I always have a lot of questions about accommodati I always have a lot of questions about accommodation when we stay anywhere as a family so I thought I’d share this little tour of our room at @windjammerlanding which was a pretty perfect place to stay.

It’s the ‘Ocean View Two Bedroom’ which was like a little house, with an upstairs and downstairs, built into the hillside. Both rooms had outdoor space and their own shower rooms. Such a great option for a family.
A little photo dump from our holiday in St Lucia. A little photo dump from our holiday in St Lucia. We’ve been back a few days now but still miss the heat, the food, the pool, the constant sounds of wildlife and the lovely people. It was such a great holiday and I’m sure we’ll be back one day.
And just like that, Athena is 12! What a joy it is And just like that, Athena is 12! What a joy it is watching her grow and what a wonderful young woman she is becoming. We could not be more proud. Love you Pickle, have a great birthday.
We’ve just got back from two glorious weeks in S We’ve just got back from two glorious weeks in St Lucia staying at @windjammerlanding and it was just the holiday we needed. Two weeks of sunshine and relaxation in what must be one of the most beautiful islands in the world. 

We can’t wait to go back again in the future. Here’s just a little snippet of our trip.
AD - Press Tickets | We had such a nice day at @na AD - Press Tickets | We had such a nice day at @national_motor_museum despite the rain! The children loved the Little Beaulieu play area and we loved exploring the National Motor Museum and Top Gear exhibit before having a ride on the monorail! We went on an old open topped bus, explored the Beaulieu Manor House and loved the gardens. 
Beaulieu is always a great day out - whatever the weather. This summer they have a whole ‘Summer of Fun’ planned, with activities most days - parades, bird shows and hundreds of sculptures within the grounds too. If you’re looking for a day out this summer definitely think about heading to Beaulieu.
AD - Press Tickets | Tonight we took the kids to t AD - Press Tickets | Tonight we took the kids to their first concert - but it was so much more than just a concert! @abbavoyage is incredible. With CGI ABBA and a live band, it’s like being at an ABBA concert 40 years ago but with modern lighting, effects and sound. ABBA look and sound real, it’s a mind blowing experience.
The set includes all the songs you know and love as well as a few less familiar ones.
You can’t take photos during the show which actually made a refreshing change. A whole arena focused purely on the show and soaking up the moment. It’s definitely something the four of us will always remember.
Now, I’m off to sing Dancing Queen all the way home.
AD - Press Trip | We had such a great day at @phdo AD - Press Trip | We had such a great day at @phdockyard today. They have a fantastic Ultimate Explorer ticket that lets you visit all the attractions as many times as you like for 12 months - and after a day at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard we can see that you need more than one day to really do everything!

We explored HMS Warrior, HMS Victory and the Mary Rose Exhibition - which is incredible! We also saw where ships are built and restored and spent time in Action Stations where the kids climbed and did an assault course.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is such a fun, educational day out with something for all ages - we can’t wait to go on their harbour tours next time we visit!
AD | WIN!! Would you love to win a holiday? To cel AD | WIN!! Would you love to win a holiday? To celebrate #100YearOfARoads National Highways have launched their #ARoadsToSummer competition! It's all about celebrating summer holiday moments, time together, fun in the sun, days out and more.

So why not be in it to win it? To enter, all you have to do is send @nationalhways a DM on here with a photo or video of your favourite holiday moments. You can also comment on their Facebook or Twitter #ARoadsToSummer posts with your holiday photos. I've shared a few of our favourite photos to give you some inspiration.

The best six entries will each win a £500 @nationaltrust holidays voucher! SO what are you waiting for? Dig out your favourite holiday photos or take some new ones to share!

The #ARoadsToSummer competition runs from 24 July to 10 September 2023. Winners will be announced in September 2023.

Good luck!
Oh these two! Every day I feel lucky to have them. Oh these two! Every day I feel lucky to have them. As school draws to a close at lunchtime, I’m looking forward to a whole summer with them. My favourite people.

They’ve both had a great year at school this year. Troy’s first without his sister by his side and Athena’s first at secondary school. 

They both had great reports, always did their best and have made some really lovely new friends this year. I could not be more proud of them.

