Pink Lining At The MADs (Review)

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About a month ago now, I hopped onto a train to London to enjoy the MAD Blog Awards presentation dinner in a swishy hotel.

As the dinner was formal, I needed to wear something suitable for a cocktail party and dutifully shoes my sparkly top, trousers, shoes, etc. and laid them all out ready to pack up for the overnight stay. black cabs bag

Yes. That's an iron. I do things like this when I go away; I take an iron.

Luckily, I had been sent a rather beautiful, and highly appropriate, Black Cabs overnight bag from Pink Lining to transport my necessities. Measuring 62(L) x 26(H) x 26(W)cm, I'll be honest that I was sceptical that I'd get all of that lot above into the bag. However, in it went with ease and with room to spare for a few bars of chocolate in case of a midnight feast!

The bag was the perfect size for an overnight trip. Everything I needed (including the iron, along with hair straighteners, toiletries, 'party clothes', pyjamas, outfit for the next day) fitted in to a very manageable bag which was light and easy to carry. It's a stylish bag, with a hard wearing, wipe-clean exterior and the distinguishable 'pink lining' interior. It certainly looked the part in first class on the train, and in the taxi.

The Pink Lining Black Cabs overnight bag is available for £55.

I was sent this item for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.

Show Me Your Pumpkins!

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It's that time of year for all things ghoulish and spooky. We've never really 'celebrated' (seems the wrong word somehow) Hallowe'en before as The Boy has a low tolerance for anything vaguely malevolent and asks a hell of a lot of questions. Yesterday at St. Fagan's outdoor museum in Cardiff, there was a fantastic scene set up for the Hallowe'en festivities, but of course there was fake blood and skeletons strewn everywhere. How do you explain that to a three year old who's asking what the bones are for?

However, one of the best bits of Hallowe'en for children is pumpkin carving, and this year we had a go at it for the first time ever!

The Boy drew the outline of the eyes on and the position of the mouth, I did the rest. He was completely and utterly captivated by the finished product and as a result, I have to go and buy another pumpkin tomorrow to carve another one out!

This was our finished pumpkin!

What do you think?

Instagram and twitter are full of everyone's fantastic carvings at the moment, and so I thought I'd set up a linky for you to show off your pumpkins! Pumpkin carving seems to bring out the artist in all of us.

Please join in below with your carvery skills, show off your witches, wizards, ghouls and goblins.

If you don't have a blog, link up the Instagram or twitpic URL.



366 #43

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We're on the home-straight now folks, passed day 300 and just 65 pictures left to take.

(Although, I've just spent the last hour backtracking through my 366s to August (!) to track down where I'd misnumbered my posts! Moral of the story, make sure you number them each day.)

You know the drill, join in with your favourite photograph of the week and show some comment love to everyone else in the community.

  1. Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
  2. Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
  3. If you can spare five minutes to comment on just a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!
ShowOff ShowCase



Missed Photographs

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This evening (as I was preparing the linky) I have discovered that I had missed posting three photos and it had completely screwed up my numbering. More importantly than that, it means these little photos have had no love shown to them. If you're feeling kind, would you mind popping over and giving them some comment love please?

Thank you!

25th October 2012

31st August 2012

19th August 2012

Saturday 27th October 2012 – 'Golden Light' (301/366)

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I'm adding this 366 photo to The Gallery under the theme of Autumn for two reasons.

1) I've posted oodles of photos that could be used for the theme, and don't want to repost photos that I've already used.

2) To me, this photo symbolises everything about Autumn that I love: the warm sunlight, long shadows, woolly hats and crisp, golden leaves being frollicked in.

What Role Does Technology Have In Our Children's Lives?

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I'm writing this during an INSET where the speaker has introduced her session on challenging More Able and Talented children by showing a photograph of four nursery age children who were playing on iPods and not communicating, thus illustrating her concerns about the use of technology by children. This angered me slightly; it was shown out of context with little information about the children's task, what they were doing immediately before or after.

It's started me thinking about the technology that The Boy uses, and why.

On a daily basis, The Boy can help unload the dishwasher, turn on the television, select channel 614, play puzzles on the iPad, take photos on his camera, turn on the washing machine and play on one of his preschool games on the laptop. Don't get me wrong here, we also do art and craft, jigsaws, book reading and general playing. However my point is, that The Boy uses a lot of technology, and with a father who's a software developer and a mother who's an ICT coordinator then it's difficult for him to avoid it.

It started when he was 20 months old and I would give him a bubble-popping app on the iPod; not for a distraction but to help him develop his hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. I would load the app for him and he'd play for just a few minutes, it was amazing to see the tracking in his vision. One day I nipped out to the kitchen to get a drink and came back in to discover him switching between the apps and playing a matching pairs game. I'd never shown him that, he'd worked it out for himself.

Children are innately curious, technology is an amazing tool for encouraging this.

We have made a conscious decision to provide The Boy with a range of technology so that we ignite within him the curiosity needed to investigate further technological innovations…

"The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don't really even notice it, so it's part of everyday life." – Bill Gates

This is true. The technology that our children will use in the future is inconceivable: who would have thought five years ago that I'd be carrying a high powered computer around in my handbag with tens of books on it, access to the Internet, a camera, 'board' games and films on it, let alone that I'd be able to access all of that within seconds of reaching for it.

Technology has its place and is a valuable tool as a platform for learning; it is not a demon to be criticised at teacher training days, and children using it is not something that should be frowned upon. Of course there are going to be those parents who use it as a babysitter or pacifier (and in some situations it's needed), but it's also an amazing and innovative device for developing so many skills.

So here's my question to you: what is your stance on technology in your children's lives?