Helen

Colourful midlife mum to two teens. Determined not to do as she's told and slide off into invisible old age. Much cooler at 50 than she was at 15. Host of the Teenage Kicks podcast, about mental health for teenagers.

Family Travel: 10 Sights you must see in Cambodia

Cambodia family holiday - loaded bikes are everywhere

This summer we took a family holiday to Cambodia. I’ll write about our experiences soon, but as an appetiser (a crispy fried spring roll, if you like), I’m going to tell you about some of the weirdest things we saw. The incongruities of life in Southeast Asia, compared to life as we know it in the UK were quite honestly mindblowing, and I want to remember those moments when we stood open-mouthed and stared, or simply got fits of the giggles together. Because those are the stand out moments you remember about your holidays, right? 10 Weird but Wonderful Cambodia …

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The Real Life of an Insta-Mum

There’s been a furore lately over the Insta-Mum phenomenon. Most of us are on there, even if it’s only to stalk our children’s accounts. We laugh and nod at someone else’s crappy day, and get shopping envy over their new pink boots. The phony Insta-Mum claim Apparently some of us are letting the side down, making motherhood look way too easy and glamorous. We’re posting too many perfect lattes and sparkly manicures, and not enough eyebags and carrot splats. Our houses look too tidy, our children too angelic, and our beaches too pristine. It’s not the truth, some claim, and …

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Why I Used a Sleep Positioner for my Baby

  The news today tells me that baby sleep positioners have been declared unsafe by the FDA, and have consequently been withdrawn from sale by most trusted retailers, John Lewis being one. It’s no longer relevant to me, as a mother of two older children, but I’m going to tell you why I think it’s not a simple decision to make for so many parents. My baby was three weeks old when she nearly died. She was asleep in her rocker, one of those which lie flat – we’d taken all the advice about keeping a newborn safe, to the …

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Thorpe Park Fright Night – Do You Dare?

Thorpe Park Fright Nights Halloween Walking dead mazes - what it's really like - review

    Thorpe Park Halloween review As Thorpe Park ambassadors this year we get to go to some special events, as well as having annual passes to the park. It’s been fun over the summer visiting with the kids and their friends. But when we were invited to do a Fright Night review of Thorpe Park’s Halloween events I knew my kids wouldn’t be up for it. Not because it’s not good, but because it’s probably too good. You’ll see what I mean, if you read on. Not surprisingly, when I asked around, there were plenty of offers to take …

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How I became a YouTube Fan Girl overnight

This was me this morning. Like all pictures, there’s a story to this one, and it starts with a 30 day photography challenge that I embarked on at the beginning of the month. I’ll tell you about that later though, because that’s not what you came here for. Basically, the reason I’m wearing this weird kind of ohmygodcanireallydothis? expression is because I’ve just realised what a big deal Louise Pentland is. First things first, I’m not that badly under a shell that I didn’t know that Louise is the rather very ultra-famous YouTuber behind Sprinkleofglitter. Unlike my husband who, when he saw …

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Why Music is Important for Children’s Brain Development

Why music is important for kids Music was a lifesaver for me when my daughter was tiny. I remember reading whilst I was pregnant that my baby could already hear music. I think it was around that time I switched from Radio 1 to Classic FM in the car, having heard that Mozart was the best music for babies, and could make my child smarter before she was even born. When we brought her home from the hospital we sat drinking champagne with music videos on the TV until 2am, waiting for her to go to sleep, so we could …

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Diabetes Anniversary: Not Drowning But Waving

Learning to surf on the Flowrider at Thorpe Park

A diabetes anniversary is always a time for reflection. If you’d asked me three years ago how I felt about diabetes, I would probably would have burst into tears before I’d managed to utter more than a sentence. But here’s why I’m glad, 3 years on, for the lessons it has taught us…

A Teatime Kids Favourite with Full-On Flavour but No Added Sugar

Hands up who sometimes ends up tearing their hair out at teatime? We make fabulous meal plans and have wonderful intentions to feed everybody from scratch, don’t we? But inevitably there’s going to come a day (or more!) in the week when you’re shattered, everyone’s hungry right NOW, and you just don’t have it in you to put together an elaborate chickpea and soya bean casserole. Am I right? But you still want to feed your kids something that’s nutritious, not full of rubbish, and that they’ll actually enjoy. My kids have always been fans of spaghetti hoops (though if …

