Lakes Single Mum

#SilentSunday 4th March 2012

2012-03-04T01:10:00.000Z

That was the week that was

2012-03-03T16:46:00.000Z

It's been an incredibly busy week so here's the story in pictures:

a trip to the cinema with granny to see The Muppets

10 Pin Bowling with Crook WI at Morecambe

Reading to Granny

Leaping for the Leap Year

Dressing up for World Book Day

Spotting the first caterpillar

Had a PJ day to recover from being poorly

What would your week look like in photos?

Book Review: My Henry

2012-03-02T14:58:00.002Z

Sponsored Post

I have been sent a bundle of books from Harper Collins to review and this is the one my 8 year old daughter chose first: My Henry by Judith Kerr.

“It’s things we’ve never tried before That are the greatest fun, Like riding on a dinosaur, Which I had never done.”

Judith is best known for the Tiger Who Came To Tea but this is aimed at slightly older children. In the book the verse and drawings are the thoughts of a widow as she imagines wonderful adventures with her now deceased husband. Why should death stop them having fun together?

This was a delightful story to read and having lost a much loved family member it is a good book to share with a child who is missing them. Henry and his wife go on the most amazing adventures including climbing Everest and flying on a unicorn. The book is very well written and beautifully illustrated.

I would thoroughly recommend this book and my daughter loved it as well.

ISBN: 978-0-00-738812-7
Size: 220x280mm
Format: Paperback

UK: £ 6.99
Canada: $ 9.99
Ireland: $ 6.99

UK: 02 February 2012
Canada: 15 March 2012
Australia: 01 May 2012

Reasons to be Cheerful XXXV ( #R2BC )

2012-03-01T18:43:00.000Z

Not just smiling this week but I do believe that I was jumping with joy around the kitchen this morning and this is why:

1) Work

I had an interview at a local secondary school yesterday to be a receptionist and they rang and offered me the job this morning! Having not had a paid job for two years this was fantastic news. Its a perfect position for me as it uses many of the skills I acquired in my 6 years in my previous job. Being in a school it is term time only and is for 20 hours so I can still do everything else I need to do as a mum!

2) Diet

I was worried that another week of being unable to properly exercise wouldn't make a great result on the scales. It seems that tracking my intake on www.myfitnesspal.com has kept me in control as I have lost 2 pounds this week which is the maximum healthy weight loss. Onwards and downwards from here I hope!

3) Proud Mummy

My daughter has continued her anti dog fouling campaign by contacting the local paper. They interviewed her on the phone and are sending a photographer round tomorrow so she can feature in the paper next week!

My son is still so excited about reading and loves sharing his new skill with everyone:

Please check out the linky:

#TheGallery: Friends

2012-02-29T21:48:00.000Z

A lovely theme this week from Kate. So here are my offerings:

I went through High School with a great bunch of girls. Four us were in the same form from 1983-1987. It will be 29 years since we started there together this September. We have done lots together (sometimes as various smaller combinations) from cycling the Loire valley aged 18, skiing trips and lots of happy memories. Here we are a few years ago celebrating (in a very refined fashion!) a hen do:

Flash back to 1995 and I don't think we look all that different:

Click on the camera logo to see what everyone else has posted.

Educational Review: My Phonics Kit

2012-02-28T21:46:00.000Z

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Phonics is now a key part of the Foundation and Keystage 1 learning in English primary schools. Many of us parents have had the joy of practicing these sounds with our 4-7 year olds. As it is such a fundamental part of their learning the government have introduced a Year 1 Screening Check from this summer. The key points of this are to check:

a child can give the sound when shown a grapheme
blend sounds in order to read words
read phonically decodable one-syllable and two-syllable words
read a selection of nonsense words to show they are really decoding and not guessing

Oxford Reading Tree have brought out My Phonics Kit to help parents practice with their children at home. The set is based upon the popular Biff, Chip, Kipper and Floppy series with characters most children are familiar with from school. My son is only in Reception but we gave the kit a good try out.

The kit comes with several components:

3 workbooks
reward stickers
a sticker chart
a CD

At the start of each book is a selection of phonic graphemes so that you can tell if your child is going to be able to complete the workbook. My son obviously didn't know them all but he was very keen on doing the books any way:

Let Your Body Drive

2012-02-28T13:45:00.000Z

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Get interactive with Peugeot:

Family Fun: Gardening

2012-02-27T17:39:00.000Z

Welcome to week 5 of the Family Fun blog hop. For more details please read the launch page. In the words of a classic 1970s children's TV programme this is about switching off the television and doing something more useful instead!

get the InLinkz code

SilentSunday 26/2/2012

2012-02-26T00:00:00.000Z

Butler's Sink Rock Garden

2012-02-25T19:38:00.000Z

Last month I was in the right place at the right time (dropping my son off at school) to end up the proud owner of a free Belfast sink! I decided to turn it into a rock garden but until today I hadn't had a chance to complete the project. Having bought suitable plants during half term my mum came round today to help us.

