Home from the Holiday

Well we're back from our holidays :-)   We spent a wonderful week in Wales, with fabulous friends.  The kids had THE BEST time together and it truly feels like we have had a proper break.  Super, super proud of DS who managed being in a New Place, and having No Electronics for a whole week! (Not even TV as ours didn't work!!) AAAAAAAND he didn't use his ear defenders once!  WOW!

The other highlight (for me) was finally getting to go to Portmeirion :-)   I had been due to go with a friend more than a decade ago but instead ended up hospitalized for a week!  Anyway, it's just as beautiful as I expected it to be.........

And after a day at home chilling (the kids) while I caught up on all the washing, and DH sorted out all the pets, the kids decided today they wanted to do some work!  So I found DD had taken up residence in the play room with Ginger the bunny and was working on some Maths -

(These are the Carol Vorderman workbooks from https://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/carolvordermanKS2 )

DS, on the other hand, had decamped to the lounge and was constructing a Wild West settlement (available on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cut-out-Wild-West-Usborne-Models) 

So happy to see them voluntarily learning, on their 'holidays' :-)

In other news, we popped in to town today as we were all due an eye test.  DS was told he no longer needs glasses (I suspect he never did - another smoke screen from school who failed to recognise his autism.....). The optometrist was really good with DS and let him look at all the machinery, spoke to him all the way through and really took his time to wait for DS to answer before he proceeded with anything.  He even took photos of his eyes because DS wanted him to.  It made the world of difference to the appointment.  One of his colleagues commented on how well behaved DS was and how well he was coping and I said it was thanks to the optometrists excellent understanding and manner with him :-)  Big thank you Boots Opticians (including the new central booking service who sent notes on DS's needs to the branch ahead of time so they were already prepared). Little things like this make SUCH a difference when you have a child with Special Needs so BIG Thank You to Boots Opticians (including the new central booking service who sent notes on DS's needs to the branch ahead of time so they were already prepared). Win!

Afterwards we went in to town and - result :-) - Sharpie sets were half price in Wilkos!  

In fact their whole range of Sharpies is currently on offer, and available online as well as in store - http://www.wilko.com/sharpie - just in case anyone else is as excited about this as me lol!

So tomorrow we shall be decorating washed out Nutella jars to make candle/ night light holders.  And anything else I can think of!  :-)