A month or so ago, during the Easter holidays the geekdaughter and I were invited by Next to view their Spring/Summer 2013 collection. At London Zoo no less! This gave us the chance for a number of “firsts” for the geekdaughter – first long train ride, first trip to London and first taxi ride to name but a few.

After an early start and an event-free journey the geekdaughter and I found our way to the zoo. We arrived at opening time, so the zoo was pretty much deserted as we made our way past all the enclosures to the pavillion where the Next team were waiting for us. Before long the large room was full of bloggers and their children. Headbands with animal ears were dotted all round the room – I think these were mainly for the kids, but us grown ups had a load of fun with them as well! There was plenty of time to chat and drink coffee with my fellow bloggers (which helped me recover a little from the early start).

The geekdaughter found some craft materials and sat down quickly to get stuck in. Next had arranged for a couple of meerkats to come and visit, and the kids were able to get really close to them, but after only a few minutes the geekdaughter was back at her crafting station again! I’m sure I was more excited about the meerkats than she was!

With the geekdaughter distracted I was able to get on with the serious business of the day – looking at all the lovely clothes Next had brought along from their Spring/Summer collection and telling them which I liked best, and giving them any other feedback I had.

The Spring/Summer range is full of bright, cheery colours and great styles. The only thing I found difficult about the whole thing is that the geekdaughter, at 5, now falls into Next’s “older girls” sizing, which is aimed at girls between 5 and 16 – that’s quite a range, and there were a number of things that would be great for a 16 year old but not that sort of thing I can see  my daughter in! Still, I particularly liked this outfit, which I think she would look lovely in:

I did rather fall in love with the lovely baby range. I’m quite happy to not be having any more children, but I’m pleased a couple of my friends are expecting so I can have an excuse to buy things like this:

I asked the geekdaughter which clothes she liked best, and she kept picking out shoes and accessories! This bracelet was one of her favourites.

When we arrived we were given some labels and told to put them on the items we liked the best – Next would then feature the most popular items in a post on their blog. So a certain amount of the morning was spent doing this:

You can see the most popular items, as selected by the bloggers, here on the Next blog.

After lunch we were allowed out into the zoo, and the geekdaughter and I had a lovely time wandering around and seeing all the animals before it was time to set off back home. She did frustrate me rather by being more excited about going on the bouncy castle and the carousel than by seeing the animals – kids eh?!

Thank you Next for a lovely day out.

Disclosure: Next paid our travel expenses for this event, and we were both sent away with a goodie bag.

The post Going Wild with Next appeared first on geekmummy.

I was lent a Barnes and Noble nook HD tablet to review a couple of months ago, and subsequently given a nook HD+ to use. You can read my full thoughts on the tablet in my nook HD review, but in summary I thought it was a good tablet, excellent hardware for the price, the best profile system I’ve seen for multiple users, but let down by the limited app selection since Barnes and Noble were running their own (small) App Store.

So I must confess the nook HD+ has been languishing on the side in the kitchen whilst I’ve stuck with my iPad mini, and the the geekdaddy has been using his Nexus 7.

Well, last Friday that all changed. I think the nook HD just became the best Android tablet on the market today…

Last Friday Barnes and Noble rolled out a patch to the nook HD and HD+ which granted full access to the Google Play Store. They simultaneously reduced the price of both tablets aggressively for a limited time to tie in with the “get reading” event. This means the nook HD and HD+ are now fully functioning Android tablets, with the benefits of Barnes and Noble’s gorgeous hardware (the nook HD, for example, has the best resolution screen and is the lightest 7 inch tablet on the market today) and their user profile system.

When I reviewed the nook HD I had the chance to have an audio conference with a nook spokesperson. I told them that I thought the one “killer app” they should get on their platform was Amazon’s Kindle app. I wondered if I was being cheeky, but I felt it needed to be said. After all, a lot of people have invested in Kindle content because it is available on so many different platforms, and people don’t want to buy the same books all over again if they change tablets. The spokesperson made a very non-committal answer, and I got the feeling nothing could be done.

So that’s why the first app I tried to download from the Google Play store after updating my nook HD+ was the Amazon Kindle app. And I’m sure you can imagine my delight when I saw it was available! So now I can enjoy all my Kindle content on my beautiful nook hardware – it really is the best of both worlds.

