Lifestyle and Parenting blog based in Surrey.

Thursday 29 June 2017

Summer Hair: Balayage




Now I’m in my early (just) thirties I’ve tried the spectrum of hair shades, ranging from peroxide blonde in my uni days, to raven black, not forgetting the sun-in orange of my late teens! It's taken me some pretty bad hair decisions to come to the realisation that being my natural shade suits me best, funny that... This light bulb moment (which thankfully occurred a good few years ago now) is now being tested again with the cruel appearance of silver strands appearing in my mane, so I'm hitting the bottle again...

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Monday 26 June 2017

Midsummer - Swedish Style


We have big celebrations in most seasons; Bonfire night and halloween in the Autumn, Christmas & New Year in the winter and the sprig has easter. But there isn’t comparative festivities in the summer. The sandinavians however, don’t let this special time of year to pass with out a proper party. Midsummer, which was on saturday is where the Swede’s celebrate one of their most important times of year.
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Thursday 22 June 2017

Strawberry Fields


Childhood memories are the sweetest. My favourites are all holiday seasons, be it Christmas, Easter or Summers that seemed to be endless. 
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Sunday 11 June 2017

Our Father's Day Garden Picnic


Fathers Day does seem to be the poor relation of Mothering Sunday doesn’t it? The poor Dad’s seem resigned to the fact that if they get a card they’ve been spoilt, despite their partner getting farmer attention few months ago. I must admit, this is the case in our household, but this year I wanted to make a fuss of Gareth and make him released just how appreciate he is. As on actual Fathers Day next Sunday, we are having a BBQ at my sister’s house, this weekend we had a little picnic in our garden where Sophie gave her daddy his card and pressie.

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Thursday 8 June 2017

Summer Sundays with Joules

This post was written in collaboration with Joules.


I’ve obviously always loved my niece and nephew, holding both of them when they were only tiny bundles - I remember telling my sister how much I missed little George when I’d left him only 5 minutes earlier. But my love for them has grown even deeper since Sophie arrived two years ago.

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Sunday 4 June 2017

Girls Holiday - oh, with toddlers



I’ve been lucky enough to have had my fair share of girls holidays in my late teens and twenties. Lazing around in the sunshine, long lunches and evenings spent sipping rose were pure perfection. When my friend and I booked flights to Southern Spain, we were under no illusion that this ‘girls holiday’ was going to be a little different. With each of us bring our mini-me (Elsie is just one and and Sophie nearly exactly a year older) we knew who would be calling the shots.






The best friends to have are those with holiday homes (!) or in this case, parents with a holiday home. Combine this with Amelia only moving back to the UK recently from Spain and having plenty of close friends nearby to lend us all the baby kit and toys meant this really was a home from home. The holiday villa was in Villacana, a large complex of holiday homes with pools, restaurants and beach bars and was fabulously family friendly.


 We spent one of our days pool side (having loaded the pram and ourselves with all the toys we could carry!) - I didn’t realise that it is law in Spain for pools to be enclosed, which was perfect when you have a crazy two year old with no fear. So it meant when we were out of the pool I didn’t need to worried about her falling in, and when we were in in (with arm bands on!) I wasn’t worried about her making a bid for freedom!







My Dress Mango

That evening we were feeling brave and decided to venture to Pueto Benus for dinner. Typically getting ourselves and the girls ready took longer than planned, so we had two tired little ones by the time our food arrived, so we ate quickly and headed home, after a few speedy pictures of course. We had kept the girls on UK timing, so we were aiming to put them to bed at 8pm (UK 7pm) and this did mean that it felt like we were getting a lie in too!




On our second full day we decided to have a morning trip out to Marbella and eat at Villacana to reduce stress at bedtime. In the brilliant sunshine we walked down the Paseo Maritimo looking out to where the blue skies met the waves. We had struggled to find decent coffee, but that was all about to change as we sat down at Cappuccino, a beautiful cafe with ocean views. 


Coffees with flakey pastries rolled into a sushi lunch as Elsie had her nap and Sophie was happy being entertained by us both and her sticker book. We then ambled back along the Paseo and as the girls were on top form we popped into Zara to pick up a few bits - does it go without saying that Elsie and Sophie did better out of this shop than we did?!



Hat Sunshine and Shade

We totally nailed it on getting the girls to have a lunchtime nap at the same time, and we sat on sun chairs topping up our vitamin D in the garden and actually getting to finish sentences an have a proper conversation! The first day the girls tag-teamed their nap, so we didn’t get that time together, hence the smugness on take-two. The joy of the villa meant that we had so much room for the girls to play, and the toys to play with, so when the girls weren’t in sync, chilling out in the living space was perfect.







The gardens at Villacana are beautiful, bright pink flowers on brilliant white walls I couldn’t help myself snapping pics at ever turn and trying to get cute pictures of the girls in their sundresses - bribing with raisins!


  



Then all too soon, our mini break was over and it was time to head back home. We loved our 3 days in the sunshine, but both agreed that with the travelling stress - next time we would go for longer! Roll on the next trip!














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