Monthly Archives: December 2013

What happened while I was offline

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Family

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Six weeks ago, the thought of spending a prolonged period offline terrified me. With my work relying on a secure internet connection, along with my addiction to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, I imagined a world offline as a dark, dark place. I saw myself as a shipwrecked sailor, marooned on a solitary island, with no clue as to what was happening in the outside world. (Never accuse me of being prone to the over-dramatic *cough*.)

We have now spent almost two weeks offline. In fact we are still, officially, offline. I am jumping on my family’s internet juice to write this blog post, but as soon as we return home it’ll be back to the solitary island again – for a few more days at least.

Here’s what happened while I was offline…

We moved in here:  Continue reading »

Being a blogger at Christmas

13 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by in Family, Seasonal

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We have entirely missed the Christmas build-up at home this year. With a house move on the cards, constantly changing dates and, at one point, staring Christmas in a caravan in the face, we weren’t feeling particularly festive.

Being a blogger has many benefits though, not least the chance to be “festivised” by fellow parents who blog. The brilliant sense of community in the blogging world is evident all over the internet this year, not least in the huge support of this post at Thinly Spread for Christmas Jumper Day.

When things were getting frazzled with the house purchase (and we thought, at one point, we definitely wouldn’t be moving before Christmas) it has been friends I know through blogging who have carried me through. Gemma, Jane, Alison, Charlotte, Kelly, Katie, Ellie and Erica have all been there with a joke or a *hug* when I’ve needed it most. If I didn’t blog, I’d have missed out on all those little pick-me-ups.  Continue reading »

WE’RE BUYING A HOUSE (I might cry)

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Home

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lights

I can still remember it so vividly. Frog was about 6 months old. I’d been at home with her all day, stewing. Something in our house had broken and it wasn’t the first time. We couldn’t fix it, because the cottage was rented. It was another reminder that we didn’t own our own home. We couldn’t paint the walls or fix a leaking tap without asking permission first.

Fast forward a few months and we had the conversation. “We need to accept we’ll never be able to buy our own place,” said the (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine. I reluctantly agreed. With a small baby, a teacher’s salary, a fledgling freelance career, living in one of the most expensive parts of the UK, I had to accept he was right.

We didn’t have super rich parents. We didn’t have any inheritance. We only had what we earned, which covered our rent, petrol, living and childcare costs. We were lucky if we could scrape a spare fifty quid at the end of the month to chuck into savings. A 25% deposit on a house in our village stood before us like a mountain, impossible to scale.  Continue reading »

LeapPad Ultra – a compromise on screen time?

06 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by in Kids toys

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LeapPad Ultra review

I’m going to start this post with a huge admission: I’ve never been a fan of tablets for kids. Go ahead and call me a judgemental so-and-so all you like, but I’ve always thought they were a bit of a cop out. Parents looking for an easy way to distract their kids, without having to actually play with them. Mums and dads using a tablet so they don’t have to go outside in the mud and get dirty running down hills. They’re not educational, are they? They’re just turning our kids into mindless zombies….

Yeah, I was wrong.

I am happily holding my hands up right now and admitting that, after trying out the LeapPad Ultra, I am the first to say that, actually, there IS a place for a child’s tablet in our home.

We were recently sent a LeapPad Ultra to review. Here’s a video of it in action…. Continue reading »

Girls only: a weekend in Bath

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by in Travel

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Francis Hotel

You know when you go away with the family and you have about ten suitcases and a few extra carrier bags stuffed in every gap in the car boot, just for good measure? Yeah, last weekend was NOTHING like that.

I jumped in my car, solo. I had a handbag and a small overnight bag. Nothing else. No baby wipes, toys, emergency snacks or husband paraphernalia (my man really needs to invest in a man bag). I simply took my phone, wallet, a dress, pair of high heels, some PJs and a bag of make-up. I felt like I was in a state of heightened luxury before I even reached the end of the road. Continue reading »

An answer to emergency bed problems: AeroBed

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Family, Home

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Picture the scene: It’s 11 o’clock on a Friday night. I am heading up the stairs to bed. I stumble into my bedroom, peel the covers back from my bed and find… a sleeping child.

This is exactly the sight I was met with last Friday night when I went to bed. My three year old had woken from a nightmare and come to find me. Discovering an empty bed, she did a classic Goldilocks manoeuvre and dived straight in. I found her sprawled, starfish like across the entire width of the double bed, snoring.  Continue reading »

Elf on the Shelf – another win for Mother Guilt?

02 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Family, Motherhood, Seasonal

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Elf Free Zone

I’d like to start this post with a disclaimer: I love Christmas. I like the sparkle and the glitter and the festive build-up and the sense of anticipation surrounding the main event itself. But I am not a fan of a certain craze that has swept across my Twitter, Instagram and Facebook timeline this weekend.

Elf on the Shelf is an American idea. It’s a little toy that parents purchase pre-December. Billed as a “special scout sent by Santa from the North Pole”, the elf is meant to keep an eye on kids, updating the naughty and nice list before the big day.  Continue reading »