Bacon baps and perky pigs

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I was woken up this morning by the gentle pitter-patter of raindrops falling through the leaves outside and a symphony of birds. As I turned over I could feel the dawn's light through my eyelids and smiled inwardly; holidays! The view that greeted me was a towering mesh of deciduous skeletons.

The night was a mixed bag. I flitted between sleeping soundly and then getting really hot legs and feet and having to throw off the bed covers; I'm used to a 7.5tog duvet at home not a 10tog! The Boy first stirred at 5.45, but then settled back down by himself until 7.15 (a full 12 hours in the end)! Hoorah for the great outdoors and fresh air!

We had a fabulous breakfast of variety pack cereals (like children aren't we?), croissants, pain au chocolat and coffee, accompanied by yet more bird song as the window in the kitchen slides all the way back to bring the outdoors in. Wellies on and up we squelched through the mud (by the way, the Maclaren didn't get bogged down at all) to the reception centre for our welcome talk. It's a lovely touch to have this chat explaining the facilities, the ranger's job (including activities for children and night-vision walks), the food & wine delivery service (to your room, ordered through your television!), the bike hire and the local attractions and walks. All of this is accompanied by a bacon butty and a cup of coffee. Vegetarian like me? No problem, would you like a croissant or an egg roll?

After lunch, we visited Dick Whittington Farm Park. We will never go again & I wouldn't recommend it. It's £6 for adults and children over 3 years old, and £5 for children under the age of 3. Babies who can't walk are free. Personally I think that's really steep, toddlers should be cheaper than that, if not free. I don't think I've ever heard of a place that charges for at least under 2s. The total cost was £17 and we were there for 1hr and 15 minutes. In that time, we spent 40 minutes in the reasonable-quality soft play area, which was packed: lots of weekend dads who unfortunately were spending more time on their iPads than playing with their children. The toilets are, um, functional but the floor is quite frankly filthy.

And so to the animals. Yes there are a selection of farm animals including pigs, some sweet lambs, donkeys, goats, chickens and geese. However, these chickens are in a ridiculously low pen which made me think of battery farming. I was not particularly impressed with the conditions that many of these animals were living in. The aviary is four foot by five foot housing a large amount of small birds, too many for that space. There is a 'tropical' house with a couple of terrapins, one tank of goldfish, some lizards and snakes, tortoises and something large and worrying, I forget it's name which is quite frankly probably for the best. To be honest, the place looked like a pet shop rather than something intended for visitors. 'Extras' on the farm included a snowy owl, a pedal-kart track (an extra £1) and a sandpit. I will admit that we were chuffed to see a couple of llamas, The Boy thought they were camels which I thought was quite an impressive connection to make.

However, back we came to out beautiful cabin which The Boy is calling our 'little house'.

Oh and his new favourite word is 'huh-woh', as in 'hello'. Very cute!

A much-needed break

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Things have been fraught recently; I hate this time of year finding it really depressing, life has been monotonous, we've been knackered, and our summer holidays seem such a long way off in the future. I declared that we needed a break and investigated a couple of different options. I have only once been to Butlins (Pwllheli, Noth Wales) when I was in Year Six and I am sure that it has moved on a great deal since 1988, but I looked on TripAdvisor and was not overwhelmed with the standard of accommodation, which was a shame because the entertainment looked fabulous. Centre Parcs was the obvious choice but not at £800 for 3-night weekend break!

Then I remembered that my brother had been to a Forest Holidays site in the past. The one at the Forest of Dean opened in September 2010, and being only an hour away seemed ideal because The Boy is like his mother and does not travel well. We booked a Copper Beech cabin for the tidy sum of £250!

Today was the day for our mini-break. We've never actually been away as just a family before. We've been away with my parents, but not just the three of us. We finally managed to pack everything into the car and I withheld The Boy's sleep so he could doze off on the journey. Did he? Did he heck! He normally sleep for two hours during the day, he had 16 minutes in the car. He was distraught, I was distraught, hubby wasn't happy either!

