A day in the life of...

Sara:

Woken up at 6am by our baby crying. My husband wakes up and takes her downstairs for breakfast, it’s his turn.

Woken up again at 7am by husband and baby returning to bed for morning cuddles. Prize myself out of bed for a shower at 7.30am and then wash hair etc. Brush teeth with daughter, although she spends most of the time sucking the bristles on the toothbrush!

Then begin the ‘routine’, moisturiser, mascara, blusher, deodorant. Blow dry hair and straighten hair (extra care taken today, had a haircut yesterday so unsure as to how it will sit). Get dressed and apply a waft of perfume.

Breakfast, get baby ready for nursery, husband has made sandwiches for us today. Then we all walk to work/nursery together.

Kiss baby goodbye at nursery door and arrive at work at 9am. This morning’s agenda includes creative problem solving training.

Sara's Desk

My team and I have a good time making towers strong enough to hold marshmallow’s (more here) and using some creative techniques to expand our problem solving techniques.

Then quick trip into town on lunch, buy some board books for my daughter and look for a pressie for a friend of mine’s little girl who’s turning one this week. Can’t find a thing, so give up and go to M&S to buy some giant pretzels and some chocolate (yum yum).

Back to work, eat lunch at desk, this afternoon includes a probation meeting and a meeting with an academic who wants to discuss the digital presence of his research centre pages.

I then get an opportunity to go through my e-mails from the past two days (I take Tuesdays off as holiday to look after my little girl). These include the usual frustrations and referrals to my Manager for advice and guidance.

This takes me to 5pm, when I have to leave on the dot. Pick up my daughter from nursery and walk home. Literally walk in through the front door, drop the little one off with my husband, and pick up car keys, straight back out again. Drive across Plymouth to the edge of Dartmoor to see my therapist. This is my saving grace. I have been doing this for some months now, it keeps me sane. I think everybody should do this once in their life!

I make it home for 7.30pm. Speak to my Husband for 5 minutes before he goes to play tennis. I make some dinner for myself, eat that and sit down to write this.

Katie:

Katie's Office

My day started at 7.30am with my alarm, set early so we can snooze for about an hour. Dropped off some washing at the shared machine next door and put my hood up against the rain for my two-minute walk to work. I immediately began packing lunches into rucksacks for a day off site at the Roaches. Today there will be 24 of us; two instructors, two teachers and 20 13 year olds.

9.20am is bed inspection, the girls all got 10/10 today because, well, they are nice kids and their room was pretty tidy. On the bus for 10am with mostly all the right stuff and settled into a 45 minute coach ride to the Peak District National Park. We pulled up and it was hammering it down with rain. Waterproofs on and we slogged up to the woods with our lunch, dumped the rucksacks and started off on our walk.

The Roaches is a grit stone formation that has been forced out of the ground. It is popular for walking and climbing and is really interesting for it’s geological features. We squeezed as much of this as we could into a relatively quick walk then retreated to the lunch area in the woods for some shelter. We ate our packed lunches in the rain, then the tell tale signs of cold children began as they zombie-like appeared one by one around our lunch area until we were surrounded.

Still raining we walked them up Hen Cloud, another rock formation close by and admired the beautiful, misty views. Here I was told that one of the girls with us had never seen a cow before! Where we were stood, way up high on a hill, used to be the bed of a massive braided river that covered the landscape as far as we could see and beyond. Today I learnt that you can tell which way the river flowed by the markings in the rocks; a new piece of information to pass on to future groups.

We slipped and slid down a muddy forest telling scary stories of children that got lost in the woods, then made our way back through the heather. Wild grouse cackled as we crossed the bog of doom, one of the boys made a run for it and plunged his foot into the muddy depths of the bog. His foot returned shoeless, no amount of foraging could retrieve it so he had to walk back half on the path half on the grass. Muddy and soaking wet we returned to the coach, the journey back was spent chatting about the day and making a quick birthday phone call to my Dad.

By 5pm I’m clean again and helping myself to some tea, always a choice of three dishes, always cooked for me, I just have to help wash up for 100+ kids afterwards. After eating I help serve pudding but particularly enjoy persuading the kids to have salad with their tea. Tonight I managed to persuade 15 out of over 100, it’s a tough job.

