This is officially blue week. Not a testament to that colour that sits happily between green and indigo in the spectrum. But an acknowledgment by the powers that be that this is the week when we’re guaranteed to feel miserable. Starting off with Blue Monday when the papers gleefully told us that us commuters would feel utterly miserable on the way to work.
I don’t like being told what to think by the papers, but I admit that Monday had a hint of tedium-tinged despair about it. First of all it was that horrible grey neither-raining-nor-not-raining type of wetness that London does so well (give me a good old proper rainstorm any day, but not that dreary drizzle – please.)
But Mondays are always a bit of an effort aren’t they? I think the general greyness of Monday mornings is why we try and make so much of the weekends.
So here’s my usual round up of what we did this weekend.
1. Had a sick day
On Friday we had a sick day. Chiswick Boy was up most of Thursday night vomiting, poor thing. No matter how old they get (Chiswick Boy is now nine and still my baby), your heart goes out to them when they are ill, and when you can’t do anything to take away their discomfort apart from hold them (and keep the sick bowl balanced at a comfortable angle).
Alice Sheridan replied to my Instagram post by saying “Kind of have to give in and just love days like that. Not the actual sick part – that’s never fun.”
And it was a great comment. As mothers we just need to go with the flow, and embrace the unexpected lurgy day. That’s a day when no-one is so ill that they feel awful, but you need to slow down and just be in the house.
On Friday Chiswick Boy had stopped being sick but still had a bit of tummy ache and was very listless. So what was going to be a productive Friday (busting the housework, working on my book) became a sofa day. We boxsetted Just Add Magic (which I mentioned in my round up of top boxsets in November) as the new season had just launched that day on Amazon Prime. We tried a bit of Lego. And we did lots of snuggling.
The cat snuggled with us. Cats are nice like that.
2. Started the 0 to 5 k
On Saturday morning we all felt back to normal and I ran to the shop to get the paper. I can’t get through the weekend without the Saturday Times.
When I say I ‘ran’ to the shop I don’t just mean in a metaphorical sense – because this was the start of my new running regime. Okay, not really a regime – I couldn’t with a straight face call my resolution to run on a Saturday morning a ‘regime’ as such. Perhaps a well meaning habit.
But I did run there with Chiswick Boy, who also watched the phone and shouted instructions when to walk and when to run, via the 0 to 5 K app.
And in case running to the shop for my Times wasn’t West London mummy enough, I was wearing my Boden running leggings at the time. Heh heh.
When we got back Chiswick Daddy had cooked a fry up weekend brunch, so I don’t know whether that counteracts my run or not. I like to think that fry ups and running can exist peacefully side by side – that’s my kind of utopia.
Running to the shop did make me think though – when I was growing up everything was delivered, and it was a natural part of life to see a paperboy or girl walking up the street at dawn putting the daily paper of choice through everyone’s letterbox. I had a paper round myself as soon as I hit 13 and got up at 5am every Monday-Saturday to collect my paper bag, trainers on, Walkman at the ready.
As well as having the Times plop through the door every morning – in plenty of time for my dad to do the crossroad while eating his toast – I also got my Bunty delivered every Wednesday and my brother got his Beano.
Not only that, but the Corona Pop man would come round on a Thursday and take away our old bottles of Dandelion & Burdock and Cream Soda, replacing them with gloriously fizzy full ones. And of course the milkman left four pints on our doorstep every morning, and at weekends would leave orange juice too.
When did life slowly stop being like this? How pleasant would it be to wake up to fresh milk and orange juice on your doorstep and a neatly folded paper on the doormat? Okay, we have the internet and films on tap from various streaming sites, and I wouldn’t swap those for fizzy pop delivered to the door on a Thursday. But surely it’s not one or the other. In many ways modern life is more difficult, despite the internet, than it was back in the 80s. There were no breakfast clubs back then to get to before work, no social media pressure for teenagers (plenty of peer pressure though), and you could get to continental Europe
3. Got out for a brisk winter walk at Chiswick House.
This is a bit of a lesson in checking opening times as we’d decided to have a look inside Chiswick House itself, which shockingly we’ve never been in to, although we’re often found walking round the gardens.
Turns out it’s not open until March. Oh dear! So we had a look around the conservatory instead.
We were the only people in there and we meandered slowly, hunting out the statues nestling in the foliage…
…taking time to notice the details…
The camellias were in bloom…
We also saw the preparations for the Chinese Magic Lantern Festival, which was one of my top 5 tips to beat the January blues It looks amazing – can’t wait to see it by night.
4. Had a new shoes feeling
Chiswick Boy’s trainers are in his PE kit at school (as in year 4 they like to have them in proper trainers, not those cute black gym pump things that I remember from my own school days), so I wanted to get him some trainers for knocking about at the weekends.
We went into Clarks, because it’s there on the high street and just easy (although it’s always insanely busy). Not only did I find these amazing boot things for Chiswick Boy in the sale at just £20…
…but Chiswick Daddy also found some new shoes for £30 from £100 (brown brogue type – I have an irrational dislike of black shoes for men, they’re banned in our house.)
And I also found some fake (obviously) -snakeskin ankle boots for me which are smashing, down to £40 from £95 (which I like to round up to £100 when calculating the bargain, obviously).
So having kept Clarks sales figures up, we headed back to Sainsbury’s to pick up the car (we can’t be the only people that always park in Sainsbury’s and then do a whip round shop to get the ticket validated?) and the Beano for Chiswick Boy.
5. Finally dismembered the Christmas Tree and made some tarts
One of the things Chiswick Boy and I like to do together is baking. It’s such a lovely activity to do with children – not just the baking side, but the chatting that you do together as you’re crumbling butter into flour or stirring in eggs.
He’d requested that we made jam tarts and here are the results.
Shamefully, the Christmas tree was still on display in our window, with a few decorations on that we’d missed, and the lights still wrapped round it.
So Sunday was sort out the tree day. I’d already bagged up a big bag of absolutely gorgeous glass ornaments, for a charity shop. This is because I’d decided it was about time to get rid of the decorations my ex bought me that I’ve had for 17 years. Chiswick Daddy and I have been together for 15 years, we’re all great friends with my ex, and there’s no baggage there. But I just think it’s time for our tree to only tell the Chiswick Mum family story from now on, and not my past life story intermingled.
Chiswick Daddy then broke the tree into small kindling type pieces and filled three bin liners with them, to use on our fire. For Christmas I’d bought Chiswick Daddy ‘Norwegian Wood: chopping, stacking and drying wood the Scandinavian way’ and he’s taken it to heart. I like to call him Sven now and send him out into the garden to catch moose and build our wood pile.
6. Nails and bubbly and Gilmore Girls
I have a tradition on Sunday nights that I sit on the sofa with my large box of nail polishes and do my nails for the week, with a glass or two of wine (bubbly this time) and Gilmore Girls on Netflix.
See.. if I was a proper blogger and Instagrammer I would have tidied up my nail polish box and arranged it into neat rows by colour, or perhaps bottle shape, before sharing a photograph.
So that’s how we rounded up our weekend, which as ever went all too quickly. What did you get up to?
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The post Our Chiswick Mum weekend in 6 steps – from running and wintery walks, to nail polish and bubbly appeared first on Chiswick Mum .