I’ve always been obsessed with plants so it was no surprise to me at all that as soon as we bought our first house, I developed a real love of gardening. Gardening as a mother has always been tricky though. In my previous life I was able invest solid hours or days out in my patch of the outdoors, doing whatever I needed to. But that freedom of personal time is rare now and needs to be spread across more …
Category: Sustainable Life
Over three years ago now, I read about a concept called ‘Slow Parenting’ – a topic which I researched quite a lot and wrote a blog post about at the time. The premise is about not feeling the need to over-schedule our children and give them time to just ‘be’. It’s something that has stayed with me ever since then and an approach I have become more and more converted to since becoming a mother for a second time. With …
Since my last update at the start of March, our weekly routine that sees the girls going to nursery and me heading to work has become a bit more normal. After a couple of tougher nursery weeks during weeks three and four, Little Z got back into the rhythm and has seemed to enjoy her time there since. Her key worker has said that her personality is really starting to shine through and most afternoons when I collect her she …
It’s been six week since I went back to work and four of those have been doing my full three days in the office with the girls to look after at home on the other two. It’s gone far more smoothly than I had anticipated (to date…) but it has been quite a reality check, reminding me that keeping-up a job alongside small children is like tightrope walking whilst juggling plates: one unanticipated gust and I go crashing down, smashing …
Life when I wrote my last update feels like a world away now. I have just read it back to myself and the focus was all about preparing for returning work and the party for the Big 4. Yet those events have now happened and we are in the throws of adjusting to our new normal. I’ll be honest, I’m still coming to terms with the fact my Maternity Leave has ended. I’ve definitely got a huge wave of nostalgia …
I started an update on our eco activities about a bazillion weeks ago and have never finished it. It became long, unwieldy and something not even I wanted to read; which let’s face it defeats the point of the post since these posts are mainly re-read by me! So I’m breaking it down a bit. When I first started writing the original post, I felt like we hadn’t made much progress but in reality we have embedded some good changes. …
Sam and I were watching Mary Portas’ round-up of 2018 shopping habits the other night (What Britain Bought in 2018). One fact that she mentioned was that the average person spent £1000 a year on takeaways – about £83 per month. Some of the interviewees said they bought 2 – 3 every week. We were genuinely surprised that people buy-in food so often. Then the following morning the BBC had a headline article entitled “Children ‘exceed recommended sugar limit by …
Whenever I start writing my end of year summary, I always take a minute to read back over previous years. It is crazy to think that this time last year we were just building up to the arrival of our youngest family member. Fast forward 12 months and she is very much here, present and part of our family. I can obviously remember life before her but I can’t remember what it feels like. The last 12 months have been …
Time really does fly between these updates. It’s been almost a month since update #4 and now but I can’t really believe it. As always, life has been busy. But it’s been much less hectic in terms of travel. After several long distance trips over the last few months, this month we stayed at home and I was quite happy about that! In fact, when Sam went away for a few nights with work (more on that later), it seemed …
It feels like we’ve not made much progress in our quest to be a more sustainable household since I wrote my initial blog post on the topic. But I’ve had to remind myself that we’re playing a long game here and bedding in good habits is as big a success as any. Plus, when I really reflect, we have made some good steps forward. This post has turned out longer than I intended but I really want to capture all …
