AD | Christmas has arrived at @thelexiconbracknell AD | Christmas has arrived at @thelexiconbracknell and there’s so much to entertain the whole family whilst you do your Christmas shopping! 

Visit The Lexicon Glow Room for a magical light experience that will dazzle you with 20,000 LEDs. It feels like the room goes on forever! Then, take a dip in the Light Pool, a magical ball pool with golden balls to be found and prizes to be won!

If that wasn’t all, have a photo in the giant Christmas bauble ‘sparkling selfie station’ and follow the Twinkle Trail, spotting baubles in shop windows to collect the clues and enter to win fabulous prizes this Christmas. Plus, share your sparkling selfie station pictures, tagging #thelexiconbracknell or email them to marketing@thelexiconbracknell.com and you will automatically be entered in a competition for the chance to win a restaurant gift card too. 

There are also special performances from local choirs, bands and singers and even the chance to meet Bluey, Hey Duggee and Chase from Paw Patrol! You can be sure that a trip to The Lexicon will have something for everyone over the festive season this year. We loved our visit to The Lexicon last weekend and know we’ll be back again before Christmas!

Find out more on @thelexiconbracknell website.

#TheLexiconBracknell #Merry&Bright
AD - Press Trip | What a lovely evening that was! AD - Press Trip | What a lovely evening that was! We had our first Glow Marwell experience tonight - and we loved it. It may even be the best light trail we have been to.

We spent well over two hours at @marwellzoo, enjoying the light installations, indulging in the food stalls and cafe, toasting marshmallows and even meeting Father Christmas! 

Glow Marwell was such a nice way to kick off the festive season - and it’s on all the way through December! If you’re looking for a really nice festive activity the whole family can enjoy, this could definitely be it!
AD | Are you looking for gifts for the grandparent AD | Are you looking for gifts for the grandparents this year? @famileo_uk is a wonderful gift, giving the recipient a personalised gazette of family news regularly throughout the year - and it costs from just £5.99 a month. 

Multiple family members can use the same subscription, all posting messages to be added to one gazette - and sharing the cost of the subscription too! It’s great for parents, siblings and children to all share their news with grandparents each week, fortnight or month. 

We’ve been sending my dad Family gazettes for a while now and he absolutely loves them. It means we tell him all the little things that are happening and not just the big news you remember to mention in phone calls. The children get to upload their own messages to their grandad and it’s definitely made them feel closer, building a stronger relationship despite living far apart.

Find out more about Family over on the blog - link in bio - and buy a subscription for your nearest and dearest this Christmas. It’s a gift they will definitely love to receive.
Two weeks of Fred & George! I won’t be doing the Two weeks of Fred & George! I won’t be doing these updates every week but I like having somewhere to put all these photos!

They’re now three months old, super loving and happy, making biscuits and purring constantly.

They stay in ‘their’ room overnight but explore the house during the day, getting more confident as time passes. They even got to the point of relaxing on the sofa with us last night.

Fred & George are now very much part of our family and I can’t imagine them not being there now - even at 7am when they’re miaowing at the door for breakfast!
AD | Stuck for screen-free entertainment that your AD | Stuck for screen-free entertainment that your kids will love? Claim your FREE Banjo Robinson activity pack today!
 
Reading for pleasure is a key indicator of a child’s future success, but if your child doesn’t love to read, what can you do? We know it’s not always easy keeping kids entertained and away from screens, so we’ve partnered with the award-winning @banjorobinson to gift you a FREE activity pack, worth £9.99.

Here’s a little look at the Banjo Robinson subscription - Troy loves it! Travelling to world with Banjo is so much fun! You can read our full review over on the blog and claim your free activity pack too - link in profile.
A whole week of Fred & George. We weren’t meant A whole week of Fred & George.

We weren’t meant to get more cats just yet but sometimes the universe sends you things when you don’t expect them.

These little guys needed a home and a family to love them. And we had a home and a lot of love to give. We still miss Leia but this pair are definitely helping make me feel whole again.

They are both used to us now, and love us. They’re less nervous, give us cuddles and let us pick them up. They’re still living in our spare room but starting to explore the rest of the house under supervision. 

They play fight constant. Love toys, especially a crinkly feather thing on a string attached to a stick, and love being up high. They are an awesome pair and we are so glad to have them.

Thank you @millbrook_rspca @rspca_official for trusting us with ‘Lonestar and Starfish’. We could not love them more. 

#catsofinstagram #catstagram #catsofig #catsofinsta #catlovers #adoptdontshop #rspcarescuecat #kittensofinstagram #kittens_of_instagram
[AD - Press Trip] I’ve just finished writing abo [AD - Press Trip] I’ve just finished writing about our half term break at @pottersresort and it’s over on the blog if you want to go have a read.

I wanted to put some of my favourite photos on the grid too as the kids did so many fun activities - they had THE best time. 

Giant swing, segways, climbing, archery, laser clays… there was so much to do that we couldn’t fit it all in - we need another trip!
And there ends our October half term - well, apart And there ends our October half term - well, apart from Troy who has a bonus week off!

This half term has been pretty lovely. Troy had his school residential the first weekend and then we had a really lovely few days in Norfolk before heading home and picking up two new members of our family - Fred and George. 11 week old rescue kittens who have pretty much stolen our hearts.