We rocked up to the Bracelands site mid-afternoon. Check-in isn't normally until 4pm, but we were there an hour earlier and they were happy to hand over the keys. The cabins are at the top of a hill nestled into the middle of a forest which has carefully been cleared in strategic places to make way for 77 cabins, a Forest Retreat welcome centre and a few gravel tracks connecting them together.

This is the main difference between Forest Holidays and Centre Parcs; there is no swishy swimming pool, no soft-play, no chain-restaurants, nothing like that. There is a reception centre that has a mini-mart and there are the trees. That's it! Make your own entertainment together as a family. And this is exactly what we need.

We've already made a start at having fun together, just the three of us. The Boy has already experienced something new: splashing in puddles. Don't get me wrong I have taken him out but puddles in tarmac aren't quite the same somehow. He has thoroughly embraced the concept and we almost had to drag him away from them! The Boy was absolutely captivated with the cabin and the whole idea of trees being right outside. From the moment that we pulled into the space outside our Copper Beech cabin and opened the door, all that could be heard was the rain falling through the canopy of the evergreen forest and the birds singing in the trees. He was enthralled! It's due to rain tomorrow, but it's not a problem; we've got our wellies and waterproofs.

Flashback Friday – 'Honeymoon Shadows'

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This week's flashback goes back nine years to our honeymoon.

We were married one weekend mid-term in the Winter, I had the Friday afternoon off school and had to go back to work on the Monday. We therefore didn't have time for a honeymoon after the wedding and had to wait until the Christmas holidays before a few days away. And where better for a short honeymoon than Paris, the city of love?

Pah! We had a rubbish time. It was absolutely freezing, the two hotels that we stayed in were supposed to be 3 or 4 stars, but it's a different system over there so actually they were 2 stars. One of them was so bad that the toilet was falling apart and when I put my hand on the bedroom wall, the paint flaked off onto my palm. I had food poisoning and we had to leave early.

However, we had fun exploring the sites of Paris and we were young and in love. I'm pretty sure our memory of it is worse than it actually way. One of the places we went to was La Grande Arche de La Défense, it was quite bizarre to see this square archway in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, this was one of my arty, black and white shots; an obligatory theme of photos when in Paris. It reminds me that actually we had fun!

This post was put together as part of CafeBebe's carnival of flashbacks.

With friends like these…

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I have had cause recently to re-evaluate a couple of friendships. Not that I'm getting cocky or anything, but you do have to wonder how deep and meaningful a relationship it is if they upset you or make you feel mediocre on a regular basis.

Take today for example. An old university friend was back in the area visiting her parents, and did the 'pop in for and hour and a half before going onto the next person on my list' thing. I perfectly understand that, God I've been in that situation myself. This (childless) friend of 12 years turned up late, mocked my parenting skills and choices, patronised my son, half-ate the cake that I had made especially for her (on her request!) and scooted off with a 'see you in a year' flippancy. I was left feeling aghast, with an untouched Victoria Sandwich and my unimpressed son for company.

Only last week in work, I sobbed my heart out on another 'friend' who was fabulous. Only for her to later completely ridicule me in a 'humorous' manner infront of the entire staffroom. What's that about?

Then at the other end of the spectrum is my oldest friend (not in an age sense). I'm two years older than her and have known her since her birth. My mum used to look after her, she lived opposite, her brothers and sisters were/are friends with mine. We were thrown together as a matter of course. At various points in our time we've been closer than others; the worse and greatest absence is when we got married (no, not to each other!). Her husband and I didn't like each other. 9 years down the line and we hadn't seen each other since her eldest (8yrs) was born. However when I texted her to tell her about dad's cancer, by the time I'd put the phone down, it was ringing. Last May she texted me to say her and hubby were splitting up & I rang straightaway. It was 11pm at night. Since she's moved back to the area we have a new-found friendship on a level like never before. And The Boy adores her.

