The end of August is always a funny time for us.  It’s the winding down of the summer holidays and the simultaneous gearing up for the return to school. It’s the tail-end of the summer and the looking ahead to the beginning of autumn.  And it’s also our anniversary.  The very last day of August, the 31st.  Chosen, perhaps subconsciously because it isn’t easy to forget!

This year, 2018, James and I will have been married for 11 years.  If 10 years was a milestone, 11 years feels like we’ve entered into a comfortable period.  We should know what we are doing by now…surely to goodness!  And it is something which we are often asked about.  I suppose it comes from being married in our early 20’s, there was a small expectation that we would grow apart rather than together but I have believed from day one that we were a team and I know the same for James.  We have worked hard to ensure that our goals and dreams align with each other’s, and have grown and matured together.

I am not going to write out a whole list of ways to keep your marriage going but as it’s something I often get asked about, I wanted to share my favourite piece of advice.  This is something that we haven’t always been great at, but something that we have tried to incorporate into our married life as much as possible.  And that is to constantly try new things together.  I don’t think life should stop when you reach a certain age, or when you’ve been married for X number of years, or your children are grown up…or any of the excuses we might think up for ourselves. I think that life should continue to be exciting and interesting and it’s certainly something we’ve found has been hugely beneficial to our marriage.  Whether we are celebrating 11 years like today, or 25 years…whether we are making the most of right now or embracing life after 50…there are many reasons to keep trying new things and ensuring that we don’t become stagnant in our every day.

We started a little tradition when we began dating, to keep things from becoming ‘samey’ of going through the alphabet.  We took it in turns, and we had to plan a date which began with the relevant letter of the alphabet.  So I went first and we went to see ‘Aladdin’ at the panto, then James took us to somewhere beginning with B.  These dates didn’t have to cost a lot of money, if any…it was more about being creative and trying different things together and it was a whole HEAP of fun.  With trickier letters we’ve maybe had to stretch the rules a little bit but it has occasionally pushed us from our comfort zones, made us have to think, and forced us to make that little extra effort when we’ve perhaps not really felt inclined.  We’ve continued this with regular date nights and although children and work and life commitments do sometimes get in the way, it’s important to us to carve out this time together.

Believe me, I know that it can be so much easier to come in from work and collapse on the sofa.  After you’ve put the kids to bed the simplest thing is to stick the TV on and unwind by watching your favourite shows.  And that’s amazing.  We’ve done that so many times over the years, binge-watching box sets.  But it’s also fun to venture out for new things.  Whether that’s a bit of vintage roller-skating or enjoying a simple indoor picnic chatting to one another.  Finding half an hour to go for a walk in the woods, or booking a class and learning a new skill.  From the tiny moments to the big; it’s all about not letting things go stale.

Is this mind-blowing advice?  Possibly not but I know from my own experience how easy it can be to fall into the every day routine, and then wonder why you’ve begun to feel bored and dissatisfied.  And I don’t think that is how life should be!

And if there is honestly one piece of advice that I could give to newly married couples that would be it.  Life will throw all kinds your way but try to find that time to spend together, to laugh and be silly, to try new things, to fail at new things, to experiment and experience.  And I really think you’ll enjoy it.

Cast your mind back to the beginning of the year; remember when I said we were planning on keeping our heads down and having a quiet year…those have quickly become famous last words!  I feel like we are ricocheting from one thing to the next at the moment with no sign of things slowing down.  It’s partly why I really enjoy sitting down and writing these posts.  I can capture our month, look back and reflect and remember that amongst all the chaos we do make some amazing memories at the same time.

June kicked off with possibly one of my favourite trips, ever.  We were invited to explore the island of Guernsey for the weekend by Condor Ferries.  It was a total whirlwind of three days with barely any down-time as we wanted to really squeeze every second we could from our time there but it was definitely worth it.  Not only did we have a great time, but Guernsey isn’t a place we’d necessarily have thought about visiting before but I’m so pleased we did.  If you ever get the chance to go, snap it up.  You won’t regret it.

