A strange question to pose four days into a two week Caribbean holiday, I grant you. One I asked though during a lull yesterday morning when I briefly pondered wandering out on to the balcony, grabbing a cushion as I passed the pile, and plonking myself down for half an hour in the early morning sun. I then thought better of it and put the kettle on. As I drank my
Exploring
Amsterdam The ultimate guide
I thought I’d written about Amsterdam several times…..apparently not! Amsterdam is a lovely place to visit, and if you’re lucky enough, as I was for 18 months, it is a lovely place to live as well. The old part of the city is arranged around several horseshoe canals – study your map to find out where you’re REALLY going and you could save yourself a long walk or an expensive taxi
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Nurturing
Pistachio ice cream for National Ice Cream Month
This is my favourite pistachio ice cream, just in time for National Ice Cream Month This weekend sees the end of National Ice Cream month. Quite possibly my favourite month of the year, I am sure you will agree. We have just come back from a week in Italy where we consumed our own body weight in ice cream over the six days, in fact on one day Jonnie
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Musings
Dear parents with children home over the summer
I see your Facebook posts or tweets where you are tearing your hair out because you have children home over the summer holidays. That was me a few years ago but my children are older now, can all drive, and only one is still in education. So I have been there. I have done summer holidays. And Easter. And Christmas. And half terms. I
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How to create and maintain garden borders with Wickes
When we bought our house ten years ago we had a list of “must haves”. Five bedrooms. A kitchen big enough to put a table in so we could eat in there. A separate living room / play room for the kids. A garden big enough for a hot tub. The list wasn’t endless but it was quite extensive and it took us a while to find
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Exploring
Camping Fabulous
Camping Fabulous
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Musings
Embarrassing outfits or ahead of my time
When I think back to my teenage years my memories are littered with ridiculous outfits. The worst offender is a pair of burgundy knee length “pedal pushers” (the term thankfully doesn’t even exist anymore and nor to those ridiculous trousers) that my granny made for me. Teamed up with a little blouse with a burgundy ribbon, and burgundy lace up shoes. I looked like a right idiot.
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Exploring
Five Most Beautiful Small Towns In Europe
Five Most Beautiful Small Towns In Europe When it comes to visiting Europe, most people spend all of their time focusing on the major cities, as opposed to going off the beaten path. You can save money on your journey to these secretly awesome destinations or your luggage and necessities by using coupons from Discountrue.com – there’s many popular shops and services such as JCPenney or Expedia, so you’ll find
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Exploring
Window Wednesday — Orvieto Duomo
Quite how we ended up in Orvieto we still aren’t sure. Mr B had suggested Ostia which I had mis remembered and said “It’s Orti something” when Jonnie asked where we should go the following day. Google produced Orvieto and once Jonnie had read the Wikipedia page for the town we were sold. It was just under a two hour drive from Camping Fabulous where we are staying with
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Exploring
Alternative beach activities
It might strike you as a bit odd but last year when we visited Barbados we didn’t spend a single day on the beach. Not one. When I think about it now it does sound odd but at the time it didn’t feel odd. You see, we aren’t the “lying on the beach” type of family. We all burn. We all get bored quickly and it somehow
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Musings
Is this how we should use social media?
It is safe to say that social media has changed my life. Without it this blog wouldn’t exist because it started from Twitter. Without social media we wouldn’t be packing for a week away next week on what is known as a “press trip”. Time away arranged via a travel company (in this case Canvas Holidays who are arranging accommodation for us in Italy which we are
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Musings
The kitchen appliance you can’t live without
I don’t mean the small things like the kettle (or in my case the toaster, tea maker, coffee machine, waffle maker or Thermomix. Blimey I am not sure I could live without any of them). I mean the bigger things, the “white goods”. Beko recently commissioned a survey to find the kitchen appliance people couldn’t live without and a resounding majority said the fridge freezer. My knee jerk