Favourite Posts of the Last 12 Months - No.1

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So, what was my Number One pick?

The One Where It All Started Of Course...

From August 18 2011 - my first ever blog post :

A Blog Is Born :

I had coffee - yes an actual sit down with hot liquid for half an hour - l.u.x.u.r.y - with a friend that I haven't seen for a while a few weeks ago.  In the midst of catching up she told me that although we hadn't been in touch for some time had been watching me from afar. What she said next made me waste - a rather overpriced I must say - mouthful of caffeine, when I spat it out in shock mixed with laughing.

She said that she didn't know how I did it.

"Do what?" I asked a little perplexed.

She replied "Make it look so effortless.  You're always upbeat and energetic.  Out and about with the children.  Been here and there.  Done this and that.  You keep your weight down, look well turned out - it's actually really annoying."  I sat taken aback for sometime.  Thinking about what she said, and cleaning up the coffee, I decided to shattered the clear illusion she had of my life.

I explained that the day starts at about 5am when my eldest little cherub decides that it is time to be wide awake.  After the first round of changing and Peppa Pig I make very strong filter coffee to kick start the day.  Then I try and get any tidying up done before Cherub No. 2 opens his eyes and starts his wake of destruction (I am hoping it is an 18 month old thing).

Next, breakfast (or any snack / drink / meal) is made with a screaming toddler attached to my leg.  You learn to persevere and get it done anyway. I then have about 10 minutes of 'quiet' whilst the aforementioned snack / drink / meal is devoured.  Then it's time for 'Entertainment Committee' i.e. 'me' to be back on call again. If I attempt to wash up, again, it is done with ones screaming toddler attached to my leg.

A day when we get out is a luxury.  Otherwise it consists of 18 hours of chasing around after a very energetic and stubborn toddler.  Whilst, trying to clear up - which to be honest in the school holidays is like trying to put out a forest fire with a water pistol - and answering the same question (question of the week we like to call it) repeatedly with my eldest.

Now personal appearance.  Well, I have had 18 months to perfect the '30 seconds allowed to wash and dress' rule.  Once you master it, it's pretty simple. Staple items such as jeans, vests and flip flops you can't go wrong with.  I have long hair.  Every single day gets scraped up into a messy knot - no time for brushing it, let along washing it.  Luckily this seems to be passing for 'trendy' this season. 

As for the weight, my buttocks don't grace a seat from 5am - 8pm so that has probably got that issue sorted out.

"Well," she said chuckling "You're a bit like a duck aren't you.  Gliding along, breeze gently ruffling your feathers to the outside world, but underneath you are busy paddling like a crazy person."   I told her she should see the sweating mess that passes for me after chasing the youngest around my house trying to dress him in the mornings.

After we laughed and I left for my apparent perfect existence that never was, I thought that I might try and start documenting life as I know it.  The children when they are older will have a 'novel of childhood' to remember and perhaps see it from my eyes, which you can never do until you have children of your own.

And so - Lynsey The Mother Duck - was born.



Favourite Posts of the Last 12 Months - No.2

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From August 2011 Archives

The Great British Day Out!

The month is August, J1 is on school holidays and it's time for those lovely summer days out. But this is Britain, and what does that mean? You have a day out arranged or an event to go to then be prepare to get...S.O.A.K.E.D!

Yes, many a day trip out to the seaside was had in my childhood.  The photographs are generally of us sitting huddled as close as our deckchairs would allow, beach towels wrapped tightly round our shoulders, hair all blown wildly in a left or right direction, squinting at the camera as the sand whipped in our eyes. Those are the memories and they are happy, nostalgic ones.

Hence why I insist on inflicting the same memory building experiences on to my own children! The plan usually goes something like this; I write on the calendar that we are having a lovely family day out.  Prior to the day out I go and buy all the food for the picnic and then dutifully make the picnic lunch and pack it all up in picnic bag with heavy but essential cool packs. Get the children dressed in as matching outfits as I can find (yes I am a matching dresser mother and for this I do not apologise).  Pack essentials for heatwave and monsoon.

The drive to the venue usually lavishes you with sunshine. It buoys your spirits and assists the car singing to reach new decibels.  But then as the venue approaches generally the clouds start to gather... all sounding familiar? By the time parking has occurred a few spots of rain usually make an appearance causing the 'do we need wet stuff?' debate to reach a swift conclusion of 'Aye'.

However once in the queue to enter wherever you attempted to ascend for the day, the sun is back out.  The kids moan they are hot and you start sweating out profusely in your wet coat, causing the first strip [of many] of the day to happen. At some point later in the day I end up thinking 'Oh my god, are we burning?' and chase everyone (including hubby) around trying to smother them in sunscreen.  I love it, the smell always evokes so many holidays memories, I don't understand why they are all itching to be caked in it.

Sometimes we have been lucky and only the threat of a soaking ever comes to fruition. However, more often than not in the true sense of a bad British comedy, you end up getting ... drenched.  The rain comes so suddenly and so hard and fast that you haven't had time to prepare.  You look to the sky, look at the 5 bags of wet covers, coats, umbrella's and in the end just have to leg it.

But, of course, the shelters are already all full.  People look at you with a mixture of pity and smugness as every bit of rain from the sky seems to hit you and your brood. After just a few seconds you and 90% of the population of wherever you are come to the same inevitable conclusion :

This is Britain. We are British. We get wet and are proud!