Another friend pointed out to me earlier "Friends are meant to make you feel good, help, pick you up when you feel rubbish, etc. Not criticise condemn and complain!" She has a very good point. I know we can't always be there, but surely it's a questionable relationship if you get nothing positive from it?

And then you get the friend who does this to cheer you up:

Thank you for being so thoughtful and kind.

Music I Want my Children to Listen to: Barlow/Williams/Owen

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Have you connected the names together yet? Yes, it's Gary, Robbie and Mark. Sorry Jason and Howard, you don't get a look in. While the latter may be doing a bit more singing nowadays, to me they will always be the tall break-dancers who make the others look good.

The reason I have specified these names rather than Take That is because I am including their combined song-writing ability with their individual work. I own every TT album (old and new), Gary's solo CDs, all of Robbie's collections (aside from the God-awful Rudebox, did anyone buy it or listen to it more than once?), and yes, I own Mark's album too. What's more I liked it. So nurgh!

So I've clumped them together for the purpose of this selection because I think they are a rather talented bunch. Between the three of them as solo artists and as a group they have:

  • sold over 100 million albums worldwide;
  • won over 20 Brit awards between them;
  • won 5 Ivor Novello awards;
  • and one of them has been voted the greatest British songwriter of all time.

So here are my favourites:

Old Take That song;

  • Everything Changes But You (cheeky and lively; love the video)

New Take That song (pre-Robbie);

  • Rule the World

New Take That song (post-Robbie);

  • Kidz

Gary Barlow solo song;

  • Open Road

Mark Owen solo song;

  • Four Minute Warning

Robbie Williams solo song;

  • I will talk and Hollywood will Listen.

The songs are good, old-fashioned, middle-of-the-road, songs with good melodies and rousing lyrics. I like them and am unashamed of it*!

(*Ok, I possibly feel the need to excuse my choice, but admit it you've got a favourite Take That song too!)

Movie Meme: Films of the 21st Century

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Following Kate's Listography of our favourite films last week (I stand by my choice of 'The Breakfast Club'), it highlighted just how much we all love a good film; be it a weepie, a cheesy '80s dance film, a black and white classic, a thriller or a film of mystery and intrigue.

The rather lovely and fabulous Metal Mummy has harnessed our, and her, love of 'movies' to create this new meme which I'm quite looking forward to. Her choice for this week is Films of the 21st Century which is a lovely broad topic. Only problem is that we're only allowed to choose one. This has caused much consternation for me for the last hour or so, but I kept coming back to the one film that hubby was shocked I hadn't chosen in my Listography. At the time I told him that I didn't love it as much as the others, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since. I may have to dig it out later and watch it.

For my choice I present you with:

Love Actually

I adore this film! Sitting here and trying to pinpoint why has launched me into a deeply analytical mood.

The Cast:

Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Rowan Atkinson, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy: British Film Royalty! Wow! What an absolute achievement to get that many stars together for a film. But they're not the only ones, consider them the senior royals if you will. We are then graced with the Wills and Harrys, Zaras and Peters of the acting world: Martin Freeman, Kiera Knightley, Kris Marshall, Joanna Page, Andrew Lincoln, Martine McCutcheon, and little Thomas Brodie-Sangster. The ensemble is amazing, no doubt! The fact that they are all British is even better! Good on you Mr. Curtis!

However, aside from the show of national pride that is exhibited in this extravaganza, the reason I like it is because I feel it is the epitome of the big cast film. There have been several in the past decade or so: Crash, 2012, and of course the Harry Potter films. To me though, this was one of the first films where there weren't names chosen for impact or to draw in the crowds, the actors were chosen because they fitted together so well. And the clearly established relationships that some of them have is endearing to watch. When Emma Thompson bumps into her 'brother' Hugh Grant back-stage at the school play, I liked to think the warmth was at least slightly realistic.

