Kids Capture the Colour

M was delighted to see a competition from Travel Supermarket for children to take photos over the summer focused on individual colours. She is such an avid photographer that she had to have a go.  We didn't get in quick enough to get a camera to take the photos with, so she used her little old Fuji film camera, but Travel Supermarket said that she could still enter the competition.  So below you will find M's attempts at capturing colour over the summer holidays.  M is 13 and has just started studying photography at school, so this was a great way to get her to focus on a task rather than just snapping away.

 

BLUE

This is our friends little girl R, transfixed by a bright blue balloon. 

 

 

WHITE

Our family dog, Maggie, it's not often you see her white as she loves mud.

                                                                          GREEN

    A peacock at Dartmoor Wildlife Park.  An amazing display of colour.

                                                                          YELLOW  
    M loves flowers and would have made the whole study one of flowers so she has chosen this yellow rose as her favourite.  As she says the arrival of flowers in the garden mean that summer is here!                                      

 

RED 

M's favourite shot of the whole set because it was her most fun part of the summer holidays.  We were lucky enough to stand on stage for Billy Bragg's set at Camp Bestival this year and she loved every minute of it. 

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Why walk when you can catch the bus! A pocket money tale of woe....

I used to love pocket money day, although there always seemed to be so much week left at the end of the money and my dad was a stickler for "when it's gone it's gone!".  It taught me the value of money  and budgeting.  I used to get a lot more money than my friends; £7.75 a week.  A figure decided not by my dad but the state as he used to give me the family allowance which he received for me.  Out of this princely sum, I was expected to buy everything I needed so clothes, makeup, going out and everything else was financed by me.  Needless to say, I supplemented my pocket money, with a Saturday job, babysitting and a paper round and am amazed looking back that I had time to spend any money, with the amount of hours I put into earning it.

With my own children I'm an abject failure when it comes to pocket money.  I give them money as and when they need it, I don't make them work for it, I don't even insist that they do "a chore" to deserve it... if they ask, and I've got it then as long as they aren't asking for the moon on a stick they get it.  They are the proverbial spoilt children.  I'm sure that in my own way I'm rebelling against having to work so hard as a child to finance everything I wanted by being completely the opposite.

I know all the advice is that it teaches you to budget, it teaches you respect and it teaches you to value the things you buy, but I also know that there is nothing worse than being a child who can't go out with her friends as dad won't give you £1.50 for the cinema because you've spent your pocket money on a new pair of school shoes.  He was too harsh and I am too soft and I should tread a middle line.  I am mentally scared by my pocket money dilemmas and can still remember 30 years later one day crying as he wouldn't give me the bus fare into town on a Saturday morning so I could get to work because I hadn't budgeted properly!  Not budgeting properly on that occasion was him deciding that the money for a school trip should come out of my pocket money and wasn't in the list of essentials that he would fund.  Apparently this was to teach me the value of keeping an emergency fund, when all it actually taught me was that a five mile walk to work is no fun. 

I was really interested therefore, to see the Roosterbank pocket money index.  It's a really fun interactive site which shows you how much pocket money others give/receive and what kids are spending their money on.  It also allows your children to track their money, make decisions about how to spend THEIR money and gives loads of hints and tips about getting it right!  Something I know I am very bad at doing.

I found the site by sheer chance through Tots100 as part of a blog competition but whether this post wins or not, I've joined the site and have sat down with the kids today and agreed a pocket money budget with them both, which they are going to manage until Christmas on Roosterbank.  I'm hopeful it will be a good thing for all of us.   I've told them that it is flexible until we are happy, (see even now I'm still being a wimp about when it's gone it gone!) and that when we get to Christmas we will set a formal amount based on the last three months spending.

If you too fancy having a look you can find the site here.  I'm determined to give it a go, who knows I may actually raise children who respect their things, grow up to budget well and never have to walk instead of catching the bus!