It’s been so nice to have a chunk of quality time with this pair and now I’m looking forward to the Christmas holidays. These two are the best company and I really do live for the school holidays. 

How has your half term been?
[AD - Press Trip] We’ve loved spending half term [AD - Press Trip] We’ve loved spending half term at @pottersresort in Norfolk. With great food, an action packed schedule of entertainment and activities plus everything included in the price of your break - even drinks - it’s a fantastic way to holiday as a family, giving quality time together in the nicest of surroundings. 
I’ll write a full review soon but for now here’s a little Reel  of our trip.
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Favourite Posts · April 17, 2016

When did a Phone Call Become ‘Retro’?

A friend rang me the other day. It’s a friend I speak to every single day but usually on social media or Whatsapp. I’m not sure I’ve ever spoken to this friend on the phone before but we were chatting for about an hour and it was lovely.

I was standing in our kitchen, on the phone, drinking a cup of tea. I pottered around a bit, wandered around aimlessly and just kept chatting on the phone. I laughed with my friend, chatted and had one of the nicest hours I have had in a long time – just talking on the phone.

I wasn’t on my laptop. I wasn’t watching TV. I wasn’t doing anything really apart from talking to my friend on the phone. I couldn’t even absentmindedly scroll through Twitter or Instagram as I was using my phone for the call.

I think that friend had the most dedicated time I have given anyone recently. It was a phone conversation with no other distractions, an hour of just her and I. It was lovely.

I said to my friend, more than once, how weird it was to be talking on the phone. How I couldn’t remember the last time I spoke to a friend on the phone, how phones are generally reserved for family members we don’t see often and who we have the same conversations with every few weeks – how are you, how are the kids, any news… It’s not quite the same as chatting to a friend you know so well. Yet, talking to a friend on the phone, passing an hour just the two of us, was such an alien feeling and I realised it’s not something I had really done since my teens – it felt positively retro.

It made me realise that I use my phone constantly. The first thing I do in the morning is look at TimeHop, to see what I was doing on that day last year, the year before or the year before that. I then check social media in case something incredible has happened overnight – it never has. I then check my email in case anyone has emailed me between the hours of midnight and 7am – they never have.

Through the day I use my phone constantly. I take photos and put them on Instagram. I keep up with any posts that need my attention in Facebook groups and I reply to things across social media. I check my emails regularly, I moderate blog comments and I chat to friends on Whatsapp, Facebook messenger or sometimes even in text messages – generally only if someone doesn’t have wi-fi signal and only the most basic of phone signal.

I do all this intermittently whilst at work, on a day out, at home with the kids. My phone is like another arm and I probably shouldn’t use it as much – but I do, and that isn’t the issue. The issue is that I use my phone for so much but very rarely do I use it for the purpose it was intended. Very rarely do I actually talk to anyone on the phone.

I ring people if there’s an emergency. Other than that I use any one of the many messaging services available. I send them a message, they reply when they have the time. That is the way it has been for years and it makes social life quite relaxed. I like it like that.

But having a phone call with a good friend was eye opening to me. I had forgotten how nice it was to just chat, to laugh with someone hundreds of miles away and to feel like they were in the same room with you. I’d forgotten what it was like to not be checking my phone constantly, not to be distracted by my laptop or TV whilst having conversations and what it was like to use a phone for a conversation that I didn’t need to have – but really wanted to have.

It was a conversation without purpose. A conversation that jumped from topic to topic and one that didn’t achieve much. But it was an uninterrupted hour with a friend who I don’t get to see often at all and who I wish I could see more of.

Phone calls shouldn’t feel retro and phones really should be used more for the purpose they were intended. I for one will be taking the time to chat to friends, without distractions from now on. My modern phone will never again feel like the retro Fisher Price phones of childhood and instead it will do what it was made to do – bring friends closer when they are just so far away, let us catch up and make the distance seem less, if only for an hour.

When did a Phone Call Become 'Retro'?

In: Favourite Posts

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Comments

  1. Plutonium Sox says

    April 17, 2016 at 9:05 am

    Such a good point. I was talking the other day about the fact that it’s rare to see people face to face anymore. Social media is great for keeping up with friends, but it does discourage us from talking to people and seeing them in person.
    Nat.x

    Reply
  2. Laura @dearbearandbeany says

    April 17, 2016 at 9:24 am

    This is so true! I hadn’t really thought about it until I read this, but I am exactly the same. Tonight I will phone a friend and have an actual conversation!!!! X

    Reply
  3. Tracey Williams says

    April 19, 2016 at 1:50 pm

    I used to love nothing more than curling up on the sofa and ringing my best friend for a good natter. And it is true that we never do this anymore. Yes I chatted to her yesterday over whatsapp and twitter, but not the same as a good natter on the phone. We should start a campaign for using phones as actual phones lol x

    Reply
  4. A Cornish Mum says

    April 19, 2016 at 7:51 pm

    I remember the days of talking to friends for hours on the phone…. now we mostly text to apologise for forgetting to reply to each other’s last texts days ago ha 😉

    Stevie x

    Reply
  5. Mim says

    April 24, 2016 at 9:27 am

    Oh this is so so true – I think I only ever call a handful of friends and family and the rest is text and email. I LOVE a long phone call like yours where you give it 100% your full attention. I need to add you to my WhatsApp – I love that app! x x

    Reply

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Siblings {April 2016}

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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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