Time for a cuppa then I’m in the old surgery, serving tuck shop from a hatch in the games room with Miss Molly. A never-ending queue of kids buying sweets, key rings and slinkies. It’s actually quite fun and I snaffled myself a twix for my efforts. At 7pm Miss Molly heads off with a group of kids on a night walk and I am office bound printing certificates; this part of my job requires the most patience but I think it’s worth it.

By 9pm all the kids are in pyjamas and drinking hot chocolate, someone from another school has bullied one of my group, he’s crying in the staff room and I feel a sense of satisfaction as the perpetrator is told off. It’s funny how you get protective of the group you are working with.

At 9.30pm I make the short walk home, picking up my washing on the way, I get into my pyjamas and cuddle up on the sofa with Simon to watch the end of Xmen 2. I attempt to read my book but I’m too tired, bed by 10.30pm and straight to sleep.

 

On turning 29...

Sara:

I met a man today who is spending a year doing a different job every week whilst raising money for the Prince’s Trust (his website).  This was very inspirational and got me thinking about what can be achieved in a year. This has been a common thought over the past couple of weeks as at the beginning of May I turned twenty nine, and am officially in the last year of my twenties.

I must admit that this has contributed greatly to my post baby/pre-mid-life crisis crisis. I have ticked off most of the things you’re ‘supposed’ to before you are thirty: Get married, tick, have baby, tick. But what now?

Therein lies the crisis. I haven’t got a plan. I read a magazine article on the weekend about a woman who married an Italian; she said the best thing about being married to him was that the plan was there was no plan. Maybe I should take a leaf out of their book?
I will pursue this line of thought but it does jar slightly with my list making ethos. Here’s what I’ve got so far (in no particular order):

• See the Nutcracker at Christmas
• Have tea at the Dorchester
• Leave Europe
• Eat lobster
• Try gig rowing
• Try diving

I will keep adding to this (and ticking them off) as I go but it should make for an interesting, if not eclectic, year.

Kate:

I’ve never desired owning my own house, much preferring the freedom that renting offers, I’ve not even considered it to be a waste of money as it allows me to live where I want for as long as I want. However, a few months ago I was having a miserable day, surveyors wanted access to the staff house again and in a moment of whimpering moanyness I texted Simon ‘I want to move out.’ A few hours later I had got over this mood and needed to go to town, so I texted again ‘I’m going to the bank. See you later.’ I sent the messages hours apart, but Simon read them together and replied with ‘Great idea, let’s buy a house! Ask in the bank about mortgages.’

This sort of misunderstanding sums up how I have got to where I am today. If I could rewind to when I was 16 and you were to ask me what I thought I’d be doing when I was thirty, I would probably have shrugged and said I quite fancy being a windsurfing instructor in Spain. I’ve gently ambled along my haphazard life’s path and at 29 have ended up in a job that I love, with amazing friends, a man that makes me happy and incidentally I am now a proud investor in a joint Save to Buy account!

So now I’ve got a year until I’m thirty, is now the time to make a list: final things to do before I’m over the hill? Countries I haven’t been to, mountains I haven’t climbed, run a marathon, do a bungee jump? Actually I think I’m going to stick to my norm, not having a plan seems to have worked out quite well for me so far. I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything major, neither do I regret any decisions I’ve made along the line. Here’s to another year of haphazard ambling and probably many more after that, Clink!

Returning to work & COWPAT

Sara:

Here we go…brace yourselves…are you ready for a shocking revelation?

I wanted to return to work after having a baby because…I was bored.

Yes, I admit it, AND I personally don’t think this makes me a bad mother. In fact I might go as far as saying it made me a better mother, because I have a life outside of squeaky toys and touch & feel books, I get to spend time with other adults and talk about adult things and then when I return home of an evening and on weekends my whole attention, 100%, is devoted to my daughter. I hope also that seeing both her father and I work will instil a good work ethic in her.

I must say that I have nothing against women who stay at home with their children whatsoever, in fact, I might go as far as saying I envy the women who can do this, it’s just that I couldn’t hack it mentally. I needed more stimulation. And yes I do have pangs of guilt that maybe I’m missing out on some of the best days of her life, but in other ways she is benefitting from going to grandma’s one day a week and nursery for the remaining three days as she is interacting with people other than her father and me. For the time being we get to spend one day in the week exclusively together, just us, and this time is special, as she gets an attentive, interactive mummy for the whole day. Eventually this will change and I will have to go back full-time, but for the time being, easing into working life suits us all.

