Congratulations to Bill and Oti. I loved them and was amazed and the improvement Bill showed throughout the series. It was nice in that my daughter watched it with us, as did Leia. My son however has grown out of it.
We had hoped to go for our first walk with Leia, but as my son is in quarantine, this was not possible. Instead she met the puppy of a friend of my daughter. Leia loved meeting another dog and had to be dragged away especially when the other dog started to growl on occasion.
So it will be Wednesday when we take a family walk with Leia who I am sure will love it more than we will.
This morning I went into work to catch up with some work. My daughter came along as well as she is now doing quite often as she finds it easier to do her homework there than at home. Our Saturday morning trips now involve a drive to get some coffee at a drive through before heading to my work. She also gets a toastie while I eat breakfast at home before we leave.
It means that I do not get to cycle to work which is something that I blame for my ever expanding waistline. My Wednesday job used to burn off a lot of calories, but due to lockdown, I work from home on a Wednesday instead. After I got back, I did go for a walk, not a bike ride as it was after dark. My wife has been hard at work preparing the house for our puppy with my son helping her.
We had a weekend away. After working on her dissertation it was the least that my wife deserved. So we went to Bicester for a the night. But we had not taken Storm Dennis into account. The drive there was fairly uneventful and we went to the shopping village. Afterwards it was a short trip to the hotel. Our intention has been to swim, but my daughter had forgotten her swimming kit but when we realised that we would have to walk outside our enthusiasm dimmed. However dinner there was amazing. The drive back was a bit draining and not as bad as the iconic plane landing that has been shared on social media. We did see some flooding, but nothing compared to what a lot of the country has seen. Anyway, now relaxed I am waiting to watch the football and am looking forwards to work tomorrow.
Today, my son and I went out for a long walk. Since he has been playing this, he has started to walk a lot more. Before we played this, we did not walk that much, in fact, he would always do his best not to walk. While I credit PokémonGO with encouraging him to walk a lot, he has improved when it comes to exercise in many ways, an example being how he is playing cricket.
Anyway, this was something that we had been looking forwards to for a while, as we had missed the previous days which dealt with two other legendary Pokémon. My son called a friend, whom we had been out with on another day before, and he in turn woke up his mother and dragged her out of bed (she had the option to have her first lie in for a while due to her work) to take part in this. Anyway, we all had fun catching them and he was amazing with how far we walked.
Afterwards, we had lunch near Ipswich, bought some non-alcoholic beer and on getting home relaxed watching Strictly Come Dancing, and we watched the end of a disappointing episode of the X factor. While it may not look like we did much, I do think that it was an enjoyable day for all, it just does not appear so when I type it up!
Another interesting and memorable day today. While I was catching up on some paperwork today, my wife picked up my son from his sleep over to find that his mobile phone was lost. It turned out what when he had gone to brush his teeth, one of the other boys had hidden it, though this boy initially denied doing so but did admit it later when all the others at the sleep over said that he had hidden it. However, despite this it took a bit of time for the mobile to be recovered, so well had it been hidden, but things are better now. And of course, winter is coming, and we certainly found that out today as the temperature had dropped sharply. Still, the children have a desire to freeze and both were resistant to wrapping up warm, which has meant that my son now has a cold.
We did watch Strictly and I found the Remembrance Sunday dance just amazing. The children are too young to appreciate it, and normally I spend time ensuring they watch something about it, but thanks to the dance on Strictly, I did not have to do so before they went to bed. Anyway, good night all!
Again, I have had the opportunity to spend time with my children.
In the last week, I have technically been off work for most of the week. I still had to go in to complete the work that I have allowed to pile up, but this was a lot more relaxed than this would otherwise be. As I had been slightly under the weather I had not cycled in after walking the kids to school but took the easy option to drive instead. This was not an option on Wednesday when I work in my other job, but I was up to cycling then. Which was just as well as I am not allowed a parking space at that job, and that in turn has made me have to become fitter. I am not up to the standards of others in my area of Colchester who cycle to work (or as part of their journey to do so) but I am much better than I once was.
On Thursday I was back at my usual job, and it was a hard day. But yesterday I got to spend time with my amazing wife. It was not long, but it was time together without children, who while we both love them very much, at times distract our attentions from each other. I did return to work, but later had to take the kids to an appointment which meant that they were taken out of school early. But later, after school, we went to watch a film, or rather the film I have been waiting most of the year for.
And it was awesome. All four of us loved it. I was wary as some films we not as appreciated as the original three were by me. But I was a child and these films are really meant for children. But the magic of Star Wars was present in Rogue One. We now await the extended version which should be available for Christmas next year.
And today, we traveled to London as my wife had a reunion to attend. The children were entertained by Pokémon Go on the way down, and we had a late lunch in East Ham. The food there was, as before, amazing and this is a place the children look forwards to going to. They do not like spicy foods, but this appears to be an exception. They are peacefully asleep now, after watching Strictly Come Dancing, but this week spent with them, has been treasured once more.
Just a quick post on the weekend. As I do often, I was working on Saturday, and I got home to meet the kids who had been away since Wednesday. My mother-in-law kindly took them to her house to look after them for a few days, which meant that my wife and I had some quality time together.
We went out to GreyFriars restaurant in Colchester, a lovely place to eat and I have to say, while expensive, in my opinion, it was worth the money. Great food (which may take time to come on occasion), terrific service and an amazing setting. We both loved it and returned on Friday after work with two friends, though not for dinner, but a few drinks.
On getting home on Saturday, it was great to see the kids, and they appeared to have missed me (my wife had picked them up, and they certainly had missed her). While my wife and I had to go out for a dance afterwards (and what a great night that was) today we spent some time in the garden playing catch and a few other games as well. The only down sides of this weekend was not being able to watch the football and missing out on Strictly.
Chess appears to be more interesting for the two of them. They are hoping to get my two brothers into it, one of whom has said he will start to play on-line with them. As for me, two more on-line competitions lost, 3rd Green Wing and Speed King 054 but the games were fun.
I would love to post more, but I am tired and now in need of sleep! Goodnight and I hope you like the videos of two songs my daughter likes (and one version she does not).
