Blenheim Palace Trips 2017

Secret Cinema; Moulin Rouge! Day

A Baby and Life Catch Up Start of May

Harry Potter Walking Tour and Friends

Alone in a Crowd

First of all let me start by saying that this is not a plea for attention, pity or suddenly lots of visitors. It is merely me acknowledging my feelings. I was unsure of whether or not to publish this, but if you are reading this then clearly I did.

 

I am very lucky to have lots of amazing friends and family for some brilliant support networks and I know that I can call on them if I need to. When I am home and it’s just me and my baby, Alanna, I am fine and just get on with things. It helps that she is super cute and we entertain each other all day.

Today, however, I decided to go to Blenheim Palace Food Festival with Alanna which was a fantastic event, it was very busy and buzzing with people and yummy smelling food as well as some live music. We had a lovely time, I had a falafel wrap which Alanna tried, and she seemed to enjoy her first taste of falafel. She also enjoyed watching all the dogs as we walked around.

I am not very comfortable in large crowds, especially when I am trying to walk and people just stop or block the obvious path, this only gets more complicated when trying to manoeuvre a pushchair. It makes me get stressed out so I was doing my best to stay calm and not get stressed as I was attempting to find somewhere to sit whilst pushing the pushchair with one hand and holding the falafel wrap in the other. I eventually found a seat and had a quick sit down. After enjoying lunch we went into the butterfly house to see all the beautiful butterflies and finches flying around. We then started to head to the car to come home. That was when the feelings of loneliness kicked in, I realised that even though I had actually seen some friends when we first arrived and had had a few conversation with strangers that it was just me and Alanna and it will be this way for a while.

I know that I need to get used to it just being me and Alanna for a while as my husband is away with work for a bit. I have a lot of different groups of friends, from some of my best friends and neighbours, Rach and Rich, the local Mummy group, NCT group, craft group, home friends, London friends, Uni friends and Yorkshire friends as well as my amazing family and in-laws so I rarely have to go to events alone with Alanna but it is a skill I have to learn. If anyone has any tips on how to feel comfortable alone in a crowd please comment down below. 

Mini First Aid Course

Recently I was given the opportunity to attend a Mini First Aid course run by a lovely lady called Leanne.

This course was for 2 hours and covered the important basics of first aid for infants (0-1 year) and children (1 year- puberty).

My husband dropped me off for the course as we had a baby class afterwards in the same building. The fact he was off work meant that he could look after Alanna while I went on the course. That was really helpful as I could fully focus on learning.

I entered the room and was warmly greeted by Leanne, I was the first to arrive so we had a nice little chat before the class started. She had two cancellations and only 1 other lady turned up so we had a very small group which was actually really nice.

We covered so much information in the 2 hours but I felt that we covered everything in plenty of detail. We started off going through what to do if we find an infant or child laying on the floor, for example; check for danger, if clear check for a response, if no response call for help and check the airway then check for breathing. If they are not breathing then we were told start CPR by giving 5 rescue breaths and then onto 30 chest compressions and 2 breaths and continue to do the 30:2 until help arrives. We were also informed that it is a bit different for adults because we don’t need to give the breaths because adults can hold between 5-7 minutes of oxygen in their bodies but infants and children can’t. We were able to give this a go using the CPR dummies. The infant and child ones were very different so I think it was really useful to give it a go on each of them.

We also covered burns, wounds and bleeding, choking, febrile seizures, symptoms of meningitis, head bumps, breaks and fractures, a brief bit about how to deal with shock and what should be in your first aid kit. We were also advised to keep our first aid kits in the room of the house we spend the most time in. I spend most time in the living room so I will be moving mine into the Welsh dresser as it is easy to get to.

I would highly recommend Mini First Aid to everyone, especially parents or people who spend time with young people. I think everyone should do basic first aid anyway as it is very useful knowledge to have.

See the links below for details:

http://oxford.minifirstaid.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/minifirstaidoxford

Hotter Shoes, Oxford Blog Event 2017

Hotter Shoes Blog Event

 Hey,

I was invited to attend a blogger event at Hotter Shoes in Oxford on a nice Wednesday evening. I decided to go along and see what all the fuss was about. Turns out, they are super comfy shoes!

