February 19th was the day selected for Photo An Hour.

6.30am and we're awake. Husband brought me a cup of tea in bed and took Bub downstairs to play.  I finished my tea, put a load of washing on, tidied the kitchen, and made toast.

8am. Bub and I are having breakfast. Husband is doing an LFT, and the cats are venturing outside after being locked in for Storm Eunice. The plan now is to get Bub dressed, and tidy away all the candles after a power cut last night.

9am. Bub is dressed. Those socks will stay on for approximately 6 minutes. Now to nap.

10am. While the baby naps, I read. I just got to a good bit a Bub woke up! Husband came home with tales of fallen trees. Next I'll sweep and wash the kitchen floor and then it's playtime!

11am. Can’t sit down to a feed without our phones.

12pm. Time to make lunch. No idea what I’m going to concoct today… (turning the hob on usually helps when cooking <insert eye roll emoji here>).

1pm. Time for some Daddy bashing before he heads out to deal with some more of the storm damage. While he got bashed I wiped down the kitchen door frames and cupboard fronts. I have to fit my housework into every small window of opportunity these days!

2pm. Eat, sleep, repeat. I updated my grocery order, and did some pointless scrolling for new sofa cushions that I knew I wasn't really going to buy before my phone battery died.

(For some reason my 3pm photo wouldn't upload)

3pm. So here we are, Bub still napping. I’m out of tea. I’m very near the end of my book but I didn’t pick it up to read because I thought ‘she won’t sleep for long’. I could’ve finished it. It’s getting good, all is about to be revealed. Now I’ll have to wait until bedtime.

It’s windy again and the rain is hammering the windows. Husband is out there dealing with fallen trees and dangerous branches. He’ll be drenched, and cold, and he’s still feeling a bit sh*t thanks to Covid (day 11 so he’s allowed to be out, not that he’ll see anyone). He seems to have a day of feeling good and then a day of feeling really drained. Anyone else had this?

4pm. Finally awake and standing aided by her high chair straps. She’s well rested and full of beans!! I've plugged in my phone, nipped to the loo, made tea, changed a nappy, had a snack, turned up the heating and found my slippers. I also stretched a bit. Then I vacuumed most of downstairs, chopped onions, had a quick FaceTime conversation with husband, cleaned the hob, folded laundry and wondered when I could sit down again...

And that is where my photos for the day ended.

Thanks to Louisa for hosting.

We didn’t remember that it was Shrove Tuesday, so we had Shrove Saturday instead.

Bub had her first pancake. The only baby friendly topping I had available was peanut butter, and she seemed to like it, husband was horrified, he is not a lover of peanut butter.

We told her about the fillings she could have in the future, not just on pancake day but at regular intervals throughout the year. I told her that next time I’d make her some chia seed strawberry or raspberry 'jam'. We said in a few years she can have chocolate spread. She can try my favourite with topping - streaky bacon and maple syrup. Or ice cream. I love vanilla ice cream wrapped in a hot pancake! Or maybe we could have other flavours. Strawberry or chocolate. Salted caramel or pistachio.

Fillings won’t have to be sweet we told her. A cheese and ham filled pancake is delicious!

I was excited by the idea that one day we could have pancakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Andy suggested a three course pancake meal with savoury options. He has fond memories of pancakes with bacon and fried onion, accompanied by lots and lots of tomato sauce.

I used to love ordering pancakes with vanilla ice cream and hot cherries in The Little Chef. It used to be a highlight of any long car journey.

I never knew I could get so excited about pancakes!

xx

On Random Act of Kindness Day (I didn’t know this was a thing) Confuzzled Bev (thanks again Bev!) nominated me to receive a prize from Nordic Stork in an Instagram competition!

I could chose anything I wanted from the website. I had a lovely time perusing the site. In the end I settled on some gorgeous wooden building blocks, and came away with a list of things I’d like to go back and purchase. I’m becoming mildly obsessed with wooden toys. These building blocks are just gorgeous.

We’re surrounded by hand me down plastic toys at the moment. I love that we’re reusing these toys, previously played with by nieces, nephews and friends children. But I’m looking forward to gathering a small selection of wooden toys too.

xx

The first Photo An Hour of 2022 was January 22nd

8am I've been up since 6am but forgot it was Photo an Hour day.

I’ve had a bath (bliss), had breakfast, got dressed and I’m on my second cuppa and second feed. Husband is off to work soon and I’m forming a plan for the day, which mainly consists of lots of small naps.

9am When Bub is asleep on the bed and I can’t leave the room, what else can I do but dick around trying to take a half decent selfie? I could’ve tidied up a bit instead but… meh.

So this is me seven months in to motherhood. I rarely wear my glasses anymore as they were mostly for computer work. The eye bags are real (and are far worse IRL). The spot on my cheek is due to going to bed with my make up on (too tired to bother removing it), the scratches on my forehead are from Bub (thanks a bunch, although possibly my own fault for not trimming her nails often enough), hair is passable thanks to dry shampoo, fringe could do with a trim, and my mascara is yesterday’s.

10am Popped to my local charity shop to drop off some donations and picked up a few bits.

Pleased to find Little Big Lies as I’m currently reading What Alice Forgot by the same author (Christmas present from the husband) which is rather good. The Seven Rules has been in my wish list for a while after a recommendation from … somebody (my memory fails me), and how can you go wrong with a book by Ruth Jones?

Also, wooden toy. Obvs not for me (well it is a little bit).

11am Popped in to see husband at the office.

