That Was Our Summer

And just like that, the kids are back to school and that was our summer.

They’re both back now, my boy in Year 6 his last year at primary school, and my daughter into Year 9. We’ve got a meeting at her school this week covering GCSE options, no easing us in on this!

To be honest, I expected our summer to be a rough one. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer back in May, the timings around my treatment looked like they’d fall early in the summer break and then wipe me out for the rest of the holidays. We couldn’t plan anything, yet we knew we’d have to work out how to keep the kids happy as I hated the idea of them having a bad summer because of my cancer. 

Then things fell a little better for us. When I got my surgery results in mid-July, I found that my next appointment was booked in at the end of July, so we managed to book a short break to Suffolk just before that appointment. 

A week later, I had my radiotherapy CT planning session, and then found that I’d be starting that treatment towards the end of August. We had another chance to go away so we grabbed the chance and booked a week up in Scarborough. It also meant I felt well for the holidays as I was feeling better after my surgery by this point.

Things were looking up!

We had plenty of relaxing days, mixed in with days out, seeing friends and then going away a couple of times too. 

Suffolk was beautiful, we visited local beaches, explored Sutton Hoo and loved Southwold. 

We then spent a week in Scarborough and had a great time. Our AirBnB was fabulous, with sea views and just a few minutes walk to the seafront.

It’s been a while since we spent a full week away and we could really feel the difference from a short break as we all settled in and switched off. 

We visited and adored Whitby, which provoked plenty of Dracula chat with the kids! We queued on the Shambles for over two hours to choose ghosts, a perfectly normal thing to do. My son was very keen to do this, and I have fond memories of our queue time and chats! It was worth it, we all like our ghosts.

We indulged in seafront fish and chips, plenty of 2p machines in the amusement arcades, spent time on the beach, wandered round parks and I got lots of reading time in – 5 books that week, it was a good week!

My radiotherapy did then start so the last couple of weeks of the holiday saw me at the hospital each day, but we worked it around things with the kids and we also had Little Man’s birthday which we celebrated at the cricket on a very sunny day. 

All in all, our summer was a good one, and so much better than we’d thought it would be a couple of months ago. I smile every time I think about it and I know the kids had fun, which was all I really wanted from the summer. 

How was yours?

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