I just over two weeks’ time, my son turns one. One. This means I’ve almost kept him alive for an entire year, despite being able to count the number of times I’ve had more than three hours’ sleep in one chunk on the fingers of one hand. Or I would, if I had the brain … More My first year of parenting in song
Trelissick marks the start of the Cornwall era of Billy’s Trust Tour, if indeed you can call a week’s holiday an era. Which, given how many Trusts we visited, I’d argue you can. At this point, you see, Billy was lagging a bit behind in the Trusts visited vs months alive stakes. And so during … More Billy’s Trust Tour – Trelissick
Montacute House is one of the Bad Boys of the National Trust’s collection. One of the very first houses the Trust acquired, in the beginning they weren’t entirely sure what to do with it and found the whole thing rather embarrassing. They weren’t really in the business of country houses, after all. The National Trust … More Billy’s Trust Tour – Montacute House
Not to be confused with the similarly-named but entirely different Barrington Court, Berrington Hall is a favourite of the Badger family. It’s in rural Herefordshire, and while it’s not quite got the grandeur of Dyrham Park, it’s still a pretty decent place to indulge Jane Austen fantasies (yes, I’m still on that Austen kick. I … More Billy’s Trust Tour – Berrington Hall
Dyrham Park is the National Trust of my dreams. I say this because I dream of pottering around in a Jane Austen novel. I’d made a really good Jane Austen heroine, what with my cross-stitching and my….erm…yeah. That’s about it. Anyway, the point here is that Dyrham is a house that would fit right into … More Billy’s Trust Tour – Dyrham Park
Overview Barrington Court, down in Somerset, was Billy’s first proper National Trust day out with other children. We met a friend and her two kids there, and Billy was seemingly not at all put out by not being the only tiny person there. But that may just be my memory, for we visited this one … More Billy’s Trust Tour – Barrington Court
(Billy’s been to a lot more National Trusts than your average baby – more than months he’s been alive, in fact. And that fact is one which I merrily share with every National Trust employee I come across. So I decided that if I’m going to subject the poor boy to quite so much history … More Billy’s Trust Tour – Tyntesfield
Today my son is six months old. This milestone means many things; that he’s grown from a teeny little 6lb 11oz bundle of floppiness and bewilderment to a god-knows-how-many-lbs bundle of chubbiness and slobber and giggles. That I’ve learnt more nursery rhymes than I ever thought possible. That the total number of hours spent doing … More All the plans I’ve made on the night feed
When we got back from honeymoon, I issued an ultimatum to my husband; we either got a cat, or had a baby. I was gambling on my then-27-year-old husband being so terrified of procreation that he’d opt for the cat option, and indeed he did. In fact, he opted for two cats just to make … More All the ways cats prepare you for a baby
I do not think of myself as a sporty person, largely because I’m comically dreadful at almost all sports. But despite that, I realised while watching the Olympics (and oh, how I’ve watched the Olympics – were watching an Olympic sport then I would definitely win the gold medal) that I’ve tried quite a few … More All the Olympic sports I’ve tried
