Project 52 2023 week 29

Another week gone and unlike many school children, we’ve still got another couple of days left. The weather has been pretty on off rain, and hasn’t ended well for the weekend. And quite a few days of lambs escaping into either the field or the garden from the paddock they’re meant to be in. Here’s our week 29 for Project 52.

On Sunday the weather was on and off rain all day. Thankfully it cleared for the afternoon because the club ran a fun junior tennis tournament for the juniors. There were 6 of them playing, and despite the wind had a great time. N came 2nd after a shocker of a final with his serving going to pots with the wind. He was more excited about opening the prize of a canister of tennis balls than he was about the silver medal. 

Monday was back to work and school. School was the start of enrichment week, so either trips, or various ‘fun’ lessons. N chose art so spent all day making masks. Just as we sat down for tea a woman knocked on the door to see if a dog standing in the road was ours. So off to see if we could find it. It wasn’t ours, turned out to be the neighbours although it had already disappeared by the time we got out on the road. 

On Tuesday I had training – team management. It was a good course, lots learnt, and a good opportunity to discuss thoughts with other colleagues. N had a school trip to Stratford, learning bits about Shakespeare. He said it was ok, but they could go and buy lunch so he got sweets and an ice cream.

Wednesday was busy with meetings. N spent the morning designing and making mocktails in an apprentice style session.  I tried a new asian style salmon for their dinner which N really liked. He had football training which was quite a lot fewer kids although still another new boy turned up. So strange that our age group has too many children for the size of squad allowed. Yet the age group above hasn’t had enough for a couple of years, and even the year group above that haven’t managed to get enough players.

On Thursday it was sports day at school. Although they do traditional athletics in the afternoon with those good athletes running, they make sure everyone can take part in normal team sports like handball, rounders or dodgeball in the morning. Plus there was an ice cream van. No sheep escaped from the paddock today which was good.

Friday I was in the office as my car went in for diagnostics with all the lights. It doesn’t sound too expensive to fix, but they can’t do it for a couple of weeks. Everywhere’s so busy at the moment. There was only about 6 of us in the office, so it was very quiet. N was on a school trip to Drayton Manor theme park. It seemed a bit pointless as they only got to go on 2 rides, and tame ones at that…mainly because lots of them didn’t want to queue, and some of the queues were nearly as long as the time they had there. 

Tennis was quite good as fewer people, so they did a lot more fast paced drills, hitting a lot more balls than when they’re playing in partners. Afterwards we knew there were a few people we knew going down to the outdoor bar, so we decided to go down too.  Nice to meet a couple of new people, and had a good chat to the new football coach about N’s play and focus. Time to get N doing a bit of fitness over the summer, some leg strengthening and stamina building ahead of the new season.

On Saturday, it was wet all day. We nipped to town for some bread, but N was disappointed because the milk vending machine near us was closed and he’d hoped to go in for some milkshake. I spent the afternoon trying to work out an alternative meeting place for my friend and I with the children tomorrow. There weather at our halfway meet spot if looking worse than ever, and it’s outside, with nothing to do for the children inside. But I’m struggling to find anything alternative without her driving a lot further. Train industrial action isn’t helping with options.

New posts this week:

• Best ice cream shops in Oxfordshire