Meg gets a special mention this month too as she headed to a local sports tournament with her school, called Quad Kids.  It was held at the nearby university and involved the children taking part in four different sports, including the 400m for Meg’s age group.  I was quite surprised when school asked her if she’d be willing to take part, and she said yes.  Meg is absolutely brilliant at gymnastics, and in fact, most sports that she takes part in.  We have been asked a number of times for her to compete in things; her gym club constantly wants to put her forward for stuff, when she went swimming her instructor asked us to put her into galas and so on but what she lacks is a sense of competitiveness.  She doesn’t cope well under pressure either so I was absolutely gobsmacked when she took her place at the starting line for the 400m and then proceeded to fly around the track.  I’d honestly thought she’d hold back and not push herself.  I was gutted for her (BIG sense of competitiveness over in my corner…) because she was out in front the whole time and just got pipped to first place at the last minute but I was so proud of her for giving her all.  I would never want to push Meg to be something she isn’t, but to see her try her best, really try her best, was a brilliant moment.

Along the lines of sport, I can’t avoid mentioning the World Cup, which is currently taking over our lives.  I don’t mind really; I tend to only watch big football tournaments and I have been known to get quite competitive about it but this is the first year that Meg and Eli are really interested and it has brought a whole new element to the watching experience.  Eli in particular is feeling all the emotions about England and it’s hard to not keep reminding him to not get his hopes up.  This is England after all!  Yet at the same time, surely anything could happen?!  I won’t pretend to be an authority on the subject but I do think we have as fair a shot as anyone this time.

We’ve also been blessed with some absolutely stunning weather this month in the UK.  I keep waking up thinking that today will be the day the rain clouds return but so far we’ve just had glorious sunshine and blue skies.  Both kids have got tan lines from their school uniforms and James has been working hard to clear the garden so they can be outside soaking up every moment.  He recently cleared a mountain of ivy from the side of our garage and it once again brought home the scale of the project we’ve taken on here; everything has just been left and it means a whole lot of work for us.  I try to tell myself often that it will be worth it though!

I’ll end our round-up with a quick mention of my latest addition.  I have wanted another tattoo since I had my first done, about 6 years ago but I know what a slippery slope it can be so I decided to wait until I was absolutely sure of what I wanted.  In the end it still came to a quick decision between two but I love the one I have ended up with.  One of my all-time favourite bookish quotes is from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S.Lewis.  It is ‘courage dear heart’ and the tattoo has been inspired by that.  I’ve been asked a few times whether it hurt and whilst it wasn’t comfortable, it’s so fine and delicate that it only took a couple of minutes.

We are lucky enough to live in a rather picturesque part of the country.  Granted, we don’t always get the nicer, warmer weather of the south of England but we are within a short driving distance of beaches, woodlands, countryside and plenty more.  It’s funny though, despite the fact we live so close to such beautiful places we don’t always take advantage of them.  In fact, for the past few years we’ve almost managed to miss bluebell season only remembering at the very last minute to head out and experience them!

So this year I was determined not to make same mistake and when we had some free time on a mild Saturday morning, we headed to the nearby Fairy Glen in Parbold and had a wander to see what we could find.  I’ve mentioned the Fairy Glen before on here, it’s a lovely little place and one I would definitely recommend exploring if you are local to the area or visiting.  Our trip was one of those days where everything just works together and works together well.  I was on my own with the kids which is usually a cue for one of them deciding to play up but they were both more than happy to don their wellies and come on an adventure.  Even the dog managed to stay out of mischief and we achieved the most blissful walk.

It was made even better, if that could be possible, by the discovery of a fairy door nestled away in one of the trees.  Meg was over the moon and insisted that we find and leave some flowers for the fairy in case they needed to find their way back.  Naturally we tried to find flowers which had already been plucked from the ground, rather than destroying any perfectly pretty flowers ourselves.

Once we had reached the bluebells we had a quick look around and then decided to slowly amble back towards the car; I think you can cross over a style and head further into the glen and we certainly saw a number of people armed with picnic baskets heading that way but we’ve never headed that way, I definitely think that’s something we should do next time as I’m curious where it all leads.

The kids waded back through the water and it was definitely the right time to go as it had started to get a little busier.  I think people had initially been caught out by the warm weather but we really got to make the most of having the glen to ourselves.  Meg nearly went over once or twice in the creek, and had to empty a whole torrent of water out of one of her wellies when we got back to the car but overall I think we achieved a wonderful and magical walk down among the bluebells.