“This post is an entry into the Tots100/Roosterbank Pocket Money Competition”

Camp Bestival

This year I was lucky enough to win a family ticket to Camp Bestival.  It was a great fun competition where you had to complete various stages in a race to the finish line to the final prize of a family ticket.  I was lucky enough to complete all the stages and win the tickets, along with several other amazing prizes along the way.  The tickets were a superb win, having exhausted my festival budget earlier this  year with Glastonbury, Bestival and Camp Bestival were only a dream.

We arrived late on Thursday night, but luckily had friends (who had also won in the same competition) already pitched and waiting for us.  Trolley hire was a nightmare and the taxi service non-existent when we got there, so the first challenge was the slog to the pitch, but with perseverance and a knackering walk we made it just before 11pm and were pitched, air beds blown up and kids asleep before 2am.  This kind of bed time became the norm all weekend.

Friday, dawned bright and sunny and we had a morning exploring the site and marvelling at the amount of things to do for young kids....why didn't this exist when mine were this little. T is 18 now and M 13, so they were a bit old for the kiddie based activities but they loved just walking around soaking up the atmosphere. 


Then it was onto prize 1.

Front of stage tickets for two to watch Ash on the main stage.  Again, we were blessed here as another one of our group also won this prize, so we pooled prizes and myself and Lynn took the two teenage girls along.

  They were gobsmacked that they were allowed down the front to watch from the press pit.

 

Nothing was going to top this for the rest of the day, but the girls threw themselves into walking around, looking pretty, lazing at the tent and deciding which stall to eat from next with gusto.  While myself and Lynn looked forward to our evening treat. 

 

 

 

Yes, we were privileged enough to get tickets which allowed us to watch the Billy Bragg gig from the side of the stage.  I had one of the awful moments when I felt old, as I realised that I'd seen my first Billy Bragg gig 30 years ago!  The view from the side of stage was awe inspiring, with the crowd and the beautiful castle in the background as the sun set over Lulworth.

 

By this time, I had lost the boys (18, 18 and 23) to Bollywood, the bar and generally enjoying the festival on their own.  They didn't want to be with mum cramping their style, but such is the atmosphere of the festival that I didn't even worry heading off to sleep with them still out, something that I'd never dare to do at home.

 

Saturday arrived all too soon, with us up bright and early to meet up with Matt from Camp Bestival to claim yet another prize, in the form of a drink on CB.  This was gratefully received as the bar prices at the site weren't cheap and packing light had meant that alcohol was not on our packing list.  Armed with our vouchers myself and Lynn debated keeping hold of the blokes vouchers (they were too lazy to get up!) but were good and shared them out back at the tents.

 

Yet more wandering around marvelling at the sights and sounds, a visit to the Skylanders area for E&D, our 10  year olds and a mosey around the stalls led us to the Gabriel Aplin gig.  Again we had two tickets for front of stage here, so we sent in the girls.  They loved every minute of it and you could see that for them the festival was made.  Even joining the crowd myself, at a diminutive 5ft 2" I didn't feel crushed or over shadowed and could see the stage! 

 

Next up was a relax before I took myself off to see Mark Owen. Can you believe out of a group of 10 people I was the only one who wanted to see this gig.  Well it was their loss.

 

Then onto the Levellers which everyone headed off to.  We managed to get relatively near the front again and danced our socks off next to some really sprightly old age pensioners.

 

Sunday arrived even faster than Saturday had....and again after a leisurely morning we headed off to throw paper airplanes for a world record breaking attempt before a side of stage view of 1975 in the Big Top, (wow just wow!), a meeting with the band (wow and even more wow!) and a chilled evening of comedy with Alan Davies in preparation for Labrinth and the fireworks display.. 

 

The wonderful Matt from Camp Bestival was nice enough to swop one of our prizes, so the kids could all watch Labrinth from the front of the stage, so after rushing from the Big Top and the Alan Davies gig, we managed to get the kids to the front for the last surprise which was their seats for the last gig of the weekend.  This was followed by a wonderful spine tingling fire work display which was just the icing on the cake of a wonderful weekend.

