SLOWER DAY 6 - JANATHON

Today was a day of taking it down a notch or 2 as I had a wonderful maintenance sports massage booked straight after the school run and intended on ensuring I got the most from it by taking it easier today.
The morning turned out to be surprisingly different to the mornings I have experienced so far in 2012, meaning there was no howling wind and no driving rain. Perfect.

TJ was only at pre school in the morning today so I planned to get out for a walk with him after pick up and take the Geomate with us to find another cache. Mrs D and her little Ms D joined us for our hunt. We took ourselves out to a lovely little church only 3 miles away, which I am ashamed to say I had NEVER visited before. Why is it that places closest to you are often overlooked when you travel miles to see others treasures??
Can safely say, WE FOUND THE TREASURE and I managed to log a mile of walking. I definitely made the most of the massage and made sure I was active without busting a gut.

On our way to precious!



Our starting point

Logging our find

This weekend is set to be a good running one as my legs feel revitalised and I have also got another addition to the family who will help me get out there.
My Brooks Ravenna's have re-produced!!! Another set of these babies arrived in the post this morning, with all the mud runs and mileage I am hoping to clock up soon I like to alternate between my shoes. I have in the past gone for different trainers to switch between but my Ravenna's have been such a hit that I am sticking with them.

My little "treasures"

All set for an active weekend of running, am really looking forward to it. Although I will have to make room for Mr T  (@TrewinDesign) to get out there on his bike. We will be juggling training plans soon as he is training for the Cornwall Tor 100 mile sportive challenge in April. A busy couple of months in this household I foresee.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

In my opinion, Christmas seemed to take slightly too long to show up in this neck of the woods this year. The children broke up exceptionally early this year, hence I had mad, excited boys thinking each day they would wake up to "Christmas".

Right so thinking caps on - lots of activities to get organised to keep them busy.

Didn't do too badly as we had a party on the Monday with friends and their children, lots of crafty bits for the children to do/make as well as a village hall to run around in. Yep that worked.

Another activity we returned to this holiday was Geocaching. Thanks to www.helemill.com I am now the proud owner of a Geomate Jnr, a robust, colourful GPS device with geocaches pre-loaded onto it. You literally turn it on once outside and it locates your nearest cache. If you have never tried it you must, it is great fun, although I have to say that finding the cache is the ultimate goal as was our failure on several occasions previously. Now, that has all changed thanks to my new gadget.

Myself, 2 friends and the children all went to try out my new toy. We have a cache located only 1/2 a mile away, this was our destination that afternoon. We took ourselves down the country lane, over the fields and up a hill to locate it to the very metre. There it was, my PRECIOUS!! I have failed on each of the 4 attempts I have taken previously with geocaching so this was not only a major triumph for me but it helped to instill confidence in the children that we could indeed find our treasure and not endure another fruitless trek across fields and such like. Hoorah!!

The Chalk House and the bouldering wall was another fantastic choice. Both boys have been once before and really enjoyed it. JT gets so much out of it, it is very much a drop in gym where you can come and go in that day once you have paid your initial entrance fee. There is always someone there who can navigate the boys through some new moves to challenge their climbing hence JT comes away feeling his self esteem particularly inflated. You can almost see his puffed out chest, bless him!

The cinema was also another destination of choice on a particularly wet and windy day, Alvin & the Chipmunks - Chipwrecked was the film. Not the most high brow of movies but I have to say it meant I could sit down, eat popcorn and not endure 90 mins of my kids teasing each other. I regard this then as a mission accomplished.

Another feat with which I struggle is getting my running in when Mr T is still at work and I have the children home. It either means an early start or an evening run. Luckily I managed both this week, one great, wet 6 mile run with the running club and an early morning one with Mrs D www.thedaytodavis.co.uk. In our morning run we ran over the fields in order to locate the geocache again as Mrs D loves her mud runs and our usual route only takes us on roads, I was able to impart my precise knowledge of the location of the cache for Mrs D - I could see she was impressed!!!

All in all not bad really for a week where the boys were intolerably excited, had that time to let it bubble and manifest and unleash it on their mother!!