By the time I'd got the three of us wrapped up to join my mum she had already done the bulk of the work:

The sink had been raised to a level off the ground to allow drainage from the plughole. Rocks were added to the bottom then it was filled with soil/compost. Some rocks were then artistically arranged before the plants were put in:

measuring the space needed

Fairtrade Fortnight

2012-02-24T18:34:00.000Z

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It is nearly time for Fairtrade Fortnight (February 27th - March 11th 2012) and this year they are asking us to Take A Step for Fairtrade. Watch this video to find out more:

Here are some facts about Fairtrade:

60% of Fairtrade farmers and workers are based in Africa. Thanks to them we can buy Fairtrade cotton clothing, cosmetics, wine, fruit, coffee, tea, chocolate and much much more…
Fairtrade is a thriving and growing campaign movement with over 500 Fairtrade Towns, over 600 Fairtrade Schools, over 140 Fairtrade Universities and over 6,700 Fairtrade Faith groups, including synagogues, mosques and Hindu temples. Find your nearest campaign at www.fairtrade.org.uk/get_involved/campaigns/fairtrade_towns/default.aspx
19 million glasses of Fairtrade wine were enjoyed in the UK in 2010. You can buy Fairtrade wines in most major retailers and selected wine merchants. Or savour a glass in one of 137 Marston’s pubs across the UK.
Three of the top chocolate brands in the UK are now Fairtrade. Look out for Kit Kats and Cadbury Dairy Milk bars with the FAIRTRADE Mark and from next summer, Maltesers too!
Chichester Cathedral is the world’s first public building to display Fairtrade and Fairmined certified gold. In October 2011 a 3ft cockerel was gilded in Fairtrade certified gold and positioned atop the 270ft Cathedral spire.
Three out of 10 bananas sold in the UK are Fairtrade. All bananas in Sainsbury’s are Fairtrade – they sell 1,200 Fairtrade bananas a minute adding up to a whopping 650 million a year.
Fairtrade and Fairmined certified gold was launched this year on Valentine’s Day. The gold is mined by small scale artisanal miners in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Livia Firth wore Fairtrade gold to this year’s Oscar ceremony in LA.
Model and TV presenter Lisa Butcher has just launched a range of Fairtrade cotton tee-shirts available from Tesco online.

Zhu-Fari Lion Park Playset

2012-02-24T14:12:00.000Z

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We were sent one of these new Zhu-Fari playsets plus a Zhu-Fari Elephant for my daughter to try out. They follow on from the highly successful Zhu-Zhu hamsters and they are aimed at girls aged 4-8. My daughter already had a hamster which she enjoys playing with so we were looking forward to trying out the set. They sets are available from stockists such as Argos for £19.99.

The first test for me was to put the playset together following the "simple" instructions. As they are designed for many countries these have no words and just images. Needless to say it took me longer than it should have done to make the playset look like it did on the box:

The sets do not come with any animals so you need to buy these separately. We were sent Wharton the adult elephant:

It's very amusing to all ages to watch the animal scuttling around and changing direction when i finds its way is blocked. It also makes noises as it makes its way around. To buy a similar animal from Argos would cost you £9.99. The elephant successfully negotiated its way around the lower levels of the Playset but was too large for the slide and swings.

To get full use of the Playset you need a baby Zhu-Fari animal. These should be available from most toy retailers but online I can't find many as yet. It is possible to buy a mother giraffe and her baby for £24.99 via Amazon.

In the absence of a baby Zh-Fari animal my daughter enlisted a baby Zhu Zhu hamster instead. This whizzed quite happily down the tunnel and on the swing. It isn't however designed to interact with this playset so we may have missed out on somethings.

My daughter and her little brother enjoyed playing with the set when we got it but haven't expressed too much interest in getting it out repeatedly. Their favourite bit was definitely Wharton the elephant. If you have a big Zhu Zhu fan then this could be a fun addition to their collection as long as you can get the animals to go with it.

We’ve Just learned that with Zhu-Fari you can even win a break for all the family at the Safari Hotel at Chessington World of Adventures. It’s a great competition, you can enter here www.zhufari.co.uk. I'm off there now to check it out.

Reasons to be Cheerful XXXIV ( #R2BC )

2012-02-23T20:37:00.000Z

Been a mixed week so I need to raise myself back up and just focus on the positives and hope things stay that way...