12pm Weaning is messy. The End.

1pm Bit of Daddy time before he heads back out to work.

2pm How fast is the day going?!! Another feed, followed by a nap. It won’t last long, this child seems immune to feeling tired (she didn’t inherit that from me!). I’m on my 4th cuppa of the day. Which isn’t many. Must remedy that as soon as I’m released from under the sleeping little.

3pm Any hope I had of drinking this tea whilst it was still hot are rapidly diminishing. The little saw me settle on the sofa and zoned in.

Ah well, it was a nice idea.

4pm How could we not buy this book? Bub loves it!

5pm Books are for chewing, apparently. I should be preparing food but … tired. Hoping husband will be home soon.

Thanks to Louisa for hosting.

My new blog series didn’t get off to the best start. The details are boring so I'll just say I have no charity shop purchases to share (yet) but I do have witterings, and Photo An Hour blog posts piling up so I'll just get on with it

The witterings…

I joined a dating app for women. Haha! Let me rephrase that. I joined an app that’s like a dating app, for women to meet other women who are at a similar stage in life (fertility / motherhood / menopause - delete as applicable). And I joined in the hope of meeting some local Mums with babies a similar age to Bub.

It has a swipe function just like Tinder. Swipe up if she sounds friendly, swipe down if she doesn’t. It’s hideous when you think about it really. But, my friends kids are all older, all at school, heck some of them are soon to leave school, so no chance of any play dates for Bub there!

Wanting her to mix with other babies is one of the reasons I joined the baby sensory group, which is great fun, but so far no friendships have bloomed. It’s flippin’ hard to make friends as an adult so I thought I’d give the app a go. What have I got to lose, right?

I ‘connected’ with a woman from a nearby village and we’re meeting up soon. First up for a walk at a local beauty spot and then maybe taking the littles swimming. I still haven’t figured out all the logistics for swimming with Bub… I mean, how do you manage a slippery baby in a public space and get yourself dry and back into clothes at the same time??

Anyway, I’m looking forward to meeting this potential new Mum friend. Her little girl is about the same age as Bub and I think it’ll be really beneficial for her to spend time with another child. At some point I’d like her to go to a playgroup a few times a week but that seems like a long way off so this is a good start for the time being.

On another subject entirely, why can’t I buy anything other than high waisted jeans?! Even the ‘mid rise’ I ordered recently covered my belly button. It’s not a style I’ve ever liked and I’m not about to change my mind. I’m not after a pair of hipsters here, I’m not Christina Aguilera circa 2002, I just want a waistband that doesn’t nearly meet my boobs.

I’m in dire need of some new jeans, my favourite pair have lost their elasticity, and others no longer fit well. Finding a decent, well fitting, flattering pair of jeans is tiresome enough without this stupid high waisted trend making it harder. I’ll keep looking… and I’ll keep you updated on my Mum date.

xx

In an attempt to get back into blogging I had a thought that I could do a quick weekly post showing my latest charity shops finds along with general chit chat and musings.

A few times this year I’ve popped to my local charity shop with Bub on a Saturday morning to drop off donations that I’d collected from my random moments of decluttering during the week (yep, that’s still on-going). And of course it makes sense to have a rummage whilst we’re there.

I’ve found some nice bits and pieces this year, and once I’d decided that, yes, I like this idea for a new series of blog posts, I just had to figure out a new way of putting the posts together. The way I’d always done it just wasn’t working anymore. I decided that I could write them on my mobile whilst feeding Bub, then I could quickly crop, size and add an image on my computer when I had a moment. And then I tested positive for Covid and that scuppered plans for trips anywhere for a few weeks.

Husband tested positive a few days later and whilst neither of us were particularly poorly, we did as we should and stayed at home (I can’t believe that at the end of the month self isolation will be scrapped, I can’t even begin to tell you how ranty I got when I heard that!!). Anyway, not to be deterred I thought I’d tell you my plan and do the chit chatty bit anyway. The charity shop hauls can start when I’m allowed back out into civilisation.

So how was Covid for us? Well, not too bad considering. We both felt bunged up and had a bit of a cough. Both got tired very easily, which meant looking after Bub was a bit of a challenge at times, but we took it in turns and made the best of all being at home together. Bub had a high temperature and snotty nose for a few days so I suspect she had it too, but she was happy enough for the majority of the time. She was a little bit clingy and slept more than usual but that’s entirely understandable.

I was so surprised to get it if I’m honest. I don’t go out much at the moment and I only see the same five people each week. They all do LFTs before they visit, and not one of them has tested positive before or since I got it. The only place I go is a baby sensory class on a Tuesday (I hadn’t been to the charity shop that week due to being car-less for the weekend ). I suspect this is where I got it.

I felt really tired one day and just put it down to being up with Bub throughout the night but by the end of the day I felt like a cold was imminent. Lying in bed that night I thought to myself ‘at least it’s just a cold and not Covid… oh wait….’ I did a test the next morning, still not really believing that I could have it.

Still, I guess it was inevitable and thank goodness for vaccinations and boosters!

Well, this has already turned out to be a much longer post than I expected. My new system worked pretty well, so hopefully I’ll be able to post more often than recent months. I’ve also mysteriously stopped having issues when I try to leave comments when using my phone, so you might find me popping up in your comments too. So I’ll just say I hope 2022 is going ok for you (it’s too late to say Happy New Year, right? Even if I haven’t said it yet?), and I’ll be back soon with more witterings.

Take care

Xx