Bryony - Perfectly Imperfect

Just a little something I put together with the summer holidays looming towards us for families of Louth Lincolnshire who can't travel out of town! 😊

Here are some activities at a cost, including swimming, soft play and creative sessions:

• Imagine Louth is a creative sensory and role-play centre designed for younger kids to explore mini-town setups.

• The Fun Factory offers a high-energy indoor soft play experience packed with climbing frames and big slides.

• Meridian Leisure Centre is the local swimming spot featuring a kids' pool with interactive fountains and a flume slide.

• The Playhouse Cinema is a traditional town-centre cinema perfect for a relaxed family afternoon catching the latest film releases.

• Louth Museum is a hands-on local history spot that keeps things fun for children with interactive family trails and wildlife displays.

The Ultimate Free Louth Summer Guide 🌳✨

​Keeping the kids entertained all summer without spending a fortune feels like a full-time job but we are incredibly lucky to have so many rural, completely FREE things to do right on our doorstep here in Louth!

​From classic sunny afternoons to rainy-day backups, save this post to your collections so you've always got a local plan ready to go:

​📍 Hubbard’s Hills Picnic/West Gate - Pack up a blanket, some sausage rolls, and head down for a classic afternoon of paddling in the stream and rolling down the hills.

📍 Play at Spout Yard/Spire View Park - The perfect spots in town for the kids to burn off some steam on the play equipment while you enjoy the green space.

📍 Walk the Meridian Line - Turn a local stroll into a game by tracking down the famous Greenwich Meridian Line brass plaques set right into the town's pavements!

📍 Feed the Ducks - Take a wander down the paths along the River Lud (the stretch right by the Newbridge Hill Co-op is a fantastic, familiar spot to see them).

📍 Explore St. James’ Church - Head inside to admire our iconic landmark, soak up the history, and see the incredible architecture (completely free to explore).

📍 Louth Library Fun - Keep an eye out for free summer reading challenges, crafts, and activity sessions perfect for a quieter morning inside.

📍 Westgate Fields Walk - Extend your Hubbard's Hills trip with a gorgeous nature walk through the adjoining fields.

📍 Historic Plaque Trail - Play heritage detective and spot the blue and bronze history plaques on old buildings around the town centre.

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​🕵️‍♂️ Wait... What is Geocaching?

​If you haven't tried Geocaching yet, it is an absolute game-changer for family walks! It’s essentially a massive, real-world hidden treasure hunt using GPS.

​People all over the world hide small, weatherproof containers (called "caches") in public spaces and log the exact coordinates online. Using the free Geocaching app on your phone, you follow a live map to hunt them down. They could be hidden in a fake rock, magnetically stuck to a signpost, or tucked into a tree root. When you find one, you sign the little paper logbook inside to prove you found it, log it on the app, and hide it exactly where you found it for the next person!

​Want to try it in Louth? 🗺️

There are dozens hidden right around town, but a brilliant place to start your very first hunt is right up at Hubbard's Hills. There are several caches hidden along the woodland paths and near the hillsides just waiting to be discovered. There is even a famous multi-cache puzzle that starts right in the town centre, taking you past St. James' Church and the old grammar school to collect clues!

Family Days Out by Bus from Louth 🚎

You don’t need a car to enjoy a brilliant family day out. From seaside adventures to historic cities, there are plenty of places you can reach by bus from Louth 🚏

Here are some family-friendly ideas for your next adventure:

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Mablethorpe

Bus: Service 50

A classic Lincolnshire seaside day out and one of the easiest places to reach from Louth. Enjoy the sandy beach, traditional amusements, fish and chips, crazy golf, and attractions including the Mablethorpe Seal Sanctuary.

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Lincoln

Bus: Service 50

A fantastic day out filled with history, culture and family-friendly activities. Explore Lincoln Castle and Lincoln Cathedral, walk the castle walls, wander down historic Steep Hill, browse independent shops, or stop for lunch in one of the city’s cafés.

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Grimsby

Bus: Service 51/51B

Travel directly from Louth to Grimsby and enjoy a day exploring the town centre, shops, cafés, museums and local attractions. It’s also a great starting point if you want to continue on to the coast.

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Cleethorpes - from Louth to Grimsby then Grimsby to Louth -

Just a short onward journey from Grimsby, Cleethorpes is perfect for a traditional seaside day. Enjoy the sandy beach, arcades, boating lake, miniature railway, promenade walks and plenty of places for a family treat.

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Longer Adventures (with a change of bus)

Skegness - bus from Louth to Mablethorpe then Mablethorpe to Skegness -

A longer journey, but a great option for a full day out. Enjoy miles of sandy beach, Skegness Pier, amusement arcades, Natureland Seal Sanctuary, gardens and classic seaside attractions.

