Thursday photo #344

Christmas has definitely arrived earlier this year. I often hold off putting up the Christmas tree until the children break up from school. This year though, everyone seems to need something to get excited about. So, unusually for me, I relented and the tree went up this week. We’ve also been to the first and only Christmas event we have planned in, Malvern Winter Glow. I have no idea how we’ll keep up the festive momentum for another fortnight.

Christmas jumpers

Tomorrow is Christmas jumper day at school. I have a slight issue with Christmas jumpers for children. They grow so quickly that it’s a stretch to get more than one year out of a Christmas jumper. Which in my opinion is a complete waste. Fortunately, we managed to make one jumper last for three years between the two girls. They have finally outgrown it this year though, so it’s destined for the charity shop.

Last year, we went charity shopping to look for a fancy dress costume for the girls to wear for the Barry Island new year’s day swim. While we were shopping, Lia found a Christmas jumper in a bargain bucket. It was a hoody with a big penguin on the front and she immediately fell in love with it and bought it for 50p. So, she’ll be wearing that for Christmas jumper day tomorrow, and probably next year too.

Libby didn’t have a jumper, so I offered to buy her one from a charity shop, which she was happy with. Then, my sister offered to lend her one. Surprisingly, she chose to borrow one rather than buy one. I was quite impressed with her for understanding that it would be wasteful for buying something she may only wear once. As an added bonus, my sister’s dog had grown out of last year’s Christmas jumper too. I think it looks rather nice on Bubbles.

Stepping back in time

This week, swimming started up again, much to the girls’ delight. We have made the decision to move Libby into a different swimming club that is closer to home. Her previous club was brilliant and I couldn’t fault them at all, but getting her there was becoming problematic. We had to go straight from ballet to swimming with a quick pitstop at home to change. The journey took half an hour each way and we usually arrived late and Libby ended up going to bed late. It just wasn’t working.

So last week, Libby started at a club I used to swim at 30 years ago. I’d swam a few galas for them when I was in my late 20s as well when I was part of their master’s swim team. So, it was strange to be back there with Libby. Stranger still was the fact that many familiar faces on the coaching and support team are still there from my time as a child. Now that Libby has joined, there is one new face on the coaching staff, my husband. I can’t help wondering whether he’ll still be doing it in 30 years time.

Thursday photo #344

The girls have been filming their ballet show this week. I had to take a head shot of each of them for the ballet studio so we took one of them together as well. It’s always nice when they manage to look as if they like each other.