Followers of Mummy Matters may or may not (sob sob) have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet for the last week. I do have a very good reason though, this time last week I was sat in an office in Hof (Germany). I was very lucky to be one of a small group of bloggers who went to Hof and Berlin for 3 days courtesy of Kiddy Car Seats but that’s going to be a whole different set of posts!!!
We arrived back in the UK very late on Friday night, and after a very long drive home, my head finally reconnected with my pillow during the early hours of Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon was spent catching up with my lovely family as my Auntie celebrated her 50th Birthday with a barbeque for family and friends in her back garden. It felt good to be home with my family and to just kick back and relax for a few hours.
On Sunday, I was able to spend some much-missed quality time with Hubby, Little Bean and Beanie Boy. We didn’t do anything fancy or expensive; we just headed out for the day to see where the mood took us, and we ended up back at home playing outside in the sunshine. It’s a funny situation when you find yourself away from your family; you think that you will revel in that time away from nappies and nagging, but instead, I found myself cradling a fake baby (yes, really!) and staring longingly at families with their children as they walked down the street. Tonight I shall see Curly for the first time since my return, it feels like forever since I last saw him! It was really nice to come home to a really impressive school report for Curly, so I’m looking forward to giving him a congratulatory hug for that!
On Monday, we headed to the seaside to spend the day with our very good friends MumtoC and MasterC himself. We had a blast at the paddling pool and then hit the beach and the park. We were so lucky that the sun shone all day long, and the children were fairly obliging in wearing their sunscreen and sun hats! I love it when Little Bean and MasterC get together; they play so nicely and are always excited about seeing each other.
Generally, they disappear upstairs to MasterC’s bedroom and can often be found cuddled up in bed together, though MumtoC and I have joked about what age we should start to worry about them doing this. As we were getting ready to leave, I asked Little Bean to go to the toilet before we headed off, and MasterC told me that he wanted to do a wee, too. As he stood at the toilet doing his business, Little Bean looked on and congratulated him for being a good boy before grabbing a piece of toilet paper and wiping his winky for him! I told her that there was no need to do that as he was a big boy and quite capable of doing it himself!!! Perhaps now is the time to start worrying about them cuddling up in bed together after all?
When the time finally came to get in the car, Little Bean announced that she wasn’t going. I tried the old reverse psychology trick and told her if she didn’t get in the car, then I would go home without her, and she would have to stay at MasterC’s house. It failed drastically! When I went back into the house to get her, she moved to the furthest part of the lounge and began crying, telling me she didn’t want to come home; she wanted to stay the night at MasterC’s house! The crying continued for half an hour on the journey before she fell asleep and then when she woke up her first words were “. . but I wanted to sleep at MasterC’s house, Mummy!” before the crying began again!!! I’m such a mean Mummy!
And then yesterday, I headed to London with Little Bean and Beanie Boy for Christmas in July courtesy of Boots. After the disaster of our last day in London, I was keen to make a better day of it, and you know what? I think I surpassed my expectations!! We were supposed to travel down with Cafebebe and Little Miss, but unfortunately, Little Miss was struck down with Chicken Pox. Ordinarily I would have jumped at the chance to get the girls together so that we could get Chicken Pox out of the way in our house too but next week I am taking the children on holiday with my Mum so I don’t want the Pox to spoil it. The journey to London went well yesterday, although Little Bean did remind me as I entered the car park to “not crash the car this time, Mummy” Yes, thanks for the reminder! We trekked across London to find our venue, 8 Northumberland Avenue (which was amazing), but as I rounded the corner to attempt the steps, I was faced with Gok Wan. I had been expecting to see him as he was a guest at the Boots event to introduce his range of Christmas goodies, but I thought I had arrived too late to meet him. He was a true gentlemen and obliged with a photograph and then autographed my book, ok nothing so special there you might think? But as I looked at the entrance and tried to operate the disabled access lift (which didn’t seem to be working?) Gok offered to carry my pushchair up the stairs. I said that I couldn’t ask him to do that as it was a double Phil & Teds, complete with a toddler and baby. Without another word, Gok and his assistant carried my pushchair and children up the stairs like Knights in Shining Armour.
During the event, we were also fortunate enough to meet the lovely Fearne Cotton, who we had been listening to on our journey down to London, and hair stylist Mark Hill, who has to be one of the nicest ‘celebrities’ that I have met to date. He was totally down to earth and really welcoming. Beanie Boy was quite taken with Mark’s luscious curls and prickly stubble; Mark was just taken with Beanie Boy himself!
The fun really started after we left the event, though, as I had promised Little Bean to take her on her first sightseeing tour of London, but to find out more about that, you’ll have to check in on my next post – I fear this one is too long already.
Have you noticed yet? In my title I said that ThreeUK agree that I’ve been a busy Mummy. A few weeks ago I entered a competition on ThreeUK’s Facebook page to find Britains Busiest Mum. Well yesterday I received a phone call to say that I had won a runner up prize of a Blackberry Torch phone with £100 credit!! How cool is that, sometimes being this busy pays off.
Hey, u have been a busy bee!! Wow, how lucky r u? I love Gok as does my teenage daughter and it sounds like he lives up to his expectations which is even better!!! Wel done u for winning a blackberry!! Great post!
Ah thank you. It is so nice when you meet a celebrity and they are exactly as you’d hoped they would be. Unfortunately I have met a few who have been disappointing but Gok certainly wasn’t one of them!