Tag Archives: half-term

October 2021: Racing towards winter

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Somehow October has raced by and we’re already in November and starting the countdown to G’s 18th birthday and Christmas. However, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass by to mention just a few of the things we did manage to fit in to the end of September and October.

I was invited to be a part of the judging team for the first ever FreeFrom Christmas Awards and was delighted to accept the honour. It felt extremely strange to head back to London for the judging session after last year’s online involvement for the main FFFA21. I had a fab afternoon tasting and judging entrants in the After Dinner category and, as ever, there were some cracking entries. The full list of winners can be found here for you to peruse at your leisure, but in the meantime I’ll tempt you with a couple of photos of the delicious Tesco Finest HoneyComb Dome and Morrisons’ The Best Gingerbread and Butterscotch Sponge pudding, both of which were well-deserved winners of a gold award.

Mike celebrated a not-particularly-significant birthday and we kicked off a very early start to G’s 18th birthday celebrations with a long-awaited trip back to the theatre for the first time in 20 months to see the fantastic “Everyone’s Talking About Jamie“, which we all loved. It was simply amazing to be back to doing something we love and have missed hugely since the first lockdown happened. We have more trips planned over the next couple of months as a number of shows that G has been desperate to see are passing through our local theatres on their UK tours.

Finally, the month was seen out with a plethora of half-term activities, some more interesting than others. We finally redecorated our hall, stairs and landing – something that Mike had promised my Mum would be done before G turned 18 and something he’s managed to squeeze in just under the wire! I enjoyed my 2020 Christmas present, the hire of a Morgan sportscar for a day and now have a 15 year old who is very keen for us to have one. We managed a day trip to the Pensford viaduct so that M could take photos for his GCSE photography project and naturally had to stop for a fish and chips lunch at Salt and Malt in nearby Chew Stoke. Mike and the children also completed their annual pumpkin carving session, whilst I simply sat back and savoured the odd Pumpkin Spice Latte or two.

2021: Yet Another Lockdown Holiday – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 48

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I don’t know about you, but a definite sense of COVID and lockdown fatigue has hit our household and G and M were more than ready for their February half-tern break this week. For M, spending close to 6 hours daily in live online lessons has been surprisingly tiring and the loss of his walks to, from and around school have definitely impacted on his sleep patterns as he is mentally, but not always physically exhausted by the end of the day.

As Mike and I have both been working from home this week as normal, G and M have had their days to themselves. Before the week even began, I suggested that keeping up with some schoolwork would be a good idea and so each morning has been filled with homework, tutor sessions and, in G’s case, making sure that all her A-level notes are legible and neatly written up from her occasionally messy notes. They’ve been out for daily walks, had great fun making their recordings for their end-of-term virtual Stagecoach performance and even took over the kitchen on Shrove Tuesday to whip up a batch of delicious M-friendly pancakes for us all to enjoy.

However, our evenings this week have been dedicated to family time and what better way to spend that time than in some friendly rivalry around a board game. To avoid squabbles as much as possible, G and M have taken it in turns to pick the evening’s game and we’ve had a real mix so far this week. From honing our art talents in “Telestrations” – we soon discovered who the weak links in the family are – to developing our deduction skills in “Cluedo“, all via a musical interlude on the kazoo in “Play that Tune”, there have been a lot of giggles to be heard. We’ve revisited some long-standing family favourites as well as playing those bought at Christmas, although the Reindeer Hoopla has yet to make an out-of-season reappearance!

Like so much of the last 48 weeks, this half-term might not have been quite as we would have liked or planned, but we’ve had a lot of fun together, perhaps even more so now that the children are older and can be challenged a bit more in our games. I’d be hard pressed to pick a personal favourite from our table filled to the brim, but would highly recommend “Telestrations”, a game we can’t wait to play with my Mum once we’re able to visit her once again. The topic of which game is picked for that evening’s entertainment has been a key part of our dinner table conversation and it’s been fascinating to see which games each child chooses.

