However, along came my Knights in Shining Armour, in the form of Swimwear365, who offered to buy me a ticket! So, thanks to these lovely peeps, I’ll now be attending again!

I hadn’t ever been on the Swimwear365 site before and imagined from the name that it would literally be a site that sold swimwear. Oh, how wrong I was! Swimwear365 sell stuff for the whole family and their range covers swimwear (obvs!) but also shapewear, beachwear, holiday fashion, accesories and loads more besides. Here’s a few of the things from their site that I love (click on photos for links):

I absolutely love this layered beach dress. It’s pretty and practical and could be worn over a bikini or swimsuit, or even dressed up with heels and some jewellery for a casual evening on holiday.

I have a huge thing for Converse and adore these cute polka-dotted ones, which would go with just about everything I own!

Sausage would look super cute in this playsuit. I really like playsuits for kids as they cover up and allow them to run around to their hearts content without being restrictive or too hot.

Husband is one of those people who’d wear shorts even in the snow, so I reckon he’d love a pair of these.

So, there you have it! Thanks so much to Swimwear365, and if you’re going to BritMums Live…SEE YOU THERE!

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I was lucky enough to be sent a couple of bits by Fat Face,which will be making up the main part of my outfit:

(Click on images for links)

My dress arrived today and I am SO impressed with it. I’m a size 18 and often struggle to find clothes to fit, especially around the bust, but this dress has an elasticated panel in the back and accomodated my bosom perfectly! The material is lovely quality, the skirt part of the dress is fully lined, and it’s a really flattering shape. I wore the flip flops to pick Sausage up from school as I wanted to check that they weren’t going to cause blisters on Saturday and I have to say, they were super comfortable. The leather straps are soft and supple and the footbed is actually padded, making you feel like you’re walking on cushions!

I’m going to add a couple of things to the outfit to, in the words of our beloved Carrie Bradshaw, “merchandise it up” a bit. I’ve picked out some jewellery that I like from a different shop:

I’m also on the lookout for a cardigan and the lovely Anya at Older Single Mum, who is a genius at colour matching, has told me that I’m a Summer and should be wearing dusky colours, so I think I’ll be on the lookout for something pale grey or pink.

I’ll definitely be rocking my Cath Kidston messenger bag, it goes everywhere with me and it big enough to carry my whole life in it!

So, what will you be wearing? If you spot me, looking lost, come and say ‘Hi’ – I’m very friendly!

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Sure, that’s an odd statement from an adult woman who’s been married for 7 years and has a 5 year old child, a home, a driving licence and a debit card (albeit one with this picture on it…), but I’ve been happily trundling along pretending that I’m actually a child in an adults body and taking great delight in the novelty of being able to drink alcohol if I want.

Yesterday was my 29th birthday. It was a very low-key day which began with Sausage vomiting over me at 4am, but improved massively with lots of gifts and cards from family, visits from people I love and finally ordering my Ukelele (but that’s a story for another day). Two things happened. Firstly, I managed to wear white vest for the whole day without spilling a single thing on it. I even ate moussaka and managed to stay clean. I think that’s the first time in my life that that’s happened. Serious grown-up stuff.

Secondly, I started thinking about writing a will. It occurred to me that having a will is really important as we never know what’s around the corner and for Sausage’s sake, it’s important that Husband and I get our acts together. It’s not as much of a pain to write a will as it used to be; I found a site for Breens Online Solicitors where they offer lots of information on getting your affairs in order and even offer something called a ‘Mirror Will’, which means that couples can have two wills which mirror each others’ wishes.

I know I’m still young, I still have a whole year of my twenties left, but I have a family and responsibilities and there definitely comes a time when thinking about the future, as far off as it may seem becomes a must.

And anyway, I’m not that worried…I ate an egg butty today and covered myself in yolk, so there’s still a bit of the kid left in me!

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Add to this the fact that I had SPD, a painful condition in which my body releases too much of the hormone that we need to make our pelvis loosen up enough to fit a baby through it, as well as being in the largest stage of pregnancy in August, I was one seriously uncomfortable lady. My ankles and hands would swell daily and my movement was severely restricted due to the combination of my various ills.

