Boredom vs Budget: Week 6

Week 6 over, only a couple of days left til the big P2! Can't quite believe it.

So the last full week of holidays started with Monday and a few hours to myself. B had been invited round to a little friend's house for a good chunk of the day. Which followed on from the previous few days being to myself when B was at his gran's/dad's... but I'm not complaining, B had a fab time, playing superheros mostly, by the sounds of it. He didn't want to leave, but his friend's mum, a teacher, had a trick-of-the-trade up her sleeve, and promised the boys who agreed to go home with their mums without a fuss a special chocolate medal. Genius.

Money spent: none.

Energy spent: always loads when with other wee pals.

Tuesday and I felt the need to start thinking about school, and doing a bit of a shopping run for school trousers, polo shirts, etc. B wanted to go to the beach as it was definitely beach weather, but i wasn't so sure as I thought it'd be too busy. But B got his way and I'm glad he did cos we headed to a quieter end of the beach where there was plenty of room for sandcastle building, bit of beach tennis, and generally running about. A great afternoon, wish there could be more of them.

Yum, ice-cream

Money spent: well, I couldn't put it off forever, some money was needed for school stuff. Not too bad, though.

Boredom factor: Shopping trips are never on B's list of exciting activities, but the promise of the beach made it bearable.

Midweek was another bittersweet day with B going off again to his dad's for the rest of the week. We were meeting up with friends today, at the softplay (oh no, my "one soft play trip only" pledge in tatters...) and given the continuing 'heatwave' (cough) outside, it was quiet, thankfully. 

After lunch, we headed into town, squeezing our way through the throng of Edinburgh Festival tourists, to find one of the Golden Postboxes, painted in honour of Sir Chris Hoy's gold medals. B was desperate to see it, but wouldn't touch it as he thought it'd still be wet... There was even a bit of a 'queue' to get our picture taken! Who'd have thought we'd all be taking photos of postboxes.

Money spent: not too bad, only softplay entry so can cope with that.

Energy spent: lots, and some nervous excitement waiting to see the postbox! Go figure!

Rest of the week followed as previous two weeks, with B at his dads/gran's. 

I struggled a bit again, but made arrangements to meet a friend on Thursday evening, went down to a local harbour and ate fish and chips as the fishing boats went out for the night on the calm sea, and the sun was almost setting. It's impossible to feel low when you get to watch that on such a beautiful evening.

Camera phone photo doesn't do the real thing justice

Weekly Roundup
Money spent: more on school necessities than 'entertainment', good going.

Boredometer: barely registering

Best bit: Didn't think i'd be saying this, but has to be the postbox!

Boredom vs Budget - Week 5

Wait a minute... Week 5?... already??! Only another week and a bit and school starts back. (And actually as I write this we're half way through Week 6, where does the time go?!) Our first experience of the 'big' school holidays, unlike my vision of them stretching endlessly on and on, have in fact raced by. I'm almost sorry to see the end of them in sight. *sigh*

But I'm not wishing them away just yet.

Week 5 began with some morning sunshine on Monday, so we went for a walk/scoot round to the library to take some books back as part of the StoryLab Kids summer reading challenge. We were thwarted in our libary visit, however, as I'd forgotten that it doesn't open until lunchtime on a monday, but a stop at the swingpark on the way home was a happy substitute.

I had set myself a mini-challenge at the start of the holidays, to only go to a softplay once all summer - there's so much else to do, and cheaper, sometimes it seems like a lazy option. Today was our first softplay visit of the holidays, and it was reasonably quiet, so the thought of too much noise combined with hyper children and overpriced coffees didn't materialise (the coffees weren't too bad either)

Money spent: softplays are never a cheap option, but we'd had lunch already so only needed a bit of juice and a snack.

Energy used up: the usual sweat lashing off his neck and the red face was evidence of a funpacked, energy-filled trip.

Tuesday and with the sun out, we headed to Edinburgh Castle to put our recently bought Historic Scotland membership to good use. I must have been to the castle as a child, but have no memory of it and certainly haven't been as an adult, so it was a whole new experience for both B and I.

I'll not try and do a visitor's guide to Edinburgh Castle, if you want that you can go here. Instead, B and I's best bits were:

Mons Meg - over 550 years old, one of the world's oldest  and biggest canon guns

image credit: www.edinburghcastle.gov.uk

The very loud One O'clock Gun

Smoke from the just-fired One O'Clock Gun

The ramparts and the views across Edinburgh

We were there for about 4 and a half hours, and could have easily spent the day there (if B was at all interested in actually reading any of the information on display...) Will definitely go back even if it's to fill an hour or so. Might wait until it's not Edinburgh Festival time however, as it was just a teensy bit busy...

