Getting Back into Circulation

A mixed week.
We've had some wonderful social times this week.
And a great deal of stress with regard to this issue which I wrote about before.

Jack, Jamie and I finally decided, after agonising for a week or so, to pull him out of this course. It was becoming obvious that, even if all the set texts were changed to be acceptable to us, we were not comfortable with him being in the group. We were very sad to pull him out of what seemed like such a great opportunity, but other opportunities will come along at the right time. I'm confident of that. There's been quite a bit of hostile reaction to our decision from the other parents which is, I'm sure, not over yet. But we have peace about it.

On New Year's Day we went out to breakfast at a friend's house. There were several families we knew there and it was a lovely social time. The next day, I met Windy in the super-duper-garden-centre-complex-thing that has lots of shops and a restaurant. We explored the scrapbook store and she bought me lunch! We had a good, uninterrupted chat, probably the last one for a while, as she *IS* now 15 months pregnant. Approximately.

On Thursday, we travelled to Jan in Aylesbury's for lunch with her and her children which was great! Jan also has a son attempting GCSE's at the moment and we had lots to talk about. She was very reassuring that we'd made the right decision about the drama and we shared ideas and experiences. The kids had fun hanging out and playing games together too.

Yesterday evening we had Rebecca and Matt and their children over for dinner. I got to hold their baby boy quite a bit, which is wonderful because he is gorgeous! Emily, I made your tortilla soup and it went down very well! We had more home-made cookies for dessert. All the baking Jack and I did before Christmas has been so handy. We just take a selection from the freezer a couple of hours before guests arrive and it's perfect. The assorted colours and textures look very appealing on the plate.

We've also been planning Jack's birthday on Tuesday and Jamie went reluctantly back to work on the 2nd Jan. We've taken all the decorations down- couldn't quite make it to the 6th! They're back in the loft for another year!

Grace cheered up considerable after being painfully surly whilst she was ill. She's been fun and enjoyable to have around this week!

And we drive into London today for our annual visit with Jamie's brother. We just don't seem to see him more often than that and we have less and less to talk about every year, but it's good to make the effort, I think.

Apart from this, I woke up this morning with pain in my knee. Not sure how I managed to damage my knee IN BED, WHILST ASLEEP, but when Decrepitude hits, I suppose anything is possible.

I'm trying a larger size font. Any feedback about whether this is easier or harder to read from your computers would be helpful!

Happy New Year!