Christmas at Bluestone: Day 2
Seaweed Bath
My Tuesday began with a seaweed bath at The Well Spa. It was a really lovely atmosphere, walking down to the village in the morning. All the Christmas lights made it feel rather magical. I especially loved the lights on The Well Spa!
Christmas at Bluestone: Day 1
As is often the way at this time of year, there are lots of nasty bugs and viruses going around. I’ve managed to catch a lot of them, being unwell from the end of September until now (with the exception of only one week!) I’ve been particularly poorly over the last couple of weeks since we got back from Bluestone. Unfortunately, it’s put me behind with everything. My poor little blog has had hardly any attention. Just working and looking after Autumn has taken up all my energy!
Anyway, that’s enough whining. I’m excited because I can finally write about our lovely week at Bluestone, visiting Elftopia (Kingdom of the Elves) and seeing many of the things that Christmasland had to offer! I’ve been itching to write a diary of our week. It will be lovely for Autumn to look back on when she’s older!
A letter to my daughter at 14 months
Dear Autumn,
This month we’ve been busy bees! Speaking of which, one of your most favourite TV programmes is Maya the Bee and you love saying “Bee! Bee!” As the weather has turned colder, we’ve been staying indoors a bit more. However, we’ve still managed to get out and about exploring. You even went on your first holiday! Let’s take a little look at your month…
6 Highlights of our Christmas trip to Bluestone
We were recently invited for a midweek break at Bluestone, Wales. Pembrokeshire is such a beautiful part of the world and we’ve previously been on holiday there for our honeymoon and first anniversary/babymoon. I’ve heard wonderful things about Bluestone, so I was very excited. To add to the excitement, at this time of year, it transforms into Christmasland. There are lots of Christmas activities on, including Kingdom of the Elves which I’ve heard so much about. This year’s theme is a visit to Elftopia.
I want to blog in more detail about our week away soon, but first, here are my 5 top highlights!
Review: Childs Farm Skin and Bath Products
If you have a baby, chances are you may have heard of Childs Farm. Whilst I’ve tried out other great bathtime products, I’ve been itching to try out these products since Autumn was a newborn. I was delighted when I was approached with a lovely gift hamper to test out.
Autumn loves her bath time, so she’s always more than happy to be my little guinea pig when it comes to trying out bath products!
Meeting the Duchess of Cambridge with Family Action
Last Tuesday, Autumn and I both had what was probably a once in a lifetime experience. We were asked to attend a (non blog related) event with Family Action. The VIP guest was none other than our future Queen, the Duchess of Cambridge!
This was a very exciting prospect for me, as I’ve always followed her in the media and found her very likeable. However, I was also looking forward to helping Family Action to express various perinatal mental health issues and just how necessary their support is.
Our honeymoon and babymoon in Pembrokeshire
I’m so excited to have been invited to visit Bluestone for a midweek break this week! Let’s face it, babies are expensive and statutory maternity pay (SMP) isn’t much. As such, there’s been no way of affording a holiday this year. I thought the closest we were going to get was our three weekends away earlier in the year. In May we went to Birmingham to visit This Morning Live and The Baby Show at the NEC Arena. At the beginning of July, we headed up to Nottingham for me to attend Download Festival (I won tickets!) Then at the end of September we went to Manchester for BlogOn.
It was only the beginning of last week that I was looking longingly at photographs I’d taken of Pembrokeshire the last two years and reminiscing. I’m so excited that I’m able to go back this year! I thought I’d write a post about my visits in 2015 for Dave and I’s honeymoon and our first anniversary holiday/babymoon last year. We’ve visited many of the best attractions and places for tourists to visit in Pembrokeshire.
Review: UltraHeat Radiator from PlumbNation
We’ve finally got around to fitting a new UltraHeat radiator in our living room recently. As you may have read in older blog posts, I am desperately trying to get our living room decorated. My husband and I were lucky to get onto the property ladder at 20. Rather than getting a flat in good condition, we opted to buy a house in not as good a condition. Fast forward five years and the living room is still almost entirely in the state the previous owners (who had the house repossessed) left it in with bad paintwork, shoddy woodwork and laminate flooring in a terrible condition.
We’d probably have sorted it out by now if we hadn’t have got married or had a child, but I didn’t want plans for these important life experiences to be delayed by a room. Losing a few relatives made me realise that those were things I wanted to do sooner rather than later and that decorating could wait. However, we are trying to do things slowly, as time and money allow. One embarrassment has always been the large radiator leaning forwards off of its brackets underneath our windowsill. Not only that, but it was a nightmare to clean and things kept getting stuck down it.
When should you first take baby to the dentist? (+WIN)
So, when should you take your child to the dentist for the first time? There seems to be a lot of misinformation around about when you should take your baby for their first check up. Shortly before Autumn turned 6 months old, I went to a class at one of our local Children’s Centres. As well as learning about weaning, we learnt about dental care too. It turns out that where I’m based in Medway there’s a scheme where babies are given a Medway Smiles passport. It’s encouraged that they first go to the dentist between 6 and 8 months old.
Here’s some more information how to look after your baby’s precious teeth as well as a giveaway! The prizes you’re in with a chance to win will help you to protect those pearly whites.
A family day out at Sheffield Park
Sheffield Park in East Sussex is renowned for its beautiful autumn colours. I’d say it’s definitely one of the best places to see the autumn colours in the South East. A National Trust property, it boasts acres of landscaped gardens with park and woodland. October was a very busy month for us. I went back to work, I was under the weather for most of the month and it just generally seemed to whizz by. When we got to the beginning of this week, I realised that we hadn’t visited Sheffield Park.
Fortunately, I must have expressed this to my husband. On Thursday morning we went to drop off my car to the garage first thing. As he drove me back home through the country lanes, I gazed across the fog on the marshes and the gentle sunlight dancing on the frost in the fields. It was a beautiful morning made better by the fact that he then announced he’d taken the day off and was taking us to Sheffield Park!