1) Family party

My cousin's partner turned 30 and threw a charity cake sale as a birthday party. So we got to eat cake for a good cause whilst playing games and chatting. A great recipe for a fun family afternoon. Here is a selection of the cakes we had to choose from:

2) Beautiful scenery

Sunday was a gorgeous day (shame much of it spent at an indoor birthday party!). I did manage to find a few minutes to stop and take in this lovely view of Windermere with the mountains behind on the way home.

3) My children

It was parent consultation week at their school and it was a delight to hear how well my children are getting on. My 8 year old daughter was given a spelling age of 11.5 this week and it at or above all expected levels in her other key subjects. My 5 year old has come on so well with his writing and drawing at school. He now writes legible sentences with phonetically correct spelling. Apparently his is in the teacher's "top" group so a great start to his school career.

4) My fitness

Using My Fitness Pal has helped me to watch what I'm eating. Even though I've been too unwell to exercise since Sunday I still lost 0.5lb this week. Here's hoping that I can shake off my virus and use exercise to shake off the last 4lb I need to reach a 2 stone weight loss!

#TheGallery: Landscapes

2012-02-22T21:04:00.000Z

Love this week's challenge from Kate. Living in Cumbria I am surrounded by marvellous landscapes like these:

Rydal Water

Grasmere

Kent Estuary

Just what I needed to make me smile

2012-02-21T21:36:00.001Z

Family Fun: Half Term Edition

2012-02-20T12:19:00.000Z

Welcome to week 4 of the Family Fun blog hop. For more details please read the launch page. In the words of a classic 1970s children's TV programme this is about switching off the television and doing something more useful instead!

The majority of schools have just returned after half term so please link up with posts letting us know what you got up to during the break!

We have had a fairly relaxed time with not a lot going on as the lurgy was effecting more than one of us! I will link up the posts I did about some of the fun we have had.

#SilentSunday 19th February 2012

2012-02-19T00:00:00.000Z

Family Fun: A Hike via the Fairy Steps

2012-02-18T22:53:00.000Z

This is a story best told in photographs so here I go:

We parked at Heron Corn Mill:

Then we followed footpaths and roads to climb up through woods full of snowdrops:

Change4Life: Don't let the drink sneak up on you

2012-02-17T15:01:00.000Z

The Department of Health's latest Change4Life campaign for adults is to get us all to watch how much we drink. I know that this is an area I need to look into. They have done a fun little video to get us started:

Most of us know that we should try and stick to the recommended limits:

Women: should not regularly* drink more than 2 to 3 units of alcohol a day. That’s no more than a standard 175ml glass of wine (ABV 13%)

Men: should not regularly* drink more than 3 to 4 units of alcohol a day. That’s not much more than a pint of strong lager, beer or cider (ABV 5.2%)

* “Regularly” means drinking this amount most days or every day.
ABV is the percentage of alcohol in the drink.

It's ever so easy at home to exceed these guidelines - if you open a bottle of wine and drink just half that's about 4.5 units of alcohol! If you want to know how much you have drunk then use this handy calculator: http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life/Pages/understanding-alcohol.aspx.

They have also given some useful tips to cut down:

Reasons to be Cheerful XXXVIII ( #R2BC )

2012-02-16T22:27:00.001Z

This week the host is Seasider in the City but the linky works just the same. I've also been tagged by Mum in Pink Wellies for Thankful Third Thursday so I have to list 10 items that are making me happy and not just the usual 3! Better get cracking then:

1) Half Term

A week without being forced to all be ready by 8:30 and for all plans during day to end at 3 makes life so much more relaxing. Funnily my daughter gets up earlier during the holidays than she does on school days!

2) Friends

My son went to a friend's party last Saturday and was driven there by the boy's mum. He wasn't very well whilst there and when I went to pick him up (miraculously he had bucked up by the time I got there!) there were lots of mummies I knew there. Nice to catch up with other mums I hadn't seen for a while.

3) Family Fun I

We had a lovely Sunday afternoon with my mum and granny over at my parents' house. Having collected granny from her home we were treated to a yummy Sunday lunch before playing games and watching a movie together. With only one granny left its fabulous she is now in the same town.

#TheGallery: Embarrassing Outfit

2012-02-15T20:31:00.000Z

Well Kate hasn't asked us to do anything silly for a while so here is a chance to laugh at my younger self:

This was taken in the late 1980s or early 1990s I think. My parents were having a civilised party at their house whilst I was invited to their daughter's friend down the road for a party with a theme of either vicars and tarts or something similar.

