Monday 15 June 2009

Raise a glass to yourselves.....

It's thundering at the moment and I can see lightning flickering in the next valley. The air is still and tremulous with the occasional bird song sounding startlingly loud against the waiting silence. This is a good thing as I need to be inside working and good weather would have lured me out into the wilderness beyond my windows.

In contrast to today, we were blessed with great weather over the weekend. This meant that my visiting friends and their children, who had arrived wtih macintoshes, wellington boots and all other manner of rain gear, were instead scrabbling for sun cream and got to enjoy an idyllic weekend of Wales at it's secretive best.

We walked through sun dappled woods, the children looking for fairies and listening out for bears. Their two and a half year old son marched ahead of us with a big stick 'to stab the bears and dragons with' and their morbidly fascinated 5 year old daughter pointed out multitudes of 'dead fairies' which she took great joy in. The baby slept in the shade then sat under an umbrella to play on a rug. We threw stones in the lakes, built dens out of boxes and old sheets, and the children ran around barefoot and delighted on the grass. It went well.

I had enough food of the right kind (though not enough kitchen roll which turns out to be a vital implement in the child rearing process). The playdough was a success, the lego provided amusement and I even remembered to prerecord stuff of CBeebies onto Sky+. We ate, we drank, we walked, we lolled, we gardened, we had more friends over for lunch; to sum up, we had a proper weekend. It was lovely.

By the end I was exhausted and am yet again amazed at how you all do the whole parenting thing. It is relentless and selfless and never ending (unless you are me in which case it ended at 7pm on Sunday night when they left). I say raise a glass to yourselves parents out there. You do an extraordinary thing every day.

8 comments:

Jean said...

It's funny to hear that actually! It's just something you do when you have children! But thanks, much appreciated and I'm glad your weekend went well.

Home Office Mum said...

sounds like a lovely weekend and you were obviously the hostess with the mostess and now you'll have queues of friends with their exhausting children banging on your door. I raise several glasses most evenings to celebrate the fact that we all survived another day.

Special K said...

As I age, it becomes easier to celebrate on my own...I realized that if I waited around for other people to validate my small accomplishments, life would be very dull.

katyboo1 said...

I would have swapped my weekend for yours in a heartbeat. Sounds utterly lovely.
Thanks for the big up tho. I am a big fan of negligent parenting which takes much less time and allows you to do other things.x

The Singlutionary said...

A good visit! How I miss friendship and leisurely visits and strolling.

bevchen said...

Sounds like a great weekend :-)

screamish said...

it sounds like your place is a nice place to take kids too...it's not always the case! You were definitely a gracious hostess...and dont worry I do indeed raise my glass to our health every night at around 8pm think of us slumped on the couch surrounded by soft toys and baby spew...happyish but knackered...

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

Just what you do at the time I suppose as NSM says, although having stopped doing it now I am not sure how I found the energy. You sound to have been a great hostess. it is not everywhere you can take your young kids and have a good time. you must be a great friend!

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