A seasick spoodle on the Norfolk Broads

Having lived within a stones throw of the Norfolk Broads for a year and not ventured down there,  we decided at the end  of the school holidays to throw caution to the wind and turn our hand to sailing. When I say ‘sailing’ I do of course mean rent a small boat and trundle along the river at 5 mph, but in our rather nautically challenged family, that’s as close to proper sailing as we’re ever likely to get.

Not wanting to leave Charlie at home alone for the day, he was duly packed into the car along with far too many sandwiches, a flask of green tea, 4 large bottles of water, a bird book, binoculars, a picnic rug, spare jumpers and several rain coats. I think subconsciously I was preparing for all possible worse case scenarios, including being swept away in a freak squall and left stranded far from civilisation on a floating polar ice cap. Surrounded by a flock of incredibly tiny unidentifiable birds.

Considering the average temperature last summer just about managed to reach ‘tepid degrees’, it was rather lucky for us that the day in question turned out to be the hottest we’d had since Spring. Perfect weather for messing about the river in fact, but rather too hot (as we soon found out) for four people dressed to keep warm with just one child-sized sun hat between them.

Arriving at the river we discovered one rather unsettling fact about sailing on the Broads: they really will hire out a boat to just about anyone who turns up and pays. Including, it appears, a family with not one ounce of river-going know-how between them. How scary for the water fowl indeed.

He looked nervous when approaching the boat, clueless when it came to mastering the controls and positively panic-stricken when untied and told we were free to go.  In fact, I believe our last words to the man in charge were “But what happens if we hit something?”  Of course he laughed.  Fool, little did he know.

Once we’d successfully navigated our way out through the waterways and onto the river we were relieved to find out that steering a boat is much like riding a bike. My son donned his full pirate outfit within minutes of setting off and both kids were in their element as they took it in turns at the wheel. The final member of our party however wasn’t quite so happy; he was clearly having difficulty finding his sea legs. Which does of course raise the question of why old sailors are often referred to as ‘Sea Dogs’.

Having been incredibly tentative about setting a paw onboard, Charlie became even less enamoured with the whole idea as we headed off down river. He whined at the passing boats, barked at every passing duck and positively howled when a swan dared flap nearby. And then, as if to really drive his point home, he pooed all over the floor. In lots of little brown, liquidity puddles. It’s amazing how fast doggy diarrhoea spreads when travelling across an uneven surface. And how much it smells when out in the fresh air. And how many wet wipes are required to mop up the mess.

Feeling rather sorry for himself (and possibly embarrassed) pooch took himself off to the back of the boat, laid on the cushion and peered rather gloomily over into the water. Every so often he looked our way with a hangdog expression that clearly said: ‘I didn’t ask to be brought along on this bloody boat you know’.

Forward onto the return journey – after a semi-successful mooring for lunch and the only sun hat somehow making its way into the water – and all seemed to be going fine. So fine in fact that my daughter was now in charge of steering the boat and both responsible adults were sat at the back, feet up, admiring the view and drinking a cup of tea.

Well when I say all was fine, I mean except for that small incident when my husbands (very expensive) sunglasses somehow took it upon themselves to leap from his face, onto the canvas awning and into the murky depths of the river. I would have been more surprised at this rather unfortunate happening, but the memory of him managing to dropping our camera (with a weeks worth of holiday snaps) into Sydney Harbour the last time we were on water is still fairly fresh in my mind.

Approaching the narrowing waterways as we came into land/park/moor up, my husband thought it wise to take control of the boat, so sent my daughter back to sit with the sea-sick dog. Suddenly Charlie’s bowels opened more, this time all over the cushion and then, as he was pushed off that, all over the floor of the boat. He then skidded around in it a bit and tried to clamber back on the cushion, trailing the mess from all 4 paws and rather matted, manky looking tail. This led to a rather rapid chain of events that involved my daughter letting out a squeal of horror and disgust, my husband turning around to see what the hell was going on, the boat banging straight into the side of the river, me flying backwards inside of the cabin and my son falling head first off the seat. It wasn’t the best 15 seconds of the trip it has to be said.

It took a fair few minutes to take stock, mop up, scrub the dog and rectify the damage – all with the few remaining wet wipes. It took quite a few minutes more before my husband managed to prise our boat off the wall … and straight into the path of another, much larger boat that was speeding towards us on our side of the river. To say it got a little bit tense would be an understatement, especially when I didn’t immediately offer to throw myself over the edge of the boat to push us off the wall. Something to do with the fact I was still up to my wrists in poo.

