Yesterday I was tagged by MissieLizzie at Me and My Shadow to join in with the '7 things you didn't know about me meme'. I'm not very good at things like this but I put my mind to it and came up with the following facts.....
1. When I was younger I wanted my middle name to be Cindy...
2. In primary school I really wanted to be Mary in the nativity play but because the headmistress witnessed a tantrum with my mum in the playground about not buying me sweets, she said I couldn't be Mary for fear that I would have a tantrum in the middle of the play - BITCH.
3. I used to have a crush on Snooker ace Stephen Hendry - yeah I know - yuk!
4. I had a Saturday job in a florist when I was 15 and once mixed up some floral tributes for a funeral - I felt terrible.
5. I was a Brossette. Grolsch bottle tops on my shoes, James Dean belt buckle, bandanna, I bought into it all, including untold copies of Smash Hits with my idols on the front cover. I Heart Matt Goss, oh dear!
6. I've been to see Level 42 within the past 2 years (can't even claim it was in the 80's!), let me off though because it was a gift from me to my Dad...
7. I have a long scar on my right forearm where I fell over on my roller boots when I was about 7 and gouged it on a rusty old gate
There you go, some facts that you may or probably may not have wanted to know but it's been fun trying to recall things!
The rules of the challenge are that I have to tag another 15 people to do the challenge but I've seen so many tweeps/ bloggers I know take the challenge that I don't think I can do this bit - maybe next time I might be a bit quicker off the mark and get my tags in first! What are your 7 facts? It's hard isn't it!
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Monday, 17 January 2011
Bump Watch...Week 16
It's not really a baby it's the big jacket spud and chilli I had for dinner tonight!
Friday, 14 January 2011
Sure Start Children's Centres
This doesn't surprise me really, as another one of my topics in recent weeks was about local libraries and the excellent Bookstart scheme (see blog post here). This is now being scrapped and so gradually one by one family resources are being cut to help council budgets that have been cut by the Government to help with the deficit.
Anyhow, I don't want to get too bogged down in political stuff here, while the Sure Start centres do exist I would wholeheartedly recommend new mums to visit their local one and check it out (and if you like it perhaps campaign to keep them open!). In the early days of having Isla, my NCT friends and I all attended a free 6 week baby massage course. The fact that this was free was fantastic to me as it was 45 minutes spent with my friends in a friendly environment with a qualified baby masseur. Our babies all enjoyed it in varying degrees (there was a fair amount of crying!) but we enjoyed having somewhere to go and have a catch up and increase our confidence with our newborn.
Since then a centre has opened just 5 minutes walk from me and lady luck smiled on me when they scheduled a Stay and Play session for Wednesday mornings, my day off! When Isla and I don't have other plans we only have to throw our coats on and walk round the corner for a new selection of toys, some messy play and in the summer a reasonably sized outdoor area to play in. All the kids play, the mums can have a chat and then at the end of the session everyone helps to tidy up and then there's a singing session to wind it up.
I really hope that my local centre isn't closed and local authorities realise that it isn't an option to cut these valuable resources from our communities. Sure Start Centres are useful for all sorts of reasons, amongst them:
- Helping young/ first time mums make contact with other mums
- Running courses and groups to help with parenting skills and increase confidence in new parents
- Free Toy Libraries
What are your thoughts on this? Will you be affected if there are closures?
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Listography - Top 5 Favourite and Memorable Places I've visted
1. Thailand - Koh Lanta - Such a chilled out place. I have my friends to thank for putting me on to Koh Lanta, they went there on their gap year and loved it and I joined them for a holiday. Two years later I returned with my then boyfriend (now OH) and we had a fantastic time again - 4 whole weeks in paradise. All the surrounding islands are also beautiful. Time really does stand still here and I couldn't and still can't get enough of the Thai food. Best of all are the beaches, the water is sparkling and the snorkeling was brilliant.
2. Brazil - Rio - One of my favourite holidays was to Brazil and being at the Sambadrome for Carnaval. It really was crazy and went on for hours. The colours, the sights and sounds were just out of this world and you have to be there to really understand the vibrancy of it all. The costumes, or lack of costumes (!) were amazing and the floats must take the best part of a year to organise. The competition really is fierce between the different Samba schools, to win first prize. Amazing!
