Fun in the sun!

Work this week has been a bit here and there, I've done a fair few half days due to a meeting and a hospital appointment. I'm normally due to work all day on a Thursday but I had the afternoon off which was brilliant because it has been gloriously sunny and hot here all day with a stunning blue sky. I'd say I sauntered out of school, but that would be the biggest lie ever; I near-enough ran (aside from the fact that I don't run!) and pegged it home as fast as I could.

Lunch consumed for both of us, we trotted off to meet a friend across town in a lovely Victoria park. I was running late and my feet were killing me already (never a good sign), so we ended up catching the bus.

The Boy has never been on a bus before and thought it hilarious. A little perplexed at first, but he soon started chatting to all the old fellas and dears, making lots of new friends.

Once we'd got to the park, The Boy and his friend, Little Miss Cheeky, had great fun racing around amongst the daisies. Little Miss Cheeky is 6 months older than him, but they adore each other; she refers to him as 'My (name)' and he just points and grins at her. She's also the youngest child of my oldest, recently reacquainted, friend which is great that we have more of an excuse to spend time together gossiping.

As you can see, Little Miss Cheeky is going to lead my boy astray in the future, but it's ok because we've already agreed that they're allowed to marry each other. I can think of worse in-laws than your best mate!

Following the hijinks in the hedgerows, The Boy and I went down to the beach where he had his first ever ice-lolly all of his own! He likes ice-cream, but everytime he's had it in the past he's squirmed and complained because of the cold. This time I bought him a mini-milk which he did manager to hold quite well, but I wolfed my cone down and popped his rapidly melting lolly into the cone which was a massive success!

We then had great fun playing 'stop, go!' on the pier making all the little old ladies coo in delight. He even investigated his shadow a little bit more.

Oh, and I got sunburn! It's April for goodness sake!

Movie Meme: 80s Classic

I'm supposed to be going to bed but not before writing this up. (My hubby will kill me, please send a rescue party!)

I'm excited because the ever-so-clever Hannah at Metal Mummy has chosen what could only be one of my top categories for her theme this week:

This week's prompt is The 80s

What’s your favourite film from this decade? Is it a comedy? A Brat-Pack? A horror? You can write about whatever film you want, no matter the genre.

Oh MetalMummy, thank you so much! I can wax lyrical about one of my all-time favourite films ever!

Do you know what it is yet?

No?

Then you should be ashamed of yourself!

Big-city boy relocates with his divorced mother to her small-town home-town to live with her brother. He is cool, he loves music and plays it loudly from his beaten-up yellow VW Beatle. Small-town girl takes an instant liking to him in the rebellious way that only she could, surely she would never do it to wind up her preacher-daddy? Big-city boy gets on the wrong side of everyone with his loud music booming as it is 'banned' in the area, what with it being the root of all evil and responsible for the death of small-town girl's elder brother. (Now't to do with the booze then?)

Ren, for that is the name of Big-city boy, vows to provide the seniors at the High-school with a prom where they have music and can <shock, horror> dance. In order to do this, he must take on the might of preacher-daddy.

Can he win? Will they have their dance? Will Willard learn how to control his two left feet? Will SJP discover straighteners in time? Will small-town girl and preacher-daddy ever forgive each other?

Ladies and Gentleman, in order to find out you will have to watch the 1984 classic:

Footloose

This is one of my favourite scenes from any film ever:

 

Seriously, what other song could I choose for this blog?

Now pop over and see the other entries:

The Next Generation

I'm killing two birds with one stone here, I hope no-one minds?

On Friday, Tara set her theme for The Gallery:

Mother Love. Interpret it any way you choose; You as a mum, your mum, someone who you look on as a mother. Let's not restrict appreciating mothers to one day; let's make a whole week of it!

I'll admit to being a little stumped for an idea: I'd already written a post about being a mum, I was intending to do a photograph of The Boy with whatever he gave me for Mothers' Day on the day, and I have a rule of no photos of me on my blog for various reasons. Eeek! What's a mummy to do?

Then on Sunday, I was tagged in a lovely meme by Alli from Mum2Four. She had posted a photograph (for Silent Sunday) of her daughter holding a photograph of her and her mum. Alli asked me, along with a few others to do the same for her first ever meme. Bingo! There's my Gallery entry as well!

So, without further ado, here is The Boy:

 

If you've got a second, can you pop over and have a look at Alli's beautiful post too please?

End of the day

As I crawl into bed at the end of my second ever Mothers' Day, I have three thoughts in my head:

  1. I've missed you bed, we used to spend a lot more time together, when did we stop seeing each other?
  2. I've had a fantastic day with The Boy and hubby.
  3. Jesus Christ, my back hurts!

My back and I used to get on alright, the occasional objecting twinge when lifting something heavy, but other than that, we liked each other. When did this change? What happened? When did we fall out?

I'll tell you when. When they shoved a whopping great big needle in between my vertebrae to insert an epidural. No hang on, maybe it was when they had to do it again because they'd done it incorrectly the first time? My back has never been the same since.

Do you know what else changed that day? My bosoms, they now resemble spaniel's ears. No wonderbra on Earth can help them.

Don't even get me started on my skin! Six months post-partum and I turned into a pubescent teenager again. I'm 33 for the love of all things holy, I should not be getting acne now.

Have I ever mention that I fell down the stairs a week after giving birth and ripped all of the stitches out of my episiotomy? And that they wouldn't restitch it?

What about the stretch-marks? My flabby stomach looks like a road-map of Greater London.

The only thing that has started to behave itself is my hair. Eventually! It has finally started to regrow and stopped snapping off.

I know that some of you are nodding in agreement to this. Some of you are thinking "oh belt up and stop moaning!" I bet some of you are still wincing about me ripping my stitches out, aren't you?

However, I want you to understand that I am not moaning because I would do it all over again, one hundred-fold, just so that I can be my little boy's mummy. I adore him with all my heart, and my knackered back.

Thank you to The Boy for choosing me to be your mummy!

My Mothers' Day

"Go and give that to Mummy".

How many other mummies across the land were woken up by that whispered instruction today? I smiled to myself, turned over and stretched my arms out ready. In trotted The Boy quizzically looking at the card in both hands. I prised the card from his reluctant hands ("pwees, tar") with the bribe of my phone to play with and he then proceeded to rip open the envelope once I'd rescued my card.

I was presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers by The Boy (and hubby because little'un couldn't see where he was going) the flowers of which he chose himself yesterday in the florists. All I can say is that The Boy has good taste and must have inherited my Bampi's horticultural talents.

I also had some scrummy Baileys chocolates (which is good because the bottle is empty) and a book of 'Mothers' Wit' (I hope he's not implying I need pointers!).

After a blustery picnic (which we bought in Tesco, I'm not making one on my day) overlooking Swansea Bay and a play in the park there, we went to Plantasia, which is a mini-rainforest type attraction. It was just the right size for The Boy and us to cover in an hour; it was informative without shoving it in your face, not crowded and fun. He loved watching the fish and catching the raindrops falling from the waterfall. He also tried to give the parakeets some water because he thought they might be thirsty!

In the evening, we had Mothers' Day: The Sequel for my own mum as she and dad came around for dinner. I gave her the canvas that I had made by Alyson at Lucy's Locket which she adored.

All in all a very satisfying day for me. Thank you hubby and The Boy.