Before I start, I probably should clarify something. This isn’t a post documenting a year of those fantastic spectacles of nature. Although I have seen some awesome ones in my time. I swear I’ve seen the end of a rainbow coming out of a loch in Scotland . No pot of gold though. I also witnessed a brilliant double rainbow a few months back. Ah, memories…. No, this is a post about my daughters first year in her local Rainbows…
I don’t write nearly as much ‘review’ type posts as I probably should. “Call yourself a blogger?!” I hear my internal voice call. “Well, yes, actually” I reply in my most condescending tone before my wife asks “Who are you talking to?”…. Moving swiftly on… This weekend we were craving a bit of outdoor fun. Ignoring the usual ‘it’s grim up North’ weather forecast we decided to try the Zog trail at Hamsterley Forest. We’ve been here both before and…
I’ve had a pretty intense few weeks work wise and as a result I’m expecting my mental health to take a bit of a battering. Once I’ve got this week out of the way things should calm down but history has taught me it’s the period after the storm that seems to be when I’m at my most vulnerable and susceptible to an attack. I wrote about my experiences with anxiety in a post last year which explains my own…
Right from the moment way back when my Mam (and Santa) got me an Amstrad CPC 464 for Christmas I’ve been a gamer. Of the computer sort that is. I’ve been a fan of board games a lot longer and have fond memories of the family getting together on Sunday to play. But I’m in danger of digressing. Since turning 40 a couple of years ago, together with becoming a parent, my gaming has subsided a little. Probably more because…
It feels like it’s been a very slow and frustrating start to the year. I’ve always been someone whose mood can be easily affected by the weather. So the January blues are always a given for me. It’s why I’m pretty famous in my friends and family circle as the guy who invented the “January present for themselves”. In previous years it seems to be the month I’ve treat myself to the next bit of tech, be it a new…
I’ll set the scene. My daughter is now six, she sleeps by herself in her room and in the last few weeks has started to play relatively quietly when she wakes up early. She then comes into our room when the sun comes up on her Gro clock. This does not mean I’m a lucky parent. iBears normal bedtime routine is to go upstairs with one of us with a story around 7:45-8:00pm. She then settles and falls asleep pretty…
My five year old Daughter and I have a brilliant relationship. I’ve been a hands on Dad since the moment she was born. I changed her, I bathe her, I put her to bed, I do homework with her, I read to her, I play with her. I wouldn’t have it any other way either. It can be tough, of course. Having very little time to myself has always been an issue but I wouldn’t change it for the world….
Recently I experienced the fright of my life. A kind of raw terror that I have never had before and definitely do not want again. I thought I’d lost my Daughter. I thought she’d been taken. It was 15:40 on a Friday, I was at work and my mind was starting to focus on the weekend ahead and what we would get up to. Then my mobile phone rang. The number coming up was the school. I stared at my…
Everything’s been feeling a bit doom and gloom recently. I think a lot of people will be happy to see an end to 2018 for a variety of different reasons. However this past weekend my daughter received two random acts of kindness in the same day. My faith in humanity has been restored. Choo Choo Choose your seats We had a day at Edinburgh Christmas Market arranged and it was to be the first time my five year old daughter…
I like to think that I’m fairly switched on. Like being able to process the things that go on in the world and understand them, to a degree. But I’ve never truly understood Brexit. Here we are, during one of the most important weeks of the whole process, and I’m struggling with it. So here’s my musings on the subject in the hope that by writing my thoughts down I can try and figure it all out…… Is that a…