I was unsure of what to expect as my impression of them was that they were targeted at the older generation, however, as soon as I walked in the shop I could see that my impression was wrong and terribly outdated. They had such a range of shoes that I think anyone could go in and find a pair that they liked. 

I was originally drawn to the floral Mabel Shoes and slip on Tara Shoes at the front of the store, but after looking around I saw a pair of heels which looked really lovely. One of the other bloggers, Abi, had been trying them on in suede lavender so I thought I should have a try of the dark aqua suede version Donna Heels. They have them available in other colours and some are suede and some are leather so have a little looky. I tried the Donna Heels on and walked around, they were so comfortable,but I rarely wear heels so thought that I would keep on looking, that was when I saw another blogger pick up the Pixie Boots. I went straight on over to try them on in deep teal and they were my favourite shoes of the evening so I kept them on for a while just to be sure. I was then pleasantly surprised when I was given them for free. I have worn them a lot already and although we are heading into spring and soon it should be too warm for boots I have still managed to get a decent amount of wear out of them and I know I will look forward to next autumn/winter when I can wear them even more. 

The lovely ladies in the store even sprayed them with a water-proof and stain-proof spray so they should last longer. 

I haven't even mentioned the food and drink!!! Wowzers, I couldn't believe what a lovely spread they put on for us. As we walked in we were offered a Prosecco, orange juice or water (I stuck to orange juice as I was driving and am still breast feeding my baby) then to the left of us there was the table laid out with a beautiful spread of really scrummy food. There was loads left over at the end so some of us took some with us but me and Rach (aka The Inelegant Wench) gave ours to some homeless people as we thought they would be more appreciative of it.

All in all I had a fantastic evening with some yummy food and drink and even a free pair of what are probably my most comfortable shoes I own. I would like to say a massive thank you to Hotter Shoes, Oxford for letting me be part of such a lovely event. 

Below are some of the promotional videos we were part of for Hotter Shoes.
Cat's: Chopsworld 
Rachel's: The Inelegant Wench

Center Parcs 2017

My Breast Feeding Experience

March 2017 Baby and Life Update

My Time at Drama College

I think it’s time for me to share a little bit more about myself. The next couple of posts will be about where I am from and where I have lived and what I’ve done in the meantime. I suppose I should get started really.

I am from a lovely village in between Portsmouth and Southampton. I loved growing up on the south coast and being able to hang out with my friends down the beach, park or go into town easily on the bus before any of us could drive. In my opinion it is the ideal place to bring up a family, however, as we all know the south, in general, is a lot more expensive than the north so my adventure of working my way up the country began, with a little detour in between and a gradual return to the south.

When I was 18 I auditioned for Drama College and was lucky enough to receive offers for a couple. I accepted my place at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance to study European Theatre Arts. It is a beautiful college full of amazing, kind and fun people. The grounds of the college are stunning, as you walk in there are brightly coloured walls and a cute courtyard, to the right there is a path down to a grassy, garden-like area with a lake next to a building known to the students as ‘The Old House’, which was actually where all the staff offices are. The college also boasts two theatres, it was always so exciting when we got to perform in either of them but The Rose Theatre was my favourite as it was in the round, meaning the seating surrounded the stage causing the action to constantly move around, engaging all the audience.

Whilst studying at Rose Bruford I lived in Sidcup, which is on the outskirts of London, making it slightly more affordable (thanks to the student loan) than living in central London but also had easy transport links into the Big Smoke. We used to go clubbing in New Cross at a club called Venue, it’s had a dodgy history but we always had a great time there and enjoyed a lot of tribute acts. We also went to Moonlighting in Soho when they did their club nights called Cheapskates! That was until Purple Thursdays became a thing, I think it was one Thursday a month a local social club in Sidcup opened its doors to the students of Rose Bruford and Bird College (a local dance school).  

Alongside all the partying we did get a lot of studying done and created many a masterpiece. Our course had a lot of written work as well as practical so we worked very hard. Ironically I have never found writing essays easy and I struggle with spelling, punctuation and gramma which I am sure you have already figured out. In the first few weeks at Bruford we were given a talk about dyslexia, as the man was speaking I found myself nodding along to most of what he was describing. I had a meeting with him where I took a very short pop-quiz style test. The results suggested that I was borderline dyslexic but he told me that I probably wouldn’t need to do the proper test unless I found the symptoms caused me problems with my work. To this day I have never had the official test but sometimes find myself using the term ‘honouree dyslexic’ to excuse my mistakes.

