It's time to see other people...
Altogether now in your best Frank Sinatra voice... "And now, the end is near..." The summer holidays are nearly over, the heat wave has ended and my Autumn edition of 'Country Homes & Interiors' has arrived (I'm so 'Surrey' sometimes its painful!) Sad face emoji, cloud emoji, tree with no leaves emoji (if there is one).
Ok ok, I'm totally jumping the gun here as it's actually about 23 degrees and sunny as I write this. But I love the summer so much, and as much as we Brits are great at seeing the positives in the changing seasons, ("Don't the leaves look pretty as they change colour", "You can just smell Autumn in the air", "The kids are really settling into the new school year well" (#laterskids)) I'm simply not ready for coats, shoes and socks and central heating. A friend of mine said to me last Autumn, 'I had to talk to my husband about putting the heating on early as it's getting so chilly in the evenings'...sorry what? You discuss this?! I cannot stand being cold in my house. To my mind, you should pretty much be able to walk around the house in a T-shirt all year round! My husband never notices when I've put the heating on as I treat our house like a vivarium and keep it at a steady 20 degrees year round. Any environmental warriors who just read that and said (High pitch taking the mic voice) 'Well that's not good for our environment now is it?!' Please know that I use a wood burner to part heat the house, recycle like a mo-fo and compost left over food. So shoosh!
To ensure the kids holidays end on a high, we took them to a fab place called Hobbledown Farm in Epsom. Animals, outdoor climbing, coffee...happy days! Despite our family-fun day (tomorrow will be Arts & Crafts and learning about different plat seeds in a 'Garden school' with Daddy - Yeah right! (puke face emoji)), I think it probably is about time the kids went back to school. My eldest seems to be craving education (and I certainly haven't been providing much over the last six weeks). After a day of wanting to learn French and coming up to me saying "Bonjour. Cava?..." and then not knowing what to say next except "Oh, oh!" in a French accent, I was relieved to have her distracted by the arrival of some Tortoises we have re-homed with us. This however initiated an intense 48 hours of Herman Tortoise research and learning a little more than I was ready for about their 'mating ritual'! Tortoises settled, we were onto the next subject after she found a Chinese coin. "I'm learning Chinese Mummy. Can you guess what I'm saying?" "Well, no because I don't know any Chinese" "Just guess!" "Ok. ' I am speaking Chinese'" "No you're not, I am!" "I know I'm not speaking Chinese, I thought that's what you might have said in Chinese!" "It wasn't, can you guess what I'm saying in Chinese?" "No, I don't speak Chinese!" "I can teach you Chinese" "I don't really want to learn Chinese...can we please stop saying the word Chinese?" "Chinese?!" "Ahhhh!"...and so on.
As soon as the iron-on name labels I ordered online arrive, I'll be ironing like I look like I want to (which I don't) and helping the kids complete the school holiday project which I have literally only just remembered they have as I'm typing this! Crap. Best go and locate the piece of paper I found scrunched up in their school bag 5 weeks ago which has the details of exactly what they are meant to do. Failing that, we'll have to make something up which the school can't argue with. A sort of 'what I learned this summer' project. I have a feeling it may be based around French, Tortoises and Chinese!
Laters x