My mum had lent me her fake fur coat to cover up the fact that underneath I was wearing nothing much more than my lingerie! Needless to say my parents insisted that one of them walked me to and from the party "just in case".

Can't believe that a) I left the house wearing this outfit and b) my parents let me!

For more embarrassing outfits click on the logo up the top...

Metric v Imperial

2012-02-14T18:31:00.001Z

Despite being born just before the UK switched to decimalisation much to the despair of my engineer father I still use lots of imperial units. I grew up with pints of milk on the doorstep and buying petrol by the gallon. We were measured in feet and inches and weighed in stones. Recipes (like this one for cakes) were in ounces and food was bought in pounds and ounces.

The only reason I know that I am 173 cm tall is that I went on a school ski trip to France and had to get measured for skis! As for everything else I've got used to filling my car in litres but on the whole my mind still works in imperial. It doesn't help that most of my favourite recipe books are still pre-metric in their measurements!

With two children currently at school I'm doing my best to try and stick to metric measurements. They know their heights in metres and centimetres and I haven't confused them by converting into feet and inches. When we measure the size of other things I try to remember to use the side of the tape which has centimetres on it.

Anyone else find it a struggle to get with the programme and use the correct units?

Family Fun: Across the Generations

2012-02-13T14:06:00.000Z

Welcome to week 3 of the Family Fun blog hop. For more details please read the launch page. In the words of a classic 1970s children's TV programme this is about switching off the television and doing something more useful instead!

This week we are looking at the fun you have had with more than 2 generations of your family together. Whether its something with your children's grandparents or its you with your grandchildren. Come in and share (you can grab the code here get the InLinkz code).

I am very lucky that having moved to Cumbria we have 4 generations of the family close by. This means that we are often doing things with at least 3 generations together. This Sunday we had great granny around too and tried to make sure she felt involved with the little ones. Obviously this is harder than it used to be but we had fun doing a magnetic jigsaw together:

There was also a highly competitive game of Super Scrabble. Even my 5 year old joined in and even if he only knows words like C-A-T it means we can all play together.

Obviously when its just 3 generations we can be a bit more active and regularly go hiking or something outdoors. You can see quite a few of these on my blog. If you have done some family fun activities with lots of your family than please join in the blog hop:

#SilentSunday 12 February 2012

2012-02-12T00:47:00.000Z

100 Books in 2012 - Update I

2012-02-11T21:43:00.000Z

Regular readers will know that I signed up for a second year for the challenge of reading 100 books in a year from Book Chick City (having failed last year!). I am once again using Good Reads to track my progress and rate my reads. This year I am trying to remember to record the books I have read to my children as well as this must run into the dozens over the year!

This year so far my track record is looking good:

That's apparently 6558 pages already in 42 days! So what have I been reading?

As you can see its a mixed bag but a few from the same authors. So I'll pick out a few highlights.

Garth Nix - Keys to the Kingdom Series

I have read other fantasy works by Nix but hadn't read this 7 book series. They are in the teen fiction section of the library which I love to dabble in! They follow the story of accidental hero 12 year old Arthur Penhaligon who is chosen as the Rightful Heir to the Keys of the Kingdom whilst having an asthma attack during his school cross country lesson. Of course the current holders of these keys aren't going to give them up without a fight! Each book tells the tale of a different key. None of them are hard to read but very enjoyable.

Michael Morpurgo - War Horse

Having seen the movie I had to read the original book. Its a lot less sentimental than the Hollywood makeover and its all from the view point of Joey the horse. Again this is official a children's book but I would recommend to adults too.

New authors

I like to try out some new authors to vary my reading. So far this year I have discovered Terry Brooks and Elizabeth Moon in the Fantasy section of my library. I read the whole of one trilogy by Moon and I'm waiting for some more Brooks books to come back in! Her books are in the vein of Tolkein with elves, dwarves and magic as well as human battles. The Brooks ones are darker and so far lay out a post apocalyptic United States laid waste by man, bio weapons and demons.

New books by old favourites

I love being given book tokens at Christmas enabling me to make the most of the January sales to complete collections by well loved authors. This year I got Christopher Paolini - Inheritance, Bernard Cornwell - Death of Kings and Patrick Rothfuss - The Wise Man's Fear. A mix of fantasy and historical fiction continuing previously well loved stories.

Books I read with my children

My children have inherited my love of books and have a good selection on their shelves. It does help that I sell Usborne books to boost their home libraries. You can see a few of these on the current list. They also love modern favourites such as Stick Man. Now my daughter is into chapter books so there will be a variety of new ones appearing soon but they take a while to read at a chapter a night!

So it's looking good so far but I think I'm a bit weighted towards fantasy so far and need to branch out more! Watch this space for future updates...