One of the things I commented on in my original nook review was the lack of BBC iPlayer. Whilst you can now install the BBC iPlayer app from the Google Play store, it requires the additional BBC Media app to be able to play anything, which feels a little clumsy. But it works, and you can watch iPlayer content on the tablet now which you couldn’t before.

What tells me that this is now a great tablet is that I have noticed the geekdaddy is starting to use it in preference to his Nexus 7. Yes, since the update he’s started picking it up more and more (although he’s pretty much only playing Miniclip 8-ball pool on it – his new favourite game!). I reckon that’s the best recommendation I can give. The nook HD+ is £20 more expensive than the Nexus 7 at the moment, but that extra £20 gives you a 9 inch tablet instead of 7, and an SD card slot for additional storage. It’s a great buy. And if your finances won’t stretch that far, how about a nook HD for just £129?

I think the tablet market just got really interesting…

This blog post is also available in enhanced audio format – you can listen in the player below, or, if it’s not available, click on this link to listen on the Audioboo website.

Disclosure: I was provided with a nook HD+ for review purposes

The post Why I’ve suddenly lost my nook HD+ appeared first on geekmummy.

The geekdaughter made her stage debut last weekend. She started attending ballet classes in September, and this was her first ever dance school show. Dance was a big part of my childhood – I had ballet and tap lessons from the age of 4 until I left home to go to University at 18 – and the annual dance show was a big part of that, so it felt like a rite of passage to take my daughter to perform in her first show.

She’d been asking to learn ballet for quite a few months before I agreed to let her sign up. I wanted to be sure that it was something she was really interested in and not just me pushing her towards what I did as a child. She kept asking, and appeared to be serious, so I did a little bit of research into what classes were available in the area, and picked a dance school that looked good in a nearby village. It’s the first activity that the geekdaughter has ever done where I don’t have to stay with her for the class. There is a waiting area at the studio with sofas to sit on, but you don’t watch what the kids are doing. For her first class I was allowed to go into the studio and watch if I wanted to – I chose to watch half the lesson, and then sit outside for the rest of it so that she got used to me not being there. Since then I just drop her off and the geekson and I go and have coffee (me) and milk (him) with my Mum, who conveniently lives just around the corner from the studio, whilst we wait. It’s a good arrangement.

Since Christmas the dance school has been preparing for the show. The geekdaughter told me that her class would be dancing to “Under The Sea” from The Little Mermaid, and she’d often put that track on her iPad and dance along to it. She seemed very excited, especially as she would be performing on a stage for the first time. The week before last she had a rehearsal at the venue, which seemed to go well, and then last weekend was the actual show.

I cannot fault the planning and work that must have gone on behind the scenes of this show. For both the rehearsal and the show days there was a timetable issued with dropoff times for all the kids. We simply had to drop the geekdaughter at the stage door at the allotted time and the backstage team took care of the rest. There were a total of three performances, but the younger children only did the two matinees, and the very youngest children, like the geekdaughter, were split across the two matinees so they only performed once. The nice thing about this was that I could take the geekdaughter to watch the Saturday matinee so that she could see the whole show before performing on the Sunday. I remember when I used to perform in dance shows we would be able to sneak around the back of the audience and watch the dances we weren’t in ourselves, but in this case all the kids were kept backstage for the duration of the show so couldn’t watch it.

She was as good as gold when we watched the show together. It held her attention for the entire duration (which was quite long as there were a lot of classes to showcase!). The first half of the show was all the ballet classes, the second half showcased the musical theatre, jazz, tap and contemporary classes. I found myself getting quite emotional in places – sitting with my little girl watching a dance show, it was lovely!

Then on the Sunday we were back at the theatre again, this time the whole family were out in force – the geekdaddy, both Grandmas, myself, the geekson and a friend who was staying with us. We had front row seats. Given that I had already seen the show I was on standby to take the geekson out if he got fidgety or disturbed the rest of the audience – we were counting on him being OK until the geekdaughter’s dance as she was in the second dance of the show. He actually coped really well, and we didn’t need to take him out at all. There were a few comedy moments – like him announcing in a loud voice when the lights went down at the end of every dance “it’s dark Mummy”, closely followed by “shall we have another song?”. Best of all was the moment in the second half when he announced in a particularly quiet part of the programme “I’ve just done a trumpy trump!”*. This made the geekdaddy and I giggle, so he repeated it 2 or 3 times more for maximum effect.