I suppose it’s whatever works for you really, different strokes for different folks.

When I did return to work, like having a baby itself, nothing can prepare you for it. By the end of the first week I was nearly in tears I was so tired. You think that nothing could tire you out more than having to wake every two hours to breast feed your baby. Try having to wake at 1am and then 6am (her sleeping pattern had calmed considerably before I returned to work - thank goodness!) and then do a whole day of office work (which I thought would be the relaxing bit, ha!) and then return home to feed, bathe and settle a baby. I remember the days sans child. I used to come home, slip my shoes off, casually throw a nice meal together, sit down, watch a bit of telly, maybe a glass of wine…ah bliss.

These days are different but in a good way. Now I come home feed the baby, bath the baby, settle the baby in bed, hose down the post-dinner/apocalypse kitchen mess, tidy baby toys to enable access to the living room carpet, and then sit down and relax…ah bliss!

Kate:

If you asked me what we teach at the centre I work at I’d be inclined to answer with one word… survival. Think of the film The Day After Tomorrow, the skills required to survive the film are fire lighting and shelter building (covered by our bushcraft activity), long distance walking and rope work (covered by our climbing and off site walking). We teach compass and map work, archery and we encourage team building, giving everyone the chance to lead the group, like being Rick in The Walking Dead, only without the zombies.

Thinking about this in a less extreme way, the things we teach are preparing young people for life. They learn that there are lots of things in life people don’t want to do but they just have to get on with it, be that working with people they don’t get on with, going down a dark cave or getting their hands muddy. They also learn Mummy and Daddy aren’t always right, just because your mum doesn’t like lifts and says she is claustrophobic, it doesn’t mean you are and therefore you might actually enjoy the caves. Getting cold and wet can be fun and getting a bit lost in the woods can be exciting not scary. You have to try things to find out if you really like or dislike them.

I believe it is best to learn these things at an early age, then you can just get on with your life and whatever it throws at you, but I still think there are a few things that adults could learn from the activities that we run. In November last year I attended a canoe and kayaking coaching course at Trentham Lake. During the course I came up with an acronym to teach some basic forward paddling improvements: COWPAT.

Below I’ve translated the acronym to one that could be used perhaps in your place of work or just in everyday life.

COW is the things you might be doing wrong:

C – continuing your arm stroke too long  - continuing to think too much

O - overboard – rocking the boat  - moaning to the wrong people

W - working too hard – doing other people’s jobs

PAT is the way you can improve:

P – posture and connectivity –be nice and listen to people but…

A – arms length - be careful whom you talk about your own problems with

T – trunk rotation – be prepared to turn around and walk away

I even came up with a game to keep it in mind; it’s basically tick. The participants each have a picture of a cow taped to the back of their boat and they have 5 or 10 minutes to PAT as many COWs as possible. The person with the most PATs wins! Simple.

Not sure how acceptable it is to stick cow pats to people’s back at work, but it might make you feel better?

Things we’ve always wanted to do so we did them!

Sara: 
I always wanted children because I thought I would make a good mum. When she arrived I knew I would be a good mum to her forever because I loved her bones immediately.

But what I didn’t know was how much it would change my life.

People say that having a child makes their world complete, having my baby shattered mine. It wasn’t the constant nappy changes or the 4am feeds that did it, those I was ready for; it was the identity crisis that hit me the hardest.

Having a baby puts a whole lot of things into perspective, it made me question my life and how I live it. 

Although I thought these mother and baby things were beneficial for the soul it certainly cemented in my mind that I most definitely don’t want to ever become one of those mums, you know the type:

“Tarquin crawled yesterday and he’s only one day old. Oh is your baby not doing that yet?” 

And

“I am going to breastfeed Jemima exclusively until she is one, because she deserves the best. Oh you stopped at 8 months did you?” 

I think we mums need a little cynicism in our lives with a great big dollop of truth. I found other mums to be competitive and even friends afraid to tell the truth about their babies. 
Once you fess up about accidentally spreading poo all over your face after a nappy change other mums do start to lighten up, but there is still always a lingering hint of judgement in the air when the truth comes out - oh wait, maybe I went too far?

