Can you believe Little Chap is in the fourth sixth week of school summer holidays already? (Seriously, I wrote this two weeks ago already!)

So apart from posting too many (fun and often delicious!) reviews (#sorry/not sorry!) what has family Mayfair been up to lately, I hear you asking?

Well, read on…

A whirlwind end of term

First, I can’t believe Little Chap’s finished his Reception year. I’m sure it was just yesterday that I felt the same shock at the end of his nursery year. For heaven’s sake he’s half way through the Pre-Prep already!

This term brought the usual fun and excitement of Sports Day (ok, I dropped the bean bag!), Fun Day (I manned the Lucky Dip for.one.whole.hour while Little Chap and Mayfair Dad had all the fun and spent all the money!) and a last “class exhibition” where little Chap escorted me around his classroom for the last time (clearly at home) *smiles* to show off his hard work. Impressed!

The last week of term was crazy, with me out of the house a very unusual Four.Nights.In.A.Row! More coincidence than over scheduling.

First up was the Summer Serenade by the choir I’ve finally joined – we sang Faure’s Requiem at the end of last term (a personal favourite from my church choir days) but this term it was Blue Skies, Cabaret and Moon River with fireworks for the finale. Unfortunately, heavy rain and thunder forced us to sing indoors not outside as planned but I had a really fun evening despite this with my lovely new singing friends and some strawberries and cream.

Then my boss signed me up for the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, a 5(.6!) km charity fun run to raise funds for Water Aid. The whole firm took part and made a corporate donation so I couldn’t pull out (there’s only six of us). I said I’d walk as I knew I wouldn’t get organised in time to train for it – (I haven’t run more than once or twice since Little Chap was born – let’s just say I rather lost faith in myself) – but at the start with everyone jogging along as slowly as I was walking, I got a bit carried away, thought I’d have a go and see how far I could get.

I’ll be honest here – I thought my colleague would be leaving me for dead after a few hundred metres at best. Nope. I ended up running the first 2.5 km with her step for step! My time was a very respectable 46.46 mins having walked the rest to run over the finishing line. My colleagues ranged from amateur pentathlete/iron man (26 mins), to regular runners/cyclists and then me (out of shape mum). I was quite chuffed to find out I was only 6 mins slower than the slowest runner in our team. Not such an old slouch after all then *sticks out tongue*. Guess I’d better get training so it doesn’t hurt so much next time!

I rounded off the end of the week feeling rather stiff and painful but at least able to take Little Chap and friend to visit the park when school was out with one of my Mummy friends, enjoying a lovely lunch and a chat with her afterwards. That evening a few of us enjoyed a girls night out to steel our mettle for the coming weeks. Friday was packing suitcases (Little Chap really helped with his bless him!) and then I popped into a friend’s birthday drinks at the local wine bar. Both lots of fun.

A great family holiday
It was fabulous thanks.

We returned to York, a great city for the family. We stayed right in the city centre, minutes from the Minster (yes, she woke us up at 8am with a peal of her beautiful bells every morning) and pretty much walked the city for five days. Looks like I’ve given Little Chap my love of history as we had to go to the Jorvik Viking Museum at least once a day (to see the old man sitting on the toilet!). Oh the hilarity. Thankfully last year’s annual pass gave us queue free entry and meant we didn’t have to pay five times too.

We have visited York many times. This year though we did loads of fun things we hadn’t tried before, like visiting a new Richard III exhibition (complete with play tent and PlayMobil knights for Little Chap to play with, which allowed us a bit of peace to take in the rest of the room’s exhibits). We made chocolate lollies at The Cocoa House, watched handmade fudge being made, took a boat trip and an open top bus tour! The best was when Little Chap’s cousins met up with us to pay him a surprise visit. His face was a picture he was so surprised and thrilled (trust me when I say I rarely find him speechless). We still need to go back to see DIG! (An archaeological museum where you get to do some real life digging), a new Henry VII exhibition and to revisit the National Railway Museum (really no trip is complete).

Since then, I went back to work recovering from the mother of all throat infections I brought back with me (hands up who thinks I may have overdone it a bit?!). Little Chap enjoyed some family time visiting grandparents and cousins and has been to camp for a few days over a couple of weeks. Little Chap and I have had fun together at home doing craft activities and puzzles together, as well as with friends, playing in local parks, painting sundry pottery items and feeding and petting the animals at Aldenham Country Park. I’m pleased to say that we’ve managed to minimise TV and iPad time for once and we’ve not had to spend a fortune on all this fun either.

In the meantime, I have completely lost track of “Life As I Know It” having well and truly fallen out of our usual term time routine and into summer holiday mode but mostly because I didn’t do anything at all for the four days I felt like death warmed up with swollen glands and brutally painful throat!

Hope you’re enjoying your holidays too (with or without kids). Do you find the transition hard to manage? Are you at home or away? Share the fun here!