Now, let’s go and enjoy the next six weeks before school starts all over again!
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What the Redhead said

The Future's Bright, The Future's Ginger

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Blogging · April 1, 2022

A Decade of Blogging

I’ve added a random assortment of photos to this post, ones that don’t have much relevance to the content of the post but ones from the last ten years of this blog. I’ve loved looking through ten years of albums and seeing how we’ve all grown and changed.

I can hardly believe that I started blogging ten years ago. A whole decade and a good chunk of my life. I can safely say that I am not the same person who started this blog ten years ago. Just like the blog, I have grown, learnt and matured over the years.

Me & Mine {March 2014}
Siblings {July 2014}
Siblings {June 2014}
Siblings {May 2014}

I remember sitting down to write a little intro, on a basic WordPress blog called Red and Baby Led. Within a week or two I realised I wanted to keep writing and make it something more permanent. So I set up a self hosted blog, Redhead Babyled, and kept writing every day.

Siblings {September 2014}
Living Arrows - 31/52
Siblings {October 2014}

I wrote updates of LP’s weaning journey, the struggles of shiftwork on family life with a baby and how hard it was to find childcare around those shifts. I wrote about my return to work, my pregnancy with Little Man and his birth when he came along.

Each month I shared Sibling photos and a Me & Mine family photo. I used the blog as a way to document our lives together, something to look back on and to record all those Ordinary Moments along the way too. I shared photos of the children each week for Living Arrows that I always felt kept the blog in touch with its roots, an online diary to show the children, and our family, growing.

Me & Mine {November 2016}
A Day Out at Paradise Wildlife Park

A couple of years later I switched to What the Redhead said and, as they say, the rest is history. Somewhere along the line I started getting sent things to review and I started getting paid work from the blog too. It became much more than just an outlet and hobby and became my job.

I gave up my day job a few years ago to focus on blogging and it felt like I’d finally found something I was good at. I could write, take photos and spend all day talking to people online. But, it’s not always easy.

The pandemic was hard for the whole industry, work dried up and many people stopped blogging. I don’t blame them at all. It’s been really tough and there have been times where I’ve browsed online at proper jobs, wondering if I could go back to a life of working in retail or find a 9-5 based around the skills I’ve learnt through blogging.

Exploring Chartwell House {National Trust}
Siblings
A Weekend at Alton Towers
Preparing for Back to School with Deichmann
A Weekend at Center Parcs - Woburn Forest {Accomodation and Food}
A Half Term Break at Butlins - Bognor Regis {Part 1 - Accomodation and Food}
Going on a Secret Mission with BEAR Yoyos

But, I am still here and still persevering. I can’t imagine a life without this blog and I am so thankful I started writing all those years ago. The blog has given us experiences we could only have dreamed of – holidays across the UK and a trip to Majorca with James Villas. It’s given us incredible days out like our trip to West Midlands Safari Park, being driven around by the park director, and Lapland UK which was just magical.

It’s given us so many products to review from the latest toys to so many pushchairs, lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners. There have been clothes, new food products and more bottles of gin than I can even remember.

A Day at Paultons Park and Peppa Pig World
A day at our new Favourite Zoo - Colchester Zoo
Our Summer Holiday at Mark Warner's Lakitira Resort
Introducing Sparks Clothing
Christmas Sibling Photoshoot
Getting Ready for Christmas with Morrisons
The three of us

I’ll be the first to admit that back when I started this blog we had no money. I was on maternity leave, we were paying off debts and life was really hard financially. The blog gave us things we couldn’t afford and things we could only ever have dreamed of having. It made life easier.

But more than that, the blog gave us memories. I look back at photos of us and so many were taken for the blog or through the blog in some way. Whether on a review day out or pictures of us as a family for the Me & Mine project. The blog has given us the best photo album that records not just the big things but all those little things in between.

Making Teeth Cleaning Fun with Playbrush

It’s also given me the ability to be at home with the children. It’s enabled me to walk the children to school each day, to have afternoons at home with them after school and to have whole school holidays with them. That is something I had never thought possible when LP was born and something I am so thankful for.

Honestly, blogging has changed my life. Before I started blogging I worked in a bank. I had left full time education with just my GCSEs, having dropped out of college three years running after getting kicked out of home just after my 17th birthday and having to work full time.

All the skills I had were in banking and I saw a life going up the corporate ranks. I’d go from my job as a bank manager to a manager of a bigger branch, to an area manager. Or, if I couldn’t deal with corporate life I would pootle happily along as a little branch manager, flitting from one branch to another every few years.

