July 1, 2017 - Actually Mummy

Style: A Swimsuit I’m Happy to Show Off in

February 1, 2018July 25, 2017

Right. Today, I am going to be a swimsuit model. I recently did a “I’m 50 and I don’t care who knows it, look – I can still look good in cool clothes makeover post,” and people were very nice about it. So I thought I’d dabble in a few more fashion blogger-style posts, and have jumped right in at the deep end, quite literally, with a swimsuit. No, I haven’t dropped 2 sizes and had a boob job (although if you’d like to comment along those lines I won’t complain). Nor have I taken leave of my senses. I …

Why teenagers need you more, not less as they grow up

May 8, 2021July 19, 2017

Parenting teenagers - they need you more, not less than toddlers

When you’re in the thick of looking after your young child, and someone tells you teenagers need you more than toddlers, you laugh. But here’s why it’s true…

A Beach and Inflatable Play Park at Lee Valley

September 23, 2021July 15, 2017

If you’re planning your diaries for the school summer holidays, you might want to include a visit to the Lee Valley White Water centre. Just 5 minutes from the M25 in Hertfordshire, this top notch white water sports centre was built for the Olympics, so it’s probably the best place in the UK for canoeing or rafting adventures. (You can see my white water experiences over on Space In Your Case). But the water isn’t the main reason you’ll want to go this summer. Unless you have older kids with a fancy for it. Lee Valley White Water have installed …

5 Different New York Trips You Must Do in Your Lifetime

March 19, 2020July 11, 2017

Try and visit the crown at the Statue of Liberty on one of your New York Trips

There isn’t just one New York. New York is not the trip of a lifetime. For my 50th birthday I took my family to celebrate in New York, and it was a real eye-opener. You see, I’d never been, and always wanted to. It’s iconic, one of those cities that just has to be done at some point in your life. But I came back realising that I haven’t yet ‘done’ New York. I haven’t even scratched the surface. And so already I’m planning my next trip. And my next. All of them will be different. The 5 New York …

Travel: Are you Safe from Carbon Monoxide on Holiday?

July 11, 2017July 10, 2017

I’ll never forget, shortly after I’d been camping for the first time with my young family, reading about a child who had died, sleeping in her tent, while her parents enjoyed a barbeque outside. We’d had a fun-filled weekend with good friends, packing our children off to bed, then sitting out by the fire drinking cider and tracking the stars. When you go on holiday with children there are all sorts of new dangers that you prepare for, but you never imagine that your kids might die in their sleep, because of a faulty appliance or log fire. That’s what …

Weekend Fun at the Thorpe Park Shark Hotel

July 8, 2017

What are you doing this weekend? With the thermostat set to scorching, my thinking is that this will quite possibly be the only weekend of the year when I can tolerate the soggy bottom of a log flume, so I think we will go to Thorpe Park. Is it just me who has a love-hate relationship with the water rides at a theme park? Love, love, love the rush of shooting down into that pool of water, being sprayed by onlookers, and caught by waterfalls as we spin down rapid rivers. But absolutely hate with a seething kind of resentment …

Lucky Gecko: a subscription box that encourages children to think differently

May 8, 2021July 6, 2017

You know when your child comes out of school every afternoon, and you ask him what he did that day, and he replies “Nothing much.”? Of course, you know he doesn’t mean it. You know he did the usual, literacy and maths, maybe some PE. He might even have done some science, and it will trickle out of him under your feet as you cook tea later. What’s really going on when he delivers his stock 3.15 answer is a need to switch off from the routine of the classroom. And if yours is one of those children who is switched off …

10 Things you should Never Say to a Diabetic if you Value Your Life

April 9, 2019July 5, 2017

Devices and medicines used for managing blood sugar

In our three years living with Type 1 diabetes I’ve learned a fair bit about myself. Not just my capacity for complicated maths in the middle of the night after a bottle of Prosecco; nor my propensity for hurling my diabetic child into every potentially dangerous adventure, just to prove a point. No, my biggest lesson has been patience. My previously unsuspected ability to smile and nod in the face of extreme provocation. And before we go any further, let me say that I have made at least three of these mistakes myself, in a previous life. So this is …