Fountains Abbey – Peter Pan day

The great thing about being in Yorkshire is there are lots of places to go and over the summer they have lots of family events on. This Wednesday we’re planning to go to Fountains Abbey nr Ripon for a Peter Pan day. The kids get in for free if they are in fancy dress. Early evening they also have a open air performance of Peter Pan (which we won’t be sticking about for as it’s tea/bed time for the kids).

I’ll report back on what it was like, in the meantime check out the links if you fancy going along yourself:

• Fountains Abbey Peter Pan News Release
• Peter Pan performance details and ticketing

Golden Acre Park, a sunny day out in Leeds

Friday turned out to be a lovely summers day in Leeds. So the morning started with a hunt for something to do with the children. A few text messages later we had a picnic date with our friend Claire and her two little ones.

I picked Golden Acre Park as we’ve only been there once before and I managed to get Priya’s agreement by telling her we could feed the ducks.

We rushed out of the house with a hastily made picnic and an old loaf of bread (for the ducks)

The park is accessed from the car park via an underpass to avoid the crossing the busy main road which is a good start. The car park is free and although it was packed full the park didn’t feel too full. There is plenty of space for picnicing and having a run around. The stream that runs through the main area is a bit scary when you have a 3 small children running towards it but you have great visibility so it wasn’t a huge problem and none of the kids ended up in it. The muddy patches provided lots of amusement so thank goodness it hadn’t rained recently otherwise I’m sure the kids would have ended up covered in mud.

The duck pond is really popular and I suspect those ducks eat a lot of cheap white bread, next time I think we might take something like a croissant, at least they will have something interesting to eat and we might have a bit more luck in attracting some ducks that want to eat our offering. We did eventually find some hungry ducks and the kids had a great time throwing their bread in.

We then walked up to get an ice cream from the kiosk (stopping at a wooden shelter to play hide and seek on the way), the selection was small but adequete and there was a lovely bit of grass and some benches to sit on to enjoy our ice creams. Although I don’t think Dominic enjoyed it much, his mini milk melted everywhere while he screamed ‘my my my’ pointing at Priya’s Calipo.

The cafe at Golden Acre Park is great too, we’ve been in for tea and cakes before and it has a nice terrace to sit out on.

The gardens near the cafe have lots of lovely beds and there is a nursery that is open to the public too, some of the plants are also sold in the shop.

There isn’t a playground at the park which the kids were a bit disappointed abut but it was actually quite nice for Claire and I not to have to battle though a packed playground. Anywhere with a playground is a no no during the school holidays because they’re so busy and toddlers struggle to get a turn on anything.

I’d definately recommend it if you’re looking for a nice park to have a walk or to picnic in on a nice summers day in Leeds.

We had a good day out, both kids had a good run around and slept on the journey home, which is always a good sign.

Photos to follow ….

Summer Holiday sunny days out

I’ve decided to put together some ideas on things to do with toddlers during the school summer holiday. I have two children, 3 and a half and 1 and a half so finding things to do isn’t always easy.

Apart from the obvious idea of going to park I’m going to attempt to find some interesting things to do with the kids over the next six weeks in and around Yorkshire so if you have any suggestions or ideas I’d love to try them out and write up our experiences here.

Child Care – Child Minders vs Private Nurseries

I’ve had plenty of conversations with other mothers about the choice between nursery or child minder. People have very set views over their preference. More than once have I heard someone say to me, I couldn’t use a child minder. Nursery wasn’t really on option for me but in retrospect I can see why people choose nursery. If I had known then what I know now I’m not sure if my decision would have been different. But here’s a few things I now know. it might help if you’re trying to reach a decision at the moment:

If you want your child to have a one on one relationship then a child minder might be better.

Work out your total costs, a child minder may seem cheaper per hour but you normally have to supply nappies, wipes, bottles, food etc whereas nursery will provide everything.

Nurseries are normally more flexible about drop and pick up times so if you need early starts and late finishes you might struggle to find a child minder who can do this.

If you would prefer your child to learn to be around children of different ages then child minders are great. Because of ofsted rules they can’t have lots of small children so they often have a wide range of ages.

If you would have trouble taking time off then a nursery might be best. Although child minders do cover for each other it can be difficult to find someone last minute and you may not be keen leaving your children with someone else anyway.

