the school holidays (while we can) would not only make it a cheaper proposition, but would also change the age of the younger guests. More babies and toddlers and less tweens. Not that the age seemed to bother Oscar – he adored the ‘big boys’ and followed them round the garden copying their antics!

Would we try another Luxury Family Hotel? In a heartbeat.

A relaxed, happy heartbeat.

 

 

 

 

Slimming World Update – Week 55

Hey.

Hows your week been? Mine’s been fab. Busy in the best kind of way, seeing some wonderful friends and getting loads done. My favourite kind of week. I went out on Saturday with my buddy Jo and without Oscar. It was so nice to just talk, without having to have one eye elsewhere in the room and to finish a sentence in the first attempt! We went to the Thai Terrace in Guildford. The weather wasn’t super sunny, but it was warm so we sat outside. The view was lovely. Having not been out for Thai in so long, I got a bit baffled by the menu and just went with whatever Jo had, meaning I got a delicious Pad Thai with Prawns and a four piece starter of things on sticks. Had I had my wits about me I know there were better things I could have chosen, but I decided it I’d just enjoy it and reduce my syns for the rest of the week. Which is what I did. I was straight back on plan after that meal, eating less than 15 syns every day. It was fine.

View from The Thai Terrace in Guildford

Which I why I was astounded and completely baffled (seriously I can’t explain how baffled I was and to some extent still am) when I got on the scales last night and saw I had gained 3.5lb!!

I wont lie to you, I had a bit of a cry on the way home. You can be as circumspect and objective as you like in group, but I felt so, well, cheated is probably the best way to describe it. I hand on heart did nothing different last week (bar one meal) than I did the week before (when I lost 6.5lb!). I know it averages a loss of 3lb over two weeks, but that wasn’t much comfort last night when I so desperately wanted to get my next award. Ah well. So now I have lost 6 Stone 1lb (89lb).

Normally I’d just say, OK on wards and downwards 😉 , but this coming week is a bit different. We’re going on our first holiday in three years on Tuesday. It’s only a mini break (I wrote about it here if you’re interested), but it is totally catered. I can go with a sensible head on, but I know I am not going to be able to stay completely on plan. I could stress about this, but do you know what? I’ve worked bloody hard for the last three years, both carrying and looking after my son full time. I deserve a couple of days relaxation. I’m not going to go mad (my tastes have changed too much to that to be honest) but I’m not going to let my time be ruined by feeling anxious about what I eat. I will however be straight back to it when I return though, that I can promise.

I’m have also decided to take my first ever Slimming World holiday since I started, meaning I shan’t be weighing in this coming week. It feels a bit weird actually. I’ve not missed a single weigh in since I started over a year ago. We’ll see how it goes.

So as I am going on holiday, and due to the lack of weigh in, there will be no update next week. In fact I plan to take a complete break from blogging next week. Again that’s something I’ve not done in over a year. I do hope you understand. Although I say I’m not going to blog, I may not be able to help myself 😉 Lets see how it goes eh?!

Ending on a positive note I just wanted to tell you about my latest purchase. I have been in that Joules again! tut tut Lisa! But seriously this was the only top I found all day that just looked and felt right, what can I say? Pssst (she whispers) Oh yeah and it’s a size 16 and I bloody adore it hehehe.

‘Rose’ Top Joules Size 16

Have an awesome couple of weeks guys.

See you soon!

 

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