Wanted: Green Fingers

I've never had a garden. Even as a child my family home did not have a garden and so I have never had any urge for gardening. I don't really like bugs or mess and to me that's all gardening is.

At our new house we have a garden and my aim is to make it as low maintenance as possible while still making it look gorgeous.

We are hosting a party for my parents 30th wedding anniversary in four weeks time so that is my target for getting the garden sorted. The weather, of course, hasn't helped but we have had a break in the clouds today and Monkey and I have ventured outside.

With a lack of green fingers myself I am hoping to nurture it in Monkey instead. He's two now and a fast learner - hopefully it's not out of the question to expect him to maintain the garden from the age of 4, right?!

We were promoted to get out there by the MoneySupermarket #KidsGrowWild challenge and we got a fantastic gardening kit through which Monkey put to good use. Today we have used the tools to dig up as much of the exisiting plants as possible. It feels wrong to take out perfectly good plants but I have no idea what they are so it is best if we just start from scratch.

It all started so well with Monkey interested in the new toys:

And then getting his hands a little dirty:

But it didn't last long. I'm ashamed to say this was about 5 minutes later (in my defence I had got half the side done, sort of):

And this is what Monkey chose to do instead. He's watching his new Fireman Sam DVD.

We have at least started and I'm keen to hear any tips on how I can get Monkey more interested in what we do in the garden. There are three small areas in our garden so I'm going to designate one of them specifically for Monkey and I have already brought some windmills for it.

I fear though his green fingers might be missing, just like mine!

This post is an entry for BritMums' #KidsGrowWild Challenge. Find out more at MoneySupermarket's site.

I was provided with a children's gardening kit in exchange for this post

A Fresh Start

Everything is new in my life and so it seems fitting to have a new start on the blog which I have sort of neglected slightly in the past few weeks.

The truth is that I willingly went dark as we neared completion on our very first house purchase. I was so nervous about tweeting or blogging anything in case it all went wrong. So I just shut up and so there is so much to catch up on!

We have it - we have our very first own home.

It's been a fun, exhausting first week here. We got the keys a couple of days before we actually moved in and we literally painted through the night to try and get the rooms done in the way we wanted. As I have previously said, I had seven years of pent-up DIY built up so I have been desperate to put my stamp on the house. We had six rooms we wanted to decorate and we managed to do three - the lounge (which was the mammoth job), Monkey's room and the bathroom - which I think might be my favourite room in the house now that I have added a nautical touch.

We're working on the rest of the rooms in the evenings - the stairs were done last night, it's the kitchen tonight and then we'll do our room - currently a room of boxes as we haven't bothered to get the wardrobe yet. Then there is still the playroom and the guest room to do but I'm afraid they are going to have to wait!

The credit card has taken quite a battering but there is nothing that I have brought which has been a waste or doesn't look brilliant in the house.

It's also been all change on the work side. I have left my full-time job and am now in search of something a little more family friendly. I'm trying not to let the fear get me as part-time jobs in PR are so few and far between I do worry how long I will be unemployed for but I have done the jobs which give me no balance, I need to find the right fit this time.

Monkey is out of nursery and I am suprisingly loving being a stay at home mum. I always thought it was never for me but actually I have quite enjoyed it. I don't think I could do it all the time but I have enjoyed the trips to the park, farms, playgroups and playgrounds and it re-enforces my wish to be around a little bit more.

There's loads more to say about the move and our new life away from London but this will do for now.

x

What next?

Hello!

I'm still here. Apologies for the lack of blogging but I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last week and for me that comes with sitting at staring at the wall (or the telly).

I'm approaching a crossroads in my life. We know we are moving and although we STILL haven't exchanged on the house it looks like we are on to move in a couple of weeks time. Yeah! So, we know where we are going to be living - that bit is sorted.

What is not sorted is me. What do I do now? I work in PR but as I've blogged about before I am not sure it is my dream job. I trained as a broadcast journalist - that was the childhood dream and I lived it out for almost two years working as a radio newsreader. It was a short love affair with broadcasting which ended in redundancy and then an enforced switch to a better paying job which actually had some job vacancies.

It's meant that PR never really felt like my choice, more something born out of necessity and availability.

Now, I want to find out what I want to do but in today's society with money tighter than ever we are not really afforded a lot of time to try to work out what it is that we want to do.

Oh, to be able to work for free trying out a few roles, to re-train by undertaking some expensive new qualification or to start up on my own and know that's it is OK if there is a slow start.

It's a constant thought in my head - what next for me? I'm still not sure.

My First Refurb Project...

As I've mentioned before after years of living in rented accomodation I have a lot of pent-up DIY just waiting to get out. And while I wait for what feels like a painfully slow house purchase to be completed - I have had to start somewhere.

And so I present my new TV unit!

It started like this...

And now it looks like this...

Stress!!!

I know that everyone under the sun told me that buying a house was one of the most stressful things you can do - and I let that piece of wisdom go in one ear and out the other.

Lesson learnt now though and I have had one of the most stressful weeks of my life...and nothing has been resolved so it all rolls over into next week.

In a little blogging therapy, allow me to detail all the weights on my shoulders at present:

Accepting Help

Living so far away from our parents (3hour drive each way) we have learnt to be pretty self-sufficient when it comes to looking after Monkey.

We rarely go out together and on the odd wedding anniversary when we have gone out a friend has watched Monkey and we have gone to the restaurant down the road.

All Change

On Saturday we began house-hunting for the very first time as potential buyers. What a difference from looking as renters! The estate agents seemingly couldn’t do enough to help us and there wasn’t a queue of other people outside – we had their attention!

I’d done my research of the area, the schools and the toddler groups for Monkey but I was realistic that our search had only just begun. We were due to view six houses that day and from the photos number 4 was the most interesting. 

The houses were saw in the morning were nice but I thought it would be like wedding dress shopping – I’d just know when I had found the one. And then we went into house number 4. 

Prior to beginning our house search I had briefed my hubby on the importance of the poker face when house hunting. When we left house number 4 his first words to me were ‘you weren’t exactly subtle.’

Yes, like a teenage with a massive crush I fell head over heels in love with this house – mainly because it has massive cupboards in the kitchen. You know, the important stuff! I gushed, I swooned and I made it bloomin’ obvious that this needed to be my new house. 

Two hours after a 45 minute viewing of the house (it was obvious we were keen) we were rang by the agent to be told that someone else had put in an offer. Well, what’s a girl (and two boys) to do – on the very first day of house-hunting we put in an offer…which was accepted 10 minutes later!

We are so excited to have our first ever real home but obviously cautious until everything has been confirmed. 

It’s all change in the Monkey’s Mummy household and we couldn’t be more thrilled!