Back to school, party and snow

We had a pretty quiet weekend on our return - we figured we needed to recover from our exertions at Center Parcs.  We did watch the Ingleton panto on Saturday night though which was good.

Think Monday was a bit of a shock to him as he burst into tears when he opened Pop Pop's letter containing the name plates for his train.  He said it was all too much but they were happy tears.  He managed to keep it together when on the phone to say thank you.

Very red legs!

I decided to keep up with my fitness and do a long walk - I got Matt to drop me off at the Hill Inn and I walked up Ingleborough and back home.  All was going well until about 1.5 miles from the end I got caught in a freak hail storm.  I actually looked like a snowman for a while and my legs got quite cold.  On arrival home I got Matt to strip my leggings off - my legs were bright red and cold.  He sent me to bed whilst he ran a bath for me.  I got in and defrosted.  It was lovely.    The next day my legs really hurt - I thought it was muscle ache and that I was very unfit...but no when I got ready for bed I noticed my legs were very red, inflamed and blotchy?!!!!  I had no idea what was wrong with them, but on chatting with people and a bit of work from google I think I have chillblains! Always wondered what they were - read about them a lot in Enid Blyton school stories when I was a kid.  They are still prominent now over a 1.5 weeks later - although they have turned purple and look like bruises.  So much for trying to get fit!

School was busy the first week back, we got Tom's report on Tuesday and it was parent's evening on Wednesday.  There were no surprises we got told pretty much what we already knew: he is good at Maths - both mental, process and application, but he does make silly mistakes (although Mrs C says he is doing a load better already this year and she thinks by the end of the year he may crack it!)

His reading is doing much better and she is hopeful he will reach greater depth by the end of the year which we were very pleased with.  His handwriting needs improving significantly - we know this, she has given us a handwriting book for him to practice at home.  We forgot to ask about science.  Basically he tries to do everything too quickly and makes mistakes as a result.  He needs to slow down, something we are very aware of already.

The weekend didn't quite work out to plan.  Tom was supposed to be in a football tournament in the morning which got cancelled due to water logged pitch (it rained ALL week) so he was supposed to have training on the astro-turf which got cancelled on the Saturday morning due to high winds.  Matt spent the day in Carlisle with 5 others trying out the bars and beer.  We took him up to the station at Ribblehead and then I dropped Tom off at Matthew's for a play and Matthew's party (pizza at Elaine's) so I had a day to myself.

I spent most of it caking - catching up on admin, baking for a mid week cake and getting my orders sorted - I've had a rush of orders and am now fully booked for March, some of April and some of July.  I then sorted out FB posts for Mother's Day and Easter as well as laundry, tidying up, sorting the garage, ordering supermarket delivery, handing over a cake and just general housewife / baking business stuff.

I went to collect Tom from his pizza party, made myself some tea and then we went up to Ribblehead to collect the men (who were surprisingly well behaved).

Sunday, Tom was spending the day with Rebecca and Katie at a model railway show in Keighly.  All we had to do was drop him off at Ribblehead Station at 10.30.  Should have been easy.  We got him a packed lunch together and headed up.  It started to snow...it started to dump snow.  OMG we couldn't see the road for snow.  We got as far as the Hill Inn and realised we wouldn't be able to get any further.  All the cars ahead of us had come to a standstill.  Oh dear.  There was nothing for it, we had to come back.

It was a shame because if we had gone 30 mins before hand or 30 mins afterwards we would have made it, but it was at that point that it dumped it down and of course the train was on time!!!!!!  He missed out and Katie and Rebecca didn't go either, not feeling like they could without their guest - bless them.

We came home, played tickets to ride, watched live sumo whilst eating packed lunch and then Matt and Tom headed to Settle (the snow had stopped and pretty much disappeared by then!) to pick up his new model railway engine which had had a sound chip put in.  He came home and played model railways for a good hour - putting the new engine through its paces before cuddling up on the sofa to watch Fantastic Mr Fox.  We then had tea with sumo before a game of flags and bed.  Not the day we expected to have, but not a bad replacement.