3. France - Saumur, Loire Valley - this was one of my first holidays with the OH and it was hilarious, but it was back in the day before we had a digi camera. Not having really been camping before we didn't appreciate all the equipment needed! So we drove to France, pitched up at our campsite feeling all pleased with ourselves that we had a tent, sleeping bags and a couple of disposable BBQ's. Who would have thought that you need a bit more than this: cutlery, plates/ bowls, chairs, gas stove, pans/ kettle and all manner of other camping gear!! Luckily we had people camping next to us who felt sorry for us and lent us a chair but we still had to make a trip to the supermarket to buy all manner of things. And to add to my mans misery the swimming pool wouldn't let the men in without wearing SPEEDO'S!! All in all it was a fabulous if not a little make shift holiday.
4. Greece - Naxos - Honeymoon. A wonderful island. Delicious Greek food (of course!) and a trip to the nudist beach - a first for us both, but now I've had kids, not something I'll be repeating!!
5. Norfolk - Wells Next The Sea - wonderful place on the Norfolk cost, lovely beaches - nearby Brancaster beach was used for Shakespeare in Love. I've been there twice and loved it both times. And the mussels bought from someones garage were huge and when cooked in a Moule Mariniere were out of this world! The second time there was a whole group of friends, probably the last time before having children that we all went away and didn't have a care in the world.
This post was inspired by the Listograpy blog post at:
Katetakes5
Check it out - Kate also recounts some wonderful trips to make you envious!
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
New Obsession - Annie the Musical
While I was laid up in bed with tonsillitis the weekend before Christmas, my husband had the pleasure of looking after our 18 month old for 2 days on his own while I felt like I was dying. I felt really sorry for myself and I couldn't do anything, not even speak. The two of them spent the whole time keeping away from Mummy and when they did venture upstairs they would pop their heads around the door, Isla would come to the side of the bed and look very quizzically at me as if to say, 'what are you doing, why are you laying in bed instead of playing with us?' Hubbie would then usher them out so they didn't catch the bugs and Isla would wave at me and say 'bye, bye'. I felt miserable as I could hear all the laughter and usual hub bub of our family going on downstairs except without me!
On the second day of my confinement I noticed in the afternoon that things had gone very quiet downstairs, apart from the sound of 'Annie the musical'. I was intrigued! A bit later on I could hear Isla seemingly getting a bit worried and the Hubbie telling her not to worry Annie would be alright! I wasn't all that familiar with Annie at the time so didn't know the plot. Little did I know that I would become so familiar with the plot that I could now be Miss Hannigan's understudy (I'm sure I could pull off acting like an old lush and looking like a trannie!) and that I would also come to think that Albert Finny's 'Daddy Warbucks' was actually quite fanciable!!
Since that fateful day Isla has become obsessed with Annie and I don't use that term loosely (Annie seems to be as addictive as 'Gummeeeee' - see previous blog post!). From the first viewing she loved the song 'Tomorrow', her own version being 'Moro, Moro'. She does this from the minute she comes downstairs in the morning to the minute she goes to bed pointing at the TV and demanding 'Moro, Moro'. From the point in the film that my Hubbie realised that she was really into it he pressed record on Sky, this meant we only had it from about 25 minutes in and also had all the ad breaks to fast forward - and we have to do that as quickly as possible or we get 'moro, moro, moro, moro', chanted repeatedly until it comes back on. I find it so strange that at such a young age (18 months) she can love a film so much, I wouldn't have believed that a toddler would have the attention span to sit for long and believe me, she is as much of a live wire as any toddler, running rings round me and shrieking most of the time!
It has been known on any one day for Annie to have been on twice. I'd just like to make clear now that I'm not a parent that shoves their child in front of the TV and so we try our best to distract her into playing games or doing other activities but she truly loves it and so I've given in and bought the DVD, so that we can (a) watch it from the start and (b) not have ad breaks to fast forward! The DVD is a double bill with Oliver, so I'm hoping we might be able to transfer her affections to something different just for a change. Wish me luck.....
Monday, 10 January 2011
Bump Watch...week 15
Not much visible bumpage at the moment! Just looks like a fat tum to be honest!
Sunday, 9 January 2011
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