At the time, it never even occurred to me that swimming probably would have done me the world of good, floating about in the cool water, taking the pressure off of my joints and allowing me to move around in a way that was low impact. I’ve looked into it and there’s even specific maternity swimwear that I could have invested in for my hippo-like form to splash around in! If we ever decide to have another child, I know for a fact that I’ll be using the pool to its full advantage!

Weirdly, (apart from this annoying pad of fat that I had under my bump which made me look like I had a massive beer gut *heave*) pregnancy was one of the few times in my life that I didn’t feel body-conscious. Yes, I was enormous, but I was supposed to be! Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of lifes ‘glowers’, you know, women who look like Mother Earth when they’re with-child, but it made me feel slightly freer about my body, which was a fairly liberating feeling.

If you have any concerns about swimming whilst pregnant, there’s a great article over on Baby Center with some info about keeping yourself safe.

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Silent Sunday

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Needless to say, I’m thrilled, what with me being such a Royalist and everything!**

So, without further ado, here is the FIRST EVER picture of the Royal baby!

Isn’t she gorgeous?!

*may be utter bollocks
*DEFINITELY utter bollocks

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Before Sausage started school, we put a LOT of thought into her education. We considered homeschooling her and ultimately decided that we wanted her to have the benefit of a good education and interaction with her peers. She’s an only child and we didn’t want to compound any potential loneliness by keeping her at home all day, every day. Once the decision was made to send her mainstream, we spent an awful lot of time looking at the Ofsted reports of local schools, working out where she’d get a good level of education but in a school that showed a healthy level of pastoral care. As I mentioned in a post last week, we even considered private school, which would have required Husband and I to get second jobs as the private schools in our area are notoriously pricey, but ultimately the results for our local primary were best overall and it made sense to stay where we were and let her attend the school that Husband and many of his family members had also attended.

When we made the decision, we were acutely aware of the fact that the previous Ofsted report in 2009 had been a ‘reduced tariff’ inspection, based on the fact that the school had reached ‘Outstanding’ levels in 2005. We were also aware that the previous Headmaster, who was much beloved by pupils and a fixture of the local community, was leaving just before Sausage started and that a new Headmaster was to be brought in, but we figured that if the school’s teaching staff and educational ethos were to remain the same then standards would surely be maintained?

How wrong we were.

Ofsted came to visit from 21st May and a copy of the report sent home to parents in a newsletter this week. Our school has gone from achieving ’1 – Outstanding’ in almost every category to a ’3 – Requires Improvement’ in all but one area. The report states that the school is outdated as are their resources, not enough account is being taken of the children’s differing levels of aptitude across planned work and there is not enough independence in learning because the children rely too heavily on the teachers. This, apparently, is causing inconsistency in attainment throughout the school.

On the plus side, Ofsted noted that the children are polite, well-behaved, keen to learn, positive and helpful. The new headteacher has done a good job of tackling the school’s financial deficit, as well as making improvements to the school’s buildings and grounds. They also note that children with learning difficulties are being well supported and that the majority of children are achieving well in writing and that progress accelerates in Year 6.

I don’t know about you, but ‘Requires Improvement’ seems a little harsh to me. I know from speaking to various members of staff from the school that one of the things that the school was penalised for was the lack of storage space in the corridors. The school is old, built in 1949, and has had to grow with our ever-expanding community. The previous Headmaster did the best he could to raise money to improve the school and from what I can gather the new guy has taken over where he left off.

The problem is, I realise that Ofsted is the standard in school inspections but as a parent of a child at the school, I really don’t feel like this is a fair reflection of the teaching standard. It did mention in the report that Key Stage 1 is one of the highest achieving areas of the school and I can attest to the fact that Sausage has progressed brilliantly in her first year, but with staffing issues blighting a few classes, the standards across the whole school seem to have been judged lower than I would have expected.

