Memories and Socially Distanced Walk #R2BC

How does Thursday get here so quickly? It means it's time for the happiest linky around. I hope you all enjoy reading the other posts. For anyone new to the linky we have a few relaxed instructions:
What do you have to do? Simple:

1. Link up a post about something that is making you happy or grateful. It can be a list, photos or any way you fancy

2. Add the #R2BC badge (at the end of this post) onto your post or blog so that people can easily find the linky and join in too if they want to

3. Share the love. This is the really important bit. Please don't just link and run, comment on at least a couple of posts and why not share with #R2BC too?

I'll stop by all linked up posts to comment and I'll share on social media too. Meanwhile here are my reasons to be cheerful for this week:

1) Remembering loved ones
I found more treasure whilst sorting through boxes. Lots of photographs of my granny when she was a child and young adult. I put them up with the photographs I had framed of my daughter last week:

I have since given the one of my gran with her little sister to my mum as she didn't have any of her mum as a child.

2) VE Day

My neighbours and I managed a socially distanced celebration for the 75th VE Day celebration. One even baked us lots of cakes:

3) Socially distanced walk

The new rules meant that after 7 weeks I could walk with my daughter, whilst maintaining the social distance rules:

May the 4th be with you #R2BC

Whoops good job Michelle posted and made me realise I'd lost track of the days! Can I blame getting injured running for effecting my brain? Anyhow better late than never and thanks to everyone who joined in last week. For anyone new to the linky we have a few relaxed instructions:
What do you have to do? Simple:

1. Link up a post about something that is making you happy or grateful. It can be a list, photos or any way you fancy

2. Add the #R2BC badge (at the end of this post) onto your post or blog so that people can easily find the linky and join in too if they want to

3. Share the love. This is the really important bit. Please don't just link and run, comment on at least a couple of posts and why not share with #R2BC too?

I'll stop by all linked up posts to comment and I'll share on social media too. Meanwhile here are my reasons to be cheerful for this week:

1) Lovely things
I've been supporting some small businesses and getting some lovely things in the post. First up Suzy's Crafty Creations who sent me an item I am gifting plus a personalised scallop shell for my bathroom. Secondly Eden Temptation Crafts who made me some masks including one to match my geekiness:

2) New board game

Whilst trying to ensure my son doesn't fall behind on school work and having fun I decided to try out Geogo! from Oaka Books. It tests out your map reading skills whilst being competitive too. My son beat me but only because I changed the rules so that you had to get one from each category:

3) Camping Out

We pitched our small tent so that we could have an at home camp out. The first night we gave in and went back to bed. The second night we had put in our camp beds and survived the whole night:

It's a marathon not a sprint - Days 37-41 #R2BC

My brain has been in a bit of mush this week but at least I have realised that today is Thursday. Thanks for everyone sharing your happy moments last week, I loved reading them. I hope you will join in again this week and encourage others to do so. For anyone new to the linky we have a few relaxed instructions:
What do you have to do? Simple:

1. Link up a post about something that is making you happy or grateful. It can be a list, photos or any way you fancy

2. Add the #R2BC badge (at the end of this post) onto your post or blog so that people can easily find the linky and join in too if they want to

3. Share the love. This is the really important bit. Please don't just link and run, comment on at least a couple of posts and why not share with #R2BC too?

I'll stop by all linked up posts to comment and I'll share on social media too. Meanwhile here are my reasons to be cheerful for this week:

1) Marathon
I didn't want to let down my charity will all my events cancelled. So I used the 2.6 challenge on Sunday as an excuse to run my marathon mostly in my back garden:  

With laps of 30 yards it was hard work and after 20 miles I did head out into the countryside to finish it off. The last mile was the hardest and I had to be encouraged by my friends via Facebook. You can see how ecstatic I was to finish:

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A post shared by Becky Willoughby (@lakessinglemum) on Apr 26, 2020 at 1:54pm PDT

2) Take away

With impeccable timing our local Chinese has re-opened after putting in social distancing measures. After my marathon my son was able to nip round and collect the meal we had ordered the day before:

Good to be able to support a local business and get a big treat too!

3) Little touches

The downstairs loo still needs some little bits. One of these was to replace the broken towel holder.

Reasons to be Cheerful: Back to School #R2BC

The host for this month is the lovely Michelle who started this linky so many years ago! She is in charge for the rest of the month so please do pop over to her blog. I look forward to reading and sharing your posts but meanwhile here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Weekend away with my daughter
It has been such a manic summer with various family members going in different combinations for a range of breaks. With my daughter now working part time it took until this last weekend for her and I to get away for her bridge weekend. We had 5 hours each way in the car together to sing and chat, watch out we are going to be doing a mum/daughter YouTube channel! We also caught up with her half sister on the way back as she is at Coventry University.

