Five Things I Learned This Week
Hello!
Welcome to my ‘Five Things I Learned This Week’ page. This series of weekly blog posts was initially dreamed up after a glass, or 3 of prosecco with my sidekick, Stu Chandler. It was during one of our ‘end of the week, let’s pretend we’re discussing work’ drinks evenings where I was whinging that I missed blogging but wasn’t committed enough to do anything about it. Stu suggested that rather than write about techie stuff or digital marketing (don’t worry, I still do that too), I should write about my crazy life as apparently people find the trials and tribulations of my household amusing.
So this part of the site is all about my crazy family. I’m in my *ahem* mid 30s and am a single mum to 2 boys (who are 8 & 4), I have a long suffering partner who comes complete with a beautiful daughter so I’m not too outnumbered at home, and a crazy dog, Stitch who, due to a misunderstanding in a pub playground, spent a short time in police custody this year. I live and work from my not-as-tidy-as-I’d-like-it house in south west London. Life is a combination of parenting, work and trying to avoid being signed up to school bake sales.
I publish 5 Things every Friday so grab a cup of coffee or glass of wine and enjoy reading about the trials and tribulations of my week. If you’d like my blog posts dropped into your inbox please sign up to my mailing list. I promise not to pass your details onto anyone, even if they offered me huge sums of money for it.
Best wishes,
Holly
Me and the long suffering partner after surviving a trip to Ikea.
With the mastermind, Stu Chandler.
Five Things I Learned This Week – Being from a large family confuses people
Being from a large family confuses people Having a large family is just something that I’m used to. Two of my (four) siblings and I are from Dad’s second marriage and we grew up in relative harmony with two (half sisters) who had their Mum, the three of us who have our [...]
Five Things I Learned This Week – Manners cost nothing
Love this t-shirt from Smith & Webb - every T-shirt sold makes a donation to MIND charity. Anxiety is awful It’s mental health awareness week - something that a few years ago, either didn’t exist or we weren’t aware of. Shows how far we have come in just a short few years, [...]
Five Things I Learned This Week – Light always shines through the darkness
Old friendships are priceless Last year I wrote a lot on my personal blog about the different friendships I had once my ex-husband and I split up. That the people who I had expected to hang around, didn’t and I made new friends who I previously knew but had never thought of [...]
Five Things I Learned this Week – Sometimes you need to throw the balls in the air and see where they land
photo I sent the plumber this week - lucky him Life isn’t all about romance The other night, before going to sleep the last words I said to my partner were: ‘I messaged the plumber and he’s hoping to come and fix the loo on Wednesday.’ Not the most romantic thing but [...]
5 Things I Learned this Week – There is no polite way to use the F word in an email
If you leave your partner alone to do the gardening your flowers will be murdered Tomorrow we’re having a party at the house to celebrate my partner’s birthday. We’re kinda ready, in a ‘I’ll just nip to the shops for everything we’ve forgotten 10 mins before the guests arrive’ way. What isn’t [...]
Five Things I Learned This Week – You’re not always meant to see the bigger picture
Impromptu nights out are awesome I used to think of it as ‘disorganised’ but now I like to think of life as ‘impromptu’. It makes it sound like I have more control than I sometimes do over the never-ending days of parenthood (and school holidays). Anyway I’m an impromptu person and sadly, [...]
Five Things I Learned This Week – I am not into shopping
The only photo I could find of me wearing glasses, with the child who chose them I am not into shopping My friends know that I’m not the person to call if they want to go shopping. Years of dying of boredom with my siblings while our Mum tried on clothes ensured [...]
Five Things I Learned This Week – If something’s not working for you, change it
Sometimes you have to call in a professional photographer I am terrible at selfies, as the above picture shows. There is something about a selfie on my own where I have a hint of ‘serial killer’ about me. Or selfies with others’ where I’m either mucking about or only half in the [...]
Five Things I Learned This Week – Getting older isn’t so bad
There’s a reason flying from Stanstead is cheap Stanstead airport is 50 miles away from our house. Gatwick is 63. Guess which one takes (massively) less time to get to? When booking flights, going from Gatwick cost nearly double to flying from Stanstead. In a bid to actually make it out of [...]
Five Things I Learned This Week – Do not clip the dog at teatime
A kicking playlist starts the day brilliantly A friend, who has recently gone through a very similar experience to me, out of the blue, sent me a couple of Youtube links at 8am. This friend is not known as psychic but my goodness, those songs were needed right then! The songs were [...]
Five Things I Learned this Week – Counselling is not just rehashing childhood
Counselling isn’t just rehashing childhood Counselling isn’t something that people massively talk about, outside of Instagram anyway. I’ve had different forms of counselling at different times in my life and this week had my last of 16 sessions. Due to school holidays, my counsellor being ill and general busyness, those 16 sessions [...]
Five Things I Learned This Week – Perfectionism can be destructive
If you don’t value your time, no-one else will I’m very lucky to be able to work from home. Although when I look around at the mountains of laundry, dirty floors and dog nagging to be walked, sometimes I wish I worked in an office. On the whole, working from home is [...]