Assignment 3b

Well, poor Amy has not been well this morning, so she's asleep on the sofa and I got the chance to work on todays assignment. This was to write up a story from the 'self' section in full, then trim it to 2-3 paragraphs. I found this quite hard, being a scientist I tend not to waffle so I've been really working at adding details and feelings etc. Then to be told to strip it right down again! Anyway, here it is.

I'm really enjoying this course. I’m loving reading through the prompts and sparking memories. However, it’s not always easy during the day to get 10 minutes to think about them in peace. On Monday the assignment was to read through the family prompts. I knew that Amy rarely has a nap nowadays, so was resigned to working on it in the evening, when really I prefer to spend time with Peter.

In the morning we’d been at toddlers, so in the afternoon we set out to do some errands. The weather wasn’t great, and I knew it would be getting dark before we got back so we took the buggy, though Amy insisted on walking. By the time we turned into Avenue Street, Amy was getting tired. We negotiated a settlement by which she’d willingly go into the buggy, namely being allowed to keep her mu-mu (dummy), and the going was much quicker after that. After a trip to Somerfield for milk I visited the post office to post my parcels and collect one too. 

I realised that Amy had fallen asleep in Somerfield, and it’s always nice to let her get a good nap, so I made the decision to stop off at Thirst for a coffee to work on my assignment. It’s always lovely and welcoming in there, with friendly staff and good cakes. The décor is soothing, all dark brick and paintings on the wall, and there’s an interesting selection of music in the background. I ordered a latte and a cake and set to work looking through the prompts. I seemed to find this assignment a bit harder than the equivalent one for ‘roots’. I think it’s because I started scrapping after Amy was born, so I’ve covered a lot of the fun stories in LOs already. Also there are many more memories to cover from our past. Anyway, I jotted down a few notes, and just generally drank in the atmosphere. It was wonderfully relaxing. 

When I’d finished my coffee I thought about heading home, though Amy hadn’t woken up yet. Then I thought: “No, I’ll have another coffee”. I deserve the time to myself, and you have to take every opportunity to have 5 minutes ‘me time’ when you have kids. So I ordered another latte and savoured it. When I reached the end of this coffee it was getting towards 5 o’clock. I’d handily bought a small packet of fruit pieces to keep Amy occupied on the journey so she was content to stay in the buggy on the way home. We arrived home in time to prepare tea for Peter getting in, and I felt so relaxed for having chosen to spend time on myself.