Money spent: as I've said before, the Historic Scotland membership came into its own today, with normal prices costing us £25 for the 2 of us to get in, we're paying £4 a month. So it's worth at least 6 months worth of membership alone. And you can queue-jump to get in!

Top tip: be prepared for lots and lots of people, in festival time. Having said that, there's lots of open spaces and places to explore within the castle grounds, so even when heaving there's space to move around.

Wednesday was a quiet-ish day. B was heading to his gran's again in the afternoon, so we spent the morning on bits and pieces, cutting out and making an Ironman mask and having a picnic-in-the-house lunch.

I braced myself for the inevitable surge of emotions once he'd gone, luckily I seemed to manage them a bit better than the previous week so work on the thursday was managable without a self-inflicted sore head to contend with!

Money spent: none. woohoo!

No. of 'i'm bored's: none. double woohoo!

Week 5 in brief:
Money spent: reasonable. thumbs up for the Historic Scotland membership!
Energy used: plenty of fresh air and activities to use up 5year old energy tanks.
Boredometer: minimal, close to the red zone on wednesday but Ironman pulled us back from the brink.

Boredom vs Budget: Week 4

A watery week this week, in more ways than one. Monday it rained and rained and rained... *yawn*... so we decided to go swimming. B is not the most confident of swimmers clings to me like a limpet in the pool. Actually, he's limpet-like when we get in, but after a few minutes he's not too bad. He can't swim yet, and is not too keen on getting his face wet/jumping in etc. I blame myself for that in part, as I can never be bothered going swimming so don't take him as often as I should. But anyway, we had a good time, and he even felt brave enough to go down the gentle slide at the side of the pool (with me at his back, but still this was a big step for him!). Swimming always makes me want to sleep, so the afternoon was a fairly quiet one.

Money spent: minimal, yeah!

Energy used: lots, swimming kinda does that. Especially for mummies.

Craigmillar Castle

It was dry on Tuesday but I didn't want to stray too far from home, so we headed to Craigmillar Castle, an impressive castle to the south of Edinburgh, run by Historic Scotland,  where Mary, Queen of Scots resided for a period. We live so close to this, but had only been once before. It was an amazing find then, so we had to go back. With winding staircases, underground prison cells, big grassy areas, turrets and towers, what more could you want from a castle?!

Money spent: I decided to take out a Historic Scotland membership, which will be £4 a month. Given this means we can now get in to Edinburgh Castle with this (which costs £25 for one adult + one child!!) I think this will be well worth it.

Word of Warning: if you've got dodgy knees (like me), expect them to grumble after you've been up and around all those stairs. ouch.

cheeky wee rascal

Wednesday was my last day with B for the week before he went to his gran's then his dad's, so it had to be a good'un. The sun was forecast to be out and warm all day (huzzah!) so i'd promised B a trip to the beach. We headed down East Lothian to Gullane, which has a great long bay with plenty of room even when busy (like today). One of my favourite beaches in the area, but forever will be know to B as "the beach where papa fell off his chair" (about 2 years ago, he doesn't forget!)

Our first proper trip to the beach this summer, complete with swimmies, sandcastles, and ice-creams, yum. 

Money spent: picnic lunch, and free sandy fun, so apart from petrol and ice-creams, a cheap day.

Boredom factor: with the prospect of going to the beach, no chance!

The rest of the week B was at his gran's, and repeated his week with another trip to the beach (down the west coast to Largs) and to a great leisure swimming pool over in Greenock. Needless to say he slept well all week! 

I, however, struggled with him being away so "suddenly" and spent Wednesday evening eating way too many prawn crackers and drinking wine, and then struggling into work on Thursday.  Same childcare plan for next week so I will have to brace myself for the fallout.

Week 4 in brief:

Money spent: not too bad again, and I guess with B being away for half the week my purse didn't take too much of a battering.

Energy spent: Lots of watery fun to tire him out.

Boredometer: don't think I heard him moan at all this week, even when he had to wait a full half hour *gasps* while i made the picnic for the beach.

Top Tip: Historic Scotland membership. Has already saved me money and a trip to Edinburgh Castle will now actually be possible!