By the time we limped into our mooring space the owner was already there waiting, and the next family were ready to hop on board with their picnic. I’m rather hoping they never noticed the rather suspicious looking stain on the underside of the cushion, or the multiple bags of liquid mess I was holding as I clambered off. I’m pretty sure however (based on the fact they were busy mopping out the boat) that they did notice us hanging around the car park for another 2o minutes, as Charlie continued to drip out his business from one patch of grass to the next. And then throw up all over the nice (new) leather seats when he was finally loaded into the car.

All in all it was a great day out. Slighty messy and rather smelly, but fun nevertheless. Look forward to doing the same again next year, though it obviously goes without saying we’ll be leaving Charlie at home on dry land and I’ll be in charge of the wheel when we’re coming in to dock the boat.

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Is the use of a forward facing pram really child abuse?

Professor Cathrine Folwer, a health expert in Australia, seems to be claiming that millions of parents around the world, myself included, are guilty of abusing their babies and small children.

As I look across the table at my happy, well-adjusted, healthy son eating his home cooked lunch it’s hard to spot any signs of this harm I’m supposed to have inflicted on him from birth, but apparently I have. Research says that I (and lots of other mothers I know) have cruelly subjected our babies to a “terrifying and very stressful situation’ every time we’ve taken them out to the shops or even for a walk.

So what have we done? Filled their bottles with vodka? Starved them? Fattened them up with a diet of chicken nuggets? Left them outside in the rain when they refused to stop crying in the middle of the night?

No, it’s something far more sinister than that. We’ve used, oh the shame of it, a forward facing baby sling and pram.

According to the Professor and a study carried out by the University of Dundee, these most heinous torture devices we’ve all been using to transport our offspring have not only caused untold suffering to our little angels, but they’ve also stunted their development and turned them into anxious adults. This is because, so they say, children facing forward rarely get their parents’ attention and therefore suffer stress and sometimes even ‘trauma’.

‘Imagine if you were strapped to someone’s chest with your legs and arms flailing, heading with no control into a busy shopping centre – it would be terrifying,’ said Professor Fowler. ‘Outward-facing baby carriers and prams give babies a bombardment of stimulus, creating a very stressful situation.

Who knew hey? And there was I thinking it was a good thing to let my children have a comfortable, reclinable seat to sit in, surrounded by toys, books and blankets and a great view of where we were heading. Better that than having to look at my tired, puffy face and standard issue eye bags I’d have thought.

And as for the baby sling – which incidentally shouldn’t be used to face babies forward before they’re strong enough to hold their neck up at about 3 months – how on earth can the use of one of those be considered cruel? Aside from the fact that mothers with multiple children – or even those who need the use of both hands – couldn’t physically manage without strapping a baby onboard, surely these pouches can only be an enjoyable experience for the child? Not only are they securely strapped onto their parent’s body (so as close as possible to be), they also have a great view and a chance to sleep. What’s not to love about that?

And now to the legality of it all. I’m pretty sure that nowhere in the 999 pages of instructions that came with either of my prams was there any mention of the possible side effect of long-term therapy for its pint-sized occupant. So does that mean the likes of Graco, Mamas & Papas and Mothercare are about to face the mother of all law suits from ill-informed parents?!

Of course I also don’t remember either of my children sitting (or hanging) there, paralysed with fear and suffering untold trauma. And yes I think I’d have noticed; babies aren’t best at keeping a stiff upper lip when not happy. In fact if memory serves me correctly, my two spent most of the time looking around them with interest, fast asleep or crumbling whatever snack they were clutching into a million crumbs – all of which disappeared into the inaccessible cracks of said heinous torture device.

So when weighing up the facts and research presented by Professor Folwer alongside the knowledge that neither of my children, now 10 and 5, seem to scream in fear every time they see a crowd or develop a nervous tic when I leave the room, I don’t think I’m going to panic too much about the findings of this report.

But perhaps all this time, money and academic intelligence would be far more beneficial if it was directed towards finding solutions to bigger issues, like SIDS and other life threatening childhood diseases, rather than giving new parents one more thing to worry about before the stork swoops in.

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Help! Police! I’ve been told to tidy my room.

