Tuesday’s Foster Care Blog
Harriet has not been well this week. So this is Charlie taking a turn and writing the blog this week! To be fair to Harriet, she has developed something as close to Man Flu as possible, so I know that she is suffering! Joking aside, I am amazed at how hard she works to get this family functioning as well as it does. This is particularly obvious to me at Christmas time, as all her hard work throughout the past few weeks pays off as we are pretty much ready to down tools and celebrate.
I like to think we do Christmas really well in our house. Everything is planned well in advance so that we are able to get more out of the day itself. It is really important for us both that we are able to concentrate on spending the day with the children, enjoying their company and having fun. It strikes me though that it is quite possible for people to work hard to get ready for Christmas, but then forget to stop and enjoy it! To prevent this from happening to us, we have booked a few special Christmas treats this year – a visit to an orchestra and, via our fostering agency, a trip on a working steam train railway with a visit from Santa thrown in!
We booked the orchestra visit a few months back – they are playing Christmas classics and carols at the local Symphony Hall. Alice is unable to come with us as it will be too late for her, so we have booked her favourite babysitter, who also doubles as our respite carer, to come and watch a film with her and put her to bed. Annie and Lauren are really excited and also curious – they have never seen an Orchestra play. Harriet has recovered enough that she is able to join us, and we head through truly monstrous Christmas traffic to see the performance. The girls are spellbound. I thought they might be a little bored, but the sheer brilliance of the musicians and the choir keep them well entertained, and we all realise how rare it is to see people performing at such a high level.
Our other treat, the steam train journey, turns out to be a disappointment. In a classic example of over-promising, it turns out that our fostering agency had failed to book the tickets in time, and have had to cancel the trip. This wouldn’t be a problem if they had told us beforehand that they hadn’t actually booked the tickets yet, but we were given the impression that this was all sorted, and so we have three very disappointed children to let down gently. Missing the train journey was hard for them to take, but missing out of Santa was even worse. I am reminded how important it is when dealing with Children and their excitement levels to make sure you are able to deliver on your promises! After a stroppy email sent by Harriet to the agency, they apologised profusely and kindly offer us tickets to an alternative event. It’s not perfect, but it will do! I guess the most important thing is spending time together!
A Less Ordinary Family Fostering Blog