Boredom v's Budget: Week 3

Week 3 of the school holidays was our mid-week trip to York. We went to York last year for the first time, mainly for the railway museum as B is still nuts about trains. It's only 2 1/2 hours away on the train for us, and because there was lots more we didn't do there last year, we decided to go back again.

This time, we also had a couple of friends for both me and B, which just takes the pressure of me a bit to be the only entertainment!

Highlights of our week in pictures:

On the open-top bus. "It's quite windy up here"

At the Railway Museum
"That's the train in one of my story books!"
The fastest steam train in the world... probably.

Where does that go, then?

Watch out! The Highwayman's about!

You betcha.
At York's Chocolate Story

"Eat Chocolate Live Longer?"  I hope so...

Yes that IS the sun shining! With B in his wellies, typical.

At Clifford's Tower

 Money spent: Quite a bit. But we were on holiday so I was expecting it, and with 2 other mummies there, splitting taxi fares and food etc made it a bit cheaper.


Energy used: York is small enough to walk most places, so lots of energy used up but not so that they were too exhausted. All in bed and asleep within 10 minutes each night so all that fresh air obviously did the trick.


Highlight of the week: lots to choose from, but probably the fact that the weather finally took a turn for the better and meant we could just wander about the pretty streets without worrying about getting soaked.


Tip Tip: Always include a snack-stop (for both mummies and kiddies) to refill the energy tanks. Betty's afternoon tea was delish (and a cheeky wee glass of pink fizz for this particular mummy helped to wash it down nicely)!

Mummies agreed a return mummy-only trip to sample the York nightlife was definitely a plan for the future.

Boredom vs Budget: Week 2

Another week gone by and my Weekly holiday update has stalled once again. This time, though, I have a good reason, as B and I have been off on our little holiday this past week with friends to York. More of that next post!

So ever-so-slightly delayed, here's Week 2:

This week was going to be a quiet one, as I hadn't any specific plans in place to entertain the boy. And it was raining again. Limited options.

Monday, and given the continuing rain, it was a quiet, and luckily cheap-ish day. Pottering about the house, out for lunch and a wander at the local garden centre. And a 'game' of tennis in the garden in the afternoon in a break in the rainclouds. 

Money spent: spot of lunch out, no more. 

Energy used: Not too bad, at least we got out for a bit of fresh air in the afternoon.

Tuesday - Another rainy day and I needed to go shopping to get a pair of wellies for both me and B. B is not the keenest shopper, so I had to bribe him with a promise of a visit to the newly opened Smyths toystore next door to the wellies. Wow, he was literally giddy with excitement as we went in! His little face was darting from one shelf to the next, he couldn't take it all in quick enough! With his birthday in a month's time, this was a reccy for his birthday list. By the time we left, the list was pretty lengthy to say the least! And despite all the temptation, I somehow only had to pay out a couple of quid for a Spiderman comic. Bonus!

Money spent: a fair bit, including B's holiday haircut in the afternoon, but mostly necessary.

Boredom Level reached: dangerously close to whining but the toystore brought it back from the brink.

Thor's Hammer.

Wednesday. Another flooding 'Armadeddon' forecast, so it was going to be an indoors day. But not in the house, a trip to the flicks to see Ice Age 4. As we drove there, the rain was falling hard, and I wondered if the underground carpark at the cinema would be flooded by the time we came out... as it was, there was no flood. In fact, there wasn't even any rain! Not that I'm complaining, but we'd all been worked up into a flood frenzy, it was almost disappointing! In the afternoon, I'd promised B we'd make a Thor's hammer. Yes, you heard. He hasn't seen the film (Avengers Assemble) but he is obsessed with all things superhero just now. And I needed a bit of creativity! So, a Thor's hammer we did make! 

Money spent: cinema, never cheap. But free creativity in the afternoon!

Energy spent: enough.

On Thursday the rain was having a well-deserved respite for a few hours so we hopped on the bus down to the Meadows for a runaround and a play in the playpark. It was so good to be outside for a while. The sun didn't actually come out, but with such previously terrible weather, your expectations diminish a little. After lunch, we headed into town to meet B's dad as he was taking him for an extra night.

Money spent: very little, hurrah!

Energy used up: finally a whole load for both of us. Felt much better!

Friday - a day to myself... so went to work. *snore*

Week 2 Roundup:

Money spent: again, wasn't too bad, but  but bracing myself for holiday next week

Energy used up: a fair bit

Boredom Level: higher than last week, but still no "I'm bored"'s. I'm on a roll.

Top Tip: a cardboard box, sellotape and some kitchen foil!

Next Week: Our Trip to York