I was much more interested in the performance side of the course, most of our performances were devised, designed, direct by and performed by us. We usually had to provide any costumes and props ourselves as the course was designed to veer us towards creating our own theatre companies and making our own work rather than relying on agents etc. Many of my Bruford friends have gone on to work in totally different fields but some have created theatre companies such as Smoking Apples and some have gone into acting using agents and had varying success.

I’ve had many different chapters in my life, but my time at Bruford was definitely one of the best. I made the most amazing, life-long friends who are all a little nutty but all completely lovely and we would do anything for each other. There will always be a special place in my heart for Rose Bruford.

Pictures

Top photo shows myself and my friend Roxy about to go to a local neon party.

The middle photo is of friends Hattie, Jax, Roxy and then myself on our graduation day.

The final picture is of myself and Roxy at Purple Thursday sporting our funky style many years before Sia had similar style for her album cover.

Smoking Apples: http://smokingapplestheatre.com/

Rose Bruford: https://www.bruford.ac.uk/

 slmc

March hair reveal and week update

Nice Little Walk

Clever Self Soothing Baby

Hi,

It's Thursday night and I have just been editing and uploading the latest video onto my YouTube channel, Chopsworld. I feel the need to write a little blog post.

Tonight is the first time that Alanna, our 5 month old daughter, has successfully self soothed herself to sleep. I put her in her cot whilst she was drowsy at 9:20pm, she was chatting to herself for a bit and I could hear her playing with her cot toy, which wraps around the cot side like a snake so that it is safe, then eventually she was silent and is still asleep now as I write this at 10:50pm.

I am sure that when we climb into bed in a minute Alanna will wake up but I am still counting this as a success!!! I believe we may have levelled up, but I don't want to get too cocky as I am aware that what works today may no work tomorrow. These babies aren't half complicated little munchkins.

We have had a lovely day today, my Mum visited us and took us out for lunch to a local cafe. Alanna slept while I ate a roasted pepper and hummus sandwich which came with chips and a salad, my Mum had a BLT and then we shared a slice of orange and lemon cake. I realise now that I should have taken pictures but I forgot, please forgive me as I am still very new to this.

Anyway, I am off to bed now, night night.

Fun and Games

A Week in the Life of Alanna and Mummy

I'm New to This

Welcome to my shiny, new blog. 

I have never written a blog before so this is an exciting adventure for me and a new outlet.
Some of you may be aware of my little YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDlzSoPpR_ZfvVNjBC_2Xhw

I love creating, editing and uploading content but I struggle to find the time to edit my footage regularly since the birth of my beautiful daughter, Alanna. 
My awesome friend, Rach (www.theinelegantwench.com), suggested that I give blogging a go so here I am. 

We have had a fun couple of weeks due to Alanna, myself and then finally my husband all catching a bug but we all seem to be alright again now. It meant that we have not been able to get out and about as much as usual or attend our baby classes. 

Me and Alanna go to Baby College and Baby Sing and Sign which we love. Baby College sounds crazy but it is a fun weekly session which focuses on different developmental skills and allows the Mums and babies to be a bit sociable too. We also meet up with two different Mummy and Baby groups a week and have a swimming class too, so you can imagine that not being able to go to these classes for almost 2 weeks straight after half term was a little challenging as I had to find things at home to fill the time and entertain our now 5 month  old.

I really have to shout out to my wonderful husband who looked after me when I was ill and also Awesome Rach (which really should be her full title) as she has been helping me out so much with Alanna when hubby is not around. 

Anyway, I guess that gives you a tiny insight into my life and soon I will attempt to create some actual content which may be more interesting than my general witterings on. Thank you for visiting my little space on the Internet and stay tuned for more stuff and feel free to check out my other social media outlets:



YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDlzSoPpR_ZfvVNjBC_2Xhw
Instagram: Chopsworld
Twitter: @Chopsworld_UK