Category: Family Time

The ‘airy fairy’ promise, the ‘rash’ promise, the late night ‘on a promise.’ From the colloquial to the world renowned promise, we have all come across our fair share.
Promises can be both passive – I promise never I will never be late again, please don’t be angry at me and aggressive – I promise you that you will be sorry if you leave me waiting here for you, you just wait and see!

A ‘Rash Boon’ or a ‘Blind Promise’, dating back to folklore tales where a promise is to be indebted for a reward is often quickly made without hearing what the request is. Normally this would be for the impossible love of a woman whom men will quickly pledge to do anything for in return…suffice to say that this never seems to end well. Not much changes over the years!

Fairy tales will lead us in the direction of seeing where a promise ends. Will the evil villain stay true to type and double cross the pure heroine? Will the handsome prince return to his kingdoms with the fair maiden as his bride? The more traditional tale having the moral clear for us to see. These are read with the hopeful intent that they will lead our youngsters on the right path. Just before bed, knowing that honestly will help in their quest to become prince or princess of their land – or their very own small box room in the case of our youngest.

But do they really take this in or is there an innate nature over nurture principle at work here which no amount of prince charming chiseled perfection will be able to dampen.

Tonight I had a great example, the situation and conversation went like this….

I heard a crash from the lounge – I entered and there was ‘G’ our 7yr old standing there with a piece of the ceiling chandelier in his hand. At his feet, bright orange football.

“What have you done?” I said,

‘Nothing mummy, it wasn’t me,’ he replied, all wide eyed.

“But you’re the only person in here darling and there’s a blow up football there which you are not allowed to have inside.”

‘I know mummy but I promise it wasn’t me, it just happened – on its own!’

“G, I’m not happy about this and you know I don’t like lying.”

‘I know mummy, but it wasn’t me – anyway don’t get angry and lets just “put it behind us” it won’t happen again.’

Now the thing is G is not a huge liar but he sometimes has a burning self preservational need to get out of things. I’m curious to know more about where the saying that a promise is made to be broken comes from. They often do get broken, either with forethought and intent or with a naivety of a child stumbling through the their first years.

Promises and lies have such a close path, its no wonder that they sometimes cross over with each other.

I surmise and hope that it is as basic urge in some that using the ‘promise’ in whatever form is used as a short term gain rather than anything more sinister.

I’d love you to subscribe to my blog so that you’ll be updated on each new post. You can do so here:

Little G who’s 7 now is an eager beaver when it comes to helping around the house and in the garden. He is also desperate to go into the world of blogging with videos. Now many of the seasoned pros will know it by its cool name but I had to undergo the humiliation of my eldest ‘M’ who’s ten, languishing on the sofa, glued to YouTube saying ‘oh muuuuummm it’s “vlogging”, don’t you even know what it’s called.’

Right! so after I had thrown his second-hand phone out of the window and chirped manically triumphantly ‘oh darling thank you for putting me straight,’ off I popped out to the back garden to give it a go with ‘G’.

We love our plants and even though none of us (me!) are particularly green fingered, we love rescuing the dying plants reduced down in the supermarkets to silly pence when no one has gone out and given them a bit of water, or they’ve been forgotten at the back of the shelves.

‘G’ was excited and without further ado, here is his 30 seconds debut vlog blog thingie!

What I need to do is master the whole art of YouTube so that I can edit out all the bits and bobs I can see lying around in the garden and also not have the words over little G’s head. But as he said to me the other day – ‘mummy, did you have YouTube when you were little in the olden days’ ahhh bless!!!

Thanks to Karen from Two Tiny Hands who inspired me to put together this little piece as she is encouraging kids to get involved for her linky #abrandnewday. It gave me the little push I needed to take the step with the kids and the video.

A couple of examples of our little offerings.

How have you got on gardening with the kids? I remember when the boys were little that I used to spend more time taking the soil out of their mouths than putting it into pots.

I’d love you to subscribe to my blog so that you’ll be updated on each new post. You can do so here:

We’ve come away on our hols to have a little break…..my youngest boy G who’s 7 is now so grown up that when he’s trying to be deadly serious and explain anything, he now has to end these sentences with “true fact”! rather triumphantly. So, in great G fashion

True Fact Number 1:

I’m an awful mother as I’ve taken my boys out of school for three days during term time. I must be awful because a headmaster being interviewed on  Good Morning Britain said I was. Piers Morgan told him he was barking and Suzanna Reid tried to edge her knee away from Piers’s  wandering hand placements. The only giveaway sign bieng Piers’s wink of the eye in the headmasters direction. With all that going on I’m not too sure I’m that bad.