The Music:

I know it's mostly Girls Aloud and The Sugababes but there were other groups in there too: Kelly Clarkson, Dido, Maroon 5, Eva Cassidy, Norah Jones, Texas, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding and Craig Armstrong. The talent is immense! The music perfectly matches the mood of so many scenes; who else could have got Hugh Grant wiggling his bum so provocatively, or accompanied the tears of Emma Thompson so well? And I'm sorry but the passion of 'Too Lost in You' gets me every time!

The Meetings:

All the different ways that the different story-lines meet up, interweave and flow seamlessly are intriguing and get me drawing an imaginary mind-map every time. The wedding, the reception, the play, the airport. It's so damned clever.

The Scenes:

I have three favourite scenes that I have to watch every time.

  1. Hugh Grant dancing to Girls Aloud. Classic, hysterical, and oh so embarrassing!
  2. Hugh Grant kicking arse with Billy Bob's arrogant American President! Yeah you tell him what every person in this country wanted Tony Blair to tell George W. Bush! And yeah! It's because of a girl, even better! Hugh Grant for Prime Minister!
  3. Emma Thompson listening to the Joni Mitchell CD and crying. I will always sob when I watch this. Her husband has bought her what could be the most romantic Christmas present ever, a CD of her favourite artist despite hating the music. The only problem is that she knows that the expensive necklace that she saw him buy the other day is therefore for another woman then. How bittersweet? He's been romantic, but to another woman. Such a heartbreaking moment.

The ultimate Christmas Eve film!

Have you seen it in another light? I hope so.

Now pop over to the linky and see which other films you can be persuaded to watch!

"…let me count the ways."

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"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death. "
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I'm not a poet, and generally not into poetry, but by God that woman had passion. Imagine how strongly she felt about the person she wrote that for. Oh hang on, I don't have to imagine, I know.

So excuse the soppiness dear reader, but here's why I love my husband:

He is thoughtful. It's the little things that count and make your life easier. Half an hour ago we started getting ready to go to bed, I walked into the kitchen and my tablets were sat there on the counter next to a glass of water. Next to that was exactly half a glass of milk. Sometimes in the morning if I'm struggling to wake up, I'll stagger downstairs to find my cereal bowl and toast plate out, a spoon and knife next to them, bread in the toaster ready.

He is calm, I am not. I am hot-headed, tempestuous, stroppy and generally very high-maintenance. He deals with it all. Sometimes he doesn't react in the correct manner straightaway, but generally on a day to day basis, life with him is calm and peaceful (unless he's forgotten to empty the bin or not paired the socks). Having grown-up as the youngest of four children, life could get fraught. Even now, I struggle to keep calm sometimes, he helps.

He is funny. He jokes that he is the funniest person I know and, aside from The Boy who is unintentionally funny, he is. I've not been able to appreciate his humour much since The Boy's arrival, tiredness has removed my funny bone (not literally, it's a metaphor see?), but he is humorous.

He gets me. He understands why I get wound up and that it's usually hiding a deeper upset, he knows how to react and he backs me up. He never offers a controversial opinion without the go-ahead, as he knows that I probably don't want to hear that. There is never any pressure or guilt laid thick.

He is my soul-mate. From the moment that I saw him at the end of the train station underpass I knew that he was The One. He reminded me that that was 11yrs ago the other week, guiltily I had to admit that I hadn't realised the date. This year we will have been married for ten happy years, long may it continue!

5 Ingredients to My Perfect Day

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After having a terrible week with an ill household, Kate had been dreaming of a day without digital thermometers and sweaty dressing gowns, and therefore has come up with another corker!

What makes a perfect day? Many of the ingredients were present when we were just a couple, but are dim and distant memories now. Some of them would be boring without my little shadow to oversee the events. The first three are entirely possible if we get a decent summer! A girl can dream can't she?

