New Year at the Duckpond

So here we are, in 2022 no less. Not quite sure how we're almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century and equally, not quite sure how it's February already. 

• My Dad's still recovering from his stroke. He spent a few months in a brain injury rehab unit (with occasional trips to hospital for infections) and is now waiting for a space at a nursing home. We haven't been able to visit that often (as the rehab unit closed to visitors whenever there was a COVID outbreak) but the staff at the unit were able to help him do video calls. 

• Christmas came and went. We took Lily to a couple of outdoor events with Santa - one festive-themed session of her usual sports class and one trip on an outdoor miniature railway. Both events were much safer than being indoors and she loved them anyway regardless of having to wear hats, gloves and scarves. 

• All of us adults have had our COVID booster and we took my Mum for her 4th vaccine back in January (she was eligible for a 3rd primary dose then her 4th one was her booster). Lily is eligible now as well (due to living in the same household as someone immunosuppressed), we're just waiting to see when we can actually take her to have it done. 

• I managed to overachive on my GoodReads Reading Challenge last year. I set a target of 39 books and managed to read 70 so that was good. This year though, I'm behind! 

• Good TV and film we've watched - obviously 'Don't Look Up' on Netflix :-) Such a good movie, very well put together and definitely worth watching if you've haven't already. 'Call the Midwife' which we watch every year is just as good as ever. We're also very much looking forward to 'This Is Going to Hurt' on BBC which starts this week. I've read Adam Kay's books and we've also seen him perform live twice so fingers crossed, the series should be equally good. 'Back to the Outback' on Netflix is also brilliant. It's a children's film but is still very funny. 

• Lily turned 6 - which is both great and horrifying (where did those years go!?). She asked for a birthday day trip (which ended up being 2 birthday day trips due to a last minute hospital appointment) and we had a lovely afternoon in the winter sun in Barry Island followed a week later by a car picnic in the New Forest with the ponies. 

• We went to a theatre show - Dr Semmelweis at the Bristol Old Vic - which was a magnificant performance by all the cast and such a interesting story. It was a show I booked back in January 2020 pre-COVID and after being postponed several times, it finally had its performances from January this year. We were in two minds whether to go but a) I'd been looking forward to this one for 2 years (it stars Sir Mark Rylance!) and b) the theatre was still requiring people to wear masks and they also had details of their ventilation system on their website. We donned our FFP3 masks for the entire time and they must've worked because we came through it COVID-free. 

• I've still been doing the photo an hour challenge every month over on Instagram but not actually getting round to writing them up on here. February's photo an hour date is Saturday 19th - feel free to join in if you want to! 

 

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 15th July

And the final photo an hour catch up, July's date was Saturday 15th.


Here's what the day looked like...


11am - Starting the day a bit later with a lie in.

12pm - Playing about with attempting to redesign and revive our local NCT newsletter (don't worry, we didn't use this design - you can see the final version here)

1pm - Tidying...

2pm - Dinner prep for a slow cooker meal later on.

3pm - Look who's back after visiting the grandparents!

4pm - And then time for a nap.

5pm - Getting ready for a toddler-free night out at the theatre (to see one of my favorite shows, for umm...the 14th time. Believe me though, it's worth it - I wrote about how good it is a few years ago too).

6pm - Date night at McDonalds (#keepingitclassy)

7pm - And off to the theatre we go (and yup, we had tickets for all the shows advertised on the poster...)

8pm - Interval...

9pm - And even after seeing the show so many times, it still brings tears to my eyes.

10pm - And homeward we go.

It was Jane's turn to do the round up that month and for August, she chose the Saturday of the Bank Holiday weekend - which you can read all about here!

Also, check out what I was up to in...

July 2016

July 2015

July 2014

This Little Big Life - Autumn and Winter Doings

Last summer Sarah and Louise started a little link-up series called This Little Big Life, showcasing highlights from the weekend. Needless to say, none of us managed to keep up with posting on a weekly basis; as often happens, life just simply gets in the way.

I can, however do an almighty round-up of what we got up to over the autumn and winter :-)


September
September was spent enjoying the last of the summer weather with a holiday down to Brixham, a trip to a local lido and a sunny day trip to the beach at Weymouth. We also saw a couple of local small carnivals (in preparation for the big ones in November) and had a bit of work done on the house, in the form of a lovely shiny new wood-burning stove. We had some trips out to the playground, a visit to Bridgwater Fair and started some new baby classes: The Creation Station's Baby Discover (arts and crafts) and a Mum & Baby Yoga course.

 

October
October saw more carnivals, more playgrounds and a chance to dress as a novelty pumpkin (Lily, not myself). There was a local lantern parade which we joined in with and a trip to The Egg Theatre in Bath to see a show aimed at babies (about spongy things!). We spent too much money at an NCT Nearly New Sale and I had my first evening out with the little one (all us mums in our NCT group went out for a meal). I ended up being interviewed by BBC Radio Bristol all about National Fertility Awareness Week and we also met Kipper at the Bath Children's Literature Festival!

