Change, change, change. That's what life has been full of recently. At times it is utterly exhausting, but there's certainly no chance of me being bored in the near future and I'm one of those people who seems to thrive from being busy. One of the latest big changes has been saying goodbye to my trusty old set of wheels and buying a new (to us) car. It's not a step that I was expecting to take as I'd always assumed that my old Skoda estate would keep going forever. I'd had it since LMC was only about six months old and since then it had been on numerous trips around the country, carted a ... read more
An alternative way of heating your home with a pay monthly boiler
Without meaning to, I think I've become a bit of an expert recently on all things utility based. The last few months have seen me become a dab hand at working my way around comparison sites, understanding tariffs and contract options for gas and electricity, and also learning many of the phone keypresses that are needed at various utility companies to actually get to talk to a human being there rather than a computer. As we're currently in a rented flat I've not had to worry too much about the actual mechanics of how we're heating our home, but we're hoping to buy again in the New Year that ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Division Made Easy
Shockingly, it's over two years since Multiplication made easy appeared here on Ladybird Tuesday. Back then I wrote about how maths can really divide people as a subject. Some love it and some hate it. I've always thought of myself as being firmly in the "love maths" camp. When at school it was the lesson I always looked forward to. The idea of English or Drama on the timetable filled me with dread. Give me double maths over that any day of the week. I'd like to say that I'm still on the "love maths" side of the fence, but as Little Miss C has advanced through the school system (she's ... read more
Pork Pasta Bolognese #HealthyRedMeat
Over the summer life at home has been somewhat disjointed. Moving house, and changing family dynamics, mean that I've followed the advice of someone who very early on told me that the key thing in the early days of all this change was to remember to eat something, and to remember to make sure everyone else eats too. For a little while I was allowed to not aim for a nutritionally balanced home cooked meal every evening, but I just had to make sure that I had a meal every day and that the kids didn't go hungry either. It was quite seriously one of the best bit of advice I could have been ... read more
Celebrating the weekend with Weekend Box and Snazaroo
Parenting can be tough at times. Especially if your kids seem to think that you model yourself on that Pinterest and Instagram mum, who always has a new craft activity or similar lined up ready to do at a moment's notice. Reality is that your child is likely to ask to do something, you begrudgingly agree to their crafty ideas and start rummaging in drawers, cupboards and boxes to find everything they need. Half way through the project the child, or children, will suddenly declare that they need something else to complete their masterpiece so you then start plouging through the entire contents ... read more
Every Little Helps; Teach Your Kids About Charity
Avid readers of my blog will know that I am a huge support of charities. I regularly shop there and often find some great hidden treasures at charity shops. I am also completely aware of how much light these organisations bring to the world and how by supporting them we can help change things. We can give money to cancer research to fight back against a disease that takes so many lives. We can donate our time to causes such as information on Ectopic Pregnancy. One in ninety pregnancies are ectopic, and by supporting charities that help mothers who have experienced this condition, we can help ... read more
Bedtime stories with The Book People and WIN a bundle of picture books
When I first discovered I was pregnant with Little Miss C one of the things I really looked forward to was being able to snuggle up and share bedtime stories with a little one. I've always loved books, and remember loving them as a child too and so wanted to share that with a child of my own. That happened and I'm delighted to say that LMC now loves books and reading about as much as I did when I was a child. It was wonderful seeing how in awe she was to meet Jacqueline Wilson recently and made me so happy to see her getting that pleasure from meeting an author. Little Miss C may now be 7 ... read more
The best things in life are free
It may sound like a bit of a cliche, but the the truth is that the best things in life are free, especially if you're having to tighten your belt a bit financially, like were having to at the moment. Years ago, free samples were the sort of things that you might get given as you walked through a shopping centre or past all the shops in the centre of town. Occasionally you might even get someone come to your door offering things like washing powder or other domestic products. The advance of the internet has changed all that though, and the people giving out free samples in the street have been ... read more
Five go to a Festival – BerkoFest 2017
Five go to a festival sounds a bit like a modern Enid Blyton book title, and I suppose in a way it could have been. Five of us going off to a festival in a beautiful bit of English countryside on a (sometimes sunny) Saturday afternoon. All that was missing was lashings of ginger beer. A couple of pints of local ale took their place though – for the grown ups in the five at least! I was delighted to be invited along to BerkoFest in the nearby Chilterns town of Berkhamsted last Saturday afternoon. I’ve been to “Berko” quite a few times before and have always really liked it as a town to ... read more
Bringing Holiday Home at the James Villas Crafternoon
Anyone who knows me will know how much I love crafting. Crochet is my proper addiction, but to be honest I'm not fussy as to what craft I turn my hand to, especially if there's someone there to teach me how to do it right. What might come as a bit of a shock though is the fact that since moving house on 1 July I have only picked up a crochet hook once. Once! That's pretty much unheard of in my life, but it's been the reality of a crazily busy couple of months. I'm hoping that life is about to calm down a bit so that I can pick my crochet hook up again soon. Especially as I had a weak ... read more