The importance of time as a family

 

The busier I am, the more important it becomes for me to make the most of my weekends with the family.  Work is busier than I ever imagined it would be, so spending time Natan at the weekend is even more special, as I don’t get to spend a lot of time with him during the week. 

This weekend we took him to Brookside Garden Centre, one of his favourite places.  There is so much to do there and he loves the trains and the rides.  There’s a great cafe too.    

We also spent time with both sides of the family and Natan thrived on it.  He adores his grandparents and they share an incredible relationship, which means such a lot to us all.

He also gets more hilarious every day.  His confident language and vocabulary is a constant joy to us.   This morning I told him that mummy’s special new silver car would be coming on Thursday.  He responded, “You go and get it mummy.  I want to go in it.”  He added,  “No mummy, not a silver car.  I want a pink one!”  When I quietly informed him that I didn’t think that the car came in pink, he was having none of it and insisted that he wanted a pink one.  Something tells me that someone is going to be disappointed.   

8-1….now that’s embarrassing

Okay, so there was nothing really in it for Manchester City on the last day of the season, but 8-1 and a sending off to boot!  Now that’s just embarrassing.

I have been very vocal in my support for Sven here amongst other places, but it’s a bit hard to defend an 8-1 defeat to Middlesborough!

I await with interest tonight’s hotly anticipated announcement about Sven’s future.  It seems that the rumours of the last few weeks will turn out to be true and Sven may have managed his last game at Eastlands.  Not sure right now how I feel about that one after today’s absolute trouncing. 

And to top it all, Manchester United won the Premiership title – again!  I’m just bored now.  

Happy Birthday Israel

Israel was 60 this week.  This milestone has been widely commented on and the anniversary has been all over the news.

It’s been an emotional week for my family, with one of my nephews just having finished his Israeli national service and the other one, just starting his. They are both wonderful young men, but the uncertainty of what my youngest nephew will face over the coming months is naturally a worry.  I am so proud of them both.

Thanks to Michael Taylor for finding this.

Noisy neighbours = a very tired family

Life is mad, hence the lack of posts recently. 

Work is as busy as ever – lots of new clients and lots of prospective clients.  Things are going really well.  All this has meant less time with Natan over the last few weeks.  He has not been sleeping very well, which of course has meant that I’ve not been sleeping very well either.  I can do busy and stressed – no problem.  But busy, stressed and deprived of sleep, well that’s a different thing entirely.       

My lack of sleep has been severely compounded this weekend by our neighbour’s 48 hour (yes 48 hour!) party for his 25th birthday.  A party is fine, but a 48 hour party when the nights are unbearably hot with the windows closed to try (unsuccessfully!) to drown out the noise, is just not funny.  All three of us are completely exhausted.

Yesterday I fought the tiredness and took Natan to Stockley Farm as he had been talking about wanting to go on a tractor all week.  If you’ve got kids, I can highly recommend it – from the tractor ride from the car park to the farm, to the lamb and goat feeding, the inflatables, sand pit, cafe, birds of prey, horses, pigs, Natan loved it all.  It’s a great day out.

A new mayor for London and a wake up call for Mr Brown

Well, well, who’d have thought it?  When I met Boris Johnson in January I was surprised and impressed by him but I have to admit that I didn’t for one minute think he had a chance of winning the London mayoral election.  Neither it seems did the BBC’s Nick Robinson. 

I wish Boris the best of luck.  I hope he can make a success of it.  It will certainly be interesting to watch.

Labour has indeed had a terrible week.  This country is in a mess.  It is time for a change, but I am just not sure that the alternative options available are going to be any better.  I want better for my son, that’s for sure. 

I had to laugh seeing the live election broadcast when some high level Labour MP tried to put a positive spin on a truly disastrous result and another Labour spokesperson simply put his head in his hands. Hilarious.