Monday 27 May 2013

Activities for the whole family

Soon after our arrival in Westhill I started to look for activities for the boys and me; my husband was fully booked with work and didn’t feel he needed additional activities.

Physical activities and music for the boys

With the help from the school and the community centre, I fairly soon managed to get the boys signed up for badminton and piano tuition. We were unable to find out where/when the boys could play soccer (or football as it’s called here), but a few weeks after the boys started school, another mum told us how the boys could join the local soccer team. It turned out most of the boys in their classes were on the teams and they really enjoyed playing. After Easter we quit badminton, allowing the boys more time to play with their new friends in the neighbourhood and a less hectic Tuesday afternoon for us as a family.

Getting mum back in shape

Soon after our arrival I started looking for a gym or similar so I could get back to exercising on a regular basis. I ended up with a women only gym where you work out on machines in a circuit, giving all you’ve got for 30 seconds and then recovering for 30 seconds before you move on to the next machine. This way of exercising was new to me and I was not really convinced when I joined the gym. However, it did not take long for me to realise that if you give it all you’ve got for 30 seconds, you get tired and you get stronger. I’ve got my own ‘personal trainer’ in the chip I insert into the machines, pushing me to give all I’ve got every time. I also jog before and after my workout sessions at the gym, regardless of weather. I do hope it will get a bit warmer soon though, we’ve been having hail showers in late May….

Piano tuition for oldies

In addition to exercising, I’ve started having piano tuition for the first time in over 20 years! I don’t practice as much as I’d like/should, but having lessons helps me prioritise practicing on a regular basis and in a more structured fashion than I normally do. I feel that my playing has improved quite a bit since I started, though it’s not nearly enough to impress anyone. But it sure gives me a lot of enjoyment.

Mum – the artist?

Soon after we arrived I joined a 10 week daytime drawing/painting class, which ended in May. Even though I don’t have any pieces I feel are 100% complete after the course I really enjoyed it and I felt that I learned a lot just by working on the basics in techniques and colours. I do hope there will be another class after the summer holidays.

We were a rather small class, with two men and eight women. As we got to know each other better there was a lot of encouragement and support between the members of the group and we had a lot of fun trying to master new techniques. Towards the end of the course I learned that when you’re over 60 you get a discount on the tuition fee. Turned out I was the only one paying full price.

Mum – the tour guide

As we’re in Scotland only for a year, we want to make the most of it. Most weekends we travel in Scotland, trying to cover the most typical Scottish/UK experiences. By the end of the year we hope to have covered most of Scotland, including the most important historic sites, have had typically Scottish/British food (haggis, fish&chips, afternoon tea etc.), seen pipers in kilts, attended highland games and seen as much as possible of the Scottish fauna and flora. We’ve come quite far on this list already.

I spend quite a lot of time planning our trips, including finding background information about the places we go/the sights we see, I’ve hardly ever been so well prepared. The boys are very keen to learn about Scottish history, so we’ve spent quite a lot of time reading. We’ve found some excellent books that the boys can read themselves, or we read them together. Our favourites so far are ‘Famous Scots – Robert the Bruce’ (quite funny, we need to buy more books in that series), ‘Robert the Bruce and all that’, ‘Mary Queen of Scots and all that’, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie and all that’, and we still have more books in the same series.

I’ll write more about our specific trips in my upcoming blog posts.

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