And as for the geekdaughter? Well, she did really well, and I managed to not cry when she was on stage. She looked very cute in her little tutu, and didn’t seem too overwhelmed by the large stage and audience. She tells me she really enjoyed it and can’t wait to do it again. I wonder if her future shows will be less emotional for me. I think perhaps not!

(*) In case it’s an unfamiliar word to you, “trump” is what we use in our family to describe passing wind…

This blog post is also available in enhanced audio format – you can listen in the player below, or, if it’s not available, click on this link to listen on the Audioboo website.

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If you’re a long-term reader of my blog you’ll know I love audio as a format for communicating. I have my own personal audio blog as well as producing what I call my “enhanced audio versions” of blog posts that appear here. I don’t read books in the traditional fashion, I listen to talking books. My commute is my time to listen to audio content – books, podcasts or friends’ audioboos. But until recently I had no idea my little girl was going to show herself as a future recording star…

You might also have noticed that I’m a bit of an app fanatic. I love trying and testing new apps. As most of the apps I try out are kids apps I have my iTunes account set up so that any app I download onto my iPad also gets loaded onto both the kids’ iPads as well. This does mean that I have to keep an eye on them and delete a few things every now and again (can’t have the kids exposed to Candy Crush Saga quite yet!), but on the whole it’s a system that works well.

A week or so ago I downloaded a new podcasting app to try, and I didn’t get around to removing it from the geekdaughter’s iPad before I went to bed. When I got up the following morning I was amazed to discover that she had not only spotted the new app but was busy recording her own little podcasts, with no help from me whatsoever!

First of all she’d had a go at recording a cover version of one of her favourite songs from The Lion King (which we saw on stage recently):

I just love the expression she puts into the “A-whimba-weh” parts!

And then she’d had a go at making up her own song, where she sings about all the people she loves:

Sorry about the background buzz on the second recording – I have no idea how she managed that!

Now I appreciate that the geekdaughter has had a little bit of a head start in this, in that she’s got experience of using the Audioboo app to record herself, but I’m still impressed that she managed to spot a new app, figure out what it was for, and record herself with it whilst I was still asleep in bed!

Definitely a recording star in the making, and I love it!

The geekdaughter’s recordings were produced using the Mobile Podcaster app – simple enough for a five year old to use!

This blog post is also available in enhanced audio format – you can listen in the player below, or, if it’s not available, click on this link to listen on the Audioboo website.

The post Future recording star? appeared first on geekmummy.

They’re an optimistic bunch, the Center Parcs PR team. When I became a member of the Tots100 Center Parcs Blogger family they warned me that I’d need to participate in some of their monthly challenges.

“Don’t worry!” they said. “They’ll be fun!” they said. “Nothing too taxing, just stuff you’d be doing anyway…”

To be fair, the subjects have not been too bad so far. We’ve shared our favourite pancake recipes and been asked to get creative with chocolate. Quite fun, not too taxing. However, this month it’s all changed…

This month a little envelope dropped through my front door. Inside the envelope was a packet of sunflower seeds. Apparently the April challenge is to get growing. It is finally starting to feel like Spring is here, and now is the time to start planting things. Apparently.

There’s just one problem.

I don’t DO gardening.

It is one area where I am a disappointment to my mother. She is a very keen gardener and spends hours either in her garden or at the allotment. She knows the Latin names for everything, can rattle off care instructions like there’s no tomorrow, has designed beautiful gardens for each house she’s lived in since I was born. Unfortunately, despite significant efforts on her part, I have neither inherited her green fingers, nor been able to learn the arcane art from her.

I kill indoor plants, with the exception of Spider plants, which I managed to breed more than I killed until we got cats who started eating them so I had to get rid of them all.

I still can’t tell the difference between plants and weeds in my garden. I kill both with impunity!

I have in the past been quite good at cutting the grass until the unfortunate incident with the frog shortly after we moved into the house, and since then I’ve paid someone else to do it for me.

Every single time I’ve tried to grow cress with the geekdaughter it has died before we could eat it. Even the time that she brought home some almost-fully-grown cress from nursery!

Last year we tried planting sunflower seeds. With a lot of help from my Mum we managed to persuade about half of the seeds we planted to grow into very sickly looking sunflower plants. When it came time to plant them outside my Mum took one look at them and declared them not healthy enough to survive outside. At this point she revealed that she’d also been growing some at home, “just in case” mine didn’t work out.

