No apologies - this is for me

The night before the exam - he went to see the oral exam of one of his freinds (yes in Italy exams are public and anyone can sit in - I was told not to!) - he then came home, walked in the door, said "sono nella cacca" (I'm in the shit) and began manically revising - again.........



On the day of the exam they have to dress properly........


(and look - no Canaries shirt!!!) - but it all went swimmingly........so today we're off to the beach and the summer starts!!!!!!!

Italo Anglo Canaries......

.........and yes Leo will be wearing his Norwich City Shirt when he goes for his mega oral exam tomorrow - I think he's hoping it will bring as much luck to him as it did to our boys this past season .........

I had been warned

This is how Leo went off to his last day at middle school.........



....amd this is how he came home.......

(Middle) School's out .......... for good

The kids break up today - and it is Leo's last day at middle school - the sumer holidays have started and although he has to go back for a few exams over the next 2 weeks (I'll try and gloss over the fact that he has one oral exam which covers ALL subjects as well as 5 written papers with two of them being on the same day - give me a break - whoever had the bright idea of giving 13 year olds two 4 hour papers on the same day should not be in teaching!!) so I now have 2 kids who are in their last stage of compulsory schooling - and while I do not want to go back to babies, puch chairs,etc etc ........it sort of sucks.

Grateful for the ordinary /( a bit late) - and not mine (thank you lisa)

I am beginning to realise.........I became a Mum when I was 27 and now I will always be a Mum but in a couple of years Thomas will be moving away to go to Uni, Leo a few years after that and so probably within about 6 or 7 years I will be a 'long distance ' Mum - doesn't that sound terrible? I imagine that both of them will live elsewhere - Thomas has grand ideas about travelling and somehow I don't see either of them staying to live around here - I'm guessing they will live a long way from their Mum just as I do and just as their Father does. The time we have with our children close to us, living an everyday life with our children is just a period in our lives and it is a period which right now I have suddenly realised is very very short - when we have kids and when we are bringing them up they are all consumming, they take up every moment of the day, thinking about them, worrying, taxiing them around, helping, yelling, clearing up etc etc but if I live to be 80 (my Grandma is 96 and going strong) the actual time I will have spent living with my kids will, rough guess, only be about 30% of those 80 years - and I hate hate hate that thought. I remember reading the poem 'Children' By Gibran in my teens and thinking it was ridiculous, now I don't, and now I am beginning to 'watch' our everyday moments, our ordinary life with different eyes now - and I remembered this post from one of my favourite bloggers .....here's the video