November
November was all about carnival season here in Somerset. Lily went to her first Bridgwater carnival and spent half of it asleep and half of it wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the lights, music and dancing. We also watched a couple of firework displays and visited the theatre in Bristol to see 'The Grinning Man' (which was A.MAZING). I also helped out at our local NCT Sale (which was great fun) and then ended up joining the local branch as a volunteer. We went back to visit all the staff at the fertility clinic to say hello and Lily ended up being on Twitter for a while. She also celebrated reaching double figures in months by spending the day asleep during Glastonbury Frost Fayre and a visit to Glastonbury Abbey.

December
December saw theatre shows, Father Christmas, reindeer and presents. Lily went to her very first classical music concert - a group called Music for Miniatures who run regular events locally in Bath and Frome - it was excellent and a really Christmassy start to the month. We had a mini holiday to the New Forest for my birthday and Lily met Father Christmas for the first time. We had day trips to Longleat for the Festival of Light and to a local garden centre for their Christmas displays. Me and Andrew even managed to have our first evening out on our own since before Lily was born! (We went to the Bristol Old Vic to see 'The Snow Queen' - which was quite spectacular) We had a real wreath on our front door for Christmas too - handmade by my own fair hands under the expert tuition of the lovely Gemma from Dora Flora Flowers. We made sure Lily had her fill of Christmas theatre too with four shows and one concert watched: 'Reindeer on the Roof'; 'Jack Frost'; 'The Christmassy Christmas Show of Christmassy Christmasness' (highly recommended); Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain'; and 'The Snowman' performed by Bath Philharmonia. We also had some settling in sessions at Lily's nursery!

January
It was the end of maternity leave this month, having had the full 12 months away from the office. My role was made into a job share with me doing the Monday and Tuesday. Lily also started at her nursery (a fabulous forest school set on a farm) and we settled into a routine of two days at nursery followed by three days of baby groups. Lily's social life is better than mine with regular classes of music, painting, messy play, toddler groups and swimming lessons! We also went to the theatre to see 'Snow Mouse' (which will be at the Barbican in London this Christmas) and me and Andrew managed an afternoon to ourselves seeing 'The Play That Goes Wrong' at Bath Theatre Royal - both shows highly recommended. We went to a friend's fancy dress 'heroes & villains' party as the Little Red Riding Hood story and then the little one turned one whole year old! I embellished a vest for her to wear on the day and then a few days later we had one big birthday party with all her friends and lots of inflatable and soft play stuff. It was good!

So how's life with you?

December Happiness

Five things which made me smile this month...

 

 

1. Watching Danny Elfman sing songs from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' at the Royal Albert Hall.

 

 

 

2. London baby!

 

 

 

3. Getting my craft on and making 24 little knitted stockings for an advent calendar (even if I did finish number 24 on Christmas Eve...)

 

 

 

4. Watching Swallows and Amazons at Bristol Old Vic complete with a pot of pic 'n' mix sweets.

 

 

 

5. And lastly has to be finally getting off the crutches and being able to walk again, not perfectly but good enough to feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

 

Here's to a fabulous 2015 everyone!
 

This Weekend at the Duckpond

We have mostly been...

 

 

 Enjoying - the fabulous Christmas show that is 'Swallows and Amazons' at the Bristol Old Vic. I saw it several years ago when they first performed it and they've brought it back to the stage for this year. What's not to love about a theatre that sells pic 'n' mix in the foyer and lets you throw rocks at the baddie in the closing scenes of the show?

Unpacking - all the Christmas stuff from the loft. Last year I was very organised and packaged it all into large bags so it was dead easy to get out!



Wrapping - a few presents, these ones were being sent off to Canada as part of Janet's Thrifty Christmas Swap.

Dyeing - my hair. That doesn't sound like a big thing but I am actually that girl, the one who's never dyed her hair before. One of the things on my '32 Before 32' list (which runs out on my birthday this Saturday) was to dye my hair a copper colour and I had a light copper dye from Avon which after a bit of faffing about, I managed to use. I think I had images of 1980's horror stories of women ending up with green hair and stuff so I didn't want to go too bright. The end result is quite nice but unfortunately so subtle that no-one has really noticed (and doesn't look any different to normal in a photo so I've no proof sadly). Now I've done it once though, I feel a bit happier my hair's not going to turn purple or fall out or anything so next time, I'll go for a brighter shade and show you all.



Queuing - to get into Frome for their Independent Market on Sunday. I don't think anyone realised quite how popular it would be though as most of the main roads were gridlocked and the park & ride car park was full only an hour and half after the market had started. Instead we cut our losses and headed to another nearby town, Trowbridge and did a bit of shopping there.