2) Back to School Memories

My Timehop threw up some ancient photos of my brother and I heading off for new schools. Sharing photos on social media may be a new thing but my mum was good at capturing the moment on film back in the 1970s. How can our knobbly knees not raise a smile:

3) Off to Secondary

My son has had his first few days at Secondary school and so far so good! This is his third day and he finally remembered his new spectacles so he can read from the back of the classroom. Someone has commented that he looks like a young Michael Caine:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Be More Wit Wit Woo #R2BC

The blogging community is currently reeling from the sudden and unexpected death of one of the most optimistic and vivacious members Kate Sutton. Back in the early days of Twitter when I was a newly single parent she kept me sane with conversations online. She was an inspiration for me to embrace life and not care what anyone else might think! Rest in peace Kate.
Here are my reasons to be cheerful which I am sure she would have appreciated:
1) Insects
Its wonderful to see busy bees and butterflies making the most of the flower bonanza brought on by the unusually warm weather:

I am glad to have done my bit for them with the wild flowers in my front garden:

2) Clearing Out

We did another car boot sale on Sunday and got rid of some more bits and made a few more pounds for the holiday kitty! It was also a good social occasion:

3) A Trip Down Memory Lane

I went through lots of boxes in the garage for the car boot and found loads of treasures. This included the children's christening gifts, some missing Denby and this rather bizarre guinea pig I made in art at high school:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Me Time #R2BC

I have enjoyed a few days without my children before getting back together with them. Its so important for me to be able to a) unwind b) catch up on things without children needing adult intervention! So here are my first half of half term reasons to be cheerful:

1) Harry Potter Marathon

We are having a whole school Harry Potter themed World Book Day so I had an excuse to binge watch our entire collection (although the last movie is missing!!):

2) Furry Family

My daughter has decided that as she neglects the guinea pigs that they would be better off being mine. I am actually very happy to be responsible for the little cuties:

3) Overdue Hair Do:

Reasons to be Cheerful: 10 Green Bottles #R2BC

I am so glad that Michelle is back hosting this month as she was the original founder of this super linky. Hosting will be back with me in August! Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:

1) 10 Green Bottles

This was hanging in my grandparents' dining room for nearly all my childhood. It is now above my dining table so I can remember them every time I see it:

2) Being looked after

I was unwell at the weekend and my son brought me lunch in bed:

3) Proud mum #1

My son won a silver medal in an inter school athletic competition. He threw a ball 5 metres in the chest push to get it:

Guide Blanket nostalgia

My daughter is off to Guide camp next month and as part of it will be sewing more badges on to their camp blankets and talking about the badges on them. When I mentioned I still had mine the leader suggested that my daughter brings it along with her. So I dug it out of the vacuum bag in which it has been stored for years:

Over the years I had sewn all these badges on and I still have some in a box waiting to be added! I obviously had stuck to some sort of plan as to where they were sewn as they are all in certain places. 

My Brownie badges must have been the first ones sewn on when I first got the blanket. I was in 3 different packs from moving house and did plenty of activity badges:

Then I moved on to Guides during the early 1980s and the 75th anniversary of the Guides Association:

I then moved up to Rangers and more adventures whilst at the same time being in the Red Cross to do my Duke of Edinburgh's award and First Aid qualifications:

Time tunnel Tuesday

I was having another sort through my memorabilia boxes to organise them before they go in the loft. Slightly distracting when things from the past you had forgotten about turn up like these treasures:

My 5th form timetable which was inside my pencil tin:

Several photos from university balls with my student boyfriend:

A signed match programme from the day Swansea beat Australia and we were match stewards:

Oh and a very cute little girl from 2004:

Plenty of things to keep and relive the memories in years to come! What do you keep in your memory box?

A trip down memory lane

Being forced to hunt out my school exam certificates sent me to my parents' garage this weekend to go through some of the many storage boxes of stuff! These have been filling their lovely double garage since I moved north 3.5 years ago... So about time I looked in them. 

It was a case of going through them one at a time... Whilst doing so I did manage to throw some bits and pieces away! Eventually on the third box result:

It's funny that I've never needed them since 1987 and 1989 respectively! Just so glad I did't lose them as it costs a fortune to get replacements...

On the way to finding these I came across a real memory mine..

Holiday souvenirs such as these totally non-PC American "Indian" items from the Grand Canyon in 1979

Lots of school related memories including school reports, photos and my Beaconsfield High School scarf:

Several souvenir newspapers showing my love of history, monarchy and weather (I did a geography degree!):

And of course memories of my own children as babies:

And my daughter's first photo shoot aged 3 months:

Looking forward to having a second look through as I sort it more thoroughly at my house so that things are easier to find in future! Do you have a treasure of memories like this?

