Another year, a new age

November is my birthday month and this year it seems to have come round especially quickly.  I was working on my birthday so out of the house early on but managed to finish early so could spend more time than I expected with the children.  We then had parents' evening at 14yos's school which seemed a strange thing for a home educating mother to be doing on her birthday.  It was a good evening though with lots of positive comments from the teachers so that was nice.  After that Rick and I had a takeaway.

November itself has been very busy on the whole.  We had a great time with Josh and Bethan spending 2 weeks with us.  A couple of friends and I helped them to do some sewing for the inside of the van, including covering cushions and me making patchwork curtains.

It was great fun to be involved in the project together and we had some good laughs.  It was really good to get to know Bethan a bit more before she joins our family when they get married in February.

We had a lovely walk along the shore a couple of days before my birthday in the crisp cold November weather and although it wasn't really a very long walk it was very enjoyable.  The family was a lot smaller than our last walk though!

Last weekend was the running club annual chip cup and awards.  It was a 5.5 mile run around a loch on a lovely track.  Weather was great and the scenery stunning.  I had a lift for the last mile as I wasn't feeling 100% but really enjoyed the bit that I did.  I am not managing to run as much as I would like these days for various reasons so it was good to get out.  I was also shocked to receive the prize for the person who had made the most improvement between 2012 - 2013 which was a £20 gift voucher for the local sewing class.  I was really pleased although I don't think I will make the same progress next year.  Max did really well on his run as well - he puts 110% into his runs.  Barnaby also was really fast on the long run around the loch, despite having been up early for his paper round, been swimming and not having eaten too much.  He is a really good runner.