Thursday photo #267

It’s that time of year when something always seems to be happening. Birthdays, days out, sports days or exams. During the past seven days, Libby has had a singing exam, concert, birthday party and sports day. It’s a good thing she enjoys being busy. We had a visitor this week too. I was looking out into the nature reserve behind our house when I spotted that I was being watched.

Singing

Libby has been going to a stage performance class since she was two years old. At the time, she was horrendously shy with anybody outside our immediate family. I thought a drama class was a good way to give her some confidence. It didn’t take long before that confidence arrived by the bucket load, and she took a real liking to dancing and singing.

When the letters came home from school to say that her class could start music lessons, I expected Libby to opt for the violin. For her though, it was a no-brainer. She wanted singing lessons.

Things have developed quite quickly from that point. She took part in a local singing competition earlier in the year, and on Friday she took her initial exam. The following day, she sung on her own to quite a full hall of people. The improvement between the singing competition and the concert was notable. Her confidence continues to improve and she loves nothing more than being the centre of attention. I don’t know what happened to that shy little girl we first took to a stage performance class all those years ago.

Swimming

The weather here has been horrendous lately, with a ridiculous amount of rain. Unfortunately, this meant that the river was too high for our usual Monday morning swim. Instead, I went to meet some swimmers in Oxfordshire for my first swim in the Thames.

Open water swimming is a funny sport. I wouldn’t regard myself as a sociable person, but there is an instant connection with other people who are willing to chuck themselves in a river. It’s great to explore new swim spots and meet like-minded people, all of whom seem to be very welcoming and friendly.

Thursday photo #267

I realised recently that I’d been taking a photo of the girls every week for five years. I put together a little video of the photos that I’ll share in a separate post. It’s such a lovely thing to look back on, and makes me really glad I persevered. The photo quality on some of them is terrible, but what really stands out is the smiles. I think we all beat ourselves up about parenting, and it’s easy to look back and remember the things you get wrong. So looking at photos from the past few years and seeing how happy they always seems to be is quite comforting. We must be doing something right.