Summer bucket list

It's nearly the end of the Summer holidays in UK. And we have done very little so far. If you are like me and like Pinterest, I'm sure you have seen popping into your feed many wonderful Summer Bucket lists. Lists of adventures you must take with your children to have a wonderful summer.

Well this year, as I'm becoming a more mindful, less stressed out mummy, I have decided to take this summer very slow.

And Slow Summer apparently is a trend, it's all over the web too, have a look!

In fact, Summer as I remember it as a child is a break. A break from school, a slow motion movie of home-made ice-lolly, of picking strawberries and raspberries, of weeding the vegetable patch, of reading in the lounger in the shade, of playing with my friends in the street, of getting bored and pestering my parents to do something. Their answer was generally "Find something to do" or my mum was then baking with us (nothing fancy, just a pudding with a ready mix) or making salt-dough or maybe playing a board game. We used to go on holidays from the time I was around 6 years old (and my brother was 8), camping in our country or just next door in France. We used to visit my grand-parents nearly every Sunday (my mum's or my dad's in turn) and we used to sleep over at my cousins or them in our house. That was it. I may have joined a summer camp 4 or 5 times during my all childhood. That's it, that was my summer and it was delightful!

Now, I will be honest for the last 8 years, or at least since my daughter is around 3, I have filled days off and holidays with a brimmed of activities. Maybe because we are expats and we don't have family around to visit, I felt the need to fulfill our family days with exiting fun to compensate for the lack of grand-parents and cousins.

Of course, for a while, my children were expecting those fun activities. "Where are we going today?" was the usual question on Saturday morning. Then we moved from London to the British Countryside. And we have started to slow down our way of life. And here, even more since I have started to integrate more mindfulness in my own life, I feel more and more able to allow my children to enjoy simple pleasures, to get bored and to just live day by day, slowly and more peacefully.

It's quite new and I wouldn't dare to say, it's all easy peasy but the Slow Summer is a start.

So what do we do this Summer?

- sleeping late in the morning, no alarm clock but obviously waking up late for a child can be anything between 7 am and 9 am. Anyway, it's better than the 6 am wake up time during school terms.

- we stay in our pajamas for the whole morning if we have nothing planned!

- pancake for breakfast quite often

- stopping my activities to play a board game.

- blowing bubbles in the garden,

- visiting our local library that offers craft every day. Note that I don't borrow books anymore. I have the annoying tendency to bring them back late and then I have to pay fees. I stopped a year ago, I feel much better and instead I buy new books at the charity shop. And of course, we read at the library when we are there,

- walking our dog every day and enjoying seeing her roaming free

- finding new free places to visit like the local woods.

- enjoying an online program that teaches us how to draw and paint.

- practicing yoga as a family

- letting my children playing with each other a lot

- playdate with friends

- Reading lots of books

- very little screen time, so far we haven't watched a single dvd and my daughter asked for her tablet 2 to 3 times only

And that's all! Really nothing much is needed!