It’s all happening with 11-year-old kids this week isn’t it. Over here in the UK we’ve got a girl being prosecuted for rioting and looting and in Germany, a boy calling a police emergency line and complaining he was being subjected to “forced labour” at home.

So what of this poor little lamb? Did his mother have him scrubbing floors at midnight? Force him to wash dishes from dusk to dawn? Shoe-horn him up a chimney with a brush between his teeth? No. She asked him to pick up paper from the floor. God forbid, imagine if she’d also asked him to pick up his toys.

As the boy stood there phone in hand, bleating to the officer that he had to “work all day long” and didn’t have any “free time”,  you can only imagine his mother’s reaction when she realised he’d actually carried out his childish threat to call up and complain. I can just picture her face – total disbelief, quickly followed by shock, fury at the stupidity of her son and finally horror at how it might all end.

In fact, instead of being made to just stand there and listen, her face the colour of an over ripe plum and steam pouring from her ears, I’m sure she could quite easily of grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him off to sit on a naughty step for 24 hours. Or, heaven forbid, clipped him around the head and read him the riot act for being so dumb. Obviously she’d have quickly realised that either of those tactics wouldn’t have helped matters much, as then he’d only have added child abuse to the complaint.

Thank god common sense for once prevailed. The officer in question asked the boy if he even knew what ‘forced labour’ meant – apparently the boy claimed he did – and then requested to speak to his mother. Her explanation would make parents all round the world roll their eyes in empathy.

“He plays all day long and when told to tidy up what he’s done, he calls it forced labour.”

It does make me wonder how this scenario might have ended in this country though, at a time when some children obviously need far more discipline than they’re getting, but many parents are too scared to lay down the law – for fear of getting on the wrong side of it themselves.

Chances are it may well have played out like this: the police would have taken the complaint seriously, social workers would have been called in, the child would be taken into care and the mother who dared to try to teach her child the importance of keeping the floor paper free? She’d have received a criminal record, lost her job, her home and the rights to her son.

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Why kids must learn to boil an egg and climb a tree

The world has changed quite a bit in recent years; some say it’s changed more over the last few decades than it probably ever has. Technologically speaking that it. Millions of years of lumbering dinosaurs and slowly evolving amoebas, various cold snaps and the dawning of multiple civilizations have all been overtaken by a new era: The Age Of Electronics.

It certainly seems that most things we use today come on a phone the size of your fingernail, as an app through an online store or on a touch screen gizmo that can even make you a cup of tea. They all call for some sort of computerised what-ya-ma-call-it or wireless thingy-ma-jig and require plugging in, charging up and regular (often badly timed) updates.

So what does life in a world of advanced technology actually mean? Aside, that is, from needing to commit to memory a list of passwords as long as your arm. Well, if you break it down, it really means relying on a whole host of different computers to help get us through each day: ipods that rouse us, sat navs that lead us, laptops that inform us, phones that connect us, TVs that entertain us, ipads that amuse us, game stations that mesmerize us and microwaves that cook for us. Wow, what an awful lot of microchips there are controlling our lives.

Yes, that’s right, controlling. Because let’s be honest, the moment any one of these life saving machines stops doing what it should, we all go into an immediate state of melt down and come out in hives. And then, if we happen to be driving at the time, proceed to get very badly lost.

So where might it all end? Possibly with a generation of pale, socially inept kids with short pudgy legs, bad eyesight, tiny lungs and enlarged thumbs. Kids who only communicate with ‘friends’ they don’t know, haven’t a clue how to hold a pen, pick up a book, boil an egg or find their way out of a paper bag. And let’s not forget play. Because it goes without saying kids in the future won’t have a clue how to do that without the aid of an instruction manual.

A recent article in the Daily Mail summed it up in one heading: ‘1 in 3 children has never climbed a tree.’

Based on research carried out by Play England and antiseptic brand Savlon, the worrying results showed that a staggering 60% of youngsters would rather watch television or play computer games than venture outdoors. A 1/3 of children (aged 6-15) have never climbed a tree, a 1/4 have never rolled down a hill, 1 in 10 children cannot ride a bicycle and a 1/3 have no idea how to play hopscotch or build a den. Almost 1/2 of those children asked have never even made a daisy chain. And let’s be honest, 1/2 of those again probably don’t even know what a daisy is.

