Reasons to be Cheerful

ONE

I have spent all day yesterday and most of today painting. Not the 'create a masterpiece with your kids' sort of painting. Not even the 'splash a coat of imaginatively named coloured emulsion over the walls for an instant room makeover' sort of painting. I have been doing the painstaking  'glossing to protect your exterior wood from the elements' sort of painting.

Neither my husband nor I are big fans of uPVC double glazing (a simple fact that I really wish the dozens of salesman who are regular callers at my front door would grasp). We have some beautiful stained glass and I would hate to sacrifice it for the sake of slightly better sound and draught proofing. It does of course mean that we have the job of maintaining the frames and it is long overdue - hence the reason that I could be found outside with a paintbrush in my hand for the best part of two days.

It is hard work, especially the preparation and the cleaning up your brushes afterwards, but I am starting to see the results now. I have a long way still to go but it is looking good and that is very satisfying.

TWO

I took my 14 year old to get her ears pierced and do a bit of shopping on Monday. While we were in town we got her hair cut too. What a transformation! I took a young girl shopping with me and brought home a young woman. Here she is modelling her new look.

THREE

I had recovered enough from my 5K run by Tuesday to enjoy a lovely family bike ride along the Severn Valley cycle trail. We ran into a little bit of difficulty at the start of our ride in the sense that we were not actually on the bike trail to begin with. Before we found ourselves on the wide, well surfaced, signposted trail we had a bit of 'extreme' terrain to deal with - a narrow, bumpy track running along the river with tall stinging nettles on one side and a steep drop down to the water on the other. All a bit scary with a tag along trailer bike but we managed and it was very beautiful.

At Hampton Loade, we caught the steam train back to our starting point at Highley. 

Our three year old loved the experience of going on the train, especially when the whistle blew. It was a lovely day out, rounded off with a pub lunch and an ice lolly on the drive home. Simple things, but it is usually the simple things that give me reasons to be cheerful.

Cycling with the Children

Cycling with the Children was never meant to be our C date. I had originally planned to take my husband to the Comedy in the Country gig in aid of Help for Heroes. It would have been a really good night, I'm sure, but one of my babysitters had a rehearsal for a play she is in and the other was a little under the weather and up to her ears in A Level revision... so it just didn't happen.

However, the cycling thing turned out to be fantastic and as the children are a huge part of our life, it didn't seem too inappropriate to include them in a date (although I don't intent to do it too often!)

The date was part of weekend away. We drove to Brighton early Sunday morning to visit my husband's parents who made a lovely lunch for us which included a home made fresh raspberry trifle (I figured that with the cycling I'd be expending plenty of calories so having seconds was perfectly acceptable).

We were booked into a Premiere Inn for the night and headed off in the late afternoon to settle ourselves in. After so much trifle, I didn't really want to go out for a meal so we bought Crusty bread and Cheese from a local Co-op, putting us very much into 'C' date mode.

The children didn't settle down to sleep very easily with all the excitement of being in a strange place so it wasn't exactly a romantic evening, but we watched some bad TV and all snuggled in bed together which was lovely.

The following morning after a breakfast of Croissants, we set off for our Cycling adventure.

We parked in the Seven Sisters Country Park and I got a map of the cycle routes from the Cuckmere Cycle shop while my husband got the bikes ready. 

We could have taken an easy route down to the beach to see the Seven Sisters or a nice circular way marked route suitable for families through Friston Forest but my ambitious husband had other plans. We were going to cycle to nearby Jevington via cycle tracks ranging in difficulty from easy to 'medium' to rendezvous with his parents at a pre-arranged time for lunch in a Country pub. (I later found out that the Hungry Monk in Jevington was the birthplace of Banoffee Pie but given the trifle incident the day previously, it was probably just as well that this wasn't the country pub we had a table booked for!)

Bearing in mind this was the first time we had done any real cycling with the baby boy, the three year old had yet to try her Tag Along Trailer Bike with its newly fitted safety back rest and I probably haven't even sat on my bike for two years - it was a case of anything could happen.

The boy couldn't wait to get started...

I was 'doing One good thing' with my One water...

...and we were off!

Credit where credit is due - my husband's map reading skills did keep us on track (after a couple of false starts trying to navigate out of the car park!) and we reached Jevington almost exactly on time. Unfortunately, the contour lines that looked fairly harmless on the map were punishing on under used thigh muscles. We had to get off our bikes and push up a couple of the steeper hills but we made it. 

What I failed to appreciate was that all the ascending was setting us up for a serious descent into Jevington village. This was a 'medium' difficulty route. One day I will have to try one of the extreme difficulty routes because for me this was a heart pounding mountain biking sort of experience! Quite how my husband managed to make it down the steep, bumpy, narrow track with the baby seat and the trailer bike I will never know, but he did. And so did I!

The pub lunch was lovely (and well earned!!) and the kids were delighted to see their grandma and grandpa.

Over lunch, we planned our return journey - a less direct but more sedate route! The baby boy was very relaxed about it all.

Despite a few aching muscles and some moments of white knuckle terror it really was a magical time and something I hope to do a lot more of.

Back where we began, a Cup of Coffee marked the end of our unforgettable C date.

Reasons to be Cheerful

ONE - KNITTING

I am still very much an absolute beginner when it comes to knitting but with my mum's encouragement I am thoroughly enjoying experimenting with some simple patterns for soft toys. I practised technique with a tiny fish then graduated onto a slightly larger mouse which worked out quite well. I am now trying to improve my knitting stamina with a much larger stripy snake. I have never changed wool colour on a knitting project before. It is really helping me to understand how it all works. For the first row after the colour change, it is really easy to see what happens to the stitches as you knit. For the first time EVER  I have managed to correct my mistakes when I make them rather than having to start again or rely on mum to sort my mess out.

In keeping with Michelle's 'Recommend a Blogger' theme I've found plenty of knitting inspiration on Little Cotton Rabbits.

TWO - EXERCISING

I have been doing really well with exercise recently but signing up for the Race for Life has given me an even greater incentive. I have joined a new class at the gym called 'Bodytone' but might as well be called 'One Hour of Torture'. I'm hoping that next week it will feel a little easier - but all that sweating has got to be doing me some good, right?

THREE - CYCLING

My three year old daughter loves going out for bike rides with daddy, usually to the canal to feed the ducks. The baby boy is just about big enough to use the bike seat now so we have bought him his own little helmet and have invested in a Tag Along Trailer Bike for his big sister. We weren't at all sure if she would be ready to make such a big step but we had a little trial in the garden and she loved it. We are heading off to the South Coast this half term to visit the grandparents and have our very first Family Cycle Ride through Friston Forest and down to the beach. I am hoping for good weather but intend to pack the waterproofs!