Travel, chickenpox, rain, and family time │#LittleLoves

This last month has been a weird one. Mostly because 3 weeks of it was spent in New Zealand (or travelling there and back) and the rest was spent getting over jet lag, doing a lot of washing, looking after a boy with chickenpox, celebrating my 6th wedding anniversary, and Easter! Pretty full on for one month.

Read

I’m currently about half way through “Then She Was Gone” by Lisa Jewell. It’s quite different to any other Lisa Jewell book I’ve read before - the more “chick lit” types like “Ralph’s Party”, “After the Party”, and “Thirtynothing”. Admittedly, I’ve not read one of her books for years, and a quick look online at the books she’s written tells me she probably strayed from this genre quite a few years ago! I’m enjoying it so far, but with this kind of book I’m more often than not disappointed by the ending. Only time will tell if this goes the same way.   

Watched

I didn’t manage to watch as many films as you might expect during 48 hours of flying to and from New Zealand, but I did catch Paddington 2, Coco and The Shape of Water. Actually, I ended up watching Paddington 2 far more times than I wanted, along with Monsters University, as they are the two films Benjamin wanted to watch on repeat. 

I’ve been desperate to see Coco since it came out, and I loved it. I mean, Disney and Pixar rarely get it wrong do they? I really enjoyed the characters, the music and the plot. It was pretty sad at the end, but most things make me cry these days!

I enjoyed The Shape of Water far more than I expected. If I explained the plot to you, you probably wouldn’t have a clue what I was going on about, (I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when they pitched this one), and it was a bit strange to jump from the wonderful Sally Hawkins playing Mrs Brown in Paddington 2, to her playing a mute, cleaner who falls in love with “a captured humanoid amphibian creature”, but it really was excellent. I loved the relationship between Sally Hawkin’s character, Eliza, and her best friend, Giles. I mean, I imagine I’d have been a lot angrier than Giles was if my best friend’s love interest ate my cat!

Heard

I know I’m very behind the times, but I am loving First Aid Kit at the moment. Great music to potter around the house to. Feels good to listen to a bit of music of my choice, rather than nursery rhymes and the Moana/Trolls soundtrack on repeat. I’m also still listening to The Greatest Showman soundtrack a lot.

Made

At the end of last year I downloaded the 1SE app. It’s actually the first phone app I’ve ever paid for, and I love it. Basically, you upload a 1 second video clip every day, and the app mashes them all together.  You do this for whatever timeframe you like, but I’ve been putting together monthly videos. You can find them all on my Instagram account, but this is March’s offering.

Wore

I don’t want to rub it in BUT I was able to wear shorts this month. The weather was pretty changeable whilst we were in New Zealand, but it was mostly warm and I went out many many many many times without a coat, and with sandals on my feet. Already feels like a distant memory now I’m back in the UK - how wet and miserable was the Bank Holiday?!

and lastly

The Saturday before Easter was mine and Stu’s 6th wedding anniversary. We celebrated it in typical parent style - at home, with steak and wine. We did have to interrupt celebrations so we could quickly set up an Easter egg hunt for the kids. The following day we did our Easter egg hunt, and then took the kids to Buckinghamshire Railway Centre for one of their Day Out with Thomas events. It was such a lovely day, and although the sun didn’t come out for us the rain did stop for a bit. The kids loved it, and I’m pretty sure they appreciated me organising tickets for them. I mean, I don’t think my husband even looked at me like this on our wedding day!

Photo by Stuart Waton

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