So what or who is to blame for a decline in the sort of outdoor fun that involves rough, tumble and dirty knees? Is it simply a case of lazy children giving in to the lure of the computer screen, or is it down to the lifestyle of their perpetually busy (and often overweight) parents, who admit they rarely played with their children or took them to the park?

According to Catherine Prisk, a former teacher and director of campaign group Play England, if children miss out on such vital childhood experiences as playing outside, getting muddy and climbing a tree, they may well be heading towards a life as a somewhat dysfunctional adult.

‘Children are likely to be more physically active when they play outside and are more likely to play with other children.

‘This is essential for their emotional and physical health, well-being and happiness and is also important for their future development, to build vital life and social skills.

She added: ‘When children learn to climb a tree they are learning to overcome a physical challenge and it will stand them in good stead for overcoming other challenges in life, such as learning to read.’

To a generation of parents brought up on fresh air, frozen noses and imagination, the results of this research are a disturbing wake up call to the sedentary lifestyles that we are allowing our children to lead. For while many children today may well opt for a sofa over a swing, it is not down to them to make the change, but the responsibility of their parents to unplug the computers, hide the remotes and, if necessary, confiscate everything in the house that beeps.

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Taken from a blog written for Treehouse Life.

When beauty is only screen deep

I think it’s highly likely that as with most people, regardless of your shape, size or gender, you probably experience those depressing moments when you look in the mirror and realise the person staring back at you isn’t quite the ‘you’ you had in mind.

In your head you’re feeling pretty good about how you look – maybe not quite reaching a supermodel level of gorgeousness, but at the very least the best possible version of yourself. What you see in the reflection however is a rather disappointing mid-winter version; a pale and pasty post-Christmas being that’s eaten one mince-pie too many, had no recent exposure to sunlight or a hairdresser and obviously hasn’t felt the necessity to buff, exfoliate or de-fuzz since the previous summer.

And on these occasions – known as bad hair, face and body days – when your reflection fills you with feelings of hopelessness and despair, being continuously bombarded with an onslaught of impossibly perfect looking people in the media really doesn’t help to boost your moral.

Of course these beautiful creatures who sell us promises of flawless glowing skin, bouncy hair and eyelashes long enough to hail a taxi aren’t actually real. Somewhere between the photo shoot and the glossy pages of the magazine they’ll have had a helping hand, a nip and a digital tuck. Because let’s be realistic, they would have needed to swallow a light bulb to get such a radiant glow. Or sat in a wind tunnel to achieve that long billowing hair. Or stuck on false lashes to achieve that impressive volume and length. Oh yes, they admit that one now don’t they.

True, no one would want to buy clothes or hair and skin products if the model sporting them looked like an unwashed, overweight tramp, but why can’t they be slightly more realistic? Why use prepubescent twiglets to sell skinny jeans and wrinkle creams to more ‘experienced’ women with crows feet, stretch marks and kids in tow?

It’s true we all choose to be a little gullible from time to time – it justifies the joy of shopping and the excessive purchasing of new products we can’t afford – but we’re not entirely stupid. The average person does actually realise a Miracle Cream won’t have you walking on water and Magic Knickers won’t turn you into a super skinny Debbie McGee.

It’s all smoke, mirrors and Photoshop and it really shouldn’t be allowed. Never mind making the average person feel they lucked out on Glamour-Puss DNA, why should kids be growing up believing they need to look like an airbrushed Barbie to be beautiful? Or consider imperfections a problem to be surgically fixed? Or think that even freckles are an unwelcome flaw.

So for all those who are experiencing a bad hair, face and body day, or have daughters who need to see that beauty is most definitely screen deep, here’s a little something to remind you that when it comes to these impossibly perfect people, it is just that. It’s impossible to look that perfect.

OK granted they’re all still gorgeous before being ‘tweaked’, but doesn’t that just  prove that even the ‘beautiful people’ aren’t considered quite good enough to live up to the ridiculous ‘ideal’.

And if they can’t manage it, god help the rest of us. We might as well give up all hope and go and buy a brown paper bag.

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Why it’s good not to win an Olympic ticket

These last couple of weeks millions of people have been logging online and, unbelievably, willing vast sums of money to have disappeared from their bank accounts. Sums of money that they probably can’t really afford to lose and almost certainly shouldn’t have agreed to be taken. Amounts large enough to cover the mortgage and quite a few bills, or even next year’s family holiday.