I also can’t help but wonder if the current Government, with their continued insistence of fixing things that ‘ain’t broke’, have moved the goalposts and changed how schools are being judged now and I worry that our local Government will be less inclined to allocate funding to a school which appears to be under achieving. Could Ofsted have well and truly shot us in the foot here?

My initial reaction to the drop from ones to threes was one of disappointment and indignation; how could they let us down like this when it took us so much in the way of research and soul-searching to get us to send her there in the first place? I saw one Mum on our school’s Facebook group say that she sent her Daughter to this school with a sense of pride, which had now turned to embarrassment, given the decline in standards.  

But, when all’s said and done, my disappointment and indignation have ebbed away slightly. Sausage is happy at school, she loves learning and is achieving at a standard which is above average for her age. She’s improved steadily since September, she has a good relationship with her teachers, she comes home having been engaged and stimulated. I have a healthy, happy, almost-five-year-old girl and I think if most of the other parents were honest they’d say the same (or very similar). There are definitely issues that need to be addressed and improvements that can be made but I’m not going to react in a knee-jerk fashion and I think we owe it to the new Headmaster to get behind him and hope that once the dust settles, standards will improve and be maintained.

On a related note, Aly from Plus 2 point 4 brought this tweet to my attention today, from poet Michael Rosen, and I thought it was really apt for this situation:

I also asked some blogging friends for their opinions. Here’s what some of them had to say:

Katy Hill of katyhill.com said ”Always follow your heart with a school – you get a sense of the place that’s right for your family, regardless of the Ofsted. I checked out a nursery for my son once which was “Outstanding” but the place made me want to burst into tears! As the mother, you know what will work for you and your kids”

Emma Bradley of Emma and 3 (who also happens to be a teacher in real-life) said “Teachers are getting such a tough time at the moment. I doubt any of the teachers at Sausage’s school are less good than when they had outstanding stamped on them three years ago. It is just the bloody government who have turned Ofsted into an ideological tool.”

A friend, who’d rather remain anonymous had this to say: “The Ofsted report that our school got last year was appallingly written and a quick Google of the inspector showed that she was widely hated, wrote badly and a pedant on the most ridiculous of subjects. There was almost nothing about the teaching, there was the same point about sun-cream repeated again and again and again and it was utterly ridiculous. Our staff were devastated, the governors complained, it was a complete farce. The inspectors had no idea of the role that our Head plays in National strategy and some of them had no experience of Primary education at all. It’s crap.”

Have you ever had a run-in with Ofsted? I’d love to hear your experiences, good and bad.

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We were seated in a booth at the back and Sausage was immediately presented with a kids pack, which included a pencil, activity book and a ‘Guess Who’ type game with headband and cards. The first pack she was given had actually already been written in but it was replaced by our waitress as soon as we told her. Drinks were served within minutes of us sitting down and our starters were served around 10 minutes later. Husband and I both opted for the same thing, the pulled pork potato skins:

The portion was an adequate size and although Husband and I agreed that there could have been a little more pork in the skins, the dish was tasty, if a bit sloppily presented.

Sausage and Lin didn’t have a starter but our main courses turned up no more than about ten minutes later, which meant that they didn’t have to wait too long to get some grub in their bellies!

Here’s what we had:

(meals, clockwise from top left: Sausage’s pizza from the Kid’s Menu, my Meatball Siciliana Calzone, Lin’s Ranch Burger and Husband’s Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich)

Sausage throughly enjoyed her pizza which was absolutely huge and far too much for her to manage, but we’d rather she left some than left hungry. My calzone was absolutely delicious. It was full of tasty meatballs and pepperoni and the sauce was rich and lightly spiced, all wrapped in a well-cooked pizza dough. Husband’s Philly cheese steak sandwich was surprisingly tender and a generous portion (although he did have one french fry on his plate which was still entirely frozen!). Lin loved her Ranch burger, which was laden with bacon and Ranch sauce and the portion was so generous that she had trouble finishing it all herself!

Next came dessert; we ordered dessert after we finished our mains as we weren’t sure we’d have enough room for it, but Lin and I battled on and Sausage had her heart set on a strawberry ice cream.

