Me & Mine: February

Thank goodness for longer sunnier days, they are definitely getting more frequent aren’t they? We are finally starting to get out and about, like bears coming out of hibernation after a long dark winter. As much as I always look forward to snuggling up on a winter’s night, I soon get bored of it all and long for the warmer months again. I guess that is one good thing about living in the UK, we get a variety of weather to suit different moods.

A part of my new year’s resolution was to spend more quality time together as a family. We haven’t really done that well over the last few weeks as we’ve been poorly or busy with other commitments, but this weekend we had nothing at all planned and simply enjoyed being together. We went to the park first thing on Saturday but it started to rain and we had to make a mad dash back home. I didn’t want to spend another day cooped up indoors though so we headed off on an adventure.

My mum had told me about an old watermill near us a while back, so we looked it up and drove off to find it. If you are in the Bedfordshire area then look up The Olde Watermill – it is so lovely. We had a yummy lunch (although mine ended up triggering a soya intolerance after 6 months of avoidance) and then we had an explore of the grounds. I had my camera with me of course, don’t think I go anywhere without it these days, so I grabbed the opportunity to take some photos of the 5 of us.

I need to remember to take different lenses with me as my big lens has to be a million miles away from the subject, which means the remote doesn’t reach! Cue me racing backwards and forwards for each of the shots by the door like a lunatic, gaining attention from people around us. One woman ended up asking us to take photos of her and her family – they must have thought we knew what we were doing ha!

I don’t know what it is, whether I am learning to relax or whether we are finally slotting into a groove, but this weekend I felt so relaxed and happy. The weekends with no plans are always my favourite, in fact the weekends when it is just us are my favourite actually. Not that I don’t love seeing friends and family but I just love being us, just the 5 of us.

We have a couple of weekends away planned for the next couple of months and I am so so excited to be able to truly focus on family time, with no external distractions getting in the way. We are off to Center Parcs at the end of March and then April’s break is a complete surprise to me – Mr F has booked it for a belated birthday getaway. I am not sure how I feel about not knowing, I will just have to trust that he has chosen somewhere I will enjoy…

For now though, March brings my birthday on Friday and hopefully more weekends like this one. The older I get the more I realise how precious time is and I want to make sure I treasure every last minute.