With noses pushed into the air, we continue our day out like it's dry and sunny. We carry on our conversations with water dripping off of our eyelashes. We secretly think, 'That buggies going to take ages to dry and the car is going to smell like wet dog by the time we get home' but we don't let on. We laugh (the heavier the rain the louder the laughter I find) and we say 'Well that's a typical British Summer Day Out!' and bank it in our store of happy memories.

Favourite Posts of the Last 12 Months : No.4

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From November 2011 Archives

Wow - I Forgot We Took These!

Having just located the hard drive (thingy) that holds all of our photos I have been happily grazing through lots of pictures that I forgot we had. In 2009 Hubby and I took a Winter trip to Egypt for some winter sun and we booked ourselves onto a 'Star Gazing' excursion in the Sinai Desert. After being disappointed with the first half of the trip the Star Gazing certainly made up for it, but I forgot we got these awesome photographs of the moon through a very powerful telescope they had set up. These are some of my favourite photos ever taken.



Favourite Posts of the Last 12 Months : No.5...

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From November 2011 Archives...

Me... In the Alternative Universe

I am sure that everyone has a version of themselves in their head that they think they would be if they were ever transported back to when they were young, single and child-free. I do, I like to call it 'Me, in the Alternate Universe'.

Don't get me wrong, I don't wish to ever be young, single and child-free again.  No thank you very much.  But I like to think that if I went back and knew what I knew now - in my 30's -

I would be a lot more savvy more appreciative of certain things.  Things that as a wife and a mother we very often give up.

Now again don't get me wrong I haven't sat down and written a list of 'things to give up' now I am a wife and mother.  But there are some things that I can no longer legitimately put at the top of my priority list.  They have to fall by the wayside. Some of those things (e.g. drinking and partying) I have been happy to say goodbye to, most certainly day long hangovers.

But some of them I hold onto in my 'Me, in the Alternate Universe'.  I hold onto them in the hopes that one day, when the kids are a little older and I get time to appreciate my husband once again I will also have time to appreciate me and the things I loved.

There are a wide and vast array of things - the things that I appreciate having or having time to do in my alternate universe - so here are just a few...

In my Alternate Universe I do work, but at my original job at the local university. I so did not appreciate the extra time I had when I worked a mere 10 minute drive from home.  They also ran a scheme whereby they would allow you a set number of 'work hours' to go and do volunteering. This was an amazing missed opportunity by me and in my Alternate Universe I definitely take this up.

Working locally would mean that I would have the time to fit in at least 3 early evening runs per week...

...followed by a lovely, luxuriously deep, hot, bubble bath with my favourite music blasting away in the bedroom whilst I undertook - at leisure - any beauty regimes I wanted.

I would have pride in my flat.  I would decorate it myself slowly and deliberately.  It would be uncluttered and have display cabinets / space for my lovely things to be out and to be appreciated (rather than packed in storage in the dark and desperate depths of the loft).  Be free gorgeous hot pink stemmed Martini glasses that I painstakingly managed to get home from New York in one piece - be free to look beautiful!

I would take one evening a week to catch up with friends. One to relax and watch movies. One evening a week to experiment with new recipes in the kitchen. One to clean and iron (and I only need one evening because there is only my clothes to iron) and one evening to be creative and maybe take a dance class.

Weekends I would wake at eight (which now I understand is a lie in) and enjoy freshly brewed coffee...

...before enjoying getting washed and dressed singing to my music (where clothes, shoes and accessories would match) and (in take of breath) hair would be straightened.

Saturdays would be spent visiting friends and family and visiting places all over. Driving and seeing where it took me. Visiting all the fabulous shopping centres and places of interest that the country has to offer that I have never made the effort to see when I had the perfect chance (although 'Me - in real world' does get access to doing lots of cool kid things that without kids you don't get the opportunity to do either even though you think it would be so cool to do). 

Evenings would not always been spent out.  A few would, of course, and doing a variety of things but I would like to offer to babysit for friends and family so that they could enjoy some Saturday Night 'alone' time with their loved one.  I understand now that can make all the difference to a couple in the throng of life with 2.4 children.

Sunday would be race days.  I would try and run in a race in a different area every other week.  Again a great way to see lots of different place. The alternate weeks would be 'Lazy Sunday' the morning spent in bed, reading the delivered Sunday paper.  Then getting ready to go and meet friends for Sunday Lunch at the pub, or cooking and having friends over before of course getting fully ready and prepared for the week ahead.

As I say I do not crave to go back to being young and single.  But I suppose what this blog post points out to me is I miss organising and controlling my days time and activities. Lets face it we swing around on the pendulum of what the kids need and want and it's almost impossible to schedule anything with any definitive time line.  It's inevitable that J2 is going to poop and need changing the minute I get his shoes and coat on.  That's kids.  I guess I would just appreciate time and what I did with it more.

But some time will come back and then I will be writing a blog reminiscing and rose tinting about the days and times life was unplanned, unscheduled and ad-hoc. But hey, I'm a laaaaddddddyyyyy and that's my prerogative.



Favourite Posts of the Last 12 Months

As mentioned in previous posts, Lynsey The Mother Duck will be a year old in August.  As well as looking forward and thinking about how the blog can be improved I also think it is important to look back. 

It has been pleasing scouring through posts of 2011-12.  So rather than the blog sit vacant whilst I am enjoying the balmy 80 degree heat of the Sub-Tropical Swimming Paradise at Centre Parcs with the family this week, from tomorrow I am going to present my Top 5 Favourite Blog Posts of the year. 

What would your own Top Five from your blog be?

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