What’s your recommendation? Any family favourites that are always picked, or something new to you that you think we might also like to try to?

And so it begins – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 31

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We knew it was coming, but we just weren’t quite sure when it would hit and Tuesday came and so did the phone-call from school…

A confirmed case of COVID-19 in M’s year group and so with a quick dash to school to pick him up, home-schooling has started again. I’m not quite sure if I’m glad it’s happened this week or not. Whilst both he and G now have to self-isolate for 2 weeks, which pretty much puts pay to our tentative half=-term plans, they will only miss a few days of school as we have already been told they can return on the first day of Term 2.

It’s thrown my week into disarray as I readjust to having 2 teens back in the house as I juggle remote training for my new team member, numerous mid-year budget review meetings all via Zoom and what feels like a plethora of other deadlines that need to be hit before I too go on my half-term break.

Of course, with much of the North heading into Tier 3 over the next few days and the rest jumping between Tiers 1 and 2 as numbers start to rise again, and with Wales now in its fire-break for 2 weeks, I feel like we’re in good company. Half-term isn’t going to look like what we hoped it might, but then again, what has in 2020?!

 

Rethinking Travel – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 26

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Let’s be honest, lots has changed since the start of 2020, but for us, one of the most impactful changes is in the area of travel. We are a family of travellers, loving nothing more than exploring the world around us and we had big plans for this year which have already had to change with no clear indication of when things might be able to get back to something that even vaguely resembles the freedom we had before. This feels particularly relevant at the moment as we start to make plans for October half-term. Our August staycation was truly that with day trips out to relatively local spots rather than overnight stays anywhere else, be that in the UK or abroad. For G, M and me, our only nights away in recent months have been at my Mum’s house and even that has been filled with some stress as I had to adapt to more people in one place than I’ve seen for months as we ventured out on our daily walks.

Half-term will see more of the same, with a repeat visit to the arboretum already planned with my Mum and I’m hoping to find at least one other small day trip we can make whilst Mike continues to work. M has already muted the idea of an afternoon of bowling, or we might even consider a visit to a safari park as that was something we didn’t get round to doing during the summer. However, we’ve also bitten the bullet and decided on a night away from home so that we can fit in plans that were put on hold due to the lockdown.

G has been longing to go to the Harry Potter Studios for months, so part-way through Year 11, I decided to offer her a trip there as the ultimate incentive for continuing to practise her clarinet for her music GCSE, despite her longing to give it up. It seemed fitting that we included this destination on our list of things to do at half-term and, as it will see us heading towards London, we’ve decided on an overnight stay followed by a repeat visit at Chessington World of Adventures. Both children absolutely loved our day there this time last year and M has been asking if we might be able to go back again as he loved the experience of the Halloween extra hours. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look likely that they will be running those this year due to the changes needed to make the park a COVID-secure day out, but I have no doubt we’ll have just as much as fun.

These are realistically not the travel plans I’d really be like to be making, but it’s difficult to see when, or where, we might be able to go abroad again. Whilst many are back to travelling, the additional risk to me of travelling by plane is one that I’m not yet prepared to take and so we will continue to look to holiday here in the UK and explore this wonderful isle we live on.

Bringing History Lessons to Life in Berlin

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I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m a big fan of holidays. Not just the trips themselves, but I absolutely love the process from the moment we start thinking about the perfect destination to pick and, much to Mike’s frustration, can frequently be found thinking about where we should travel next, even before we’ve left home on the next one booked. We haven’t done too much travelling since our trip back to Canada last summer, but no sooner had G and I got home from our fantastic day out at the Strictly tour, than it was time to finish the packing and zip up the suitcase for our 5 day half-term break.

