My Blog
My musings about the world, self publishing, living abroad, and my author career.
Legos and growing up
I love Lego, it's brilliant. I loved it as a child and I'm so excited that my children are starting to enjoy it too. I love watching the two of them play with it together. Taking bits apart and putting them back slightly differently. And my parents have given us what...
How I’m using my activity tracker
I've had my activity tracking watch nearly six months now and I've been playing around with it a bit to see what it does, how it works and how I can use it. My first conclusion is that steps are useful but not the be all and end all of exercise. For example, every day...
Helping in the kitchen
I love cooking; though being able to do it on my own is a luxury I rarely have. As a child I only remember having to make crumble. (Now I make mean pastry.) I'm not sure why I didn't do more? My sister did. I don't like to ask for things, so maybe I never asked to...
Writing
I keep saying every year how I want to write more: I could find posts saying this for 2017, 2016, 2015, 2012, & 2011. This year I have actually started as I mean to go on and have been writing, a little bit every day, as I can. Sometime last year I joined the 10...
Meal planning
Meal planning is something I don't particularly enjoy - I love cooking but often feel uninspired when faced with a blank piece of paper to sit down and decide what we should eat this week. And I don't want to be eating new things every day, or eating the same things...
Some things I don’t understand about the Dutch
Most of the time I forget I'm living in a foreign country. People are friendly and helpful and we just get on with our stuff. But there are a few things that bug me and remind me that this is a different place (in no particular order): They leave dog poo on the...
Little or big?
Starry girl is now 3. She's definitely a getting bigger girl, but sometimes I think we forget how little she is. How much of an effort some things are for her. How much she still has to learn. It makes me think of what we say to our children. How when we want them to...
School progression
In the Netherlands school is compulsory from 5, but you can attend from 4, which most children do so. This is a rolling start through the year, so the day after your 4th birthday you start school and children are starting throughout the school year. I found this a bit...
Annual review of 2016
Overall this has been a difficult year - I've been back to the UK for two funerals, there's been a variety of family accidents and illnesses, and of course no-one really knows the implications of the Brexit referendum result. It has definitely been a year of digging...
Stocking activities 2016
So it's that time of the year again - here is our list of activities through Sinterklaas and advent. My aim (as in previous years) was to do a mix of craft and cooking activities, some seasonal things and some for other people spreading the festive cheer! It is too...
Christmas
It struck me when the children and I were decorating our Christmas tree that every decoration is a memory of Christmases past. Especially as I try to make at least one decoration to keep each year. Our tree has a heavenly host of angels (grouped together at the top...
New school year, new start
Over the last few months I've been having a good think about what we do on a daily/weekly basis. Partly instigated by the start of the new school year. Starry girl is now settled into her preschool and I felt it was time to change the other activities she does in the...