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The Bug: now you are 10

I don’t often do these posts. Marking an age never seems to be any more poignant than the other things I want to write about our lives, and I’d rather write when the mood takes me. But this week the mood does take me, and I can’t let your birthday pass without comment. Because you’re amazing. You know that, right? Do I tell you enough? I try to, because although I laugh about it, it bothers me that you know that there are 32 photos of your sister, and only 23 of you. It’s that classic parent thing of being …

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Style: A Swimsuit I’m Happy to Show Off in

Right. Today, I am going to be a swimsuit model. I recently did a “I’m 50 and I  don’t care who knows it, look – I can still look good in cool clothes makeover post,” and people were very nice about it. So I thought I’d dabble in a few more fashion blogger-style posts, and have jumped right in at the deep end, quite literally, with a swimsuit. No, I haven’t dropped 2 sizes and had a boob job (although if you’d like to comment along those lines I won’t complain). Nor have I taken leave of my senses. I …

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A Beach and Inflatable Play Park at Lee Valley

If you’re planning your diaries for the school summer holidays, you might want to include a visit to the Lee Valley White Water centre. Just 5 minutes from the M25 in Hertfordshire, this top notch white water sports centre was built for the Olympics, so it’s probably the best place in the UK for canoeing or rafting adventures. (You can see my white water experiences over on Space In Your Case). But the water isn’t the main reason you’ll want to go this summer. Unless you have older kids with a fancy for it. Lee Valley White Water have installed …

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5 Different New York Trips You Must Do in Your Lifetime

Try and visit the crown at the Statue of Liberty on one of your New York Trips

There isn’t just one New York. New York is not the trip of a lifetime. For my 50th birthday I took my family to celebrate in New York, and it was a real eye-opener. You see, I’d never been, and always wanted to. It’s iconic, one of those cities that just has to be done at some point in your life. But I came back realising that I haven’t yet ‘done’ New York. I haven’t even scratched the surface. And so already I’m planning my next trip. And my next. All of them will be different. The 5 New York …

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Travel: Are you Safe from Carbon Monoxide on Holiday?

I’ll never forget, shortly after I’d been camping for the first time with my young family, reading about a child who had died, sleeping in her tent, while her parents enjoyed a barbeque outside. We’d had a fun-filled weekend with good friends, packing our children off to bed, then sitting out by the fire drinking cider and tracking the stars. When you go on holiday with children there are all sorts of new dangers that you prepare for, but you never imagine that your kids might die in their sleep, because of a faulty appliance or log fire. That’s what …

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Weekend Fun at the Thorpe Park Shark Hotel

What are you doing this weekend? With the thermostat set to scorching, my thinking is that this will quite possibly be the only weekend of the year when I can tolerate the soggy bottom of a log flume, so I think we will go to Thorpe Park. Is it just me who has a love-hate relationship with the water rides at a theme park? Love, love, love the rush of shooting down into that pool of water, being sprayed by onlookers, and caught by waterfalls as we spin down rapid rivers. But absolutely hate with a seething kind of resentment …

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Lucky Gecko: a subscription box that encourages children to think differently

You know when your child comes out of school every afternoon, and you ask him what he did that day, and he replies “Nothing much.”? Of course, you know he doesn’t mean it. You know he did the usual, literacy and maths, maybe some PE. He might even have done some science, and it will trickle out of him under your feet as you cook tea later. What’s really going on when he delivers his stock 3.15 answer is a need to switch off from the routine of the classroom. And if yours is one of those children who is switched off …

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10 Things you should Never Say to a Diabetic if you Value Your Life

Devices and medicines used for managing blood sugar

In our three years living with Type 1 diabetes I’ve learned a fair bit about myself. Not just my capacity for complicated maths in the middle of the night after a bottle of Prosecco; nor my propensity for hurling my diabetic child into every potentially dangerous adventure, just to prove a point. No, my biggest lesson has been patience. My previously unsuspected ability to smile and nod in the face of extreme provocation. And before we go any further, let me say that I have made at least three of these mistakes myself, in a previous life. So this is …

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