True Fact Number 2

We arrived in the beautifully hot country of Spain, yippie. We always have a week in May away and another longer time in the summer with a different theme. Our hotel is amazing, it’s our 3rd year running here. People might raise an adventurous eyebrow and think why oh why would you do that. Easy peasy, because it works! The hotel is great, there is the beach, there are pools, the hotel is spotless and there is a free drop-in kids club ALL DAY!

True Fact Number 3

Yesterday we had our first proper motor boat experience around Malaga Marina and out on the open sea. I’m not a fan of boats but I went with the consensus and swallowed hard and skipped aboard with a beating heart and bile rising. To my surprise it was great! Photos taken with me  with the captains hat on, sneaky little drinkies and the wind in my hair and I was right in the spirit of things. The boys were WELL BEHAVED so it was great. Actually I think rewind to the sneaky little drinkies, add 30 degrees hot sun, stir in the fact it was daytime drinking = the boys ‘appeared’ WELL BEHAVED!

True Fact Number 4

I get to practice my very rusty Spanish which I love to do. In a time and place long ago – ok not that long ago but long enough – I spoke it every day in South America for a couple of years. That’s not the case now. Now it’s on my hols or with Spanish speaking people who I randomly come into contact with through work or play in England. I have to force my very colloquial accented Spanish on people here and when they reply in English I have to insist that I torture them into listening to me as I need the practice.

True Fact Number 5

This is the best true fact and it’s that all of this holiday is also spent with my mum. Every year since my boys have been born we’ve had a weeks holiday abroad with mum. It’s amazing and we all love it. The best and most important person to remember to pack as far as we are concerned is nanny! That’s one of the reasons why this hotel has been perfect for the last 3 years. The personal service of a complimentary car (no, we’re not loaded) that will pop mum and us down to the beach and pick us up so there isn’t too much walking involved. Everything’s on one level. She and us are taken care of and the boys get to splash around in the pool with their nan. Mum wouldn’t fly on her own now and I don’t blame her, so she gets to keep travelling and more than that, we get the pleasure of travelling with her. She has the patience of a saint and the boys wouldn’t think of playing her up anyway. The boys can’t imagine spain without nanny and nor could I.

This is what makes us happy…..True Fact!

I’d love you to subscribe to my blog so that you’ll be updated on each new post. You can do so here:

I went on a wonderful trip recently to Bavaria with my partner to his daughter’s wedding. You may of read here and here about my anxiety around flying and then the emotional poem I wrote about my other half while at 32000 feet! Its amazing what a rush of hormones can do to a woman! Anyhow, I digress….. The wedding itself was just beautiful, full of lovely people, gorgeous weather and a calm relaxed atmosphere with no drama. There is definitely something to be said for having a small wedding with just your nearest and dearest being part of it.

As I was just there for the weekend we planned on taking a trip here to Chiemsee (pronounced to my brit ear as ‘kiemsee’) It’s a beautiful big freshwater lake in Bavaria. It’s sometimes known as the Bavarian Sea. It’s massive, with a shoreline of 64KM (40miles). We drove down from Rosenheim which took about half an hour and took us through very green and pretty countryside.

I wanted to share some of the photos of this pretty lake and also the island of Fraueninsel (aka Frauenchiemsee) which we visited by taking a short ferry trip of about 10 minutes.

The scenery was amazing and this was the view from the ferry on the journey from the mainland shore to the island.

One of the many boat jetty’s on the island of Fraueninsel. I’m so pleased with how this picture came out considering it was taken on my phone. I’m normally just snap happy but this has surprised me.

The sight as you come into dock on the island. There are 3 islands on the Chiemsee in total. Fraueninsel is also known as the ‘womans island’ due to a being a Benedictine convent being situated there.

This is a 1000 year old tree on the island. It now has a small fence around it to protect the roots from the effects of the footfall of all the visitors.

Here’s the bell tower which really does stand out and is very impressive.

Everything there is very clean and tidy and apparently it’s home to around 300 people. I say apparently because we only saw about 3 of these, I think they were hiding behind ornate net in their windows. It was hard to see how you could live there peacefully because even though the visitors appeared respectful and pretty mild mannered, there were still a regular spill of tourists from the 2 or 3 ferries making the frequent trips. I can only imagine how the inhabitants feel when the last ferry trip departs and the island can breath a sigh of relief and settle for the night.