It may sound unlikely but it is indeed true. And more bizarrely still, for the last couple of weeks many of these people have actually been limiting how much they spend, just to ensure there’s plenty left in their account to take. Yes, it’s a rare occurrence indeed when anyone actually wants their bank balance to deplete overnight, but then again, it’s also a rare occurrence when tickets for The Biggest Sporting Event In The World come up for grabs.

We are of course talking about the 2012 London Olympics Games and the chance for a lucky chosen few to watch world-class athletics up close. Normally participation in this spectacular quadrennial event is limited to those who can afford to cross several time zones and visit foreign shores in order to attend. But next year it will only cost a tank of petrol, a swipe on your Oyster card or a return economy train fare to get there. Come to think of it a train fare can often cost the same as a trip through several time zones, but let’s not dwell on that right now.

With 20 million applications made for 26 Olympic sports and only 6.6 million tickets actually available, it was inevitable however that rather a lot of people were going to be disappointed with the outcome, including, surprisingly enough, many of the sportsmen and women who weren’t even able to secure tickets for their own families. Others fared slightly better in the ‘lucky dip’, with one man receiving £11,000-worth of tickets. It has to be said his odds of winning were slightly higher having applied for £36,000-worth to start with, after an agreement with his bank to increase his limit should he be successful.

We applied for tickets – the Opening Ceremony and the swimming – and failed to get so much as a penny whipped out of our bank account. It was annoying after all that hype, but at least we’re now better off for it. Besides that, what I do have is a pair of tickets for The BEST Event Ever In The World pinned to the notice board right in front of me now. Tickets for the very last night of the Take That concert in Wembley. So I think if I had to choose between watching the concert of a lifetime or lots of athletes (as good as they are) walking in a circle and waving flags,  I’d go with the first.

And for all those others who also failed to lay their hands on an Olympic golden ticket, remember this. Whilst your day out next year watching sporting history happen would have been highly exciting and no doubt worth every penny you’d spent, much of it wouldn’t. The reality is you’d also have had to deal with congested roads, overflowing car parks, enormous crowds, seriously overpriced food, a severe lack of usable toilets and, worst of all, if you went with pint-sized people, a miserable looking child attached to the end of your arm. A child who, if you could actually hear him about the din, would probably be saying he’s bored, tired and wants to go home.

Taken in part from Blog written for Treehouse Life.

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree

This time of the year is definitely a highlight on any trees calendar, or at least it is if you happen to be a Fraser, Balsam, Noble, White, Douglas or Grand Fir, a Norway or Colorado Blue Spruce or a Scotch Pine. We are of course talking Christmas trees here, and lots of them.

It has been estimated that approximately 200 million Christmas trees are bought worldwide each year, with more than 65 million being sold in Europe. In the UK alone, 8 million trees are currently being hauled into cars, dragged through homes and decorated to within an inch of their life. We’re not even going to guess at how many baubles or miles of tinsel are required for that many trees, though at a rough estimate, we’d say there are probably 4 million stars and 4 million angels involved.

Of course Christmas trees have long been the focal point in every festive household, but in just the last five years, sales of the rooted variety have grown a thousand fold in the UK. That’s an awful lot of tree. And an awful lot of needles being dropped, scattered, walked on and sucked up the Hoover everyday.

And if you’re wondering about the logistics of growing so many trees, well there are approximately 25,000 hectares of them (that’s over twice the size of the City of Manchester) growing around the UK, under the watchful eye of The British Christmas Trees Growers Association. And yes, all of these trees are earning their keep long before they hit that netting machine. Each acre of ‘Christmas tree’ provides the daily oxygen requirements for 18 people.

The Christmas tree has a long and interesting history, dating right back to the evergreen trees that were first used to celebrate the winter season before the birth of Christ. They weren’t decorated however until 1510, when those cheery folk in Riga, Latvia decided to start a trend that definitely lasted the distance. Small candles were first used to decorate trees in the middle of the 17th century, until Thomas Edison’s assistant, Edward Johnson, came up with the idea of making special electric lights for them in 1882. A much safer idea than a naked flame you would imagine, but far more annoying when that one solitary bulb comes loose. These Christmas tree lights went into mass production in 1890, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Today cities across the country now compete to offer the largest, greenest, most sparkly tree on the block, to help draw in those shopping crowds. But few places have one as special as Westminster. Their tree has been sent over as a gift from Oslo, Norway every year since 1947; an expression of good will and gratitude for Britain’s help to Norway during World War II.