Sausage was thrilled to get not only a strawberry ice cream in a very grown-up sundae glass but a packet of chocolate buttons on the side, too! I opted for the salted caramel cheesecake, which was out-of-this-world delicious, however, and this is a WHOLE new experience for me, but the portion was actually too big! I’m never one to be beaten by food, especially not cheesecake, but I was struggling after eating half! Lin had the mint choc waffle, which was a little bit hit and miss. The warm waffle was served with hot chocolate sauce and ice cream, which made it a bit of a melty mess and the cinnamon waffle didn’t go very well with the mint of the ice cream. The waffle was also a bit chewy and thick.

All in all, our trip to Frankie and Benny’s was a great success. The dinner for four of us (two starters, four mains, three desserts and five drinks) came to £47, which we thought was really reasonable. Our server was attentive and efficient and we felt comfortable in our booth. There were plenty of families there, as well as couples and mixed groups so we didn’t feel like we had to ‘shush’ Sausage if she was loud (as almost-5-year-old girls are prone to be!). We’d definitely go back to Frankie and Benny’s and would recommend it to other families with young kids.

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1. Take plenty of sunscreen

When Husband and I visited the Maldives in 2006, one thing we didn’t take enough of was sunscreen. And the problem with that, is that once you’re on a Maldivian island which only operates one weekly boat trip off of the island, you’re very much a captive audience. Cue price hikes on essentials that would make your eyes water! Husband bought a bottle of Banana Boat Aloe Vera Gel and I believe it set him back around £15 from the island shop! Take plenty with you (you can often find good two for one offers at this time of year) and you could save a fortune!

2. Get Insured

Family travel insurance is an absolute must-have when travelling with kids. It gives you the peace of mind of knowing that you’ll have medical care for the whole family, whenever you need it, which is something that should never be underestimated, especially if you’re travelling to far-off lands.

3. Take a siesta!

In many hot countries, locals will take a nap during the day. Even if your kids have grown out of taking naps at home, do as the locals do and have a siesta. The kids will be out of the sun during the hottest hours, many places close during siesta time anyway, so you won’t miss out on much and it will probably mean that you can enjoy an evening on a restaurant patio with the whole family, without worrying about grumpy, overheated, tired kids!

4. Entertainment

So, you’re off on a plane, you have a baggage limit, you don’t want to be lugging a train set or a dozen Barbies around in your hand luggage. However, having something even as simple as a colouring book and crayons in your bag can never be underestimated when travelling. Kids are bound to get bored on long flights and simple forms of entertainment can make the start of your holiday more pleasant for everyone involved.

5. Pack Clever

It’s tempting to over pack when you have kids, and with things like formula milk or other essentials, I can understand taking them with, as foreign brands may seem like a daunting alternative. However, with most things, unless you’re holidaying in darkest Siberia, you’ll be able to buy them there. Don’t pack eight packs of baby wipes before you go, they’ll just take up valuable sarong space! (Incidentally, sarongs are one of the most versatile objects EVER, take plenty!)

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Just recently, I discovered FADS and I immediately started lusting after their wares. Top of my want-list is this white gloss sideboard, which is just so sleek and chic. We live in a cupboardless house (there is literally ONE built-in cupboard in the house, aside from kitchen units, and that houses the boiler) so any sort of solution to our lack of storage is warmly welcomed, especially when it looks this good.

Also, and I cannot stress this enough, this is one of the coolest garden chairs I’ve EVER seen. Like, how comfy does it look? It looks like it belongs poolside in a Hollywood mansion and I’m pretty sure it would not only improve my life but it would probably make me look 20lb lighter*, just by parking my bum on it. 

Finally, should we ever manage to move out of our magnolia palace and into somewhere that we can add our own touches, this wallpaper would get my vote straight away. I love the fact that its heavily patterned but looks quite simplistic because of the line drawing and it comes in a few different colours too. I actually think it would be perfect for a nursery or child’s room as the pattern is interesting and would grow with a child, unlike popular characters.

So, what are you coveting this week?

*This may or may not be wild fantasy and nothing even remotely like what would happen

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