A little more of Manchester

A few more pictures from our break in Manchester.

My sister Serin travelled up with us to Manchester as she had been staying at ours for a few days previously, viewing a Uni close to us and hanging out with Wilf and I. It was super useful to have an extra pair of hands with our luggage and buggy and I kept thinking 'how do people travel with more than one child??' Immediately you are outnumbered (if only one parent is traveling) and if you have a toddler like mine that loves to run FAST then what would you do whilst looking after the other? Parents of more than one, hats off to you!

We stayed at the Youth Hostel, something my parents love to do. They are a lot more fancy now than the backpacker type image they had in previous years and Wilf and I got a family room for around £70 for two nights. We have a YH card that was on offer when I renewed our family rail card, something else I would totally recommend if traveling by train a fair bit. You can get a third of your ticket price which really does help and we travel by train a lot!

We didn't get to try out a tram whilst we were up there, I actually had never seen one before and my dad laughed at me when I told him I thought they were unable to stop (I figured they were just like scalextrics and had no break capacity..) but I think it would be quite a novelty if we visit again.

It's fun going on all these trips to places I might never have before on my sisters uni visits. I'm really eager to find out where she picks.

The pictures above are of my dad, younger brother and of course Wilf. My brother Madog and Wilf are only ten years apart in age, they could almost be brothers! My dad insisted on letting geese eat out of his hand, even when one bit him!

Money Making Ideas for Mums

this is a guest post in association with Local Mart

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Becoming a stay at home mom is a rewarding thing in terms of being a mother. But in terms of a career most women believe that staying at home means sacrificing the income and career perspectives. In fact, this is not true. In times of the Internet we are living today, more and more people opt for working from their homes. Such work has lots of benefits, such as convenience, saving money on commuting time and on transportation. For a mother it also gives an opportunity to save on daily care expenses. Most jobs done from home are offering flexible hours, and can be easily done part time, or full time, if you wish. And here are some of the money making ways for you.

Audio transcriptions

You may not know it, but there is a whole field devoted to creating the manuscripts to the audio recordings, and you can earn some good money through this. Basically, to do this you have to know how to type and obtain some good headphones. The audio files needed are downloaded to your computer, and you simply type what you hear. The good ear of yours will come in handy, as the audios can contain some accents. The audios transcripts are needed for lectures and speeches. Insurance companies sometimes make their interview transcriptions.

Freelance writing

Written word is really needed today, especially on the Internet – businesses and private companies need quality content for their websites. Examples of this can be professional blogs and blog posts and articles related to the products or services provided by business. The specialized writers’ websites offer you work for their clients, and this is a good way to start your own writer’s career. After working some time for a website you will be able to get your own clients and broaden your field of work.

Selling your own products

If you are good in any type of crafts and you know how to make things that are not only beautiful, but useful, you should know that there is a market for the stuff you make. There are lots of websites on the Internet that are ready to list your crafts with photos and descriptions. Many people make a good income from the things that they do as a hobby in the free time.

Affiliate sales

Many companies which sell products often hire their salespeople directly from the Internet, and the process is quite simple – all you have to do is sign up for the program and you will receive the unique account number assigned to your name. After that you should simply use this number in the link that would go to the company website – this will indicate that the sale was made by you, and you will get a commission for the sale. Many people working as an affiliate sales person operate from their blogs and through it drive people to buying the products of the company they are working for, and there are basically no limits for the earnings you can get with the help of affiliate commissions.

These are only four ideas, but there are many other opportunities for stay at home moms. Open your mind and look for the ways to stay a good mom and a specialist bringing money to family budget. You can look through some Localmart ads to see some job opportunities and many other interesting things.

Interior Design - Bathroom wish list

If there is one part of our home that we haven't really been able to put our stamp on it's the bathroom. It was in reasonable condition when we bought the place and therefor didn't warrant completely ripping out and doing again. Sometimes this is useful and sometimes it means that you just 'get by' for a while without the incentive to make it your own.

After a year or so we spotted a ceramic Belfast style sink in the bargain corner of our beloved IKEA ;) and we were able to replace the very dated sink that came with our home. A year or so later Tom ripped up the laminate flooring and replaced it with blue and white checked tiles he got from yet another bargain corner in some DIY shop.

We are slowly getting there, there are little things that need doing, storage solutions like bathroom wall cabinets for instance. Tom made a make shift small shelf above the bath which is serving fine for the time being. I'm thankful for a boyfriend that can be a bit inventive with thrifty DIY solutions and slowly it is becoming more of our own.

The next big job is a new shower as frankly ours is terrible, it only really runs hot when you have it at the highest the dial can go which I'm sure is not how showers are meant to work and I'm pretty sure it's a least a hundred years old. If we are talking about dream bathroom though a roll top bath is at the very top of that list, there are some really pretty ones at Bath Empire FYI.

I'm kind of glad we have these little projects to work towards though, I'm not sure what we would work towards if we had everything completed. Maybe we would have to move? Or maybe we could just sit back and save our money for other things, like a holiday ;)

This post is in association with Bath Empire but all words and thoughts are my own

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Airwick National Parks and a trip to london with a two year old

On Saturday (just a day after we had returned from Manchester) Wilf and I set off on another adventure. This time to London! You may remember that last time I attempted a trip to London with Wilf  it ended up with a 24hour sickness bug and me apologising to commuters on the train for the fact my toddler was sick on their shoes, not an experience I want to relive in a hurry!

I'm thankful then that my experience this time was completely different. We met our friends Laura and her gorgeous toddler little A on the train at Bristol and distracted by each others company (plus the iPad, colouring books and stickers) the boys were amused the entire journey.

We had been invited to a lunch at Raymond Blancs in Covent Garden with Airwick and National Parks  to chat about their recent collaboration and meet the team. Airwick and National Parks have teamed up to create a new range of scents promoting Britain's 'breathing spaces'. Airwick's new scents are designed to 'bring the countryside inside', featuring scents from the Yorkshire Dales, Peak District, Exmoor and the Brecon Beacons whilst supporting and highlighting the work that National Parks do to conserve heritage and improve facilities in our National Parks. 

I had to admit I'm not usually a person that buys home fragrances as they often seem too overpowering and the scents in my opinion tend to be too overly floral. That being said however i've already put a few of the different ranges in various rooms of our home and am pleased to say that this range is much more subtle which I believe is something they were aiming for. We now have a National Park theme for each corner of the house, I'm a big fan of Exmoor! 

Eventually (after wolfing down an entire plate of pasta) Wilf and A had had enough of lunch (Wilf more so being that he is only just two) and we headed outside to watch the dance performances. Airwick had set up a brilliant little countryside experience with a mound of real grass and flowers sat in the midddle of Covent Garden for people to have their picture taken. There was even a couple of giant bunnies! You can see some more of the pictures over on their Facebook page 

This was our picture (not sure quite why I dressed Wilf in so much yellow that day!)

Thanks again to Airwick and National Parks for the fun day out. You can read more about the collaboration and incentive's behind the range here and here.

I was compensated for this experience but all words and thoughts are my own and I really do recommend trying out the scent of Exmoor it smells like the sea and childhood holidays!