  1. A lie-in: I am certain that many of us would choose this, but as parents to young children it's allowed! I'd ideally like The Boy to wake up at 8.30, chatter away to himself and then happily call us over the monitor. He'd patiently wait while we saunter in to see his happy, smiling face.
  2. A scrummy breakfast: Continental, buffet-style would be my choice here. Sat on the patio under the umbrella with the sun shining down from a brilliant blue sky and the water-feature trickling in the background.
  3. The Beach: Pop everyone into the car with all necessary equipment for fun in the sun and drive down to Rhossili on the Gower. Have a generally marvellous lunchtime and afternoon building sandcastles, splashing in the sea, flying kites, not getting sunburnt and no sand in any crevices please.
  4. Italian: Clicking the ruby slippers together and popping over to our favourite restaurant in Reading which no longer exists: Mia Beni. I would like the Tagliatelle Fiorentino (this version was cream, spinach and blue cheese), followed by coconut sorbet, and a rather stunningly gorgeous Chianti to accompany. The Boy would have been escorted home by nana, who also had ruby slippers by the way.
  5. The Theatre: click again and off to the Haymarket to view the wonder of Christine and Raoul's devotion thwarted by the evil, but desperately lonely Phantom. Final click of the ruby slippers and home to bed with a night that sees The Boy sleeping through without any teething pain.

Please?

Yes I have the song going through my head, but the Children in Need version not the Lou Reed version.

5 Things That Make You Feel Good

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I have been tagged by two lovely people in the past 24 hours; the original author Scottish Mum, and by Jennie at NairnNicuJournal. Seeing as though two of them have tagged me now, I'd better have a go!

The rationale behind the blog-hop is this: "I have seen lots of posts about what we struggle with, or things that we like to do, and I’d like to find out a bit more information about all of you. This is my way of doing it. I am looking forward to visiting some of you on the blog hop.”

Unfortunately, she's been cruel and set rules! I hate rules! Especially when they rule out things that I was going to choose! Ho-hum!

What you cannot choose.  The Rules are Simple

We all know that blogging/facebook/twitter is in our arena of what we like to do, so I am going to rule them out as one of the 5 that you can post about. They really are not very girly. Likewise, phones, computers, ipads are all out of the running. I am challenging myself to this, as I am really not a girly girly type of person, and I want to find that within myself. It’s not all about power suits, filofaxes, ipads and designer phones. If you want to pass this along, pick bloggers that you want to find out more about, and challenge them to write up their 5 secret passions that make them feel good. The idea is to lift our spirits this week. The fact that there is a linky added, just makes it all the more worthwhile in doing.

See? That's completely screwed it up for me: I was going to choose my blog, my phone, twitter, and my iPod. Quite frankly, bugger!

So having thought long-ish and hard-ish about it, I have come up with these as my top 5:

  1. The Boy: Simple really. He makes me feel good because he makes me happy, one look at his little face fills my heart with joy and happiness, and an overwhelming realisation that he is my purpose in life. I know that's corny, don't worry I'll balance it out!
  2. Spring and the approach of Summer: Glancing out the kitchen window and realising that the sky is blue and cloudless. Oh and look, the plants that have laid dormant all monochrome Winter are shooting. Popping out for a walk up to town rather than driving, feeling the sun on your face and having to take your coat off because actually it's quite warm.
  3. Chocolate and cheese: Not together, that would be grim! Basically any chocolate but preferably milk or white. Or mint. Or dark. Or orange. You get the picture. As for cheese; yum! I'm currently sat here eating cheddar on crackers with apple chutney, and Le Roule on wheat-crackers. Yum!
  4. Going out for the day with my hubby and The Boy: I love the Sunday Outing. They should be resurrected big time. We do try and make the effort to get out for a few hours and have a little outing as a family on the weekend. I can't wait for the weather to improve so we can pop to the farm centres and adventure parks around the area. And of course, the south Wales beaches and make sandcastles all day long!
  5. Reading: I'm not even going to pretend to be a 'War and Peace' girl! I am talking Belinda Jones (my favourite), Jill Mansell, Katie Fforde and Sophie Kinsella (but not the Shopaholic books, can't stand them). They take me out of myself for half an hour, and Belinda Jones novels in particular are invariably set in a fabulous location, which has quite often dictated our holiday locations. Hubby groans inwardly when he sees me reading another one of hers. However since having The Boy, our holidays are limited to this country, so she needs to write one set in Bognor or it's not happening anymore!