So, now for a little guide to all things ‘Christmas tree’..

Well first up, rather obviously, is making sure you put your tree somewhere safe – so away from sunny windows, radiators, heating vents and any spitting embers that might escape an open fire. If you have children or pets running around it’s probably wise to secure it to a wall or a stable piece of furniture. Secure the tree that is, we’re not recommending tethering your toddler or pooch to the bookshelf with fishing wire over the coming weeks, no matter how tempting that idea might sometimes be.

When selecting your tree, make sure it’s a fresh one. No, this isn’t the same as the ‘sink or float’ egg test, you simply look to make sure the needles are shiny, green and staying put when you pull the branch – not dry, brown and collecting on top of your shoes when you tap it. When you finally get your tree into it’s final resting place and have finished your celebratory cup of tea, just remember that trees also love a good drink. In fact, they get so thirsty they’ll need to be continuously topped up with water for at least the first week.

And finally, once you’ve eaten the cupboards bare, stripped the turkey to it’s innards and all festive cheer is now but a distant memory, you’re thoughts will inevitably turn to how to get rid of that now very annoying tree in the corner of the room.

Tempting as the idea may be, we’d highly recommend that you NEVER burn your tree – inside the house or out! Burning it in the fireplace can contribute to creosote build-up and burning it outside can present a severe fire danger. Instead, dispose of your tree according to local regulations, via trash collection, chipping for mulch, or recycling. Recycled trees are used for all sorts of useful things, like making sand and soil erosion barriers and being fish shelters in ponds. So do a good deed for nature and set yourself up with some positive karma for the coming year.

Of course if you have a potted tree, then simply plant it back out in the garden, give it 12 months to recover and regrow and then you can start the whole Christmas hoopla all over again.

It may be cold but at least it’s pretty

There’s no mistaking that winter is almost upon us and any hope of some last minute warm weather is gone. Carved pumpkins are still sitting out in gardens, muddy wellies are cluttering hallways and ‘trick or treat’ sweets have just been hastily hidden away. Perhaps the biggest clue is the clocks having gone back and the evenings now feeling like they’re getting underway before your lunch has even finished digesting.

Some people it has to be said have no problem dealing with the long, cold months ahead, while others are already busy dragging their SAD lamps from the loft and dusting off next year’s summer holiday brochures in a panic. At least on the bright side there are some positives to the impending gloom. Having a legitimate excuse to whack up the central heating for one, and being well within your right to start planning The Big Shop and Feast that is Christmas.

While I’m not a fan of the cold weather I do love this time of the year. Mainly, it has to be said, because autumn does for trees what London Fashion Week does for the world of over-priced outfits.

It’s a time when Mother Nature brings out her finest paint palette and really goes to town, with splashes of reds, oranges, yellows and gold everywhere that you look. It’s a time when trees can appear almost luminous in the late afternoon sun. A time when wooded walkways are piled high with mountains of fallen leaves and grey city pavements are awash with a carpet of riotous colours. A time when the ground is littered with gleaming conkers and the hedgerows decorated with shiny berries.

Now granted that even with all the pretty leaves in the world, this nip in the air can only mean one thing. Coughs and colds are making everyone feel down and the annual ‘Man Flu’ epidemic is once again sweeping the nation. It should hardly come as a shock of course (germs and viruses being rather partial to the cold weather) yet still we all mutter, splutter and moan in surprise, and complain about how rotten we feel.

There is one glimmer of hope this week however in the form of some rather clever scientist types in Cambridge, who, this week, have achieved a major medical breakthrough in their search for the Holy Grail. Or in other words, they have taken a large step closer to finding a cure for the common cold.

Oh yes, you can already hear those pharmaceutical companies clapping their hands in delight.

But drugs aren’t always the best cure when you’re feeling sick. There was a time – a decade or so back – when a cold was just a cold and a sniff just meant you were wrapped up that little bit warmer when being propelled out of the back door to play. Bad weather was rarely an excuse to stay inside and get under everyone’s feet, especially when ‘fresh air’ and ‘exercise’ were considered to be the answer to everything – from treating a headache and ‘holiday boredom’ to sorting out squabbling siblings and childish sulks.

And while those of us of a certain age may have some rather unpleasant memories of shuffling around the garden with pink ears and icicles threatening to grow from our nose, we’d probably have to admit that there might actually have been some method to this madness.

