Hello again,  my apologies for being away so long.  Partly due to having had 6 days away in Cornwall without the children!  For the first time in about 18 years.  It was certainly a relaxing and pleasant experience with plenty of downtime and 3 out of 6 days on the beach.    Thoroughly recommend National Trust property Godolphin House where we had an amazingly informative and amusing tour and could have walked round the gardens and surrounding countryside for hours.  We also had a very pleasant walk to Lands End (sunny but very windy).  Always preferable to paying a fortune to take the car and park there.  We never go in the attractions anyway but we did have a lovely cream tea in the posh restaurant looking out towards the Wolf Rock lighthouse and I had a eye wateringly expensive locally distilled gin (I was told no two bottles are the same taste!) and tonic.

However after getting up at 4.30am on Friday and driving home via Salcombe (where we had a job to do) followed by 6 hours in either motorway or A road roadworks (4 hours to travel 40 miles on the M5 and 1 1/2 hours on A46) and very hectic weekend of shopping for new hockey kit for older daughter and QT2 (Over £200,  must be keeping the manufacturers and retailers in business) and uniform for QT2 who managed to hole all of his previous trousers and split biros in the pockets of at least 2 of his white shirts plus full family shopping (clearly the kids ate nothing whilst we were away or they ate it all,  either way fridge and freezer were bare!) I have pretty much forgotten the blessed peace of Cornwall and am now girding loins for the next 3 and 1/2  months of work and school (QT2 returns tomorrow,  QT1 on Weds starting in 6th form!  Having made sufficiently decent GCSE grades to be accepted at existing school).  In fact QT1 has a pulled ligament in her neck and can only face one way at present which isn’t a great start to her 6th form career.

Also probably predictably the power steering went on my car the first day in Cornwall so that is going back into the garage tomorrow.  It always breaks down the first day when we go to Cornwall,  last year we had to be towed right down Cornwall to our destination by the AA!

Hockey training has already started (older daughter is taking the opportunity to train with her old team ahead of going back to Uni) and will step up for QT2 in a couple of weeks with an U16 tournament and men’s league starting on 3rd October,  rugby training started some weeks back and games start on Sunday,  and older daughter is still playing cricket on the weekends (weather permitting).  So back into the old routine,  not enough space on the calendar for all the activities and wondering how to get everyone to all the different places on Saturdays and Sundays as QT1 also has bag packing (in aid of her charity Peru trip next year),  Historic Churches walk with my mother and then Stagecoach starts again.

The things we do to make sure our kids don’t miss out….