making the most of your small garden

Making the Most of Your Small Garden

Most new houses now come with very small gardens and ours is no exception. It was the compromise we made to have a house we wanted in the right location but it is still something I struggle with even 6 years on. When I sit and watch gardening programmes I dream of having the space to be able to recreate some of their looks, to be able to have a pond or water feature and the land to have a separate play area away from all my plants. One day, when I win the lottery eh! So, for now, I have had to learn how to make the most of our small garden all whilst keeping it functional for all of us as a family. 

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Review: Dinosaur World at The Anvil

*Gifted Tickets

Jake is a huge dinosaur fan, so when Anvil Arts invited us along to review the new show Dinosaur World we jumped at the chance. The show is suitable from the age of three and runs for 50 minutes with no interval, which works out well. With this being our third theatre show of the year we have started to learn how long Jake can hold his attention for and anything over an hour has him wriggling in his seat. However, this show is completely different from your usual one. The lights remain up through most of it and photos are permitted throughout which is a nice change.

The Dinosaur World show is performed by Miranda who tells her story of how she came to live on an island inhabited by dinosaurs. She grew up around them and learnt all she could from her parents. She is extremely enthusiastic throughout the show and her on-stage energy keeps the children’s attention. She encourages the audience to shout out and join in as well as asking selected members to join her up on stage to help with each dinosaur.

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Making Learning Fun with Little House of Science

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Back in the day, when I was at school, you were there to learn and this meant the classes were usually pretty serious. I always did well in the interactive classes– Music, Science, English– but I struggled with Maths from the start. For me, it was always explained in a very complicated way. If I can relate information I am given to practical situations and it seems logical to me I can take it all in and learn and perhaps if it had all been made more fun I may have been much more engaged. It wasn’t until I failed my Maths GCSE and had to re-do a year at college that I found a teacher who finally made it all ‘click’.

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Yes, I May Moan, But I Wouldn’t Change A Thing!

 

Yes, I may moan, but I wouldn’t change a thing…

 

I may moan about the serious lack of sleep, why at three he still doesn’t feel the need to sleep through the night I still can’t quite fathom out. I may moan about the mess he makes again and again and I definitely moan when his strops escalate over the smallest of issues but I have a secret to tell you

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Review: Mr Bloom’s Nursery Live Show

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When we were invited along to review the new Mr Bloom’s Nursery Live Show I was just as excited as Jake. We had really enjoyed his very first trip to the theatre last month to watch Room on the Broom and as he is a Mr Bloom fan I knew he would love to see him on stage.

We chose to watch the show in Reading at The Hexagon Theatre as this was the nearest venue to us. We were greeted at the box office to collect our tickets and were offered a booster seat for Jake so he could get a better view which I thought was a brilliant idea (these were £2 to hire and you received £1 back after the show– although there wasn’t anyone manning the desk when we left and we chose not to hang around for the sake of £1). Once we sat down the veggies took it in turns to speak and let us know how long it was until the show started which got the kids in the audience very excited. Once the show begins the lights do dim but the stage is so brightly coloured there wasn’t any upset from the children in the audience.

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Making a Difference with a Teddy Bear’s Picnic

 

″If you go down to the woods today you’re sure of a big surprise…″

The surprise being that you can help towards raising funds to build a new Children’s Emergency & Trauma Department at Southampton University Hospital which will be a ground-breaking major trauma unit supplying state of the art, life-saving equipment. The Ginormous Teddy Bear’s picnic is taking place between 5th and 11th June this year as part of the #2millionsteps campaign and you too can get involved! All you need to do is sign up, get your friends, neighbours, groups or schools involved and start planning your ‘bear-illiant’ picnic! Each person will need to donate the suggested amount of £1 (more would be gratefully received as every penny counts) to this great cause and the only other requirement is to just have fun!

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Teething is NOT a Myth!

Believe it or not, there are a certain amount of health practitioners out there who have claimed that teething pain does not exist. That teething is, in fact, a myth. Whilst researching for my book I came across articles that claimed every symptom parents’ have ever reported, over hundreds of years, are not linked to teething, that children get approximately 20 viral infections in their first couple of years and coincidentally they get 20 teeth, so we are mistaking teething for colds and that most of the signs are in fact made up in our own minds. According to some dentists, teething pain doesn’t even exist… tell that to the next adult who complains about their wisdom teeth.

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