Happy New Year, Hello 2022 and All That Jazz

7th January 2022

Hello! How are you?

So, 2022 hey. I’m not sure how we can be in another year already; I’m pretty sure we only just started 2021.

I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year; it’s always over so fast, isn’t it? And after all that preparing for it too.

We had a lovely Christmas spent with family and then we celebrated Ava’s 10th birthday too (cannot believe I have a ten-year-old!). The dates were a bit weird this year, schools broke up a lot earlier than usual so they had a full week off before Christmas and then they’ve gone back just two days after Ava’s birthday which is sooner than ever before.

We decided not to go to Whitby for New Year this year because of the dates – it would have been a rush after Ava’s birthday to get back and then we would have had school the next day. So we just spent New Year’s Eve at home this year. I don’t normally mind that at all but I just wasn’t feeling it this year and the telly coverage was a bit pants and the whole thing just felt a bit anti-climatic, so I was just ready to go to bed after midnight. Although I didn’t because I’m an idiot and I stay up too late, too often. I did miss spending a few days in Whitby too.

We had a lovely day for Ava’s tenth birthday. We gave her some different options to choose from and she decided that she wanted to go to the Kitty Cafe in town, then a few shops to spend some of her birthday money and then go for dinner at Prezzo. So my mum came with us to Kitty Cafe and Ava’s other Grandma came for dinner with us.

Ava has wanted to go to the Kitty Cafe for ages and we’ve never got round to it, so it was nice to finally be able to go. You have to pay an entrance fee, or a welfare fee as they call it as it’s a charity and then you order food and drink as in a normal cafe so it is not the cheapest thing to do, but we really enjoyed it and it’s for the cats so that’s OK with us!

Ava and I knew we would both fall in love with some of the cats and we certainly did. Ava fell in love with two in particular and she’s desperate to adopt them (not happening even though I would love to bring them all home as well!) – a tiny black kitten called Truffle and a big furry, bearded grey boy called Johnny.

I was a bit disappointed at first because you obviously go expecting to have cats all around you and get the chance to snuggle and stroke them, but there weren’t any coming around us at first and lots were quite scared so didn’t want to be approached. Of course, the most important thing is that the cats are happy and feel safe in their environment so they can go where the hell they like; I was just a bit worried that Ava wouldn’t get to spend any time with them like she was so desperate to.

Luckily we did have some coming around us as time went on and Johnny got lots of loving as he sat curled up on a low bed, and another big fluffy boy, Baloo lay on the edge of one of our sofas for the majority of the time we were there. It was really good in the end and of course, Ava got upset when we had to leave – no idea where she gets her highly emotional side from!!!

Over Black Friday we got annual passes for Twinlakes and Wheelgate Parks which are not too far from us and so last week we spent our first day of the year at Twinlakes with family and had a great time. Not everything was open but there was still loads to go on, and the kids loved it as always. There’s a little farm at Twinlakes so Ava loves that and is always desperate to go and see her favourite pony.

We like going too; there are some fun reasonably small rollercoasters which are about my level of scariness, and we love the big slides as well (although Ava has started to get a bit more nervous about ‘fast’ slides so hopefully we can keep encouraging her and she’ll get more confident).

I’m really looking forward to having lots of days out at the parks over the year and it’s really nice not having to worry about paying for tickets each time we go! We’ll take a little picnic with us each time and hopefully have some fun days out.

Other than that, we have been to the cinema to see the new Disney film, Encanto, which we enjoyed (and it’s now on Disney+ so we’ll be watching it again, soon). I can imagine we’ll all be singing the songs from it after watching it again as they’re very catchy. And we’ve spent some time with family too.

The holidays seem to have been over so quickly this year and I really haven’t been ready for school runs and early mornings again, but now I’m glad to be back in some kind of routine and be able to get on with work again.