We planted hers. In her garden. They grew beautifully. Obviously.

So thank you Center Parcs for the sunflower seeds. I’m going to do the only sensible thing in this situation – give them to my mother and see if she will grow them for me again!

The Center Parcs team are still looking for bloggers to join their family – if you join in with this month’s challenge you could win yourself a spot. All details are available on the Tots100 website, but you’ll need to be quick as it closes at the end of the month.

This blog post is also available in enhanced audio format – you can listen in the player below, or, if it’s not available, click on this link to listen on the Audioboo website.

Disclosure: I am a member of the Center Parcs family blogger club, and over the course of the year will be sharing our attempts to join in with the monthly challenges being set. I will be receiving a complimentary short break at a Center Parcs resort later this year. I was sent a packet of sunflower seeds to help inspire me to write this blog post.

The post Center Parcs April Challenge – let’s get growing! appeared first on geekmummy.

No sleep today Mummy!

It seems that the geekson has reached the stage where he no longer wants an afternoon nap. This has been coming for a while – for the last few months he’s told me he doesn’t want a sleep each time I start to put him down after lunch, although as soon as I got him into his cot he would sleep for anything up to 2 hours. In fact I’d frequently have to go in and wake him up to prevent him sleeping too late. Not lately though…

Just before the Easter holidays he started refusing to sleep at nursery. Usually I’d been able to count on him getting an hour’s (ish) nap on the two days per week he’s in nursery. But no, the week before Easter he lay down with the rest of the kids in his room, and closed his eyes like the rest of them. For some reason the staff had cause to doubt that he really was asleep though, because one of them went over and asked him if he was asleep. With his eyes still closed he smiled and shook his head – little ratbag!

This marked the beginning of the end. Over the Easter holidays we were out and about a lot more than usual, and we didn’t get as many opportunities to put him in bed after lunch. It certainly gives you a lot more flexibility if you can be out all day without worrying about the nap (neither of my kids have every slept well when out and about, either in car or pushchair). So he didn’t nap much. In fact there was only one day when I managed to get him in bed for a nap, because by the second week he was really starting to show signs of being very tired. That day he told me he didn’t want a sleep, and cried when I put him in his cot, but was very quickly asleep and slept for two hours. Unfortunately we then put him to bed at 7pm for the night, and he was in his cot singing to himself and playing with his cuddly toys until about 9pm when he finally drifted off to sleep…

(Yes, he’s pretty good natured on the whole, and will usually just lie (mostly) quietly in his cot if he’s not quite ready to go to sleep.)

So after that incident I’ve been resigning myself to the end of the afternoon nap. I’m sad, firstly because we’re now going through the difficult transition where he’s dropped the nap but gets really tired during the day, so he’s a lot more grumpy than usual. I also need to find another time to spend one-on-one time with the geekdaughter – for the last almost three years the geekson’s naptime has been our “girlie” time, where we’ve done things like painting, gluing or small LEGO which we can’t do as easily with the geekson around. It’s always nice to spend time with each child individually, so I need to make that continue to happen.

However it’s not all bad – we’ve been getting gradually more and more lax over bedtime, and up until recently we’ve been turning the kids’ lights out anywhere between 7.30 and 8pm. Now we’re trying to start the bedtime routine at 6pm, and yesterday evening both kids were in bed, lights out and quiet before 7pm! Giving me time to write a blog post AND do the washing up! It will benefit the geekdaughter as well, as she’s still adjusting to school and finding it all very tiring.

It’s just one more sign that my baby boy is growing up. He’s three next month! I’m going to have to tackle that potty training thing soon *shudder*

This blog post is also available in enhanced audio format – you can listen in the player below, or, if it’s not visible, click on this link to listen on the Audioboo website.

The post The end of naps appeared first on geekmummy.

WordPress is a hugely popular blogging platform – according to a study undertaken last year almost half of the top 100 blogs worldwide are hosted on WordPress. Being such a widely used platform it is also a prime target for hackers. For example, right now there is a huge automated hacking attack running which is trying to crack the administrator passwords of any self-hosted WordPress blog it can find.

