I'm going to be honest and say that half term here wasn't exactly a roaring success. Combined with grotty weather we also had Master C come down with a dose of hand, foot and mouth disease. As a result he woke up pretty much every hour, every night bar two in the whole 10 days. He wasn't eating and was super cranky. That crankiness passed on to his parents, who in turn were probably a bit short tempered than they should have been with Little Miss C. Overnight roadworks on the road which we live on added to the night-time woes but at least provided some evening entertainment through the front ... read more
The Color Run London 2014
The start may have been slow - 75 minutes after the published start time we finally crossed the start line! - but we did it and we had a ball. The Color Run London 2014 can most definitely be classed as well and truly done on life's list. Five km round the streets of Wembley in north London on a very hot Sunday afternoon, and every kilometre marker we passed resulted in another colour of paint being thrown at us. In the colour zones it all went a bit mad. Not only were there official paint throwers, but runners were scooping up handfuls of paint from the road and throwing it around. ... read more
seven days
Way, way back here on Being Mrs C, I used to do a weekly look back over the last seven days and saving a special moment from the week. For some reason it seemed to come to an end in the busy few months before Master C's birth. Now just seems like the right time to bring it back. The wonder and magic of a first trip on a fairground ride. A weekly photograph capturing one of the magic moments of the last seven days. ... read more
Remembering why I’m running
I promised no more running talk until The Color Run is over, and I'm going to keep to that. However seeing as it is TOMORROW (argh!) I do just want to take a few moments to reflect on exactly why I agreed to this challenge. As I said when I took this all on, the Save the Children Bloggers conference back in February really inspired me to try to help people less fortunate than myself. Hearing of the work that Save the Children do all around the world is both shocking and fantastic in equal measure. Just this last week they have published their latest report, A Fair Start for Ever Child, ... read more
Disney’s Sleeping Beauty
As I'm sure regular readers will know, I'm a huge fan of all sorts of children's vintage stuff, especially books, but I also love introducing my children to some of the television programmes and films that I also remember watching as a child. Little Miss C has really taken to some of the older stuff and regularly asks for specific films or DVDs to be put on when she wants to watch them. I was therefore really pleased to hear that Disney were re-releasing their classic Sleeping Beauty on DVD and Blue-ray. It was 1959 when this film was originally released, and it holds it's own bit of Disney ... read more
Couch to 5k – so nearly there!
Yesterday's post brought two exciting packages. First my race number, and t-shirt for The Color Run which is happening THIS SUNDAY and then also my race number for the main 5km race that I'm doing in St Albans just one week later. Suddenly this is all feeling very, very real! The good news is that all my training seems to be on track. On Saturday I finished the Couch to 5k training programme with a 30 minute run (sandwiched between two 5 minute walks) at the National Trust's Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire. It was my first time running there and in away it felt strange not going ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Helping at Home
This original Ladybird Tuesday post has now been revised and is over on Penny Reads. You can find it here. ... read more
A woman’s world of whisky
About 12 years ago I had the pleasure of a week away in Scotland, staying on the small island of Easdale with friends. A lovely holiday and a great opportunity to get to know a part of Scotland that I hadn't visited before. One rainy day we headed over to the mainland and the town of Oban where we decided to kill a couple of hours visiting the Oban distillery. Up until that day I'd never really drunk whisky before, but a small glass there, followed by some more from the gift shop had me hooked. A love affair between me and whisky was born. Now, I should come clean here and say that I tend ... read more
How to make a simple paper plate ladybird
Sometimes when doing crafts with children you just need something that is dead simple and that's exactly what I hope this paper plate ladybird is. We've been busy re-reading some of our old picture books lately and Lucy Ladybird has once again become a firm favourite. A school trip to the woods, combined with the new CBeebies series Mini-Beast Adventure, means that the interest in bugs, insects and creepy-crawlies has gone through the roof. Little Miss C was convinced that she wanted to "craft a ladybird" so that's exactly what we did. All you need for this is: A paper plate Red ... read more
Couch to 5k – week 8 in review
The only problem I'm having with progressing in the Couch to 5k running programme is that each week the training runs are getting longer and so you have less time to squeeze other things into your week - like blogging about it! But, on the flip side I'm finding myself really looking forward to my runs more and more and even going as far as wondering if I can squeeze in extra ones. I never thought I would have been saying that nine weeks ago! So, week 8 of the couch to 5k programme is quite simple. Each of the three runs is a 5 minute warm up walk, 28 minute job and then a 5 minute cool ... read more