Our holiday was perhaps not what people expected, in that we weren’t chasing the sun with a few days at the beach, even though both G and M are desperate to go back to Greece and mention it every time they can possibly shoehorn it into any conversation. Instead, we had taken inspiration from G’s GCSE history syllabus and her learning about Superpower relations, the Cold War and Nazi Germany during the inter-War years, subjects which also happen to tie in quite nicely with M’s focus on World War 1 in his history lessons this year; and so headed to Berlin. As the children have got older, we try to involve them more and more with planning our activities whilst we’re aware from home and this trip was no different. G spoke to her history teacher just after Christmas as the school had taken a group of their A-level students to Berlin a few weeks earlier and came home with some recommendations of the best places to visit to help solidify her learning and understanding of these eras.

Armed with that information as well as the additional research Mike had carried out in the preceding weeks, we had plenty to do to fill our time and couldn’t wait to get started. I had found what looked like a great place to stay: the Citadines Kurfürstendamm Berlin apart-hotel, meaning that we had access to a full kitchen which always makes life a little easier when travelling with food allergies. We were ideally located not too far from the main retail street and within easy walking distance to not only shops and restaurants, but also the Berlin U-Bahn, or Underground rapid transit system.

Our first day started, as it so often does when we travel to a new city, with a “Hop-on, hop-off” bus tour, although we weren’t as impressed with the City Circle Tour offering as we have been with other tour companies we’ve chosen in the past. However, it gave us a great introduction to the city of Berlin itself and helped us work out how to get to the various sights on our list as well as ticking a few of them off without too much hassle. Both G and M were fascinated by their first view of the few remaining remnants of the Berlin Wall, the Brandenburg Gate and the bombed remains of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, all of which really brought their history lessons to life.

Daddy’s new toy

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Somehow, and I’m not entirely certain how, we have limped our way through what has proved to be a tough 5-weeks and finally Term 3 has drawn to a close and half-term has arrived. M’s health was hit hard when he came down with Aussie ‘flu just into the New Year and the term has been turned topsy-turvy as he’s struggled with high temperatures, heavy head colds, aching joints, lethargy and low energy levels. He’s also been trying to cope with unbelievable bouts of insomnia since the end of last term, a problem that has taken its toll not only on M, but the rest of the household too as Mike and I have juggled home and work as well as the impact of the serial bed-hopping that has become an almost nightly occurrence. Except on Wednesdays. I’m not yet sure what makes Wednesdays so special, but over the last couple of weeks, M has achieved something that has been such a rare event that I can pretty much count the number of times it has happened in his lifetime on the fingers of one hand. In bed – his bed – fast asleep and then nearly 10 blissful hours of interrupted sleep for the rest of us!

One of the highlights of half-term has been opportunity to finally try out the new toy that Mike had for Christmas. A stove-top smoker. Following the discovery of what quickly became a new favourite with M when we were in Greece last summer, Mike has been exploring whether there was any way to replicate the delicate flavours of this smoked chicken at home. He talked a few times about the possibility of buying a smoker, but as so often happens in our household, the chat didn’t lead anyway and eventually the idea faded away into seeming obscurity. However, whilst all thoughts of a smoker had disappeared from Mike’s head, it had taken up permanent residence in my mind and I was undertaking some research of my own.

Finding the perfect Christmas present for my other half is always a challenge, particularly as his birthday is just 2 months before, but waiting until December gave me enough time to read around the subject and pick out what I hoped would be the perfect choice. It came as a complete surprise on Christmas day and a present that both Mike and M were looking forward to experimenting with in the New Year. Sadly ‘flu got in the way of any such trials in January, but Mike being at home with the children for half-term gave them the perfect opportunity to give the smoker and a variety of wood chips a whirl.

By the end of the week, it turns out that Mike’s worked hard to see just what flavours he can produce and M feels that there’s still some work to be done to perfect the chicken to his exacting standards. It appears it’s all too easy to over-smoke the meat and end up with a bitter dinner, rather than the aromatic flavours we were hoping to find. M has suggested adding lemon and herbs to help flavour the chicken and I’ve no doubt that Mike’s new toy will be a source of much fun and experimentation over the coming months.