Having a baby is probably one of the best things I have ever done or will ever do. Nothing will top the experience of carrying and giving birth to my beautiful baby daughter, sorry to sound soppy - but it’s true - and although it’s been tough and more tough times are ahead (NOT looking forward to the teenage years!) I still thank her for opening my eyes to a whole new world and a whole new me. 

Katie: 

I’d be lying a bit if I said I'd never ski'd before, I did spend a day in Scotland on very little snow, lifts closed, trudging up the slopes in my boots and trying to film a friend whilst ploughing slowly down. But when we woke up for our first day in the Aosta valley, I knew I was in for something completely different. Everyday of the holiday I was struck by the magnificent beauty of Mont Blanc and the surrounding mountains, how clean the streets were and how much fun it was to communicate in French with the Italian locals.

After the initial semi-stress of finding the lifts, ski hire and ski school, I was happy to bumble around on my skis with Alessio my instructor whilst the other more experienced of the group bombed off around the mountains. I quickly became confident on the skis but not so much with navigating the slopes and the lifts. My fear was that I would end up at the top of a black with no way of escape but down. 

On my first day without lessons I got really fed up. I was on my own skiing the same slope over and over, getting quicker but stuck in a blue rut. I didn't have the confidence to try a red on my own and I didn't want to drag one of the boys with me. I was going to ask for the apartment keys, go back and never ski again... The two snowboarders in our group bumped into me at exactly the right time...'if you can do that blue you can definitely do this red... come on.' I was nervous but something clicked half way down. I could do reds! Now most of the mountain was open for me, my boyfriend showed me some more lifts and red slopes and I was off! Every slope left me more confident and I even started skiing down unknown slopes and getting unfamiliar lifts. I was so excited; of course the boy was too cool to be excited just saying 'I knew you'd be good at it' (not even a smile… tut). 

By the end of the week I'd fallen lots, messed up so much my skis had popped off, had a ski tantrum, was happily skiing on reds and had seen most of the mountain. More than I thought I would ever achieve on the trip. It was tiring but worth it, up for the first lift every day, only coming down when the last lift had closed. Leaving us with barely enough energy for drinking and eating in the evening. 

I hadn't really realised how much fun I had until I was putting my shoes on for work on the following Monday. I found myself thinking 'the last time I wore these was walking back to the apartment after my last day on the slopes.' Since then I've wished I were back there shooshing around. Before the trip I was so nervous about every aspect of the holiday, when people asked if I was excited I'd say 'I'm excited about the next ski trip, when I know what I'm doing.' It's still true; I'm so excited about my next trip, whenever it will be.

Intro

In my twenty ninth year I seemingly ‘have it sorted’ - as a friends sister recently said to me. I have a husband and a happy marriage (I am perfectly aware that the two don’t go hand in hand!) and have recently become a mum to a very happy and healthy little girl. We all live in a non-descript, three up-three down, terraced house near Plymouth City Centre. 

My nine months of paid maternity leave will soon be up and am to return to a marketing job at Plymouth University earning a comfortable enough crust. My husband is currently studying to become a dentist thus securing our little family’s future. 

So what you may ask is interesting about me? Why would you read a blog about this life? 

Well, I have a friend, Katie, who is also embarking on her twenty ninth year, in fact she is just one day older than me, but Katie’s life is the polar opposite to mine. 

Katie has always loved the outdoors and she gets to share that passion and earn a living doing it, as an Outdoor Education Instructor in Staffordshire. At the weekend she climbs and walks up mountains, in the week she teaches climbing and takes people walking in the mountains. When Katie tells people that she loves her job see their eyes turn green with envy. 

She admits she doesn't earn much money, but that doesn't matter, she lives in a nice staff house by herself in the Staffordshire countryside, she has a boyfriend as outdoorsy as her with a VW campervan and she has no children, not even any pets. Her biggest commitment is her car, an Alfa Romeo which she couldn't resist and it didn't matter. 

We are seemingly living our lives at opposite ends of the social stereotype scale, the apron wearing Mother and Wife, and the adventure-loving, go-getter. 

We are products of a modern age of feminism and post girl power-ism, we made choices about these paths. 

But are our lives as black and white as this? Should we, or do we want to, be labelled like this? And what IS a ‘modern twenty something woman’ anyway?