Life lately has been an amalgamation of GCSE's exams, work, visits to A&E, business travel, building work, weekly family walks and illnesses - and rubbish weather.

It's been a blur the past couple of months, one minute we were preparing for my sons GCSEs and the next he is ready for his final one. 19 exams later, which he has taken in his stride, and maybe not enough revising as I would have liked to have seen, but he seems happy with how they went and I am super proud of him. Over the past month he has had one of two exams, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, there have been a few days that have been exam free and a much welcome week's half term in the middle. Now the wait commences the dreaded 2 months before results day.

My work has been good lately, I've found it to be rewarding. It moved in a direction that I was nervous about at first but in the end extremely happy with where I am at.  I get to travel for business a little more, I was in Paris meeting a client in January and last month went to Amsterdam to do a presentation. My first time in Amsterdam but unfortunately I didn't get to see a lot, apart from the airport, hotel room and the client's HQ. What I did see I liked a lot and plan to return with the hubby and kids.

During the past few months, we've found our outdoor walks have been a much needed and welcome break - Nothing beats getting outdoors in the woodlands or beach with the children and the dogs, enjoying each others company and the surrounding beauty of the outdoors.  The past two walks we built up the confidence to let Poppy of the lead, and she didn't disappoint, she has been good as gold of the lead and thoroughly enjoyed the extra freedom, allowing her to run free, but she never goes too far, she constantly has an eye on us.  Our oldest son even joined us a few times which has been nice; as the boys get older it's becoming more and more rare to spend time together with the whole family, but it is nice that he wants to come, it also gave him a couple of hours to step away from all GCSE stress.  

Summer had an accident on the school run as I parked the car outside the school to take them in, she got her foot tangled in a bag on the car floor and fell out of the car and landed on her chin - I scooped her up, see the blood and ran her into the school where the first aider patched her up.  I then took her to A&E where they glued her cut. She handled it very bravely, I think I was more upset than her, I see blood and go into full panic mode. She was more concerned about them putting glue on her chin, "she doesn't like glue, its sticky", I had to explain it is not the glue she uses for her arts and crafts but special glue. 

The extension is in full swing, although, taking a bit longer than normal as hubby and his builder cousin are doing it, but hell of a lot cheaper. The 'shell' is done now, the roof is on and it just needs rendering on the outside - then the work inside commences, where we will knock down walls, build new walls etc. Eekk not looking forward to that part, especially the mess.  

We have a long few months ahead of us, waiting for exam results, oldest starting college, Summer starting full-time school, the building work, but hopefully, the warmer weather will arrive soon and we can enjoy the outdoors more and discover new areas to take the kids and dogs.