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HM (4) starts big school in a week. Luckily she has two older sisters (5 and 7) to show her the ropes. Today I overheard this conversation...
William won't be in your class, but you can visit him at playtime. And when it's wet play you will go into his class room.
Okay.
Practise counting to twenty.
(counts, missing 17)
It's not all play, you know. Sometimes you have to do really, really hard work.
Not sure where the summer holidays went. I know they were here somewhere. I just put them down just over there...
Ah, here they are. I can't believe they are nearly over! What have I done with my six weeks? Well, let me tell you. There was the...
Santa Cruz is just under a 1/2 hour from where we are staying in California. It's a bit of a curvy ride through the mountains, but when you arrive the air temperature is about 15 degrees cooler than the valley (which can get to 100F) and there are loads of beaches to explore.
One of our favourites is Seacliff, also known as the cement boat beach.
The cement boat is at the end of this pier (trust me).
As a mummy blogging evangelist and founder of the British Mummy Bloggers social network, I've been following the debate about blogging ethics and reviews/sponsored posts with great interest. This is now official business in the US, with the FTC about to launch guidelines this summer.
Things seemed to hit a crescendo when Mom Dot, a social network for US mommy bloggers, announced a PR Blackout Challenge aimed at urging mommy bloggers to get back to basics after loosing the plot to the allure of giveaways, reviews, and blog trips.
In response, I wrote May British Mummy Bloggers Never Need a PR Blackout, more as a warning to our growing community of what may be in store if we don't learn from what has happened to mommy bloggers on the other side of the pond.
After several conversations and comments, it became clear that British mummy bloggers don't need a code of ethics. That would take all the fun out of blogging and make it seem more like work. Rather, we could all use a reminder of the issues of ethical blogging. Hence, British Mummy Bloggers Do It With Integrity was born.
Continue reading "British Mummy Bloggers Do It With Integrity" »
OMG, I can't believe all the hoopla about health care reform in the US. After nearly three weeks here, and talking with family and friends, I have come to the conclusion that no one really understands the issues (who would, the documents run in the thousands of pages). Opposition comes down to partisan politics and the fear of socialised medicine.
When I first moved to the UK nearly 20 years ago I was leary of the National Health Service (NHS) from years of right wing warning: It's government-run. It's inefficient. It's socialism, ferchristsake. You won't have access to good care.
You know what I've discovered after years of living abroad and extensive use of the NHS: The UK "socialised" system is not that bad. Really. In fact, I'm a huge fan.
Continue reading "Hey America, socialized medicine is not that bad. Really." »
We are thoroughly enjoying our holiday in California. Well, me and the girls are. Hubby is holed up most of the time with his laptop working away (and we thank him for it). We did manage to take a family canoe trip down the Russian River. It was also a trip into my past.
My family didn't have lots of extra money when I was growing up -- there were five of us pesky kids and my parents did their best on school teacher salaries. The only holidays I remember was staying at a friend's house that overlooked the Russian River. The two-story house on stilts had a huge deck that was shaded by the 300-foot Redwoods that populated the river banks and we got to sleep outside in sleeping bags. We would play in the river by day (earning the term "river rat") and at night we would have developed such an appetite we would devour everything in site; one of the favourites was pie made from the slightly tart local Gravenstein apples.
So, back to the canoe trip: four canoes, one kayak, six adults, three teenagers, three little girls, two dozen bottles of water, salami and swiss cheese sandwiches, and loads of sunscreen.
Me and hubby had a few teething problems at the start of the trip with the rowing (quite a compatibility test) but we were soon on our merry way...