 

I've read lots of reviews of this festival on other blogs, and seen the comments on facebook about the facilities but cannot believe these people were at the same festival.  The toilet facilities have been slammed everywhere I look, yet having attended hundreds of festivals and with Glastonbury still fresh in my mind these were heavenly.  I didn't even try the "posh loos" but the on site staff near our tent were constantly cleaning the loos, and not once did I open a door and run away.  The queues were always manageable and none of our group ever had a problem.  The showers were fantastic, of course, they are always going to be busy first thing in the morning but if you were prepared to pop over later then it was easy.

 

Food at these things is always going to be expensive, but we found some stalls that were very reasonable, The Soup Library and Tea & Toast as always delivered.  The Schuh welly exchange was fantastic and these proved to be life savers when the heavens opened as we packed up on Monday.

 

Fest-taxi were the only true disappointment.  On Thursday they had shut by 9pm and others told me that actually by 8.30pm you struggled to get one, which considering a lot of people don't get there until after work and the car park was rammed with arrivals at that time, made no sense.  On Monday getting hold of one was impossible.  We watched in dismay as one poor disabled lad was turned away and told that even if he waited they wouldn't be able to help him.  On site security were fantastic at this point as they carried his belongings to his car for him, but the taxi could easily have made just that one journey.

 

At no point did I feel anything other than safe, my children were safe and my belongings were safe.  Phone charging was hit and miss, so it was a good job my children were safe as I wasn't so worried that I couldn't reach them.  The phone charging point was £5 for half hour and three times we actually walked away with phones that hadn't charged at all, so I do wonder if it was working properly.

 

Camp Bestival is marketed at families and certainly lives up to that perfectedly.  That said, our group although a family were older, teens and young adults and oldies and we all came away happy and looking forward to next year.  Actually that's a lie, we all came away longing to go to Bestival but I need the comping fairy to reward me with some tickets before that one comes off.

 

Huge thanks go especially to  Matthew Sanger and all the team at Camp Bestival, they worked their socks off to produce a truly magical weekend.

 

Holiday memories.

I grew up in a family that didn't travel abroad on holiday, the rise of the package holiday came after I left home, so holidays for us were far more the pack up the car and tent and travel for what seemed like hours in the car;  my brother, sister and me, all squished in the back, with sleeping bags under our bums and a suitcase under my feet.

I remember moaning all the way there, my children definitely inherited "are we nearly there yet?". I remember, I spy and the number plate game, from my own horrific holiday car journeys. I remember car sickness vividly and the smell of Brut 33 as dad frantically tried to remove the smell from the car when one of us didn't warn him in time. 

My memories of actual holidays mingle into one, but some things never changed.  Cheese sandwiches and warm lemonade as we stopped in a layby on the side of the road on the interminable journey down to Cornwall or Devon.  Dad and mum always fighting whilst erecting the tent over which pole went where and just how best to put the tent up.  Rain and bad weather seemed to dog our holidays, yet no matter how windy it was, I could never ever get the kite to fly.  I don't even remember why I bothered with it, but each year, I insisted that we buy yet another kite, which would end up in a bin at the end of the week, battered and broken from endless dives to earth.

I used to love collecting shells, spending hours picking them up from the seashore and each year, I insisted on bringing them home.  It's only now looking back that I think, why?  The smell in the car from the shells and seaweed always made me feel even more sick on the return leg and I had to hold the bucket filled to the brim on my lap all the way home.  Then within days the lustre had gone from the shells and mum would throw them away.

I look back with nostalgia on my holidays, hours spent looking through rockpools, playing crazy golf and eating ice creams, (normally in the rain) and think how little has changed.

Surprisingly not alot.  My early holidays shaped me into an avid staycationer and it's what I still do with my kids now.  I love holidays in the UK.  We live in such a beautiful country if we take the time to look around and visit it.

The campsites or holiday villages are much nicer; no longer the old huge frame tent that took half a day to erect or dodgy chalets. The sleeping bags are warmer and the term "glamping" figures high on our list.  We now camp on pitches with electric and have a fridge or stay in plush chalets, with showers and decent beds and facilities, but some things still remain true to my early holiday memories with my family.  We still love the amusement arcades, the penny falls still take coppers, fish and chips still taste best out of newspaper on the beach and nothing quite beats the feel of jumping the waves in the coldest of cold seas imaginable.

