It is quite nice to sit here, on the last day of September, and think about the end of the summer holidays. The fact that it has taken until now - with the last day of the month acting like a full stop on the season - for me to sit here and write something says a lot about how September has gone. It has been intense, busy, quick yet long. All of us adapting to new things: a new class for me, a new job for Bella and college for Angus. Bella turned down all her university offers and instead secured an apprenticeship in HR which she is loving. Angus is studying A levels in History, Politics and Philosophy and has also just started his first weekend job. It's all go.
It was a good summer, a long summer. Bella and Angus, having both finished A levels and GCSEs, were around a lot and I felt like I spent so much time with them both. It was a joy. They wanted to hang out with me and we had many lovely, gentle days involving local walks, ice creams, little museum visits, baking, reading, sitting in the garden and seeing friends.
These are always my favourite kinds of days: a slow start, some pottering, a little trip out somewhere, ideally some sunshine.
Museum visits were local, or local-ish. John and Angus loved the tank museum in Bovington. I enjoyed the history more than the tanks but watching these two share their love of military history was sweet to watch.
More locally, Fishbourne Roman Palace was a little treasure of a museum.
The weather was mostly good over the holidays, dry and warm.
But with the added excitement of watching thunderstorms roll in.
There were pub lunches by the water and walks long and short around local villages.
There was also some self care, occasionally in the form of a hair cut or getting my nails done, but more frequently treating myself to the absolute joy that is reading in bed first thing in the morning.
We weren't homebodies all the time though. There were a couple of bigger treats thrown in the the holidays too. My friend Abbie and I went to see Oasis at Wembley Stadium which was amazing, as you can imagine.
I have to be honest and say that I am not the world's biggest Oasis fan. I don't especially love or loathe them but my friend Abbie secured tickets at a really good price and it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. It was incredible. 90,000 people all having fun, all singing the same thing at the same time.
There was also a family day out to London to visit the Natural History Museum, always a joy.
The floor and the shells section are my favourite parts.
Then a long, long browse in Waterstone's Piccadilly. All four of us disappeared off to different floors to look at different sections, then left with a couple of books each. A good afternoon.
As we neared the end of the holidays, we bought dahlias from honesty boxes outside farms and picked blackberries.
I made apple and blackberry muffins, blackberry compote and froze batches for crumbles.
I dug out my neglected sourdough starter, fed it up and started baking bread again.
We made the most of last opportunities to visit the beach.
As the back to school energy kicked in, we got ready for September, cleaning and organising.
Danish souvenirs were unpacked and arranged.
I made a banner for the book corner in my classroom.
One month later, I still haven't had time to hang that banner. Maybe in October.
