Monthly Archives: January 2014

How to entertain a 3 year old on the longest journey ever

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Travel

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travelling with kids and how to make it easier

I have been blessed with a husband who hails from Greater Manchester. While his Lancastrian tones and dry sense of humour are really rather lovely, the distance we have to travel to see his equally lovely family is less appealing.

On a good day, it can take as little as five hours to get up to the (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine’s home town from our house in Devon. On a bad day, however, we are talking eight hours plus. Eight hours. In a car. With a three year old who “GOT WEE! GOT WEE! MUMMY!” every hour or so. It’s not pretty.  Continue reading »

Girls’ day out

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Family, Play, Travel

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Grandma and granddaughterOne of the things I love most about our move to Devon is the fact we’re no longer four hours from any of our family. As much as my parents often wound me up as a teenager, these days I rather like them.

The (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine’s family are still far away up north, which isn’t ideal, but my own parents are less than an hour away on the other side of Dartmoor near the North Devon coast. It means we get to see them regularly, giving us school holidays to catch up with the northern contingent of our family.  Continue reading »

Worth the wait

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Home

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Houses are funny things. Until recently, I had no idea how much impact the space I lived in had on my mood. It’s now clear to me that for the past 18 months much of the stress I’ve felt has been to do with feeling unsettled and frustrated with where we lived.

Although we loved the village and the cosy cottage we lived in for three years in Berkshire, by the time we left we were ready to move. It had become too small, cramped, the low ceilings a constant source of irritation for my 6’5″ tall husband. Continue reading »

The Motherhood Test

06 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Motherhood

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Motherhood tests

There comes a time when, whatever it is you do, you have to call upon all the skills you have ever learned in your field to overcome a particularly tricky problem.

Maybe you’re a newly qualified doctor and have to administer CPR for the first time in real life. Perhaps you’re an accountant and the Inland Revenue decide to audit one of your clients. Or you might be a firefighter coming up against the worst building fire you’ve ever seen.

Today was that day for me. I encountered my first ever Big Test as a parent. It required quick thinking, clever tactics and the ability to draw upon everything I have learned in my life thus far.  Continue reading »

A traumatic event

03 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Motherhood

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Something truly disgusting happened to me today. It was so disgusting I didn’t even share it ANYWHERE on social media. As far as I was concerned there was a Facebook blackout.

But then I rang my husband. The (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine calmly listened to my tears and snivelling retching down the phone and then proceeded to laugh so loudly I felt even more sick. As I type this he is threatening to out me on Facebook so I feel I need to share before he gets the opportunity. At least it’ll be my side of the story… Continue reading »

Blog rules? Don’t make me laugh

02 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Social media, Work

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Resolutions

It would appear my first post of 2014 is going to break an unspoken rule of blogging: never blog about blogging. I’m not sure if this is a rule I once imposed on myself but, having broken it several times already, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.

Anyway, as 2014 begins I wanted to take a moment to look ahead to the new year and make some plans blog-wise. It seems as good a time as any to commit to paper some of the thoughts I’ve had over the past couple of weeks. Non-bloggers may want to skip this post…

Next month will mark my third year of blogging. I started this blog back in February 2011 while sleep-deprived and a bit confused. Emerging from those chaotic newborn days I knew I needed to make some big decisions about my career and starting a blog seemed a good place to begin. Mainly, I wanted to see if I could still write. It turned out having a baby didn’t spell the end of my ability to string a sentence together and, ultimately, I ended up leaving my full time job as a radio journalist to go freelance. Blogging played a huge part in my confidence to make that decision, so thank you blog.  Continue reading »