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Hull - bus from Louth to Grimsby then Grimsby to Hull -

For a bigger city adventure, Hull is a great choice. Discover The Deep aquarium, explore free museums, wander around the historic Old Town, enjoy shopping, or find somewhere to eat in the city centre.

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Top travel tips:

• Always check the latest timetables before travelling, especially on Sundays and bank holidays.

• A day ticket can often save money if you’re making several journeys.

• CallConnect can help you reach some smaller villages and areas not served by regular buses https://lincsbus.com/callconnect/

• Lincolnshire bus information, timetables and journey planning: https://lincsbus.com

Find out:

• Public transport

• Apply for a free bus pass

• Plan a bus journey

• Community transport

• Plan a train journey

• Poacher Line

• Callconnect

• Bus Service Operators Grant

• COVID-19 Bus Service Support Grant

Learning to accept that a body is a body is hard.

We grow up believing other people’s softness is beautiful, but ours is something to fix.

It’s easy to admire someone else’s curves, scars, or stretch marks - they look like stories.

Ours just look like evidence.We tell ourselves we’ll love our bodies when they change, when they shrink, when they behave.

But bodies aren’t obedient. They’re living archives - of babies carried, meals shared, grief survived.

They hold everything we’ve been through, even the bits we’d rather forget. So maybe the work isn’t to love it all at once, but to stop apologising for existing in it.

Food recommendation in Lincolnshire - The Splash!

​There’s nothing quite like a meal that combines incredible comfort food with local history. 🌳🥘

Tucked away in Little Cawthorpe, The Royal Oak Inn - known to the locals as "The Splash" - is the ultimate country pub escape.

​

The pub’s unique nickname comes from the thrill of arrival: you have to drive through a shallow river ford just to reach it!

Dating back to the 17th century, its name commemorates King Charles II, who famously hid in an oak tree after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Inside, the heritage is beautifully preserved with low timber beams, warm lamps, and historic photos that make the atmosphere feel wonderfully intimate.

​Sometimes the most beautiful stories are told by the things we usually walk right past. It’s in the sharp lines of a timber-framed roof stretching up toward a moody, dramatic sky or the unexpected magic of red and grey dragons guarding an ancient stone wall.

​Look a little closer, and you’ll see the beauty in the chaos - the layers of graffiti bringing life to the glass of old red telephone boxes or a striking, giant mosaic face watching over the town from a brick gable. Even the simple reflection of a quiet street in a window pane tells a story of its own.

​It’s finding art in a beautifully carved piece of wood nestled inside historic stone arches and the quiet patience of a working horse standing on timeless, uneven cobblestones. It’s the vibrant pop of a bright blue shopfront tucked away on a steep, winding street and the way the sun breaks perfectly through a massive green canopy above a weathered brick wall.

​There is so much soul hidden in the random corners of our days. You just have to slow down enough to notice the little things.

​It’s about losing yourself in the geography of a place, letting your feet choose the path down steep, winding hills and narrow alleys. There is a quiet thrill in exploring without a map, where the destination matters far less than the details you stumble upon along the way. Every corner turned is a reminder that the world is full of small, accidental masterpieces - you just have to be willing to look for them.

We talk a lot about "capturing memories," but it's really about capturing your specific point of view. No two people look at the exact same room, the same sunset, or the same chaotic family picnic and see it the same way. The details that make you stop and press the shutter - the tiny, ordinary things that others might walk right past - are what make your story yours.

​Think of your camera roll as a running commentary on what you love, what makes you laugh and what you want to hold onto when time keeps moving way too fast. It's a visual poem of your days, written in light, shadow, and a whole lot of heart.

​Never stop freezing those frames, even when the house is a tip and life feels completely perfectly imperfect. Your perspective matters and the way you see the world is worth sharing. ✨

​Let’s be completely honest for a second: behind every single "perfectly frozen" moment on the grid, there is usually a background story involving absolute chaos. You see a beautifully styled, artistic photo. What you don't see is the frantic frantic shuffling of random socks out of the frame, the crumbs being swept under a rug with a foot, or the intense bribery required to get everyone to stand still for exactly three seconds.

​Life is messy, loud, and incredibly fast-paced and half the time we're just trying to survive the daily grind. But that’s exactly why we take the photos, isn't it? When you look back at the frames you’ve captured, the noise fades out a bit, and you're left with this gorgeous, accidental visual poem of your life. The perspective you bring to the everyday madness is entirely your own and it's a beautiful thing to look back on.