That corporate life involved full time work and often working Saturdays. But, because of the blog I was able to make a decision after Little Man was born to stop being a manager, to take a step back, to go part time and downgrade to a job in customer service – opening accounts and sorting out customer issues for them.

It was a job I was good at. I actually think I was pretty great at it. And, at times, I really enjoyed it. But, having to ask permission to leave at 5pm, when I was contracted to end work, and pressure from management to change branches or increase my hours was just too much in the end around Dave’s shiftwork too.

The blog gave me a way out. An alternative. One that took away so much of my mental load and now, in hindsight, saved me from so much stress that I hadn’t realised I was under. So I left the bank and have never looked back. As much as I loved my colleagues and loved the interaction with people, it was a relief to leave and do something new.

And now I’ve been blogging for ten years. Who’d have thought it? Ten years ago I was 27 with an 8 month old. We’d bought our house a few months before and hadn’t done much to it – we didn’t have the money to.

But since then Dave has changed job roles a couple of times, we’ve had another baby, lost one of our cats and pretty much finished the house. We had an extension, a loft conversion and have painted rooms more times than I care to remember.

That 8 month old LP is now in her last year of primary school and Little Man who was still a hope for the future is going to be 9 next month. I was a new mum and have now been a mum for over a decade yet, like most people, I’m still winging it most of the time.

Life now is so different to ten years ago, and blogging is so different too. I look back and hardly recognise myself or how far life has come. Instagram wasn’t really a thing 10 years ago – and there was no Tik Tok or Snapchat.

Electric cars weren’t commonplace and we still got DVDs through the post from LoveFilm – streaming hadn’t taken off. I still bought CDs all the time and I paid postage on everything I bought online – like many people, I hadn’t discovered the joy of Amazon Prime just yet.

It’s weird the things you think about when you look at a chunk of ten years. I could dwell on the negatives of those years – the broken bones and hospital trips, the people no longer with us, the friends who have parted ways and the family issues that have caused blips in the road.

But, honestly, looking back at those ten years all I see is happy memories, hard work and positivity. I see a blog cementing its foundations, a family growing together and just so many sunny days spent in the garden, days out across the country and a handful of pretty amazing holidays too.

So this is it. Ten years of blogging. Ten years of documenting the children growing, recording our adventures and working hard. Ten years of writing and ten years of growth. We’ve had good innings, this blog and me. Now let’s see where the next ten years take us.

As always, thank you for being a part of this journey, for following, reading and chatting to me along the way – especially if you’re one of the few that has been there from the very start. It really means a lot to know that people read this blog, enjoy the little window into our lives and pop back time and again. Thank you so much.

In: Blogging

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Comments

  1. Angela Webster says

    April 1, 2022 at 11:11 am

    Happy 10 years of blogging! You have so many great achievements to look back on and have certainly been an inspiration to many fellow bloggers. Although I only dip in and out of blogging nowadays I used to love taking part in Living Arrows and have so many lovely photos to look back on so thank you for running the linky for so long. Here’s to another successful 10 years for you and your lovely family!

    Reply
  2. Emma T says

    April 1, 2022 at 6:19 pm

    Happy big blogiversary. Its been 10 years for me too, and it’s madness how much I still enjoy it.

    Reply
  3. Kim Carberry says

    April 1, 2022 at 7:58 pm

    Congrats on the 10 years blogging. I remember you being Redhead Babyled. It has been lovely seeing your children grow up and your blog grow to what it is today. Thank you for sharing your life and for the inspiration. x

    Reply
  4. Angela Milnes says

    April 1, 2022 at 11:55 pm

    what a lovely post to read. It’s amazing to see how far we travel as bloggers from the beginnings to now and beyond. Thanks for sharing your experience.

    Reply
  5. Nyomi says

    April 2, 2022 at 9:47 am

    Congratulations – 10 years is a huge achievement!

    Reply
  6. Anne Sweet says

    April 18, 2023 at 10:59 am

    What a lovely post, it’s always so good to look back but I’m rather jealous that your older photos are 10 times better than mine 🙂

    Reply

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Hi everyone! I'm Donna. Mummy. Blogger. Social Media Manager. Traveller. Lover of stars, rainbows and gin. Firm believer that tea and cake can fix most things.

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