Twenty four little hours

24 hours until I can be "just" Mummy again. "Governance, Risk and Ethics", it is you standing in my way. Game on.

I Like Driving in My Car + £25 Sainsbury's Voucher Giveaway

If you could drop everything, pack up your car and drive off into the sunset on a driving holiday, where would you go?

In seventeen days my exams will be over and I will be driving five hours north to Durham to attend a friend's wedding. Tiring aside, there is something quite lovely about driving with no strict plans to adhere to, able to stop off in a new town or city on a whim - all with the knowledge that there is a bed waiting for you when you finally reach your intended destination. Perhaps slightly less whimsical with a toddler in tow, but this shall be the first of many travelling adventures on which we will become better acquainted with our beloved British Isles. So much to see, so much to learn, let's go!

In association with Sainsbury’s Bank Car Insurance and the Family Blogger Network, I’m able to offer one reader a £25 Sainsbury’s voucher. Hooray!

So, how do you enter?

• Log in to Rafflecopter and enter the draw by leaving a blog post comment with your ideas for a favourite driving holiday destination. You can also enter by tweeting about this giveaway.
• The more times you enter, the better your chance of winning the £25 Sainsbury's voucher!
• Whether or not you're our prize winner, your favourite driving holiday destination ideas could also potentially appear in a future Money Matters Blog post.
• The winners will be chosen via Rafflecopter (which uses random.org) and announced on this page.
• The deadline for entering the giveaway is Wednesday 5th June. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What is the small print? 

• This giveaway is open to all readers in the UK.
• Entrants must have a UK address to enter. No bulk or third party entrants.
• The prize is non-transferable, and will be sent out from Sainsbury's Bank.
• The name and address of the winner will be passed to Sainsbury's Bank, but will not be used for marketing purposes.
• All entries may be featured on the Sainsbury's Bank Money Matters blog post without further payment.
• The winner will be contacted by e-mail, if they do not respond within 7 days another winner may be chosen.
• The winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter (which uses random.org) and announced on this page.
• Entries using any software or automated process to make bulk entries will be disqualified.

What did I get out of this?

 

I received a £25 Sainsbury's voucher for hosting this giveaway. I am hoping this will buy enough toys for the toddler to pacify him on the long, long journey. Wish me luck.

Monday Mischief: Bird Song

Location: Newport RSPB Wetland Centre

How can somewhere so noisy be so peaceful? A place filled with birdsong.

Grass, pathways, a cafe. Volunteers approach, but then retreat. I think my body language, as ever, may be a little bit 'OH MY GOODNESS DON'T TALK TO ME'. It works anyway. I am too busy talking to my toddler.

 

Reeds, water, play area. Toddler eyes light up. I am not going to lie - we spent all of our time in the play area. When you are nineteen months old your legs are stubby, your attention span short and birdwatching relatively impractical. But that does not mean that I should pass up any opportunity to surround my son with nature. 

I push him high on the swings as we listen to the birds, catch him at the bottom of slides and chase him around a boat. Yes, a boat. Grass underfoot and completely fenced in I can allow him to toddle further and further away from me. Peekaboo suddenly becomes a lot more interesting when one is allowed to genuinely hide...... BOO. Is it normal for a toddler to giggle so emphatically when made to jump out of their skin?

The reserve is free to visit and if you were going to wander around it, could take up your whole day. I picked up a leaflet and realised they also have a whole host of events planned throughout the year: guided walks, photography courses, children activity days. Ah, bliss. Even a 'dawn chorus walk' - while Elis would manage the hours involved, I am less convinced about his ability to stay quiet and not scare off any nearby feathered friends. One day. Until then, a teddy bear's picnic sounds more our kind of thing.

We purchased a cuddly blackbird on the way out; if you squeeze his tummy he sings a real bird song. What a wonderful way for a child (or adult) to learn the distinguishing songs of each bird. We stick with the blackbird and I resist the urge to buy a bird for which I don't know the song. But let us start simple - a blackbird; a bird that my little boy can spy on from the living room window, giggling as he cuddles his replica. One day he will have the whole set and be the one teaching me.

Until then we are going to play in the park and listen to our friend, the blackbird, singing his pretty song in the trees. 

Do you have a favourite bird?



I'm linking up with Country Kids. It is all about having fun outdoors; spending time away from screens and sofas and enjoying playing, crafting or learning outside anywhere from the garden to the beach. Stretching limbs and imagination and enjoying family time is important for us all.

A Nod to Nostalgia : In the Garden

Same garden, different toddler, twenty five years apart.

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Beach Baby

(May 2013 - Wembley Stadium & Barry Island; April 2012 - Kidwelly)

Just a brief reminder that yes, there was sunshine last week. I seem to have forgotten already. Elis placed his chubby toes into the sea for the first time. He ate raspberries, refused to part with his dummy and played with his new blue spade, which he hasn't put down since. He cuddles it. Like a teddy bear. (You remember how he takes wooden trains to bed, right?)

What didn't go down well were the events following; the eye drops that I had to squirt into his eyes four times a day to clear up conjunctivitis. I sat him down and opened up his prescription. Elis removed his dummy obligingly - be still my beating heart; no sweetheart, this isn't something tasty for you to guzzle down, now stare at me while I put this into both of your eyes.

Really?! There was only one way this was going to end. 

