A friend announced that, for her 30th birthday, she had big plans. She too is a home ed mum of a SEN child and is very exhausted. She wanted to make it special, then with some new on her health her plans had to change, so I suggested “why don’t we go for a mum’s weekend of self care… a spa hotel or hot tub cottage, some nice food and a massive relax?” I did make it very clear I wasn’t expecting her to change plans, but more putting the offer on the table and making it available if she’d like to chose it. But by that time she had already been struggling with herself about what she could do and still have a special time. My plans appealed to her and she was again excited by the approach of her birthday.
When it came time to book (as in, we actually had the funds there to do it) we took a look around. Our specification was to book hotel or hot tub cottage – even glamping with a hot tub was a possibility, but whatever it was had to be close enough to get back promptly if we needed to as all of the children suffer with massive separation anxiety and can get extremely upset to the point of very bad consequences. After a long search we decided to go to Builth Wells and stay at Wye Cottage, Penrheol Self Catering Barn Conversions. You can read my review of that here. It’s a very rural hot tub tub cottage, with amazing views. Perfect to relax away from children.
Then we needed to make some decisions on food. We had been looking around and saw some places advertised. My mum friend really likes tapas, and an evening bistro popped up “Sugar and Spice” – it’s not strictly a tapas place, but they do have tapas nights. But the food looked awesome so we got ourselves booked there. You can read about our experience there just here.
We had also seen that, just outside of Hereford, there’s the picnic bench afternoon tea experience. This got the birthday girl very excited so, despite being an hour’s drive, we factored that into our weekend. You can read our experience of that here.
But ultimately we went to relax. And that’s what we did. In between the eating out, we chilled, in the hot tub, in our beds, in the living room watching films. It was extremely slow paced. And the most exciting thing… being able to toilet COMPLETELY alone. No interruptions. Amazing!
Self care is something that is prominent in conversations I have with people about parenting in general. But when it comes to SEN or adoption parenting it is so much more important. The expectations and pressures you are put under when a child has additional needs is tremendously strenuous. Being able to find moments to take care of yourself is the difference between being able to handle a situation and being completely depleted and incapable. Compassion fatigue is real and deeply impacting. So to be able to do something as major as a weekend away was fantastic!
A Pleasant Chaos 