I look back with nothing but good memories and hope that my children will feel the same when they are older.  I can't find any photos of those times,  but I do have the shots from my son's first family holiday, he's threatened to kill me if I put them up on my blog... so I'm not going to win this competition, I'm going to die......(The things I do for my readers risking life and limb)

“Competition sponsored by Butlins Holiday Parks, helping your family make memories.”

Appliances Online Superheroes

Those lovely people at Appliances Online have got their happy faces on again and are running a best superhero competition for bloggers.   The prize up for grabs is the chance to take home this gorgeous Samsung Fridge Freezer to use and review... now that's my kind of prize...  it's just such a shame that my superheroes aren't really all that super or heroes.

 

I have Captain A... he doesn't even merit any further description and I couldn't take any more photos of him as I was laughing too much.

The Hulk.. who refused to rip her sweatshirt, or have green body paint applied so really wasn't getting into the spirit of this competition at all.

and the Iron Lady... actually I think it's more wavy hand lady, she's so wimpy I can't even see her managing to put up an ironing board, let alone get through a weeks worth of shirts!

Hey ho, they may not be super or heroes in the eyes of the rest of the world, but they are mine and I love them dearly, just not for reasons that are easily apparent.  If like me they've made you smile, then they've done their job well here today as the purpose of the post was to bring happiness and a smile.   I know I'd be smiling if Appliances Online like them and let us review the fridge/freezer.

You can see more of their range of Samsung fridges and freezers here

 

The Book That Made Me!

I love reading, I am one of those people who never seem to have their nose out of a book.  I read anything and everything, devouring words like food and drink.  Despite the fact that I tend to read two or three books a week, I still have favourites, those books that I return to time and time again,who give me comfort and solace, pick up my spirits, make me laugh or just remind me of good times.  They are like slipping into a hot bath, or a newly made bed, comforting and relaxing with the reassurance that they won't disappoint.  I have a multitude of these, dog eared old friends sat on my bookshelves.  Some are tatty and crumpled, with battered spines and well worn covers. If I needed to choose just one book to take with me to a desert island or that I knew I could loose myself in time and time again or that made me the person I am today, then it would be from this row of books that I would make my choice.

It's not an easy choice, I'm the sum of all my parts and my parts have been shaped by forty years of reading, from Shakespeare to Harold Robbins, Pinter to Stephen King and from airport terminal holiday reads to the huge tomes that I read for my degree.  Every single one of them has made a mark on me.

So what could be that one book.  One novel that stands head and shoulders above the rest and made me want to read and read and read. Influenced me into being a better person (I hope) and had a profound effect on the thirteen year old girl that first picked it up, in O level English, with a heavy heart because it wasn't about ponies, or Adrian Mole.  There can be only one and for me that one is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

I was transfixed by the end of the first paragraph and still to this day remain entranced, until the tears start at the end.  Actually that is a lie, I cry from about three chapters before the end because I know what is coming.  I know that this book made me a better person.  It taught me the fallacy of judging people on first impressions and of meddling.  Although life in 1980's Bristol was a far cry from the life of the Bennet's, it resonated with me and I could see even two hundred years later that actually very little has changed with relationships.  I dreamt of a Darcy of my own, he was my child hood pin up, the man with the morals that I wanted in my own future husband, and who can blame me for dreaming that he'd be just as rich.  But not only did it teach me so much about what was wrong with relationships, it also showed me that it was ok to change my mind.  That I didn't have to make a decision and stick with it to the bitter end. 

I have Jane Austen to thank for so much.  She made me a nicer person, shaping my attitudes at that impressionable age and more importantly, she made me realise that just because a book was old and huge, it didn't mean that it was out of my reach. Without this book, I would not be the avid reader I am today and I would not have the husband I have today because my first impression of him was "urgh, stuck up horrible man!".  If Lizzie Bennet could change her mind and see through to the inner person, then so could I and I'm glad I did.

If you too want to read my one book you can find it here at Waterstones.
This post was prompted by Waterstones Books That Made Me campaign.  Details of which are here.