Scary stuff. So if you are running a self-hosted WordPress blog it’s really important that you take a few simple steps to protect your blog from hackers…

1. Back up your blog. There are many different ways to back up your WordPress blog, and the right method for you depends on how frequently you want to save any changes (i.e. how far would you want to “roll back” if you lost the whole site). You want to make sure that any backup method you choose takes a copy of both your SQL database AND your website files, as you need both to restore your site. I like the WordPress Backup to DropBox plugin as a very basic solution – it’s free, and you can very easily configure it to back your blog up to your DropBox account on a regular basis. At the other end of the spectrum if you want to make sure you can always restore your blog back to its very latest version there is a system called VaultPress, which backs your blog up every time something changes. There is a monthly subscription charge, but you really can just set it up and leave it running without worrying about it.

2. If you have a user account named “admin” or “administrator” then create another user account with a different name, set that up with administrator privileges and delete the admin/administrator account. If someone is trying to hack into your site they need a user name and a password. When you install WordPress for the fist time it prompts you to create your first administrative user – many people leave that username set to the suggested “admin” or “administrator”. So some hack attacks will simply try to guess the password on that user account. If you don’t have a user account with that name, you can’t be hacked in that way. Here are some good step by step instructions on how to set up a new administrator user if you need them.

3. Ensure any user accounts with admin privileges have strong passwords. A strong password is one that contains a mixture of upper and lower case letters, along with numbers and symbols, and the longer you make it the more secure it is. A simple way to make your password longer and therefore more secure is to just add a load of full stops at the end of it, or even use a special character like a colon to join two memorable sequences together to make one long one. Over on the Tots100 blog you can read how to create a strong password, and you can see how long any password would take a hacker to crack using this password search space analyser. This short video gives a brief overview of how to choose secure passwords:

4. Keep your WordPress installation up to date. As the WordPress developers find weaknesses in the code which could be exploited by hackers they release updates to the code to remove those weaknesses. Most recent installations of WordPress will advise you as soon as you log into your Admin Dashboard that an update is available, and you can install the update with just one or two clicks of your mouse. Always make sure you have an up to date backup of your site (see point 1) before installing the update, but do try to apply it as soon as possible. Running an out of date installation of WordPress makes you more at risk of a successful hacking attempt.

5. Only install the plugins that you need, keep them updated, and delete any you don’t use. It’s not just the WordPress core code that can have vulnerabilities – it’s the plugins you use as well. When installing a plugin for the first time check to see when it was last updated, read user reviews, and look at the plugin support forums – if it’s not been updated for a number of years, has negative reviews, and support queries are going unanswered you might be well advised to find a different plugin to do the same job. As your blog needs change you may find yourself no longer needing some of the plugins you’ve installed in the past, but it’s often easy to just leave them running. This could have the effect of slowing down your site by loading unnecessary code, and could also increase the risk of being hacked. I recommend that you deactivate any plugins you don’t require, check that your blog still works as expected, and then delete the plugins. Making sure you’ve taken a backup first, of course (see point 1!)

6. Choose a reputable theme, and keep it updated (with caution). Choosing a theme is a minefield – first of all you’ve got to find one that looks right, and then you have to configure it so that it looks exactly the way you want it. As with plugins I recommend choosing one that’s been updated recently, and checking user ratings before you install. Also consider buying a paid for theme – these are most likely to be maintained and regularly updated. One word of caution here – do be a little careful about installing theme updates. Always make sure you’ve got a backup (see point 1), as if there are any problems you may end up with an unattractive (or worse still, broken) blog, and you want to be able to roll back to the previous version of the theme if you need to. Also be careful with theme updates, and ensure you’ve read any theme-specific documentation on how to apply updates – you risk losing some of your customisation if you do this wrong.

7. If you’re still worried there are WordPress security plugins that you can install, like Wordfence. These should be treated in the same manner as any other plugins (see point 5).

I can’t guarantee that you won’t get hacked if you follow these guidelines. But you will significantly reduce your risk of being it. And if you are hacked, you will at least have a backup of your site to restore (see point 1).

P.S. The picture at the top of this post doesn’t show hackers. It shows my kids playing Minecraft. It’s the closest I could get…!

