Wonder, Holiday Preparations and Fish n’ Chip Nights #LittleLoves

We’re edging ever-closer to the school holidays here in the North of Scotland, and it’s been a busy old week of finishing off blog articles, doing end-of-month admin for my husband’s business, helping out at class trips and bag packing for the Parent Council at my kids’ school. Throw in holiday preparations, a few writing competition deadlines and the odd bit of car trouble and it would be safe to say I’ve been feeling just a little bit stressed-out! Despite my constant attempts to embrace slow living, events seem to conspire against it, and I’m sure like many parents out there I often feel I’m not fully in control of my own time. But then I remember that two weeks of relative peace and quiet are coming up and that the end of term is always busy (slash chaotic). In the meantime, I’m keeping this week free of too many commitments so that I can finally get myself caught up!

I’m also going to be taking a little break from Little Loves (and blogging in general) for the next two weeks while I have three of my favourite men in the world around. My husband is hoping to take the whole school holidays off for the first time in ages and I really want to have some dedicated family time so that I can come back after the holidays feeling revitalised and refreshed!

But before all that, onto what I’ve been liking and loving this week. Because no matter how busy life gets folks – there’s always got to be a few minutes to like, love, drink tea and enjoy! 🙂

READ

This week I’ve been absolutely loving Wonder by R.J Palacio, a beautiful story about a boy called August, who is very different from all the other kids. It’s actually a book aimed at children/young adults, and I got it completely by accident when someone from my local library added it onto my reservations list thinking it was something I might enjoy. When I brought it home my eldest son got all excited because it turns out it’s the novel his teacher is reading to his class this term – we’ve since been having a bit of a mini book club together on it, comparing notes about what we think. We also discovered the book is going to be coming out as a movie soon and loved watching the trailer together – I just can’t wait to watch the film with my boys when it comes out later in the year. Have a peek at the clip below to get a flavour for the story. You might want to grab some tissues though – so far, this is one novel that’s got me teary eyed on just about every single page.

WATCHED

Post-9pm kids bedtimes have been all about season 4 of Mad Men again this week, but I have managed to do a bit of catching up on the latest episodes of Dr Foster on iPlayer (how fantastic that I can tell my husband I have to watch it for ‘research’ for my blog). I have to say it’s all been going a bit crazy in the world of Dr Foster and the main characters have been behaving so badly that it’s hard to have much sympathy with anyone except their long-suffering teenage son. The acting and drama have been amazing though and I for one can’t wait for tonight’s finale. Did she or didn’t she do what it looked like she was planning in the final moments of last week’s episode? Tune in at 9pm tonight for the big reveal (or avoid the post-mortem spoilers and catch up on iPlayer when you have the odd 60 minutes to yourself).

HEARD

In anticipation of our first family holiday by aeroplane, I’ve spent a lot of time this week listening to a digital hypnosis track aimed at overcoming my fear of flying – you can read all about it in the article I wrote about it here. So far I am feeling a lot better about kicking the irrational fear that has bothered me since my twenties, and I hope that when the time comes to get on our flight in a few days I’ll be feeling in control. It’s important to me that my kids grow up with a healthier attitude towards flying than I’ve had. If all else fails, though, you’ll find me downing a gin and tonic (or three) in the airport before we leave.

WORE

On to what I’ve been wearing this week, and it’s been less a case of wearing and more a case of trying on. I’ve been digging out summery clothes for said holiday to Majorca – hopefully in keeping with the weather out there, sunshine yellow appears to be the order of the day!

MADE

All my making seems to have been going on in the kitchen lately, I do enjoy cooking but not so much when it’s getting done against the clock. On Thursday we had a quiet evening, so I made gluten and dairy free fish n’ chips. I have to admit I’ve missed the odd trip to the chip shop since switching to a gluten and dairy free diet. The ‘free from’ version is still pretty good though – as you can see, I like to go heavy on the tartare sauce and peas!

AND LASTLY

Just to add to last week’s hectic schedule, I joined a new writers’ group that has started running locally. The timing might not have been great for me but the opportunity to learn from other writers was just too good to miss. Reading some of my own poetry aloud to everyone at the session certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone! Despite the nerves, though, everyone was lovely and I’m really glad I went along.

That’s it for my round up of what I’ve been liking and loving this week. I’ll see you again after the school holidays – until then, hope you find lots of things in life to read, watch, hear, wear, make and enjoy!

Gx

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