The run up to Christmas is always hectic here, it comes with the toy shop ownership territory. We looked forward to the Xmas break but for the very best of reasons, it was never going to be. Christmas, visitors, a wedding, decorating – it all added up to a holiday that passed by very quickly […]
Shape Up & Ship Out
Last year I spent a lot of time decluttering and getting rid of junk that had accumulated in the house. It’s made a huge difference, allowing us to focus done creativity on changing the house for the better and actually spend some time going nice things. Inevitably, it needs redoing and with this year looming […]
The one where I fail at being a frugal Christmas Shopper. Again.
I’ve been avoiding writing this and it has taken me a while to work out why but I have now. The biggest reason is that I feel guilty that we had a nice Christmas Day. When I think back to the last 3, suffused with guilt and grief in equal measure and topped and tailed […]
Let Down.
When there are a lot of the children in the house, a lot of needs to be met, meals to cook, places to be, abilities to nurture and worries to ease, there is normally something that gives at each stage. Sometimes a hobby goes, or a chink of time together, or a relationship falters a […]
Mostly… nice.
I’ve craved a year that could be called ‘mostly nice’ for the last few years. It’s been a while. Mostly painful, mostly dreadful, mostly despairing, mostly frightening, mostly stressful – those are the ways to describe the years from about 2006 onwards. From torrid times at home, to stressfully trying to maintain a business and […]
Thrifting a little at Christmas.
It’s an in joke that I totally fail to be thrifty at Christmas; I’m hopeless at working to budgets (Max handles the household money for most elements of our life) and hopeless at not indulging my children. I could blame that on more recent elements of life but it isn’t true or honest to blame […]
Family Frolics – finding joy on a grey day.
If this time of year is about anything, it’s about family time. We’ve guarded out time between Christmas Eve and New Year jealously for years as the run up to Xmas is a busy one for us with work anyway and latterly an emotional one. The last two years have been full of panto and […]
Lax Toddler Parenting #8: Messy Play
I’ll let you into a secret. I hate messy play. I hate sticking stuff with little kids who get bored quickly. I hate painting that is mostly gloop and soggy paper. I HATE setting up stuff that they do for a while, chuck everywhere and then I have to clear up. It may be partly […]
Such a perfect day.
Half term. We grabbed a few hours when most of us were in the same place and went out. Taught Bene a little about park play. Looked at weird nature. And amazing nature. And extraordinary nature. It was the day after the ‘great storm’ so we were wary of big trees with branches that could […]
Health warning: large families of active kids are a bad idea.
I was trying to explain our schedule of life earlier on (twice in two days actually, as you do) and it struck me that it might be an interesting moment to write out how our week pans out at this point in time. I’ve noticed that I blog less often now, which relates less to […]
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