Tick Tock: in memory of watches

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I look back with fondness on the memory of getting my first proper watch. It was new technology as my parents got me a digital watch a bit like this one:

Being able to tell the time gave children so much more freedom as we knew at what time to come home. There was also the fun of using the stopwatch function when playing games!

I was sad in the 1980s to miss out on the Swatch revolution with all their funky colours. Instead for my 18th birthday I got a sophisticated and elegant analogue watch. This was a special occasion only watch as it wasn't waterproof. Unlike my first digital watch though I do still possess it though I never seem to remember to put a new battery in it..

When I got engaged a friend gave us matching his and hers watches - though I guess they probably fell off the back of the lorry as they didn't work for very long... So I bought myself a kinetic watch so that I didn't need to worry about batteries all the time. This one I do still wear sometimes though I have to take it off to use a laptop and then frequently forget to put it back on...

So the timepiece I most often have gracing my wrist is currently my running Garmin which is rather too bulky and a bit too pink for every day use. I do think I need to invest in something that I can wear all the time so I don't have to rummage for my phone... 

It would have to be something that I didn't have to worry about getting wet or being knocked so perhaps a Casio Baby-G Shock Watch:

Do you have memories of special watches that you have been given or bought over the years?

Preserving Memories

Every parent knows that almost as soon as your child starts nursery they start bringing home stuff. Artwork, junk models, writing, projects.... it can seem like every week more and more bits come through the front door. All of this is of course potential treasure to keep forever but you can't keep all of it especially when you have more than one child!

We have a small house with limited storage so space is a real issue when it comes to extra bits. My daughter is a hoarder and has tried to keep every single piece of school work she has ever brought home. But even she now realises that the drawer it is stored in is bursting at the seams. 

It is great fun looking back at her work from Reception class and seeing how much her writing and number work have vastly improved! She and I had a real hoot this evening looking back at old Learning Journey books. These are great ways of keeping key bits of work in a compact scrapbook. But its the loose bits that are a pain as they mount up and aren't easy to work out when the work was done. I have asked her to get rid of uninteresting pieces of work and just keep a few key bits that she can look back on.

We also have what seems like a gazillion pieces of artwork from both children that at some point grace the wall but eventually have to come down for another piece to go up. It would be impossible to keep it all so I've decided on a 21st century way to preserve the memory and not take up room. I have started to photograph them instead:

So now my son's straw skeleton can be kept for as long as digital images last and the original I am afraid has been thrown in the bin. I think its a great compromise and I do wish that I had started doing this years ago!

How do you deal with all your children's work?

#FlashbackFriday: Happy Campers

As a child in the 1970s and 1980s I almost always spent my main summer holiday camping somewhere in Britain or in France with my parents, sometimes with my granny and often with my mum's best friend and her family. I treasure many happy memories of these holidays (and also some tales of woe!). We must have stayed in so many places but the ones that stick in my mind are:

• Skye in the summer of 1976 
• Guernsey (my brother and I had german measles on this trip!)
• pitching a tent in a thunderstorm in the Loire valley
• Staying in the Dordogne
• Brittany with its creperies

Hopefully my children will look back on our own camping trips with the same fondness. We are reliving the tradition by spending our main summer holidays under "canvas" with my parents. Here are a few photographs from the family archives showing some of our old trips.

My brother in the south of France as a baby: 

That was my parents' first camping trip as a family and they got everything crammed into a Mini for the trip!


The next few shots all have our faithful Marina on them. They were taken in the mid to late 1970s. The blue tent lasted many years and comfortably slept 5 of us on all our trips. I remember sharing a compartment with my Granny whilst my brother had a smaller compartment to himself. Being away often with friends of a similar age meant that we always had someone else to play with:

feeding time at the zoo!

Off to clean our teeth before bed 

The adults having a well deserved rest

The French trips introduced my brother and I to new tastes and experiences. Here we are sharing a picnic and it looks like my brother has a glass of wine!

Definitely happy memories to treasure forever.

Jubilee Round Up

The flags and bunting are looking rather sorry for themselves now but hasn't it been a marvellous time to be proud to be British. I am sure the queen is glad to be sitting down with a cup of tea and her feet on a corgi after all the excitement of the last 4 days! Wonder whether the next big royal do will be her 70 years on the throne or the crowning of King Charles III? Here are my favourite bits of the Jubilee:

My children's school had several days of Jubilee related activities. Unfortunately the family picnic was cancelled due to rain but it cleared up in time for the school fete and cake sale. The children all looked fabulous in their red, white and blue and I wish I was as talented as some of the other parents at cake making!

