Lucky Things Meet Ups

I first ‘met’ Sunita, writer of Lucky Things blog via Instagram last year. Details of exactly when are a little hazy in my mind, a bit like a boozy first date. Shortly after meeting (I use this term in the ‘online’ sense) Sunita invited me along to an event she was hosting in London. It was apparently going to be a small, informal and friendly, with a fabulous Weleda arm massage thrown in for good measure. I didn’t know anyone else who was going, and having been to big blog and smaller meet ups before, I was a worried about feeling a bit lost. The big events I’ve been too, I’ve found to be rather impersonal, as those who already know each other use it as a chance to catch up (quite rightly) but the problem being that they tend to stick in their set groups (what’s a group of bloggers called? A Click perhaps, with all that phone and keyboard tapping?) And a few other more low-key, supposedly super friendly and pressure free meet ups that I’ve been to, I’ve found to be exactly what they were claiming not to be. So would going to Sunitas’ event leave me feeling on the outside?

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My Fathers Day Gifts With The Bentall Centre

Fathers day is fast approaching and it’s not just all about mothers day anymore and making a big fuss of mums, oh no. Dad’s quite rightly deserve a day all about them with just as much fuss and maybe even a gift or two (if they’ve been good). But if your dad, husband or partner is anything like the men I know, then they are impossible to buy birthday presents for, let alone a fathers day gift. My dad doesn’t bother giving me any ideas anymore and my husband says helpful things like, ‘you should write down all the things I mention throughout the year’ which obviously, I never do. So with no particular ideas in mind, I headed into Kingston, to the Bentall centre to see what inspiration I could gather.

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Cirque Du Soleil’s Amaluna

After a planes, trains and automobiles style journey to The Royal Albert Hall (because of course, it was the one and only night it decided to snow which meant the trains went up the spout) Me and the Mr arrived late, somewhat stressed and ready for a glass of wine. Which saw dry January go out of the window. Oh well, when needs must! As we settled into our seats I wasn’t too sure what to expect from Amaluna, my first Cirque Du Soleil show. The Mr had been to one in Vegas and described it to me as, ‘a bit like a posh circus’. So could I expect cannon firing and tight-rope walking? Well, not quite but essentially, a ‘posh circus’ is a good description of what Cirque Du Soleil is. But as I soon saw for myself, there is much more to it than this.

FERNAND RAINVILLE, DIANE PAULUS, SCOTT PASK, MEREDITH CARON, BOB & BILL, JACQUES BOUCHER, MATTHIEU LARIVEE, KAROLE ARMITAGE, DEBRA BROWN, CAITLAN MAGGS, ROB BOLLINGER, FRED GERARD, PATRICIA RUEL, ELENI URANIS, RANDY WEINER

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6 Simple Ways to Relax and De-Stress

I don’t know about you but I feel like I’ve had a hectic few weeks despite not really doing anything. It’s this time of year I think, everything seems to come to a head at the end of twelve long months. We’ve had coughs, colds, teething, sleepless nights, fertility drugs side effects and slow realisations that I’m going to be thirty eight in less than two weeks (sobs). The kid has had permanent snot face since she started nursery in September (the joy of shared germs) And teething hit her hard a few weeks ago. This lead to a stint of interrupted sleep, traipsing the corridor back and forth in the small hours between her room and ours, running on mumbie mode (zombie mum). Everything then came to a head and I found myself weeping down the phone to my mum, wine in hand. To help me get out of this funk, I’ve tried where possible, a few simple things that help me relax.

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How To Keep Your Family Safe From Scams

Sadly in this day and age, the term ‘scam’ is all too current. There always seems to be a story on the news about someone falling foul to fraudsters. We hear about elderly or vulnerable people loosing life savings to door-to-door salesman, who convince them to hand over cash for work that never takes place. Quite frankly you just don’t think it will happen to you, and often when interviewed this is what people effected say, but it does happen. Some parents recently lost money when they tried to buy fake tickets online for a Paw Patrol show that never was. One mother tried to buy a Hatchimal toy for her daughter via a Facebook page when they sold out in store, only for the seller to take the money and go quiet. And this story worryingly tells of scammers who hijack Amazon sellers pages, and when buyers part with their money it goes into the fraudsters account. It’s all too easy to fall for a scam or a lie, no matter how big or small.  My good pal Sam works at a company called Grant Thornton in their Fraud Division. She’s here to tell me more about how we can protect ourselves and our families against these crimes.

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