Resting - with a hot chocolate (and sneaky bowl of chips) from Wetherspoons while we were going round the town centre. It was very well-timed as even though I'm down to using one crutch now, I still can't walk long distances so the half an hour sit down was just what I needed!

 

 

 

What did you get up to at the weekend?

November Happiness

Five things which have made me smile this month...

 

 

1. Spotting these little birdies in Homebase the other day. They were just begging chirping to be taken home but Andrew put his foot down and said no more birds and ducks in the house. I think I'm going to wait til Janurary though and see if they're reduced in the sale!

 

 

 

 

 

2. A fabulous first night performance of Bristol Old Vic's 2013 Christmas show, The Little Mermaid.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Taking Omnibear to see the Carnival floats and the fireworks. I think he had a good time!

 

 

 

 

4. Completing Rosalilium's 'blog every day in November' challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

5. Sharing my lunch break at work one day with this little fellow!

 

 

 

 

 

What little things have made you happy this month?

The Little Mermaid at Bristol Old Vic

Thursday night saw the first public performance (a preview) of Bristol Old Vic's 2013 Christmas show, The Little Mermaid.

 

 

 

I've kind of got a fondness for the Bristol Old Vic anyway, it's such a lovely historical theatre, my favourite theatre company (Kneehigh Theatre) regularly play there and one of my favourite actors (Tristan Sturrock) is an associate artist. I've been to see the last 4 years worth of shows - Peter Pan, Coram Boy, Swallows and Amazons and Hansel and Gretel - and this year was the turn of Hans Christian Andersen's fishy tale.

 

 

 

Having felt ill that morning and had a day off work, I made sure to take some tablets for the evening as I really didn't want to miss the show. We arrived 15 minutes before the start and found our seats, in the front row of the Upper Circle. The Artistic Director of the Bristol Old Vic, Tom Morris popped on stage to explain that it was a preview and that there was a possibility that things could go wrong (thankfully nothing major did!) and then the story began.

 

 

 

Most people probably know the Disney version of The Little Mermaid but not many people remember the story originally came from Hans Christian Andersen. I'd certainly forgotten it was him who wrote it! I'm not going to go through what the story is (as I'm sure you all know it anyway) but the way it was done on stage was fab and put a fresh modern twist on the tale. Interestingly one of the musical directors is beatboxing ace, Shlomo and you could hear bits of his influence throughout the show.

 

I loved the set, sometimes it was really simple (the scenes under the ocean swimming) and sometimes it was quite complicated - the way they depicted The Little Mermaid swimming up to the surface was pretty magical.

Like most of the audience, we were all waiting to see how they were going to make The Little Mermaid swim and what they did in the end was quite clever; simple but effective - she was made to swim using other members of the cast with her fishtail wrapped round her. There were a couple of 'clunky' moments with the tail but it was a preview after all.

 

The whole cast were great with stand out performances from all four main characters: Beverly Rudd as the Sea Witch hammed up the role of pantomime villain perfectly with plenty of boos throughout the show, Billy Howle portrayed a lovable but bumbling prince, Tristan Sturrock as The Little Mermaid's Dad and MC of the singing competition was fab (as he usually is anyway) and top performance of the evening has to go to Katie Moore as The Little Mermaid herself - she certainly has a voice!

 

I don't know whether there's any tickets left or not, but if there is and you're in the Bristol area, it's on til 18th Janurary and I'd definitely recommend it - it's a fab Christmas show!

 

 Source: Bristol Old Vic
 

 

Well done Bristol Old Vic!

 

P.S. We followed up a great time at the show with some very tasty huge bagels from Bagel Boy in St Nicholas Street, Bristol (thanks Lily Doughball for the recommendation!). I had a 'Naughty Boy' bagel - delicious chicken, bacon, cheese, coleslaw and BBQ sauce. They're also open late so if you're a bit peckish after being at the theatre, best scoot round the corner to Bagel Boy!

 

 

July Happiness

Five things which have made me smile this month...

 

 

1. Watching my friends fall in love with one of my favourite shows by my favourite theatre company -

Kneehigh Theatre with their magical performance of 'Tristan and Yseult'

 

 

 

 

2. My tickets arriving for the Edinburgh Fringe - this time next week (touch wood) we'll be well settled into our octolodge and will have enjoyed about 7 shows already!

 

 

 

 

3. A lovely afternoon in the sun in Weymouth, lazily swimming in the sea (it was so warm!) and a massive knickerbocker glory to round off the day.

 

 

 

 

4. Gromiting!

 

 

 

 

5. My gorgeous summer dress from Joe Brown's. I really like this picture Andrew took of me in West Bay, mainly beacuse it's unusual for me to look anywhere near that good in a photo!

 

 

 

 

What little things have made you happy this month?