One of the main differences I felt between Bavaria and England was the amount of people on bikes and walking properly kitted up. I’m pretty used to it around my neck of the woods at home but this was quite a bit more in general. I’m glad I managed to get a glimpse of the island and to take a walk around it in full. It was a beautiful end to the weekend in Bavaria.

Have you visited Bavaria and explored?

I’d love you to subscribe to my blog so that you’ll be updated on each new post. You can do so here:

Well I’m packing, I’m packing first for the boys as they’re not coming with us on this little weekend trip. I’m packing for them to go to nannys house. I’m also packing for ‘us’ which is the other half and me. Making sure the wedding present for his grown up daughter is brought, wrapped and looks pretty of course. I’ve been packing a full aldi shop away at nannys house today so the boys have everything available and don’t get any ‘I’m starving’ strops that they can’t contain….unlikely at the best place in the whole world, but better to be prepared than not!

I’ve yet to start packing my own case.

I wasn’t going to post anything new on my blog this week as I thought I’d prioritise the trip. I wanted to leave everything at home pretty much sorted. I’d also decided to catch up on replying to people who had been kind enough and taken the time to comment on my posts. Oh and I wanted to read some other people’s blogs to see what was going on in blogging world. Then, squeeze in the fact that I had to work full-time I was definitely not going to post this week.

Until…..

I found myself sat outside of the school gates waiting for the boys to come bounding through. It’s started to surface, it started to grow….

I was terrified…..

You see, I’m afraid of flying, well anxious, nervous, in the sweaty palms sort of way. I’d rather not fly at all, yet I do, probably 2 or three times a year. I don’t let it stop me doing anything but I’d just rather not thank you. I don’t normally tell anyone, I just pretend I’m OK.

I wrote here last week about what I need now, ‘Wings’. Fairy, bird, whatever, I need to get my wings and get to grips with not letting this become a problem.

So, I’m trying a different approach this time, I’m blogging about it and in my head I am putting those anxious little thoughts onto the computer and diluting the impact on me. This is my pre-flight therapy…..

Do you think it will work?

Spring is here and our garden needs a bit of fairy dust sprinkled over it to resurrect it from the murky depths it’s currently in.

It needs to heal after months of being ran into the ground by the boys and their football over the splodgy winter period. My plan of having a lawn to rival that of a pitch perfect bowling green is about as realistic as having tea towels without any stains on them….not going to happen around here.

I like to dream though, I love to see all the amazing ideas in the glossy magazines of perfect peonies, dainty dahlias and ruby roses blooming around the edge of the afore mentioned lawn.  Pinterest is perfect for sitting in the evening and clicking through all the whacky ideas for the garden. As quick as I can tap it in, it’s jumping up before my eyes.

As I sat there today with my other half, with the sun shining down, I looked beneath me to the packed, hard, dark earth. It is devoid of a single blade in the centre and has a dark brown stain running up the middle of what should be the lawn. Whatever analogies you could form would be pretty much on the money…it’s not a nice sight! A few battle weary blades linger at the edges bowed in prayer, waiting for monday morning to come and the school bell ring so they have some peace.

With the sight of the skid marked lawn firmly in mind I am determined about setting a few goals in a bid to get somewhere nearer the dream. So, here goes…..

My spring action plan is as follows:

• Dig over the lawn
• Re-seed big brown stain
• Wait 2 weeks – even with the super quick growing lawn, I’ll need all of that
• Find indoor summer games for 2 lively boys-(gulp!)
• Ask the boys to be careful not to tread on the lawn……

Wait a minute…Ask the boys to do what!!?

Oh goodness, well let’s just re-think a mo……I can’t set myself up to fail, they do look so happy playing……..ok, how about….

My new spring action plan is as follows:

• Help tie the shoe laces of the football boots too many times a day to remember
• Be the look-out while they covertly nip into next doors garden to retrieve the ball
• Be ref, goalie and supporter – as needed or dictated by ‘the team’
• Enjoy every week that I can watch them laugh and play
• Ask the boys to stay on what was meant to be the ‘lawn’ and enjoy the fresh air

That is the feel good, no stress sort of plan that’s going to help the second half of this year run that bit smoother.