A Busy Half-Term Week in the Sunshine

Hello! It’s been a while since I wrote a more personal post and we’ve just had a really busy and fun week off, seeing lots of our family, so I thought I would share some of what we got up to and some of my favourite photos from the week.

I’m so glad that we had a week of mostly really good weather; we really needed the sunshine and the chance to get outdoors again and Ava and I had such a good week off together.

I had to fit some work around everything as usual and had one late night to meet a deadline but I did take more time off than I tend to do so I’ve had lots of catching up to do this week, and I am totally knackered but it was completely worth it.

We started off the week with a get together at our family’s house, where the kids played in the paddling pool and had water fights, and we drank Corona and Prosecco in the sunshine (and tried to avoid getting soaked by the kids!) and it was lovely. After that we all had amazing homemade pizzas cooked in our pizza oven. It was such a lovely day.

Then on Tuesday Ava and I went for a night away camping to where my mum and step-dad are currently staying. We have a bigger tent but for just one night away we decided to get a cheaper and smaller pop-up tent so it’s not such a faff if we just go away for a night or two and it was brilliant! It went up and back down again so easily and was a decent size for the two of us and the dog!

It was the first time we’d gone camping with Scout (our puppy) so I was a bit nervous about doing it on my own for the first time, and it turns out I was right to be! I couldn’t get to sleep for hours because I was freezing (Ava was fine all wrapped up in her sleeping bag) and then at around 4am the birds starting tweeting, disturbing Scout, and then bloody pigeons started flapping about right next to our tent winding her up; so close that the sides of our tent moved, making her bark and growl loads and searching our tent all over for these pesky creatures she could hear!

So I only got a couple of hours sleep all night and safe to say I hated everyone and everything the next morning. We still had another lovely day though, playing ball games, going for a walk by the river and just chilling.

Unfortunately that afternoon there was a terrible accident on the campsite (not us) and it’s still playing on my mind over a week later. I won’t go into details but the Air Ambulance had to come and it was crazy having it circle and then land so close to us.

The person involved is OK but their life is now changed forever and it was yet another reminder that life is short and everything can change in an instant. We’ve got to make the most of this life.

Well, that got deep quickly.

The next day Ava and I went to my sister’s house with my dad and it was so, so lovely to spend some quality time with him again (sat outside in the beautiful weather, again!) and my niece who has changed and grown up so much in the last six months or so. I’ve missed her so much and she’s only little so it’s been really hard missing out on so much of her first few years.

I’m really looking forward to us getting to know each other again properly and hopefully spending lots of time with her. My Dad had a lovely afternoon with us all too so that was so nice after such a long time mostly being stuck on his own.

Then on the Friday we all went to Twin Lakes, which is a family theme park in Melton Mowbray and we had a great day. We’d only been once before, a few years ago, and it was freezing cold when we went then so it was great to be able to go on more rides and things and spend longer there. Although it was a bit rainy and chillier than other days which was annoying after such a lovely week!

They have a little kind of waterpark there which is brilliant for kids. You can’t actually swim (it’s all shallow), but they can splash about, there are lots of slides, and a big bucket that fills up with water and then splashes everyone. The water was absolutely freezing, not helped by the lack of sunshine that day but the kids had so much fun.

I was a bit worried how it would work – getting wet in the middle of the day and then carrying on with your day. But it was actually fine (but might be harder on a colder day). You have to book an hour slot at the moment, so there are a limited number of people there at any one time, although it is still definitely busy on a niceish day. But with the cold water the hour is about long enough to get changed, have a play and sit and get dry and maybe have a hot chocolate to warm up! I’d suggest taking wetsuits if you have them.

I know I wouldn’t have wanted to get my hair wet and then carry on with the day (so I didn’t) but the kids don’t care and were warm enough once they’d dried off a bit. If I was going in completely or it wasn’t as warm then I’d choose to do it at the end of the day instead so we could go home afterwards.

We had such a brilliant week and really enjoyed spending more time with family again. I feel really grateful that we’ve been able to do that again; I’ve missed family and friends more than anything over the last year.