Hatred

.

.

.

.

(until the following meal time). 

I'm unconvinced whether any of the solution even went into his eyes. Cue thrashing child and a mother desperately squeezing the bottle from above and hoping for the best. I think perhaps the whole idea of eye drops is a ploy and that it is actually the excessive salty tears which clear out those ducts. Ponder this.

*

On a completely different note, everyone should make themselves aware of the fact that I have actually finished an item of crafting. Ok, so it was just a little flower - but you are clearly underestimating my strong and consistent ability to give up on yarn-based activities. Elis has a whole range of half knitted cardigans. The front-left side of the latest was really beautiful. It's a shame the same can't be said for the non-existent right. Knitting frustrates me. I still wince when I think of the moments spent trying to regather the copious number of dropped stitches, ending up in one big, unstructured tangle - definitely not part of the pattern. I used to do what any sensible person would do - take it to my mother to fix it.

*

By the way, I'm supposed to be studying. Somebody tell me to go and study. (Now we'll find out whether my Mum really reads this).

A Child's Imagination

I love Tintern.

Signs warning of badgers, tack shops with their rich scent of leather and antique book shops with out-of-print Enid Blyton adorning the window; I think I have fallen into my little piece of heaven, adjacent to the quietly meandering River Wye.

We visited the Old Station. We pulled up and gazed at the carriages; I am certain that I belong in a time filled with steam trains, ink wells and flowing skirts. I wonder into which decade Elis will feel he fits best.

A play area under the tree canopy, he recognises a swing set from twenty yards away now. Higher and higher and higher. We amble on and turn back along the river bank, say good morning to a blackcap and then venture further to greet the sheep. 

We are wizards in the forest and then sailors on the open seas. We look up at the steep hillside filled with trees to make sure we are not under attack by pirates. Mole hills are the swells in the ocean and a stick is his paddle. You are never too young or too old for such games - silently he watches and listens, but one day he will turn to me and inform me that it is his turn to steer the boat - and I will smile.

The stick accompanied us back to the car, and up numerous steps. This is bad terrain for buggy or boat and I winced like a girl as I stopped halfway, the realisation that Elis and his worldly goods are heavy and any retreat back down the steps would have been near enough impossible.

We made it, stick and all.

Now here we sit with full bellies, playing with blocks, building pyramids and mountains, or perhaps the Great Wall of China. Because we can. Because we are strong of mind and heart, and filled with imagination.

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." - Albert Einstein

Raison D'être

This weekend was filled with Wembley adventures; although to be precise we spent more time in the car than we did at Wembley. You were so relaxed and chilled it was a far cry from tonight,  I don't know what is in those eyedrops, but tonight's bedtime is brought to you by the letter... E (numbers). Did I confuse blueberries with gobstoppers?

You, the boy who hates having his face washed has unearthed some wipes (from where?!) and started cleaning both your face and mine. And with the third wipe... you are blowing your nose. With the seventy sixth, yes, that knee definitely needed a clean. Is it normal to sit and stare at your child in utter confusion so often as I do? 

But yes, Wembley...

***

Elis, you were so well behaved. You didn't cry. Not even when the interesting (yes, interesting) lady swooped down and grabbed you off my lap when we scored. You are the baby that was raised up like Simba when Mr Jolley put us 1-0 up, the baby that bobbed along to the chanting crowds, the baby that clapped when we won, but found the celebrations with the trophy too tiresome to stay awake for. You are the baby that sat amongst family and saw your club (yes, I have gifted them to you, be grateful it is now) get back into the Football League, history in the making Elis.

Your Simba moment, your first experience of crowd surfing, etched on my memory. I know she lent you a cuddly toy for the first quarter of an hour of the game - but I did not realise this was a down payment. Visions of you crowd surfing your way around the stadium flashed before my eyes....

Give me my baby back!

Ok, that may have been said in my head. My face probably indicated something similar though.

***

You provided car park entertainment as Grandpa taught you the finer points of driving.

This is how you hold the steering wheel; there are the hazard lights; yes, that is Shania Twain that you have now decided to play rather loudly; that lever does make water fly from the front of the car and soak innocent chatting bystanders.

However, the wiggling of the bum while moving the steering wheel - that is all you!

Oh and the incessant dinging noise which appeared every time we surpassed the 20 mph limit on the way home. That was all you too. Let it never be said that you are lax when it comes to safety.

***

There were multiple food based stops en route; we dined on the many delicacies of supermarket cuisine. Chicken, apricots, raisins, yoghurt, Pomm Bears. Yum. Such delights they were, that you decided to share them with us once again on the way home... #carsick.

***

Wembley day was also the day where I realised that you can now escape me. If I place you somewhere, it no longer means that is where you shall remain - as I see you ambling off through my camera lens.

Ah. Yes. You have legs. I forgot. COME BACK!

***

The actual game - very tense. The last ten minutes however, were out of this world. An eighty sixth minute goal. Four minutes of added time. Possibly the longest eight minutes in history?

Newport County are back in the football league, and you witnessed it Elis. Twenty five years coming, although your wait was a little briefer. I was coming up to my second birthday when we fell out of the league in 1988 and here you are just a few months behind me watching as the wrongs are righted. The club has achieved its raison d'être; it is a league club once more.

It's in your blood Elis George. It's as simple as that.