Saturday, 24 September 2016

Pedalling Beyond

Sometimes you've just got to peddle faster than the sunset to keep ahead of the light.


I took myself on a new route and even though we had other cyclists over taking us > maybe a runner or 2 ) it didn't matter . Not everything in life has to be at 200 mph . 

You need time to sit or in my case ride out of things to press the reset button in yourself . When everything has fallen apart and you need to regroup , reevaluate , anything else that is prefixed by " re"

I cycle , I ding my bell I relax .




Friday, 23 September 2016

Exercising At Work

Sometime the work life balance can be hard ! you rush round before you go to work either organising everyone else before yourself , or maybe getting the slow cooker meal ready for when you all get home. And then after all that rushing around you go to sit at perhaps a desk for most of your working day , wondering when on earth you can fit in exercise ! I am a teaching assistant so I do my fair chair of running around but I do have times when I am working on a computer etc  ( more so at home )

You 'll have seen the news about how an hour of exercise at work can contribute towards a healthy lifestyle  so why not get our furniture at work to help us ?!

I will be making sure that I participate in all this exercise particularly the seated double hamstring as the legs and feet can be awfully twitchy at times.


I am amazed at my mother in laws fitness she is coming up for 90 and she puts me to shame , she does the same set of exercises each day to keep her as sharp as a pin. I will also add to this she is visually impaired and her determination and sense of drive just blows me away.






This is a collaboration post all thought words and recipe are my own.


Thursday, 22 September 2016

Meet Pamela From Life With the Munchers ~ Bloggers In The Spotlight

I first entered the blogging world back in 2013, when I began writing our family journey at Life With Munchers.  Since then, I have adapted to include interiors, travel and general lifestyle posts as our family story have evolved quite a bit over the 3 year period.  Getting into to blogging has been a life saver for me, as when I was made redundant from the oil industry it gave me a 'job' to fall back on that was flexible to our situation at the time. 




Since I began blogging full time, I have collaborated with a number of other bloggers on various projects...from you tube channels to other blogs.  That experience online bolstered my 12 year plus marketing background and led me to start my own marketing company in Aberdeen, AB Fiftyone,  in July this year.  I now offer local and nationwide companies day to day marketing support, as well as work with them to develop a strategy for their online presence, whether that requires social media, blogger outreach or content creation.




It’s a really exciting time to be starting a marketing company, as the world of media has never been so changeable.  Companies are finding that their resources are being stretched as they make the move online and are in turn looking for a solution such as AB Fiftyone to help them plan the next step. 
Personally it’s been a bit of a whirlwind few years, but a journey that builds character!  No 2 days are the same, which keeps me on my toes and makes the whole experience exciting.  One day I can be working on a blog campaign for a nationwide furniture retailer and the next day filming a you tube video for a local company, then writing a detailed business review - developing and implementing a marketing strategy to help them take their business where they want to go. 
Although it’s a start of a new chapter for me, I’m looking forward to what lies ahead.
Facebook: /abfiftyone
Twitter & Instagram: @abfiftyone

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Beautifully Spiced Haddock With Chickpea And Broccoli Mash

It's been 3 days since we returned from Spain and the realisation that we can't pop down to the all inclusive buffet is just hitting us now .


Ingredients 


  • 2 pieces haddock 
  • 3 tbsp Soured cream or natural yogurt 
  • 2 tsp garam masala
  • Good pinch salt
  • 1 tbsp other mixed herbs 
  • For the mash:
  • 10g Butter or low fat spread / mixed with the garlic 
  • 1tsp lemon juice
  • Black pepper to taste
  • 400g can chickpeas, drained 
  • I bunch of broccoli 
  • 1 tbsp of soured cream or natural 

You will need to mix  the soured  and garam masala together with the salt & combined herbs .  You can either place the haddock onto a plate and coat completely with the sour cream / yogurt mixture, leave to marinade for 10-15 mins. You could heat a grill to a moderate to high heat and cook the fish for 4-5 mins until cooked . Or as I did a pan poach the fish in the sour cream / yogurt mixture for 5-7 minutes . 

While the fish was cooking I boiled the broccoli , drained and set it aside . I heated up a can of chickpeas next I drained them and added the broccoli . I mashed them up adding in the tablespoon of soured cream or natural yogurt and spread / butter with garlic . Not forgetting the squeeze of lemon juice and grind of black pepper .





Educational Quizzes To Aid Your Child

I have lost count in previous years of how much I spent on educational books to aid my child with his studies all the way from when he was in KS1 right up to KS3. Technology and websites even Apps have all come to the forefront in education and children seem to find these more fun , once at dinner last year I thought my son was just messing round with his phone at dinner when he was actually studying a GCSE app !

There are times in your child lives when you want to give them a boast perhaps in transition from EYFS ( nursery /reception) to KS1 , when they take their SATS as this can be a fraught time . Particularly in Year 6 I remember my son getting very stressed with the SATs so much so they made SATS monsters , and in the end he didn't do them as there was a strike.

I personally like with the website how it is split in the subject areas so your child and yourself can study at your leisure. The primary objective of the website is to help children be successful at school , study of the schools curriculum's is made easy and enjoyable with suites of KS1,KS2, 11-Plus, KS3 and GCSE quizzes.


All the quizzes are written by teachers.


The Education Quizzes subscriptions are £9.95 a month and you can subscribe for as long as you like with no catches , I think the quizzes are excellent especially as i work in a school with KS1 ( I work with year 1 )


You don't have to spending hours quizzes with your child , I think little and often is the best policy as children have already had a full day of learning at school .

One of the subject areas I struggled with myself at school was numeracy so I wish I had access to a resource like this , it would have made learning my Times Tables so much easier ! and in return opened a smoother gateway to learning  further within numeracy.


I love that with the GCSE section on English Literature that everything is broken down into bitesize chunks making what the child has to learn slightly less daunting ! And again not only is this an aid to the childs learning but to the parents as well as education can be very confusing at times but the right tools it doesn't have to be.











Disclosure : This is a sponsored post all thoughts words and opinions are my own.