Showing posts with label RHS Wisley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RHS Wisley. Show all posts

Monday, 1 October 2012

Monday mentor...RHS Wisley

This may not seem like an obvious Monday mentor but for many local (Surrey) based Mummies, RHS Wisley is a godsend.

The home of the Royal Horticultural Society (from hereonin referred to as RHS), the gardens at Wisley provide a beautiful, safe and clean environment where both Mummy and baby can learn about plants, animals, seasons, colours, and life.

Both Anna & I are keen gardeners, we may have mentioned that once or twice, and can often be found walking around Wisley with our terrors, I mean delightful children, in tow.

Gifted to the RHS in 1903, the garden now boasts a huge array of different habitats for us to explore. At this time of year, the heathers in the far reaches of the north east of the gardens - through the pine tress are particularly eye catching, as is the last of the rose blooms in the new Queen Mother's Rose Garden.

Always stunning is the green house with its large artificial waterfall. DangerBaby and I always save a bit of our sandwiches for Mr. Swan who hangs about on the lake near the Glasshouse doors.

My absolute favourite place is the fruit orchards! Pushing the buggy up fruit mount is well worth the effort. In spring time there's beautiful blossom, and in autumn a heady smell of fermenting fruit fall! It's easy to see why people believe that the fruit that tempted Eve was an apple (the actual type of fruit is never mentioned in the bible).


We wander back to the entrance via the Herb garden and cottage gardens, through the roses back to the Alpines, where we can follow the streams down via waterfalls and splash pools back to the house with it's formal grass and boarders.

When we're with friends we visit the WILD AT WISLEY area to play making dens, learning about knots, and improving our balance on logs smoothed by many little hands.

It's a wonderful place with things to discover at every turn, you can't see it all in one day. We've been going at least once a week for two years and still find new things each time we visit.

So pop along to Wisley and have a wonderful time getting back to nature!

Friday, 21 October 2011

A bit of Friday fun...

Yesterday all the u-ni-k ladies went to Wisley with Italian Stallion & his Mummy for a 'Taste of Autumn'

There are three telling photos from yesterday that just need a witty caption:

Photo 1
Photo 2


Photo 3


Please let us know what you think the little ones are saying in the comments below. Anna & I will judge the best one on Monday and contact the winner with a little surprise!



Thursday, 20 October 2011

Work Life Balance anyone?


It's hard to be in business and be a Mum

My former work life
- the only thing that's the same is the no. of coffees!
Anna and I have a system, it's not perfect and really neither of us keeps to it but we're in the early stages so we're trying to stick to it. You see – we're supposed to work 4 days on and 4 days off. So I'm supposed to switch off for the 4 days Anna is rota'd on and visa versa. This includes Saturday as a work day. We have a pretty spreadsheet to track our days, a holiday system and an IOU days system. It's all very organised but doesn't take into account one fatal flaw. Anna and I.

Neither of us switch off on our rota'd off days, OK so we don't blog, Facebook or watch the sales inbox but we both work those days in our own separate ways... Anna will do more press work and I'll do more website stuff. Each day, every day. It comes with the territory of starting a new business, you just don't switch off.

I'm actually writing this blog at 11.30pm on a Sunday, Daddy DayCare is watching some movie by himself while I tippy tappy at the laptop. He'll come and find me every now and then to see if I need anything [aka 'have you finished yet?!'] and then he'll pop back to his movie for a while. Needless to say he's been a little neglected for a while.

He's not the only one. While I still keep 100% of my attention on my daughter, I do find myself watching my iPhone far too often – sorry to say at least once a week I'll look up and she'll have her head cocked to once side and will have emitted a 'eee?' noise. Heartbreaking. I'm more than happy to put the phone down, if the laptop is on and I can hear the email 'bing' for those all important sales emails.

All weather gear
Just to quantify things a little for those that don't know me, I am very much a Mummy. My Daughter and I spend hours a day playing, we spend time gardening, reading, playing ball, swimming and being outside. Both of us have waterproof trousers and jackets so that we can play in all weathers and we often do! But we have our indoors moments as well, which is when I fall into the temptation of working and turn to the technology.

So I'm trying to keep a life work balance, it's hard but it'll be worth it, as long as I have managed the balance just right! 

The result of all this hard work is the website http://www.unikgifts.co.uk and the lovely products you find there.

[Please note DangerBaby and I are meeting Anna & The Naughty later today to walk around RHS Wisley - the kind of work life balance I like!]