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Kids love mobile technology don’t they? I don’t think I’ve ever met a child that didn’t want to get their hands on my iPad, and what’s more impressive is that these devices are so intuitive to use that kids get the hang of how to operate them really quickly. And that’s when the conflicts begin – kids love these devices, but as parents we are constantly trying to balance their screen time with their “unplugged play” time. But did you know there are some apps out there which actually encourage kids to put the mobile device down and do something else instead? Install these apps on your tablet or phone and you’ll give the kids plenty of reasons to step away from the technology and play in more traditional ways…

KidsCraft – Afisha Media (iPad only – £1.49): This is a visually beautiful app which showcases a selection of craft activities that you and your child can undertake together (or an older child could do on their own). There are currently 20 different craft ideas within the app, and you simply select the one you are interested in to be shown step by step instructions on how to make it. There’s also a nice full screen picture of what the finished item should look like. The crafts are a good selection of toys and games, all of which should have good play potential once the making is finished and the tablet is switched off. The crafts would be good for pre-schoolers and primary school kids.

Foldify – Pixle (iPad only – £1.99): This app makes it really easy for you to create and print your own 3D paper models. You can choose from one of 16 basic shapes (this includes basic geometric shapes as well as more advanced shapes like cars, houses and buses) and then you are presented with a designer view where you can colour, draw and add clip art to your shape in its flattened form on one side, and see what it will look like when folded into its 3D shape on the other. When your design is complete you can either email it to yourself in PDF format to print, or print it direct to an AirPrint printer. Once your shapes are created, turn off the tablet and play! Great for all ages.

Hello Kitty Interactive Cookbook – Castle Builders (IL) (iPad only – £1.99): A very simple cookbook app which contains 20 recipes, presented in an easy to navigate format. Each recipe is provided in both written form and video, which means that even pre-schoolers can enjoy this app. The video presenters are blonde, American and beautiful, which I must confess I find slightly grating, but they don’t seem to bother my daughter at all. There is the option to switch the units of measurement for each recipe between US and European measures, but the European measures still include cups, so you’ll need to either own some or work out your own conversion. The majority of the recipes are for sweet things, so it’s not the most healthy of selections. All that said, it’s the first app that has prompted my daughter to put the iPad down and ask to cook something, so that’s why it’s on my list. This app is probably best for pre-schoolers and primary school kids. If you child is not a Hello Kitty fan, the same developer has also produced a Kung Fu Panda 2 Interactive Cookbook which appears to be the same style of app (and seems to have more savoury recipes in it), however I haven’t tried this one yet. For you Android users there appears to be a “LITE” version of the Kung Fu Panda 2 Interactive Cookbook available, but I can’t comment on how it compares to the iPad versions I talk about here.

Geocaching – Groundspeak Inc. (iPhone/iPod Touch, will run on iPad in compatibility mode – £6.99 – Also available on Android): Geocaching is the modern day version of treasure hunting. Thousands of little treasures, or “caches”, have been hidden all over the world, and this app will show you the locations of your nearest ones, and help you navigate to them. Don’t think for a minute though that that will make them easy to find – these caches are generally very small and very well hidden. The app will show you a hint if you’re struggling to locate your chosen cache. Once you’ve found the cache you can tap the “found it” button on your device and it will be added to your “found” count. Geocaching is a great way to get the whole family out and about. If you’re unsure about paying £6.99 for an app, there is a free version, Geocaching Intro – Groundspeak Inc., which will allow you to find three geocaches near your current location – a great way to see if it’s something you’re likely to do more of before investing in the full app, which allows you to find as many geocaches as you like. Great for all ages

LEGO® Life of George – The LEGO Group (iPhone only, will run on iPad 2 and newer in compatibility mode – FREE but also requires the Life Of George playset which retails for £30 – Also available on Android): There are many LEGO apps on the App Store, but this one is unique in that it gets you building real models. Prompted by the on-screen picture your challenge is to build it as quickly as you can. You then check your work by taking a photo of it against the play mat that comes in the set, and the app tells you if you got it right or not. Thus your child gets to build all sorts of LEGO creations, and hopefully this will lead into more and more building. The playset has a suggested age of 8 years and above, but if your child is old enough to play with LEGO they’re old enough for this app.

Do you know any other apps which encourage unplugged play? Leave me a comment and let me know!

This blog post is also available in enhanced audio format – you can listen in the player below, or, if it’s not visible, click on this link to listen on the Audioboo website.

Disclosure: All prices correct at time of writing. iOS app links include my iTunes affiliate code – if you make a purchase I will receive a few pence.