I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas break and in the words of Jerry Springer take care of yourself and each other :)

A WEEK CAN BE 7 DAYS OR A LIFETIME, WHEN IT’S HALF TERM WEEK

I am glad to report that 7 days it is here as we come to the end of the half term holiday. Started off well and continued along that route with a few diverted dead ends along the way.  Nothing which a packet of Percy Pigs and Lego mini figures couldn’t put back on course so how did we survive?

Monday looked promising with a meet with Hilary, Avril and children at The Castle grounds.  A tank, an army man, two action men and an army quad vehicle joined us, in miniature form I might add. There is a wonderful huge hill ( I know it as Teletubbie Hill) where the children send the vehicles and said army and action men flying to their demise and can spend anything up to 2 hours roaming the hill. Meanwhile Hil, Ave and myself get to grips with the latest news and put the world to rights around various topics whilst enjoying a wonderful coffee and biscotti from The Castle Restaurant – perfick.

Tuesday involved swimming and roller skating – yes all in one day!! Supported beforehand by a mass intrusion on Filter Through coffee shop in Holsworthy, there were 5 adults and 6 children. We went with my mum, sister, brother in law, Karen ( sister’s friend) and our range of children – oldest 9 years, youngest 2 years. Swimming is very much a given to our children, since the day they were born ( well almost) my boys have shared a wonderful Sunday morning ritual with their cousins. Sunday is our morning where we all congregate in the local pool, my mum and Mike included. Mike has been an integral part of my boys swimming achievements. Not only has he infinite amounts of patience ( of which I don’t possess when it comes to my children) but he is an extremely strong swimmer. He has been instrumental in both the boys being so confident in the water. Thanks Mike x

Roller skating was great, JT started off very wobbly and spent most of the first 15 minutes on the floor or making his way there from standing. After the 2 hour session he was creating some funky moves whilst moving along on the skates and made me want to burst with pride for him.

Wednesday was a very memorable day for JT. Jamie ( his best friend) , Hayley, or Mrs Ayres as those who have read Birthday Bonanza post will know her as, myself and JT all went to Plymouth’s Theatre Royal to watch an evening performance of Goodnight Mr Tom. What a wonderful afternoon / evening. Took the boys to have a pre theatre meal before enjoying a very emotional and thought provoking play. Hayley and I were in tears at various points throughout and JT seemed to grasp the story well and was moved by it. The best part from his point of view was spending time with his best friend and being “ a grown up” Love him x  http://www.goodnightmistertom.co.uk/

Thursday saw Mr T taking a day off work to spend time with the boys and we had a fairly lazy morning at home where pens and paper were exhausted and the cardboard TV came into use again. Geocaching was the name of the game in the afternoon, we decided to start close to home at Kilkhampton Castle but unfortunately found no cache, boys loved it though and I must admit to liking the fact that it gave the walk some added purpose ( calling it a treasure hunt got the boy’s interest also!). http://www.geocaching.com/   Don't you think the tree looks like a face??

Friday was the day earmarked for Geocaching with friends, Avril, Jane, Toshi and Suzanne were there at the ready with GPS phones and in total 12 children were present. We decided to head to Holsworthy Woods as there were 4 caches and a bonus one to find, thought we would work our way round and see how far we got. Well, we missed cache 1, I believe that was due to the mum’s chatting too much to notice, whilst cache 2 proved too much. Who would have thought that the determined nature of us mum’s enabled us to continue searching for up to 45 minutes whilst the children played wolves, cowboys and whatever else they needed to do to keep themselves amused while we could not and would not give up! Rain stopped play after about 2 hours of being there, the boys were head to toe covered in clay/mud and we felt it was time to call it quits at that point. The children loved just running wild in the woods with each other and at points it was very reminiscent of the wild rumpus that ensues in Where The Wild Things Are.

I’m sure that’s why I chose to watch that DVD in the afternoon, we were all warm and dry now and all 3 of us snuggled under a blanket and watched Max and his very own wild rumpus. JT and I were in tears at the end when he left on the boat but I love a good cry – don’t you?

That in a nutshell was a wonderful half term, spent with friends and family, enjoying each other’s company and feeling like I get to know JT again. School seems to distance him slightly from us, it doesn’t take long for the wonderful, inquisitive, engaging boy to return and I so enjoy the time we have together. Both boys fill me with love and pride.