Children after all need to be active regardless of the time of year or the level of the thermometer. They need to be running around in the great outdoors burning off calories, using up energy and expelling excess noise. What they don’t need (although most of us are guilty of it for our own sanity’s sake) is to be holed up indoors breathing in the same germs and establishing roots in the sofa.

So how do you coax your reluctant children out of the warmth and into the garden this winter?

 

Taken from my weekly BLOG written for Treehouse Life.

 

Teaching children the art of play

Not that many years ago, a child’s life was a much simple one to live. They went to school, came home, ate proper food and slept. There was no right or wrong way for them to be, to think or to act. They stayed young, enjoyed life and learnt through play. Playing that involved friends, fresh air and wide-open spaces that is, not spent passing time alone in a virtual world.

Yes, long before the age of the couch potato and all those computer consoles and handheld devices came along, games actual required inventing – by those playing them no less. Back then there was no need for weighty instruction manuals, an Internet connection or the latest release. You didn’t even need a darkened room, a 40” plasma or lightening fast thumbs to win.

Of course for many kids today it’s probably hard to imagine a time when trees were for climbing up, bushes for hiding in and rivers for swimming across. A time when you’d take off on your bike to explore, or enjoy building machines and go-karts with the limited contents of your Dad’s shed. A time when you’d get together with friends to skim pebbles, play tag or British Bulldog and discuss how to put the world to rights.

Oh how things have changed in recent years – the life of a child is no longer a simple one to live.

All the advances in technology that have helped to improve the world (or at least make it a more convenient place to live) have also changed how the youth of today spend their time. Now the hours between school and sleep are no longer filled with fresh air, fun and laughter. Instead, a computer-savvy generation rushes home from lessons; eager to lose themselves in a digitally generated world and chat to people they don’t even know.

Young children living, learning and interacting by a whole new set of rules, hunched over keyboards and spending hour after hour watching a distorted reality unfold onto a small screen in front of their eyes. They spend all of their spare time surfing, blogging, downloading and chatting. Constantly tweeting and updating on Facebook and telling the whole world secrets that one-day they will wish they had never shared.

Some kids, mainly boys it has to be said, fill countless hours shooting aliens, fighting gangsters and winning wars. Heavily influenced by the media and targeted for their pocket money, these children become addicted to highly unsuitable games in which they ‘play’ at violence, death and destruction until they are completely numb to what they see.

Often these kids are holed up for days on end, so engrossed in what they are doing that they forget to eat, sleep and even live. It’s hard to say what’s more worrying about children, some as young as 9 or 10, developing such a total fixation with technology, and relying on computer screens and TVs to fill their every minute.

Never mind that this sedentary lifestyle, coupled with a modern-day diet of fatty junk food and a decline in physical education lessons at schools, is resulting in one of the biggest health problems that world now faces today – childhood obesity, but it is also robbing them of something they can never get back – their innocence and their youth.

 

Taken from my weekly BLOG written for Treehouse Life.

Where NOT to go to pass the time

A collective sigh of relief goes up across the world this week, as, after several weeks of captivity, parents are finally being set free. Yes, school holidays have once again come to an end, and children everywhere are gathering up their pencil cases and musty lunch bags and being packed off back to their classrooms.

Of course lots of parent do relish these special weeks spent at home, re-bonding over the craft box and cooking up a cupcake storm. Other parents however, particularly those who aren’t naturally programmed to moulding papier-mâché and making their own play dough, sometimes find these long periods of time a little bit tricky to fill.

Once the novelty of an alarm clock free morning and a sandwich-making free evening has worn off, and you’ve spent several days watching your creative child stick tissue paper and glitter directly onto the dining table and build a cubby in every single room, it’s likely you might start thinking of other places to spend the day.

‘Other places’ that aren’t at home, to be more precise. Places that won’t involve you having to vacuum up afterwards, and require the odd bit of plastering and repainting when the playing goes wrong.

If and when the weather doesn’t cooperate and rain pours down day after day, soft play centres – the sort with swinging ladders, tunnels, slides and multi-coloured balls – are a tempting refuge. It’s true that spending a day at such a place is likely to knock at least a year off your lifespan and leave you with a nasty chest infection, but at least you are safe in the knowledge that, short of the odd friction burn and heat exhaustion, your children can knock themselves out without actually coming to any real harm.