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When I first heard that the musical version of The Lion King was coming to Manchester, I knew I wanted to take the geekdaughter to see it. I love musical theatre and I’m a big fan of the Disney musical films, which I’ve been enjoying rediscovering with the kids. Since it opened on Broadway I have heard nothing but praise for the Lion King stage version, so I have always wanted to see it. And last half term I got my chance…

Pre-show doughballs

We went to a Wednesday matinee show, and I treated the geekdaughter to pizza for lunch beforehand. I hadn’t told her where we were going, although I had given her a few clues. By the time the day arrived she knew we were going to Manchester, it was something Disney, and it was something that she had a song from in her Disney songbook. Even with that information she still walked right past the theatre without noticing all the signs and guessing! As we ate our puddings in the restaurant I noticed they had a large cuddly Simba toy behind the bar, so told her there was a clue to find. After a nudge in the right direction she spotted Simba and then guessed we were going to see the Lion King. She was very excited.

View from our seats

I’d been quite late booking tickets and so hadn’t managed to get my usual favourite location (front of the circle) – instead we were in the stalls. I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to see enough of the stage from there, but it ended up being the best possible location – much of the action happens around the audience and at times it really felt like we were right in the middle of the show! The seats were expensive but I was so glad that we went and really delighted with where we sat. If you’re going to see the show I would recommend getting seats in the front stalls.

The show was amazing. I love Disney’s attention to detail, and it was interesting to spot the number of costumes and puppets that only ever appeared once and briefly. It had a true feel of the film, with all the same story elements, but it felt longer, and richer. Extra music and songs were written just for the stage show, but all done with the same feeling of the original movie score. Two drum kits were placed in the boxes, high above the stage, which really helped you feel completely immersed in the music.

Captivated by the show

Then there were the puppets. Oh the puppets. Again, that Disney attention to detail showed here, with the seemless blending of puppet and actor, making you believe you were watching animals. In some cases the actors just had an animal headdress to show which animal they were, in other cases the puppets were more elaborate. Simba himself appeared in a number of different forms – as a shadow puppet, a stick puppet, and then portrayed by both child and adult actors. Pumbaa the Warthog is a huge puppet, completely encasing the actor portraying him, whereas Timon the Meerkat is smaller, but somehow you just ignore his actor, stood behind him clad in green. Such variety of tools and techniques but it all just works.

I can’t do this show justice with my writing. You really have to see it. Whilst The Lion King is not one of the geekdaughter’s favourite movies, and doesn’t seem like a natural choice for conversion to a musical, she loved it as much as I did, and has already told me how much she’d love to see it again. It made a really good treat for both of us.

I’m going to leave you with the video trailer for the show. It gives a bit of a feel of the experience, but really doesn’t do it justice. I could pause this video anywhere and point out all sorts of little details that you wouldn’t spot without having seen the show on stage. All I can say is if you get the chance to see the show on stage, take it with both hands!

This blog post is also available in enhanced audio format – you can listen in the player below, or, if it’s not visible, click on this link to listen on the Audioboo website.

The post A trip to see The Lion King on stage appeared first on geekmummy.

Easter Egg, by the geekson

Last night as I was putting the geekdaughter to bed, she looked up and me and said “Is it Easter tomorrow Mummy?”

“Yes my darling” I said.

“Are we having an Easter Egg Hunt?”

“Well, yes, but not at our house. We’re going to another house to do it”. (I should explain at this point that I’m planning on taking the whole family to our nearest Cadbury/National Trust Easter Egg hunt)

Her eyes widened. “Mummy“, she said, looking slightly concerned, “how will the Easter bunny know that he has to deliver our eggs somewhere else?”

“It’s alright my dear, I’ve sent him a message”.

The answer seemed to appease her. She smiled, kissed me goodnight and rolled over in bed. As I turned her light out and stood to go she rolled back to look at me.

“Mummy?”

“Yes, dear?”

“But what if the Easter bunny doesn’t have an iPad?”

No answer to that really, is there?

It all worked out though, as she was awake before me this morning, and just as she usually does she made her way downstairs to play with her iPad. When I got up she said to me, very earnestly “Mummy, I think the Easter bunny must have got your message, as I can’t find any eggs anywhere!”

Welcome to Easter, geek style.

This blog post is also available in enhanced audio format – you can listen in the player below, or, if it’s not visible, click on this link to listen on the Audioboo website.

The post Easter – geek style appeared first on geekmummy.