A Mother's Ramblings

As with most things, Church camp was cancelled for this Summer because of Covid-19. The powers that be worked hard, however, to create an online camp for our area where the main focus will be on the youth performing acts of service in their local area and after a little bribery (I suggested if they tried hard to enjoy themselves, I'd pay them to participate) my children agreed to take part. So, when Bishop emailed to say he had a huge delivery of t-shirts and was hoping we'd be able to pick them up before camp started, I emailed back with a time I hoped was suitable for me to collect shirts for my children and offered to collect the t-shirts for the youth aged children of a couple of friends who live nearby.
Somehow, when I got to Bishop's home, this had snowballed into me taking all the t-shirts for the youth that live my side of the town and a thirty-minute errand, was suddenly a two-hour errand. It was an act of service to deliver them to those around me, one which I was…

I love to play Pikmin 3 on our Wii U and can often be found sitting in the den trying to reach the Platinum level on the various levels found in the Collect Treasure mode. I'm not going to say I'm the world's best player, in fact probably quite far away from it, but I'm good enough and I try to improve as much as I can by testing out different orders of collecting the fruit and killing and collecting the creatures that try to eat the Pikmin.
The way I like to play is to get good at a level, like really good at the level, knowing little things and the orders to do things that mean I shave a second or two off my time and then once I think I've got the fastest possible route, I check attempts on Youtube and sometimes I see something that they have done that means I can shave another second or two off my time all in the pursuit of my ultimate goal, getting the platinum award. It's these small marginal gains that improve my performance and for me, it increases my enj…

Another week is gone, and yet we have another week of meal plans and another week of feeling like this year is speeding by at twice the normal speed but also taking four times as long to move through. It's almost like the entire world is walking through Treacle, but at the same time skiing downhill. Luckily we can make life feel a little longer, by taking the time to stop and smell the roses, to be mindful of the little moments that make the week special, to take time out to do something special and most importantly with all the alarms turned off!

This last week Top Ender went for a job interview.
Yeah, I almost can't believe it either.
We'd spoken about her getting a job a while back, but had decided that we wanted her to focus on her studies, and seeing as her Dad and I pay for almost everything she wants and needs and give her a little bit of an allowance too, there was no pressing need for her to get a job.

Last September we visited the British Lawnmower Museum in Southport. 
I can't believe that I haven't written about our visit already because it seriously was one of the best Museums I've ever been to and this is coming from someone who is planning a return trip to Amsterdam because she fell in love with the Nemo Science Museum, which is another blog post I probably should write soon...
Anyway. The British Lawnmower Museum.

I'm a solitary person by nature, I mean don't get me wrong, people are nice but I like to be alone. I like to have time to do things at my own pace, to potter about and eat when I want and do what I want when I want not having to answer to anyone. I think that I could quite easily live alone and actually, this lockdown period has proved to me that I can make my own amusement, that I don't actually need to go out (apart from to the shop to buy food or pick up medication) and that a walk a day really does make me sleep better each night.
I could live in that cabin in the woods with the internet and craft supplies and books and the opportunity to go hiking every day without seeing a soul other than my family. In fact, at times I could also probably cope without my family too...

And yet.