Remembering Childhood // Tattooed Lady With A Baby

It’s that time of week when another blogger is going to be sharing their childhood memories. This week’s Remembering Childhood comes from Louise at Tattooed Lady With A Baby.

Which decade were you born in?

The 80s.

Louise from tattooed lady with a baby

What is your earliest memory? How old were you?

Sitting in a yellow onesie in my high chair eating Weetabix, I was about 2 and a half I’d say.

What was your favourite toy at 5 years old? At 10?

My doll, called Catherine at 5, and at 10 it would’ve been my arts and crafts box, I was always making something.

Do you still have any toys from your childhood?

Read more

Me & Mine // A Family Portrait (May 2017)

I know I say it every month but… where does the time go? May seems to have just disappeared in the blink of an eye!

We did manage to fit in quite a few fun family days out though…

At the start of the month we went to SEA LIFE Blackpool as Toby’s treat for reaching the top of his reward chart. A couple of weeks later we took the boys to Brock Bottom for a picnic and a play in the river – it was a fab day out and one we’ll definitely be doing again.

We tried a few weeks without the reward chart but it seems Toby still needs it to keep him on the straight and narrow for now so he’s just completed another one and our next treat/reward trip is going to be to the zoo so keep an eye out for that one!

Towards the end of the month I went to Manchester to see Take That and then was back again a couple of days later for the Blog On blogging conference. And then this weekend it was my 39th birthday and we celebrated with a BBQ at my mum and dad’s house.

My dad took these Me & Mine pictures for us at the weekend. The weather was a bit grey in the morning but had brightened up by the afternoon and the boys had great fun running round the garden.

Me & Mine May 2017

Toby wasn’t quite in the mood for having his picture taken though Read more

Take That // A 24 year love affair

I was writing this post and editing the video on Monday 22nd May, when I heard there had been a bomb at the Manchester Arena, a place I had been just three days earlier. I’ve written my thoughts about what happened that night here.  I don’t know if posting this now is the right thing to do but my feeling is that we have to carry on and live our lives. And so I am…

Take That formed in 1990 when I was in year 7 at high school and they released their first album in 1992. I remember becoming aware of them when I was 13 or 14 but it definitely wasn’t cool to like them in my school.

But then a new girl came to my school and we became best friends. And I can remember one day when we admitted to each other that we actually quite liked Take That. When Babe was released in 1993 we were 15 and we sat in her sitting room listening to it on repeat for hours one night.

Mark Owen taken from very close up - Circus Tour 2009

I bought all their albums and videos of their tours and would watch them over and over again. Mark Owen was always my favourite, although I had a soft spot for Robbie too. Read more

Living Arrows 22/52 (2017)

We’ve had another fairly quiet week this week. Gabe’s sleep has been a bit all over the place – on Thursday night I only got four hours sleep after Toby woke up with a bad dream and then he woke Gabe up and I ended up not getting to bed until 2:30 am and Gabe woke up again at 6:30 am. But then on Friday night he slept from 8 pm until almost 7 am, and in his own bed even! It seems it was another one off though as the next night we were just back to normal wake ups.

Yesterday was my birthday so after Barry got up with the boys and I had a lie in we had a fairly quiet day at home before heading to my mum and dad’s for a BBQ. On Saturday Toby helped me make my birthday cake – he loves chocolate cake, and also loves purple so we ended up with a chocolate cake with purple butter cream that you can see over on my Instagram if you want to have a look.

Of course Toby’s favourite part was getting to lick the spoon after we’d made the cake batter!

Toby with a chocolatey face after licking the spoon while making birthday cake.

Toby and Gabe love playing in my mum and dad’s garden Read more

What Toby & Gabe Wore // Maxomorra pineapples

Maxomorra is a Swedish brand and I’ve featured it before in my What Toby & Gabe wore posts. They release new prints several times a year and to be honest I’m not that big a fan of a lot of them, which my bank balance is pleased about at least!

But at least a few times a year there’s a print that I absolutely love. Luckily Maxomorra produce so many different styles of clothes in each design that it’s easy to match the boys too. One of the recent prints that I loved was these robots – Toby and Gabe love them too but they weren’t so keen on posing for a photo!

No photos today mum - in Maxomorra robots

I didn’t come here to write about robots though, I came to write about pineapples… Read more

The changing face of Instagram // Microblogging

I started writing this blog three and a half years ago. It was intended as an online journal of our lives and that’s what it still is to a degree. Although I have been trying to write more in the last few weeks I go through periods when I write very little at all. But there is another place I write, and I write there almost every day. That place is Instagram and I suppose what I do there could be called microblogging.