When many women hear the word feminism, they picture angry bra‑burners from the 1970s, or they hear terms like “man‑hater” thrown around but a feminist isn’t someone who hates men and it isn’t even necessarily someone who identifies as a woman. Anyone can be a feminist. You don’t need a placard or a political badge to believe in equality...

The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics describes feminism as the attempt to abolish unjustified gender norms - the social and legal rules that decide people’s rights, duties and freedoms based on their sex. In other words, feminism is simply the belief that women should have the same safety, opportunity and autonomy as men.

Those freedoms aren’t abstract. They’re things like equal pay, family leave, bodily autonomy, and the ability to walk down the street without feeling unsafe.

And yet the data still tells a bleak story.

According to End Violence Against Women and YouGov, one in two women feel unsafe walking alone after dark on a quiet street near their home - compared to one in seven men. That was 2021–2022. Not the 1970s. Not ancient history. Now.

I think about that every day when my daughter walks to and from school. Part of growing up is stepping into the world but the world still scares me. I want my daughters to feel safe. To have equal pay. Equal power. Equal choices. I want my son to grow into the kind of man who respects women, who doesn’t make a woman shrink herself or scan the pavement behind her.What is feminism?

Simply the belief that women should be as free as men — however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy or smug they might be.

Are you a feminist?

There is no better way to experience the heart of York than by taking a walk along its magnificent medieval city walls. Encircling the historic centre for around 2 miles (3.4 km), they are the longest continuous medieval town walls in England, offering a unique perspective over one of Britain's most historic cities.

The walls you see today were largely built between the 12th and 14th centuries, although they stand on much older Roman and Viking defences. For hundreds of years they protected York from attack, and today they remain one of the city's most iconic landmarks.

✨ Why you should add them to your York itinerary:

• Incredible panoramic views – Enjoy spectacular views across York Minster, the medieval rooftops, Museum Gardens, York Railway Station, the River Ouse and Clifford's Tower from the ancient ramparts.

• Historic gateways – Walk through the city's impressive medieval bars (gatehouses), including Micklegate Bar, Monk Bar, Bootham Bar and Walmgate Bar. Each has its own fascinating story and once controlled who could enter the city.

• A walk through history – As you follow the walls you'll pass towers, arrow loops, centuries-old stonework and sections built on Roman foundations, making every step feel like a journey through time.

• York Walls in Bloom – This wonderful community project brightens the ancient embankments with colourful wildflowers and seasonal planting. Not only do they look beautiful, but they also help stabilise the earthworks and provide valuable habitats for bees, butterflies and other wildlife.

• Perfect photography spots – Whether you're visiting in spring sunshine, surrounded by autumn colours or beneath dramatic Yorkshire skies, the walls offer some of the best viewpoints in the city.

• Free to explore – Walking the walls costs nothing, making them one of York's best free attractions. There are plenty of access points around the city, so you can complete the full circuit or simply enjoy a shorter section.

Did you know?...

• Around 45 towers were once built into York's defensive walls, although not all survive today.

• The walls are generally open during daylight hours, but some sections may close in severe weather, icy conditions or for essential maintenance to keep visitors safe.

Allow around 2 hours to complete the full circuit at a relaxed pace, although you'll probably want longer if you stop to admire the views or explore the historic bars along the way. Some access points include steep steps, so comfortable footwear is recommended.

​I honestly cannot believe we are now into July! Where on earth has the last half of the year gone?! Heres a June dump in 20 images which is lucky for you guys as my phone is crammed!

​Looking back, I feel like so much has happened since the start of the year, but also absolutely nothing at all. Some days feel like total Groundhog Day - we get up, clean, eat, work, learn, eat more and maybe sleep if we are lucky! It’s that classic cycle of doing the dishwasher for the hundredth time with a tiny "helper" or staring at a meal plan on Thursday that Sunday-Me was so proud of, but Thursday-Me wants nothing to do with! To the daily school runs we don't post about or work chat messages that will never see the light of day - the daily grind basically.

​But when I actually stop, look at my camera roll and look at the hundreds of images and videos... And look past the daily routine, I realise just how much life is packed into those ordinary weeks:

• ​The Quiet Moments: Sneaking in a much-needed slice of cake and a hot cuppa at baby groups while the little one tackles the ball pit, while I gossip and b*tch with other like minded mamas. 99% of the time spending hours prepping a mountain of food to keep the crew fueled!

• The Great Outdoors: Clearing our heads with fresh air and afternoon walks, watching the kids explore local history and kick through the leaves and complain about doing said activity.

• ​The Little Wins: my baby and her first moments. Or my child with learning difficulties recognising a word. Or hearing the fetus first heart beat. Or finding those epic reduced stickers on food, score!

