Making the most of half-term

Today is an inset day, or ‘insect’ day as Jonah calls it! Tomorrow is a new half term and the start of longer days we hope – meaning more daylight and warmer weather (well, we can only hope!). Apart from having a short summer break, I actually really like the way British school terms are broken up into shorter ‘half terms’ and to break them up, we have a whole week off and sometimes more if there are inset days, which gives the kids a break and time to ‘chillax’ as Jonah says. It also gives us parents the opportunity to do fun stuff with the kids and be more flexible and have more time together as a family. Even though I still work during most of the entire week (I get my work done from 4am till about 9am at which time the kids are up and about and ready to do something and then I work again in the evenings) I spend the day time doing things with them or ferrying them and their friends around (for the older two). It’s nice not having the school run. This does make it a very hectic week for me work-wise as you can imagine. I can’t do any client meetings or networking of course. This past week I actually had to send my colleague to a meeting on my behalf because of the client’s limited availability! It all worked out in the end though. So I am quite relieved when it’s time for the kids to go back to school,

We had a relatively low key week but we managed to fit in a trip to the cinema, a sleepover, a cupcake decorating class, a day out in Portsmouth (Sam and his father), lunch at a friends house, a day out in Brighton which included one of the science fair workshops and a trip to Sea Life Centre and an evening of ice skating for Anna Grace with her friend. Highlights were the cupcakes, discovering the new play areas at The Level in Brighton, getting to know one of Sam’s friends better (although not understanding their tech speak), and Jonah winning a set of Sea Life Top Trumps.

Cupcake Decorating course for children is put on by Sarah Stubbs of Let’s Cook at Home. We highly recommend this workshop for kids! Anna Grace is already looking forward to doing Sarah’s Easter Cupcake Decorating class!

Hope everyone has a good start to the new term. Bring on spring time! My next blog post is a guest post by a New Zealander who is ‘bringing up Brits’. Don’t miss it, subscribe to my blog and get email notifications when a new blog is posted.

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Meghan Fenn is the author of Bringing Up Brits and co-author of Inspiring Global Entrepreneurs with Heidi Mulligan Walker. Meghan is also the Director and Chief Designer at her own design company, White Ochre Design Ltd.  And, she is an award winning expat blogger.