Instagram is a funny beast. When I first started using it, posts were shown in chronological order, the whole point was that it was ‘instant’ – people posted pictures of what they were doing right at that moment. If you were so bold as to post a picture that hadn’t been taken just then there was even the #latergram hashtag to use.

But over the last six months or so it has changed. And I have changed the way I use it too. As Instagram is owned by Facebook it didn’t take long before a similar algorithm to the one which determines what you see in your Facebook news feed was also introduced on Instagram. Instead of seeing posts in chronological order, the Instagram algorithm now uses a combination of factors such as previous content you’ve liked, engagement on posts and things or people you’ve searched for to decide what it is going to show you.

As a result fewer people are now using Instagram to post pictures of life as it happens. There are more ‘curated’ feeds that have a theme or post to a schedule. And Instagram has also become a place for brands and ‘influencers’ to make money so there are a lot more adverts and paid for posts now too.

So how have these changes affected how I use Instagram? Read more

Remembering Childhood // Wafflemama

It’s that time of week when another blogger is going to be sharing their childhood memories. This week’s Remembering Childhood comes from Laura at Wafflemama.

Which decade were you born in?

I’m an 80s baby!

What is your earliest memory? How old were you?

My earliest memory I think is when I was 3 going to look at a new house and then at nursery school, telling my nursery teacher we had just moved house and my Mum laughing saying actually it was a few months ago.

What was your favourite toy at 5 years old? At 10?

At 5 years old probably my Popples toy, it was purple and I loved it! At 10 it was probably the fashion wheel that I borrowed off a girl up the road. I should probably have given it back by now!

Laura from Wafflemama as a child

Do you still have any toys from your childhood?

Read more

Manchester // My thoughts

This wasn’t the post I was planning to publish today. I am not usually one for social commentary or current affairs. I always feel like I don’t have a right to comment on things that have not directly affected me but these words have been swimming around my head all day.

The post I was intending to publish was about how I’ve been a Take That fan for 25 years and how much I enjoyed seeing them at the Manchester Arena on Friday night.

And then last night, as I was editing video of the concert my husband came downstairs and told me the news. There had been an explosion, at a concert which was full of children and families, people were dead. I was shocked, and saddened but initially there was hope that maybe it had been some sort of tragic accident and not another bomb, another terrorist doing something unthinkable in the name of religion.

But by the time I got up this morning it had been confirmed that it was a bomb, a lone suicide bomber. Whether he was acting alone or as part of a wider organisation isn’t yet clear. What is certain though is that 22 people are dead, another 59 injured in hospital. Among the dead, an 8 year old girl. It is just incomprehensible that someone could target children and families on what should have been an incredible night out.

Three months before I started university in 1996 the IRA blew up Manchester city centre. Somehow nobody died that day but I spent the next three years living in a city slowly emerging from scaffolding and boarded up windows. Manchester has recovered from terrorism once before and I’m sure it will again. You only have to look at the news, at social media, to see how the people of the city; the paramedics, police, taxi drivers, bus drivers and all the other people who were there last night and today came together and did whatever they could to help.

What happened last night is senseless. I will never understand what these terrorists are hoping to achieve with their bombs and their seemingly indiscriminate campaign of violence and killing.

The events of the last 24 hours have affected me more than I expected. I am normally resolutely immune to tragedy. I see terrible things on the news and I think ‘well, that’s terrible’ and then I get on with my day. But today is different.

It was only four days ago that I was there, in that arena. It could so easily have been me that didn’t come home to my family after what should have been a night of fun and enjoyment. And I cannot comprehend how the families of those that were killed, or seriously injured must be feeling. Tonight I cried for the lives lost. The lives of people I didn’t know, and never will.

But I refuse to be scared. We cannot be scared. We must continue in our lives, make the most of what we have.

My boys are too little to be aware of what has happened this time. I have not needed to have a conversation about good and evil. But there will be other times to come I’m sure, when I will need to reassure my boys. Tell them that no matter what happens there will always be good people and bad people.

And that they should always look for the good people.

Be one of the good people.

My thoughts tonight are with the families of those that didn’t come home.

Stay Strong Our Kid - my thoughts on Manchester

Living Arrows 21/52 (2017)

Since my last Living Arrows post we’ve had quite a quiet week but then I had a very busy weekend. On Friday I went to Manchester to see Take That (which was amazing), and stayed over night. Then yesterday I was back in Manchester for the BlogOn blogging conference.

While I was away daddy was in charge and on Friday night Gabe treated him by being awake from 9:30 pm to 3 am then getting up for the day at 6 am. Seriously, I have no idea how he even managed to stay awake for that long!

Yesterday was much more successful by all accounts and the boys had a fun trip to the park in the morning. Gabe looks like he was really racing here (and I think he could really do with a haircut!)

Gabe playing at the park

Toby has been absolutely brilliant lately Read more