The Monthly Catch-Up // August

This last month has been c-razy! I have been away four times – twice to London, once to Leeds, and once to Blackburn. It’s been brilliant, but I’ve had very little time in between for blogging stuff and housework. Hence, the house is a tip, the laundry basket is overflowing, and I kind of want to run away. I think the only thing keeping me sane is the fact Ava starts school (for the first time!!) next week, so I should have a decent amount of time to get things done and maybe start being organised for once (ha!). Plus the sun is shining so it’s all good!

At the beginning of the month we went to see Finding Dory, which was good and Ava really enjoyed it. It’s only the third time we’ve taken her to the cinema and she was really good, except for asking me for more Minstrels constantly.

Then we headed to Blackburn for a night for the Grandparent-in-laws’ diamond wedding anniversary, which was really lovely. They are amazing people, and I’m so lucky to have them in my life. That side of the family have lots of kids now, so Ava had an amazing time running around with her second cousins, and went to bed VERY late!

After that Ava and I went to a Num Noms event (I had no idea what they were before this!) at Bella Italia in town, which was good fun, and I’ll be writing about that soon. Ava was sent some Num Noms afterwards, which she is loving, so there’ll be a review and giveaway of those soon too.

At the end of that week we popped to London again for one night – Ava and I went to a little filming session with Aldi, where we were talking about school uniforms, and they got mine and my friend Maria’s opinions on Aldi’s uniforms. It’s going to be used in some of their advertising later on, so I might be famous soon 😉 We spent the night at the very beautiful Threadneedles Hotel (review coming soon!) and we were greeted with Prosecco and cupcakes, which was wonderful and we really didn’t want to leave the next day. We also went on the London Eye for the first time and wandered around the Southbank.

The next week Ava and I got the train to Leeds for the ‘OG Get Kids into Golf’ event at the Hilton Hotel, which was nice and Ava made friends with Helpful Mum‘s daughter, and they spent lots of time screaming and running away from me, which was cool *sarcastic face*.

We stayed at a Premier Inn in Leeds, and had dinner together at the TGI Friday’s restaurant downstairs. It was lovely just going for a meal just Ava and I for once, and we really enjoyed ourselves. I hadn’t been to a TGI Friday’s for YEARS, but it was pretty nice and my steak was really good, and A enjoyed her pizza. The mozzarella sticks are not what they used to be though, FYI. Weirdly Ava had brownies and ice cream for pudding (not the weird bit; very, very normal), and they’d ran out of the strawberries to go with it, so they gave her a little pot of the fizzy Haribo to go with it! Because she obviously needed a bit more sugar to go with her brownies, and Haribo are so similar to strawberries.

A has attended a few of the summer holiday nursery days over the past few weeks – so we could get a little break from each other, and so I could try and squeeze in as much work as possible. She’s done a Summer Splash Day, a Dough day where they made pizza and cookie dough, and as I am writing this she is at a Carnival Day, so they are playing on inflatables and things I think. She’s loving it. I hadn’t thought about it before, but today is her last one before she starts school NEXT WEEK, which means that it’s her last ever day at nursery, and at that school (for now, hopefully). I’m a bit sad – they’re so lovely there, and I know she’ll miss them.

Then this last weekend we went to London again for a couple of nights for a family wedding, It was a really pretty venue, with so much fun and laughter, and I didn’t want it to end.

It’s been such a busy month, but September should be a lot quieter, so I’m looking forward to catching up with things and trying to get into some kind of routine with the school run twice a day!

How has your August been? Can you believe it’s very nearly September already?!