BumblingAlong has moved house!

There’s still some unpacking and decorating to do, but we’re all settled in at our new home:

bumblingalong.co.uk

and we’d love it if you’d join us there!

In particular, if you subscribe to bumblingalong’s RSS feed, I think you’ll have to sign up again. I’m just not clever enough to work that out.

Thank you very much – we’d love to have you over for some tea and cake. Virtual, of course.

Failsafe Chocolate Brownies*

*with one caveat 😉

The lovely @laythetable on twitter was asking for a chocolate brownie recipe with which she could grace some marvellous 90% cocoa solids chocolate.

Now you don’t want to waste that. And whilst I can’t profess to have such a wonderful food blog as she does, I do know a bit about baking. And these brownies, after some initial tweaking to the recipe, have never failed to impress.

A Christening, a teddy and a snail (oh, and a panic attack in a church)

I recently had the honour of becoming a godmother to the little girl of one of my close friends – a friend I made through work, a friendship which has lasted well, despite many not understanding what we could have in common!

Anyway, this honour left me with two dilemmas.

I wish…

I wish that blog posts and emails that you carefully draft in your head in the hours that you *should* be asleep but can’t would miraculously be waiting in your drafts folder when you awoke…

Oh well.

Blognonymous: This is not you

Today we have a post from someone who has asked to use one of the blognonymous blogs to write anonymously about something that’s just too personal to put on her own blog, at least just now.

Please give her all the support you can. Her writing is beautiful, as is the sentiment. This isn’t the first post that blognonymous has hosted about living with a partner with depression, and I feel certain it won’t be the last!

Why blognonymous?

Those of you who know me on twitter might have heard me, and a number of others, talking about Blognonymous.

If you are a visitor to the blog, you might have seen the pretty badge in the sidebar (you can pick a badge of your own up here), or noticed the extra page on the tab at the top.

But just in case that had all passed you by, I thought I’d tell you some more. And tell you why.

In my mind, this all stemmed from Josie’s Writing Workshop. The prompts that it gives really inspire you to think deeply, to think creatively. And for those of us that write light hearted blogs about our kids, that doesn’t always sit well.

A quick chat on twitter, and a seed was sown. Blognonymous was born.

We knew that there were places to post anonymous content. You could create your own blog if you wanted. You can post to sites like Parent Confidential, one of the Blognonymous sites.

But sometimes all you want is a friendly, non-threatening and familiar place to lay your hat and hide your name. And so here we are. A number of blogs, with a number of different styles and readerships, open for you to post on. To ask for advice on. To vent on. Or to explore your creative side on.

Anything you don’t want to do in your own name.

Obviously, and this is the lawyer in me, we reserve the right not to post your content if we think it will get us into trouble. But if this offer is accepted in the same way as we are offering it, we don’t think that will happen.

There are so many stories to tell. We are trying to remove any barriers which are stopping them being told.

We’ve had a great start, with three great posts, and great support for the posters. I know that those that have taken the opportunity to write in a safe place have benefited from that support. And I know that people who have read these stories have benefited from realising that others have similar experiences to them.

We’re overwhelmed by the support. And we want to keep it going.

If you would like to post on BumblingAlong, please just contact me using the “Contact Me” widget on the website in the right hand column. Or DM me on twitter.

Or contact any of the other bloggers participating in Blognonymous.

Sandy, from Parent Confidential
Nickie, from Typecast
Paula, from Battling On
Jay, from Mocha Beanie Mummy
Emily, from MummyLimited

Or you can even DM Blognonymous itself, a twitter account manned by me or one of the other bloggers named above.

But don’t let your voice be silenced. Let it sing out. We can’t wait to hear from you.

The Gallery: (First) Holidays

OK, so technically it’s not her first holiday. She came with us to California last year. And when she was tiny we went for a long weekend to the Cotswold Water Park…

But it was her first holiday holiday. On the beach. In the sea. Eating ice cream on the boardwalk. On the beach again – whenever she could (boy, she loved that sand and that sea – I think we have a beach babe in the making!).

I think she enjoyed herself. What do you think?

This was a post in response to Tara’s brilliant Gallery, with this week’s prompt of “Holidays”.  Please visit all the other brilliant photos from around the Internets.

The Gallery: Creatures under the sea

I don’t have time to write a lot tonight, but I just wanted to add some of my favourite photos to this week’s gallery theme.

These photos were taken at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, over a few years. Yes, I am posting yet another photo from my trips to California. I guess this is showing me how much I enjoyed my time over there. And the Aquarium is a standing appointment any time we visit. The sea otters are as cute as anything, the giant tuna are awe inspiring (I never knew they were that big!), but it’s the smaller creatures that fascinate me.

And in particular the jellies. Not the jelly fish I feared in the sea when I was young, but beautiful and intriguing creatures. The natural world is an amazing place.

This was a post in response to Tara’s brilliant Gallery, with this week’s prompt of “creatures”.  Please click over here to see the other entries from around the Internets.

The Gallery: Motherhood

I missed The Gallery last week, whilst Tara was on holiday. And I wasn’t going to have access to the internet this coming week, so I thought I’d have to sit it out again.

But how could I pass up on the topic of “motherhood”? It’s what has brought me to blogging, what has redefined who I am and made me question my life priorities.

To sum this all up in a photo though? Impossible, I thought. Particularly as I would only have 24 hours in which to do so.

I scanned through the hundreds of photos I’ve taken since Moo was born 18 months ago. I looked at scans, pictures of pregnancy tests, photos of a newborn, photos of a very tired new mum, and photos of a blossoming toddler. I can’t picture motherhood – I haven’t experienced the half of it yet. 18 months is no time at all. Moo will show me all of what is to come.

But then my eye was caught by this photo.

It seemed to sum up so much to me. The reliance of a child on her mother, the trust, the bond. Also the love-driven obsession of a mother with her child, recording every last detail of this precious creature. Moo will rely on me less and less as years go by, but that trust, that bond? I hope that remains. And that love, that obsession? I can’t see that diminishing anytime soon.

And I know that to be true. Because I have the evidence in front of me. This is also motherhood. The link between my mother and my daughter. The unending love my mother has for Moo, and vice versa.

I can only hope that my journey in motherhood will bring me such joy, so many years down the line.

It’s certainly off to a good start.

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This was a post in response to Tara’s brilliant Gallery, with this week’s prompt of “motherhood”.  Once the McLinky is up, I’ll add a link so you can visit the other entries from around the Internets.

The Gallery: Still Life

Cake.

Flowers.

Life. But still.

This was a post in response to Tara’s brilliant Gallery, with this week’s prompt of “still life”.  Please click over here to see the other entries from around the Internets.