The downside of these play centres is of course the entry fee. It’s generally on par with a central London mortgage repayment. And to add insult to overpriced injury, the parent is also charged just for the privilege of sitting, watching and breathing in the rancid air.

After you’ve set foot through the door and all shoes have been removed and stored in a pile under the counter, you will of course remember that the obligatory socks are still sitting at home in your child’s drawer. So your wallet is forced to come back out again and a new neon-coloured nylon pair (Easyjet style, Harrods prices) are passed over the counter to your child’s outstretched little paw. They of course will claim to love these new socks more than life itself. You will consider them hideous, and likely deposit them in the bin on the way out.

Finally the door (or gateway to hell, depending how you look at it) is opened, and your newly socked child is set free, static sparks flying in all direction as they run across the matching nylon carpeted floor. Reluctantly you follow suit and enter the room. Your ears are met with the thunderous sound of a hundred children all screaming, yelping and hollering in delight.

Just audible beneath this din, is a distinctive white noise. The low-level humming of a gaggle of mothers, all rocking backwards and forwards on their plastic seating in a desperate, shared pain.

Moving forward into hell, you spot the only beacon of hope in the entire place – a café at the end of the room. As you draw closer, the ‘café’ takes the form of a scratched up old counter and a chiller cabinet stocked full of last weeks’ salmonella and botulism experiments. Located somewhere beyond the coffee maker and the enormous display of food colouring and MSG is the kitchen, with it’s impressive line up of deep fat fryers spitting out grease all over the floor.

Unsure about which of the food would kill you and which would just make you sick, you settle on a hot chocolate and a purple coloured muffin. How wrong can you go with hot chocolate? It’s made inside the machine and spat out into the mug below. The muffin, which admittedly does look slightly solid around the edges, at least claims to contain a type of fruit.

The unwashed looking child behind the cash register takes the remainder of your money and hands you a numbered baton. You’d much rather just stand and wait for your order, but apparently loitering around the counter is not allowed. You must go to your table and wait to vibrate.

Not particularly keen to strike up a conversation with anyone in sight, you are forced to walk the length of the room in search of a table free of rubbish and off-putting inhabitants. You hurry past mothers dressed head-to-toe in stone washed denim and others dressed head-to-toe in fleece. You rush past those on day release from the local young offenders institute, and scuttle past those who obviously favour hemp on a stick to soap on a rope.

Eventually, several trips past scattered prams and regurgitating babies later, and you are finally settled into your plastic seat. You’re sitting just about near enough to the rope cage to see your child fly past, but not so close you can smell the feet. You finally have your ‘refreshments’ and enough dog-eared celebrity magazines to help pass the time, while you wait for your child’s colour-coded wristband to expire.

An hour passes and your child shows no signs of tiredness or even the slightest willingness to leave. The litre bottle of water you’ve just washed down the muffin with leaves you with little choice. You must leave the safety of your seat and brave the bathrooms.

The smell hits before you’ve even pushed open the door. The floor is swimming with something and none of the cubicles have locks, let alone anything resembling a loo roll. Hopping from dry patch to dry patch, you mentally calculate if you’re still covered by the tetanus jab you had for your holidays last year. Emerging from your cubicle you find a small crying child stood opposite your door. His trousers are around his ankles and his Thomas pants are full of something they shouldn’t be.

You briefly cast your eyes back to the liquid matter on the floor.

Now you’re faced with something of a social dilemma. Do you make a hasty escape and hope the soggy child’s mother is about to appear, or do you take possession of the said soggy child and go off in hunt of the careless owner? It’s not that you’re necessarily an uncaring cow with a heart of stone, but clearing up your own child’s accidents is one thing – sorting out the mess of a child with a shaved head and a cubic zirconia in one ear is quite another.

Luckily for you, the mother of ‘mini thug’ swoops in on him and drags him back out into the room, his Thomas pants still dripping across the floor.

Emerging back into the fresh air (the word ‘fresh’ becomes relative in a place like this), you decide that your senses have taken enough of a beating for one day. You spot your fuchsia-coloured child refuelling at the table and seize the opportunity to grab them and make a beeline for the door.

On the way home your exhausted child in the backseat tells you that it was worth all the pain. But it’s only taken 2 hours up of the day, and now you’re emotionally drained and financially crippled. To cap it off, the bottom of your jeans look slightly damp and the car now smells suspiciously of wee.

 

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