Halloween Pumpkins

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Ok, so it might not be Halloween just yet, but I thought I’d share some photos of the pumpkins that Mike and the children have spent time designing and carving over half-term. Halloween has never been a time to celebrate for me and was certainly never a significant time of year when I was growing up. My childhood was spent making a Guy for Bonfire night, rather than carving a pumpkin for Halloween and I never imagined it would become a regular part of our household’s routines. However, 20 years on from when I first met Mike in Canada and experienced trick-or-treating North-American style with my university friends, Halloween has become a family time with the children not only carving pumpkins with Mike, but often also with my Mum during half-term.

I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of Halloween at all. We don’t go trick-or-treating with the children, though I absolutely support the work of the Teal Pumpkin Project which encourages households to provide non-food treats as a safe alternative to sweets for allergy children, so they can be a part of the experience alongside their friends. And I spend most of the week leading up to the day itself in an increasingly dark mood as October 31st is the anniversary of losing my Dad. It is always a difficult time of year for me, but I’m glad that the children are able to enjoy some fun time being creative with Mike and carving the pumpkins helps them celebrate their dual heritage in a unique way.

 

 

 

Station X

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date (2)It might have been a damp, chilly October morning when we left home, but we didn’t let the weather deter us from completing our “top-secret” mission for the end of half-term – a visit to Station X, otherwise known as Bletchley Park. The purpose of our weekend away was actually to visit one of my Godmothers in nearby Milton Keynes, but the opportunity to take the children to see the home of unparalleled code-breaking during WWII was too good to miss. It was something of a last-minute plan, but I was confident that M would be fascinated by the history of code-breakers and spies that is so intricately woven into this beautiful Manor House and, what’s more, 20151031_115918it fitted wonderfully well with some of the English home-work G had been set over half-term.

From the moment we drove in through the front gates, the children’s interest was piqued as we were questioned at the gate as to the reason for our visit and directed to the nearby car park. Members of staff were on hand to make sure we headed to the entrance and didn’t wander into any areas that are still in use today and not accessible to the general public. We started by picking up our multimedia tour packs, before heading into the grounds of Bletchley Park itself. M was keen to follow the guide exactly and so we started by the lake whilst listening to an introduction to all there was to see there, which believe me, is a lot. Once we had circumnavigated the lake, we were then taken around the rest of the site: starting at the Manor House, around to the garages and cottages, via the memorial to the Polish men and women involved in code-breaking during WWII and on to the restored Huts; 20151031_130649all before ending up at the Block B Museum.

The Multimedia guide was absolutely brilliant and I’m really glad we stopped to pick them up despite G’s initial reluctance. Mike, M and I all chose the adult version, whilst G opted for the family friendly one. The map showed the key places for starting the audio recordings and you could then choose how many additional subject areas you wanted to listen to on a variety of different topics. The screens were all interactive and M had great fun “wiping off” the current images to reveal how each location would have looked during the 1940s. G had the added bonus of interactive puzzles to complete and loved working out how to break each code. The guides were included in the price of the entrance ticket and whilst they weren’t integral to our visit, they certainly revealed more of the story than was on display,

I would be hard-pressed to state which was my favourite part or indeed choose which I think the children enjoyed the most. There was just so much to see, so much to read and almost too much to absorb. From the history of Bletchley Park which led to its use during WWII, to the interactive displays of the Bombe machines in Hut 11, the Enigma machines on display in Block B and the children’s corner with puzzles and dressing up supplies, as well as an extensive area showing some of the props and costumes used to20151031_125114 film last year’s blockbuster, “The Imitation Game“, there really was something for everyone. Sadly our few hours there simply weren’t long enough and we didn’t manage to explore either the National Radio Centre or the National Museum of Computing and its rebuild of Colossus, both located at the same site. No need to worry however, as it simply means that we will have to try to squeeze a revisit in and, as our entrance tickets give us admission for a full year, I’m sure we’ll manage it one way or another