So that's it, I've finished waffling. I would like to tag the following people because I love their blogs and want to know something different about them!


Sleep-deprived phonecalls

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The Moiderer has a rather fantastic competition going at the moment with a rather fabulous prize that I know I could use! I don't know how she's done it, but she has!

"Pampers are offering an hour's consultation with Wendy Dean, their sleep expert, as a competition for my readers. The consultation could be face-to-face or over the phone depending on the location of the prize winner. The winner will have the opportunity to seek advice on helping them get their little one to sleep, tailored specifically to them."

Seriously, how has she landed that one?! I am up for entering it, I bet you will be. In order to do so, you need to:

"post on the Linky the story of the worst thing you have done in your sleep deprived state (frankly I need something to make me feel better about my car accident!)"

Mine is not a #badnightcoffeeclub mummy story, it stems from teenage years. Here it is:

The background to this story is that my childhood home was on the corner of a block. Behind our house, and taking up the bottom half of the block, was a L-shaped block of flats which was mostly inhabited by old dears. The other essential piece of information is that as my mum had been a home-help for a time, she knew many of these residents. She'd also been a hairdresser and used to do their perms, or do a bit of shopping. She set up a fruit & veg co-operative too. My dad was a car mechanic and a very practical DIY-er. So you get the picture that between the pair of them, they were like a little community resource? The phone would often ring with requests of "can you come & change my wheel?", "I can't reach the lightbulbs to change them, please can you help?", "Is there any chance you can buy me some eggs when you pop down town later please lovey?". My brothers, sister or I would often be despatched to whichever flat to help out if it was a minor job. We all enjoyed it.

Ok so… oh God I'm so ashamed to even write this! One of these lovely old dears was a real poppet called 'Miss Phillips'. Yes that's her real name, she's long-gone and didn't have any children, I'm not losing anonymity by telling her name. She was late 80s, rotund, proper old-school manners and charm. Fair to say, I was quite fond of her. She often called me 'Florence', not my name, but I was young and went with it.

One day, early in the morning, and I mean really early – 5am, the phone rang. My bedroom was next to the living room and I stumbled through to answer it. Now you need to understand that until my eyes are open, I am not properly awake, and it takes a long time for my eyes to open. I fumbled for the phone and gruffly muttered something that sounded like "hello" down the line.

Dear, lovely, sweet, Miss Phillips proceeded to put in a normal, everyday, mundane request. I never knew what it was because I wasn't awake enough, but I do know it wasn't life threatening. I replied and put the phone down. I went back to bed, and sleep, like everyone else in the house.

(Oh God, I've got butterflies admitting to this!)

Later that day, my mum asked me who had been on the phone that morning. I told her no-one  had rung. She patiently explained that yes, the phone had rung and I had indeed answered it. I thought for a second and my blood ran cold. Mum looked at me and repeated the question "Who was it?" but this time she also asked "What did you say?". At that stage I did not use vulgarities infront of my mother, so had to provide her with an edited version. But I can tell you now, that poor, innocent Miss Phillips got told "Oh for f***'s sake it is 5 o'clock in the bl**dy morning! Bl**dy phone back later like normal s*dding people do!"

My darling mother smoothed things over with the old dear by telling her it was a wrong number, and she was fine with me afterwards; I think she was developing memory problems. However, she never phoned again, and to this day I will not answer the phone until I'm sat up in bed with my eyes open.

(So ashamed!)

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