If you want your child to go to the local school nursery as soon as they can get a place then you should check from the outset that your child minder or private nursery can drop and collect at your choice of school. It may seem a long time away but if your child is settled with a nursery or child minder you won’t want to move them at 3 years old to a new provider. A child minder is more likely to be able to offer this type of service. It’s a great way to introduce younger children to school as they will go to drop and pick up at school with the child minder.

Because child minders have a number of children of different ages they learn from each other so things like introducing a potty is really easy – my two knew what a potty was for before even bought one. That said I believe that child development is down to the child and their environment has influence but that’s all.

Do you feel comfortable with the person/persons you’ve chosen. This is a business relationship, as you pay them to look after your children so you need to feel comfortable talking to them about difficult subjects.

Treat your child carers with respect. I’ve heard lots of stories about child minders and nursery workers being treated badly. This isn’t helpful for the carer, parent or children as it can eventually lead to disruption for the children. Most issues can be amicably worked out if people just learnt to talk to each other.

There are lots more things to take into considerations but I chose a child minder because I wanted my children to have a more personal relationship with someone locally. It can be a pain (like this week) as my child minder has a week off so I’ve had to take a week off from kilo75 to be at home, but really I’m quite enjoying it!

London to Brighton 2008

In my spare time I cycle a bit, I got into it about a year ago in a bid to get fit. Last Sunday (15th June) I completed the British Heart Foundations London to Brighton bike ride. It’s 54 miles from start to finish so a big challenge for me and something I had hoped to do.

So I’m feeling tired this week and I’m recovering from a sore bum but I’m ecstatic to have completed it and enjoyed it too.

For me cycling is leisure activity so I was interested in a question that appeared on Linkedin this week asking ‘Is cycling the new golf?’ The response was mixed but I’m certainly going to keep an ear out in future!

More Big Brother

So Big Brother is back for the ninth series, ninth!!! I can’t believe that people are still watching it but it seems like more than 3million people are tuning in. Oh well no Channel 4 for the summer. It’ll mean I get a lot more work done.

Is it possible?

I could spend 7 days a week at work and I’d enjoy it. Not many people can say that, at least not many of the people I know but I find it increasingly difficult to run a business and be at home with my children.

How do other people do it? Is it possible to juggle work, home, kids and may be even a social life, although I haven’t seen one of those for about three years.

I spend my days at work stacked only to look up and see that it is 5 o’clock and I have to leave. I feel guilty that I left before eveyone but then spend the next three hours making dinner, feeding the kids, bathing and putting to bed finally collapsing in front of a screen at about 8 o’clock to do some work! Blimey its knackering just writing about it. I spend my days at home, on and off my Blackberry with my laptop balanced on the arm of the sofa trying to at least keep up to speed with things at the office whilst playing hide and seek, making dinner, hanging out the washing and trying to nip to the shop for milk because we’ve run out … again.

Part of the problem is that I see child care and house work as part of my role as a mother and wife and asking for help doesn’t come easily.

Surely this can’t go on …

Don’t get me wrong, having my own business means I get to make the decisions about when and how I work, I enjoy the time I’m at work and love being at home with the kids and I know not many people can say the same. I wouldn’t have it any other way and I although sometimes I think it would be easier to do a few hours in a call centre, take my wages at the end of the month and have no worries that’s not my style. I don’t so things the easy way.

The utopian ideal seems some sort of flexible, work at home job where there’s no one else involved but that’s not life and I’m pretty sure I’d get frustrated by this pretty quickly.

I think I’m just going to have to wait until the kids are at school, just another three years to go!!

If anyone out there can share similiar experiences I’d love to hear from you.

‘ere we go, ‘ere we go …

I decided to start a blog to get me back into the swing of writing content really. With the new kilo75 website due to go live soon I suspect there will be a lot of writing going on in the wee small hours.

For a while though I’ve thought it might be useful/interesting to keep a more personal log of stuff that goes on in my life. Most of the time life is totally crazy. Working three days a week, running a business full time while also being at home with the children and doing all the normal things that are involved in running a family as well as helping to run a business 200 miles away means there’s no time for luxuries like writing a blog. But I don’t believe in the word can’t so here I am, at least giving it a go. I’m hoping I can add something occasionally but more importantly meet some similar people along the way.

So from time to time I might use my blog to record things I can come back to in future. But in the meantime if you find your way here as a mother who runs their own business I’d be really interested in hearing from you.

PS – I thought the title would coincide nicely with the end of the football season.