Ups and Downs

Ups and Downs

This week has been full of ups and downs.  I guess most weeks are like that, aren’t they?  My car went in for its MOT first thing Monday morning.  It’s a 2004 reg Peugeot 307 – it failed 🙁  Two minor problems, 1 major problem.  Daddy P knows the garage owner so organises all car-related things.  He told me it had failed with a big problem, I told him not to tell me how much it’s costing to repair!

We go to Spain next week to see my parents.  I don’t want to know that Christmas is cancelled until we get home!  I know, I’m burying my head in the sand, but we’ve not seen my parents since last November.  I’d really just like to enjoy the break and worry about money when we get home!

So, that little bit of joy got the week off to a bad start.

My son was having some of his NCT chums over for a play date on Monday afternoon.  I wasn’t looking forward to it.  He’s been so tired in the afternoon’s that most playdates, whether here or elsewhere have turned into a nightmare.  Tantrums, non-sharing, pushing – all instigated by Monkey.  So thinking the worst, I prepared to spend a couple of hours mediating and preventing Monkey lashing out at anyone.  Well, he chose just the right afternoon to be totally lovely.  He shared, played nicely and enjoyed just being with his buddies.  I could relax and enjoy watching them all without worrying.

Tuesday and Wednesday seems to disappear in a blur, whilst having some pre-Halloween fun – you’ll see some of the results next week.

He’s has been enjoying Nursery School and has brought home lots of artwork, all rather abstract but he’s very proud of it.  The highlight of the week was when he ran out of class clutching a pair of ‘binoculars’ for me.  Sadly, I didn’t take a photo of them and they’ve now been turned into scaffolding pipes!  Basically imagine 2 kitchen roll holders of slightly different lengths, held together with masking tape.  A masterpiece of engineering.  He let it slip later in the day (he never actually tells me what he has been doing) that he’d been on a Bear Hunt at school, presumably with the binoculars 🙂

I had the battle to construct a fire station – more on that in a couple of weeks.

Whilst all the humdrum of normal family life has been going on, I’ve also been getting prepared for our trip to Spain.  We’re off next week, to spend a week with Guru Gramps and Granny.  We can’t wait as we’ve not seen them since Dad’s 70th last November.  My son is looking forward to the adventure at the airport trying to track Zoom down, the flight and seeing lots of tractors.  Hopefully, he’s looking forward to seeing his grandparents too!

I’m looking forward to chilling out over a glass of Cruz Campo (local Sevilla beer) and the odd bottle of Rioja!  Will be lovely to spend time with Mum and Dad, and get Daddy P to switch his phone off, sleep like normal human beings do, and be a family.  My son will adore spending some decent quality time with Daddy P.

Guru Gramps found a Praying Mantis in his moth trap earlier this week, so we’re looking forward to meeting him, as well as getting out in the Campo for some long walks.  Dad can see up to 18 different species of butterfly on a one hour walk!  I love walking amongst the olives trees, strolling through the hills.  It’s wonderfully open and quiet.

Granny is obviously looking forward to spoiling her youngest grandson.  Apparently a new Spiderman duvet set awaits him, along with his favourite Dinosaur biscuits.  They’ll be a trip to the local Co-operativa to see all the tractors unloading their harvests, and I’m sure we’ll visit the nearest John Deere showroom so he can say hello to his favourite tractor again.

You remember I’d had my Granny’s rings repaired recently?  Well I took them back to the Jewellers to see if he could date them.  I’d forgotten to ask when I had them repaired.  Dad know’s nothing about them and I thought it might help me figure out when they’d been given to her.  Well, I was expecting 1937-1950’s, and I got a bit of a shock.  Both rings are late Victorian.  Wow! But that has left more unanswered questions.  It means that the rings weren’t bought for my Granny.  Who did they belong to before her? A question I will probably never find the answer to.

Tomorrow I have a Ladies Pamper Evening to go to, to raise funds for his old pre-school.  I’m still on the Committee, so going to help out, and also have a treat or two – I am going on holiday after all!

Sunday will be spent packing most the cases up, making sure I haven’t forgotten anything, making sure I have Mum’s shopping list sorted, deciding what toys of his we need to take with us.

A week of ups and downs and lots of preparations.  I had an email from the PR handling Red Hot World Buffet.  It appears that the business has been sold and the Tastemaker programme has been shelved 🙁  Gutted.

But on a happier note we are going to be visiting a really nice hotel for an overnight stay, kids club and all, at the end of half term.  Full review to follow, I am very excited.  Will need to dust off a frock and a pair of heels for that one.

Then today, like many others, I’ve been eagerly looking at my inbox.  Waiting to see if we’d been selected to be part of the Center Parcs Family Blogger Club for 2014 – sadly I didn’t get an email, so that’s a big no then 🙁 Never mind, there’s always next year!

Finalise everything on Monday, take Brewster to the Cattery – boy that cat will not be happy about that!  Big sulks await our return!!

Then off we go 🙂 So I’ll be much quieter next week, but some lovely bloggers will be guest posting to keep you entertained while I’m away.

19 thoughts on “Ups and Downs

  1. A week of ups and downs…but you have some fun things to look forward to, and maybe the car bill won’t be *too* huge…I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

I'd love to hear from you and try to reply to all comments