#FlashbackFriday Baby Pics

My daughter did her first ever google whack and found a web site I'd forgotten I'd made 8 years ago! Back in the days when ivillage was the only place for mums to hang out with other mums in cyberspace I'd started it off. Needless to say I had completely ignored it for years and so had a pleasant surprise when my daughter found it.

I have now removed her name off the site but the rest remains including lots of cute baby pics.

#TheGallery: Family Story - Black Magic

Tara has asked us to delve into our archives to find a photograph with a story behind it today. Thought I'd make sure I dug out one with a difference today and so I present you with us preparing to launch our Wayfarer Black Magic at the Isle of Whithorn, Dumfries and Galloway in the 1980s:

At the time 3 out of the 4 of us were keen amateur dinghy sailors so we had taken the boat up from Berkshire to Scotland when we went to stay at my grandparents' home at the Isle. We had visions of spending a lot of our holiday sailing around the harbour and getting some sea practice in. That week was the local regatta and we entered a few of the races - not with very much success!

Then came a day we will never forget. My dad and brother went on a longer distance race out of the harbour. My mum and I stayed on shore to observe. Gradually it got darker and darker and still no sign of Black Magic and her crew. Eventually from the land overlooking the entrance to the bay we heard them as the boat had capsized and they were struggling to get her back up and sailing. The local RNLI lifeboat was called out to rescue them.

Luckily both my dad and my brother were in one piece but Black Magic couldn't be salvaged and next morning bits of her turned up on the rocks. We drove home with an empty trailer and some spare sails and memories of a very scary few hours for us all...

For more photos please click on the logo up the top...

#FlashbackFriday: My favourite holiday

There is a competition over at Tots100 to win an Al Fresco holiday for sharing our favourite holiday on our blogs. So I would like to share mine with you today..


I am going to take you way back to the summer of 1979 (so not many photos to hand!). As a family we usually went camping, youth hostelling or stayed on farms in the UK and France for our holidays. However this time my mum had inherited some money so we were able to travel to the USA for the first time ever to see family and friends.


We started our 3 week adventure with a flight from Prestwick Airport on our first ever Jumbo Jet. This was the era of the Junior Jet Club and my brother and I got taken to explore the cockpit mid flight (this would never be allowed these days!). I remember seeing ice bergs from the plane and finding it amazing. Then we had to face the "joys" of US immigration which I was very intimidating. It was then a cab ride to another New York airport to catch a flight to San Francisco. After a full day travelling we landed in a very hot California. We were staying with friends of my parents and I was amazed at the outdoor pool! 


Driving down the twisted streets of San Francisco and riding on the tram was brilliant. Another highlight of this part of the stay was a visit to the giant Redwood trees, Then we drove down Highway One (I would love to repeat this) to Los Angeles. This has to be one the most amazing journeys you can do in the States. Fantastic scenery and stops at places like Monterrey to see the otters and ride on the carousel.


Our next stop was Los Angeles and probably the best bit of the holiday for children - Disneyland! At this time there was nothing even approaching Disneyland that we had been to before. The rides were incredible (and scary) with Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean and Small World sticking in my memory. We spent an amazing full day including the final parade and were very attached to our souvenirs:

Flashback Friday: 5 years on

On this day 5 years ago I was trying to make myself comfortable in the Maternity Unit at the Conquest Hospital in Hastings. I was nearly 10 days overdue and was booked in to be induced in the morning. My previous pregnancy 3 years previously had resulted in an emergency C-section so the doctors didn't want a repeat.


The next morning I went to see the doctor to have everything kicked off but was told after an examination that it wasn't possible to induce me as the baby wasn't in a good position. So they were sending me home and booking me in for a C-section on the Monday morning. So I had another 2 days of feeling like a beached whale before I came back early on the Monday morning. 


I was 4th or 5th on the list of planned C-sections so had to wait until late in the morning for my turn in the operating theatre. It was all so much more relaxed than the emergency one I'd previously had. Things seemed to go pretty quickly and it wasn't long before the doctors were holding my baby and handing him to me. My little bundle of joy weighed in at dead on 10lb and was the largest baby for ages in the maternity unit (plenty of staff wanted a cuddle!).


He seemed totally unfazed by all the attention:

And about 2 hours after he was born he met one of his great grannies:

This Monday he is turning 5 and settling in to life as a school boy and tonight moved into a bedroom of his own instead of sharing with his big sister. Hard to imagine what he was like back in 2006 when I look at him now!