• ​The Memory Makers: Stumbling across vintage car shows on family days out, throwing the kitchen towel in for a cheeky, chaotic Maccies treats!

• ​The Big Milestones: And then, blink and you'll miss it, watching your babies grow up right before your eyes. Getting to see my eldest head off to prom, looking absolutely breathtaking in the most stunning burgundy ruffles!

If you are looking for something completely different, competitive and entertaining to do in Lincoln, I definitely recommend The No Work Club. ​I went with a couple of friends and we had an absolute blast!

📌 Unit 1 - 2, Vulcan Park, George street, Lincoln

The venue is essentially a massive, neon-lit, graffiti-covered playground that is geared entirely towards leaving your responsibilities at the door. It's Lincoln's biggest all-under-one-roof entertainment centre, and they have an amazing lineup of activities. Along with the interactive axe throwing and urban crazy golf that we did, they also have six fully immersive, themed escape rooms, interactive darts, shuffleboard, beer pong, air hockey and pool tables.

​We started off on the interactive axe-throwing lanes, which feature real axes and digital target boards that project different game modes directly onto the wood. It is incredibly satisfying when you finally hear that axe thunk into the target and having an instructor walk you through the safety brief and coaching means you get the hang of it quickly.

​After letting off some steam there, we moved on to their crazy golf. They have two distinct 9-hole courses, Retro and Iconic, which are packed with chaotic obstacles, clever interactive features, and brilliant retro styling. The entire space is immersive, nostalgic and absolutely full of great detail and brilliant selfie spots.

​We paid £46 each, which covered the activities along with a couple of drinks from their fully stocked bar to keep the energy going. It is the perfect spot for a laugh with friends. If you are planning a night out or just want a break from the usual routine, you should absolutely give it a go.

​We have something to tell you... And no, it’s not just that I’ve found another excuse to eat cake!

​We are adding a little extra love (and a lot more chaos) to the family.

Watch the flame reveal whether it's team pink or team blue joining the madness! 💙💖

But also lets not forget cake details - the 'burn away' cake is raspberry and white chocolate and the cupcakes are chocolate and are also gender reveal cupcakes with coloured buttercream inside! Extra pizzaz

First gender reveal out of five babies! ​The kids and I celebrated with immediate family, picnic, pizza, a magic reveal burn cake and a cloud of confetti cannons for the kids...

I'd looked online for gender reveal ideas and saw loads of amazing (and hella expensive) parties! People have gone all out! My first idea was a gender reveal stab cake but then I saw the Burn Cake and it had to be done, it's such a vibe 🤌 #burnawaycake #genderrevealcake

​Stepping through the doors of Safestay York Micklegate is like walking straight into a time machine that took a playful detour through a modern art gallery.

​Housed inside Micklegate House - the grandest, largest Georgian townhouse on the street - this magnificent building is a Grade I listed masterpiece completed around 1752. It was originally commissioned as a luxurious winter "town house" for John Bourchier, the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, so his family could enjoy York’s social season away from their country estate at Beningbrough Hall. In a fascinating twist of local lore, it's believed to have been designed by John Carr of York, the famed architect who started as a stone-cutter and went on to design some of the finest buildings in Northern England.

​Over the centuries, the building has lived many extraordinary lives. It hosted lavish aristocratic balls in the 1800s, served as the bustling headquarters for Raimes & Co. wholesale druggists in the 1900s (when the grand staircases were literally stacked high with sacks of raw senna pods!), and even housed the University of York’s mathematics and archaeology departments.

​Today, its unique magic lies in how seamlessly it marries this deep 18th-century heritage with bold, contemporary design. Grand plasterwork ceilings, soaring staircases, and the original ornate gold-framed mirrors share space with vibrant pink walls, striking striped carpets and classical oil portraits given a cheeky neon twist. You can map out your day at a hand-drawn chalkboard featuring local icons like The Shambles, York Minster or wind down through the atmospheric, brick-vaulted cellars that once hid the mansion's secondary kitchens and bread ovens.

​Because it operates as a modern boutique hostel, the facilities are geared toward straightforward convenience. There isn’t a guest kitchen for self-catering but they have a microwave in the breakfast room if you need to heat something. Otherwise, you can easily buy food there - they have an on-site café and a lively 24-hour bar serving snacks and light meals

If you love anime, manga, or beautifully themed cafés, you need to add this York gem to your bucket list!

We stumbled across Anime Gallery York & Totoro Café on Feasegate, and it was an absolute delight. Downstairs, you'll find shelves packed with manga, collectibles, figures, plushies, and anime merchandise from floor to ceiling. Whether you're a long-time fan or just curious, there's plenty to browse.