Norfolk, the teen years then back to the present!

Norfolk here I am! Aged 11-18...


I often wonder how things would have turned out if we'd stayed in Harpenden but can honestly say I wouldn't change the fact that we moved up to Norfolk now - it's the kind of place you grow to love and appreciate far more when you're a bit older. Initially, my brother and I did have a bit of a secret, unspoken 'we hate Norfolk' campaign going on as it seemed so sleepy in comparison to where we had been and we missed our friends and family. However, at the young ages we were we soon made lots of new friends and were lucky that our Mums sister, our Auntie Jenny, Uncle Andy and two cousins (Darren and Amy) lived there. We stayed with them initially and they did a great job of looking after us and introducing us to new people etc. Quickly making new pals, some of whom I'm still friends with today, things were looking up and I soon became a typical teenage social butterfly - probably socialising a bit too much from 15 onwards but hey you only live once!! 

Yaz this week at 16

Mum, Bryan & Yaz

The most exciting thing that happened in my teens, which was undoubtedly one of the best things to happen in my life, was that my Mum and new boyfriend Bryan (now her husband and my lovely Step-Dad) had a daughter (see the three of them in photo on the right) - the gorgeous apple of my eye, Yazmin Godfrey! Scarily, she is now 16 (see photo on left) and I still act like her second Mum, poor girl! Having a baby sister at 14 definitely gave me a good insight into Motherhood as she certainly gave me the opportunity for plenty of practice and I loved it! Looking back I'm not sure why I didn't want kids when I adored looking after her so much... perhaps the fact I could give her back if I wanted to made the difference! ;-)


I enjoyed High school and Sixth-form in Norfolk and by the time I reached 18 and was leaving college I'd got a fantastic group of friends and a trail of ex-boyfriends, whom I'd mostly got bored of within a few months - although in fairness to some of them it was probably more down to my own commitment issues than anything they'd done wrong (I'd better put that incase any of them are reading this!). After all I was still far too young to be getting into a serious relationship and I had adventures on my mind!

Harriet, Me, Debbie, Amy, Emma W
Emma F, Laura, Anna - Mallorca '98

During these seven years in Norfolk I'd had a bit more of a taster for what was out there in the big wide world with a few holidays abroad - in the first year  my lovely Mum took Karl and I on a twin centre holiday to Florida and Jamaica, my first time out of Europe (pretty brave considering she was only 32 at the time and had a 9 and 12 year old to look after by herself). Sadly that was the last trip abroad we have had together as a family because once at High school I had heaps of holidays offered to me and Karl was soon to follow, being only three years behind. So Mum being Mum had us as her priority and made sure we always went on the trips, despite the fact this meant we didn't have family holidays and her and Bryan didn't even get holidays together! Looking back, I feel terrible about this and can't believe I didn't think about it at the time! I definitely owe them a few holidays now and will make sure they get them! Thanks to their generosity I went to Bruges, The Ardeche in the South of France, Spain and Bulgaria skiing, plus also a trip to Gran Canaria with my Dad for my 15th birthday and a couple of trips to Mallorca, one with friends and the other with a boyfriend when I was 18 - I make that 9 trips abroad in 7 years, what a spoiled teen I was!

After my A-Levels I had secured a place at Sunderland University, to study 'Media Production - TV & Radio', for the following year (2000). In the meantime my friend Debbie and I had the trip of our lifetimes planned - we were taking a gap year to Australia and we couldn't wait! Looking back that was pretty brave at 18 but we didn't think so, it was just something really fun to do before getting our heads down at Uni. We both had places at Sunderland to do the same course, so we were really excited about the next four years of fun that we had ahead of us! So, after a summer of hard work in our part time jobs and saving madly for our trip we reached the start of November and were packing our backpacks getting ready for the off . . . (my next post will cover some of our trip and Uni etc)


From 1999 to 2011, just like that...


I've felt great over the past week and am confident I've entered the 'blooming' phase of my pregnancy. It's actually been very balanced with work and socialising, something I am going to make sure I do whilst I still can without a little one in tow. I caught up with my friend Kerry who came over with her son for lunch one day - the sun was shining so we made the most of where I live and sat out in the garden by the river, soaking up the Spring that has finally reached us! My friend Anna was also back in Norfolk for a few days so with her and four other friends from school / sixth form we had dinner in Norwich - a fantastic feed and lovely to catch up with the girls - must do that more often! Friday I was treated to lunch with my Mum and Bryan, something we don't do enough - not the 'them treating me' bit, just the lunch together thing! Thought I'd better point that out in case you start thinking nothing has changed since my teens and at 30 I'm still a spoilt brat! We went to The Dabbling Duck in Great Massingham and it was superb! 

The Dabbling Duck

My Auntie Jenny with Grandson Oscar

I'd never even heard of Great Massingham before so was very pleased to have been introduced to it. With the lovely greens at the front, homely pub / restaurant indoors and garden / play area at the back I can see that we'll be coming back a fair bit in the Summer! Tuesday I had lunch at Mums with my Auntie Jenny, cousin Amy, her husband Andy  and their two year old son Oscar - a great opportunity to play with my camera as little Oscar makes for a fantastic model! Then afterwards I popped to see my friend Richard, who I haven't seen since December so he didn't know I was expecting! Apparently the news made his day, how sweet! He's also into photography and when I was there his neighbour had one of his birds of prey out (a Harris Hawk) so we took the opportunity to take a few snaps - well it'd be rude not too! 

The Harris Hawk in action!

I've just realised how most of my socialising now revolves around food! How things have changed... I remember when I was 16-18 and then again from 20-22 I suffered with terrible panic attacks when eating out or just eating in front of people and at the time I never thought I'd get over it. I have no idea why this happened as I certainly didn't think I was fat or anything like that, I just physically couldn't eat when with other people and if I did manage a few mouthfuls it would end up in the toilet soon afterwards following a wave of sheer panic and hot flushes, which wasn't good when I only weighed about 7 stone! The one thing I'm glad I did was frequently force myself into those situations at the time, as although terribly uncomfortable I got through it and couldn't imagine a life without dreaming about food as well as what, when and where I'm going to eat next! It's fair to say I'm obsessed with it now!!


Workwise, I've been doing the usual managing of my clients Social Media accounts, writing the content for my website, giving advice and guidance to friends and family about how they can use Social Media to their advantage for their own businesses (hmmm perhaps I should run a workshop!) and I've worked two late shifts at the Council Sunday and Monday. It's all been plain sailing so long may that continue!


Further to me promising myself I'd make more of the creative side of my brain I've also spent time playing with my camera, which has been really fun with the new lenses I ordered. Plus I've been writing a bit of a diary when I first wake up - sometimes it's a dream log, sometimes thoughts and others simply a log of what I've been up to and what I'm about to do - apparently this activity done first thing in the morning kick starts the creative you! You should try it and let me know if it works for you too...


All in all it's been a great week, the only thing I'd change is that I haven't really seen much of James, what with me working late shifts and him working like a trojan on the new set up in our hallway / kitchen / dining room we've been ships passing in the night.  He's keen to get this project completely finished by this Saturday so he can start on the bathroom asap. I don't really think the bathroom needs re-doing but he wants to rip it all out and start again so as he appears to be doing the male nesting thing I'll just let him get on with it! I'm lucky that he's such a hard worker but have told him we need to make sure we have plenty of 'us time' once he's done before the baby gets here - something that is very important as we don't want to forget what the other one looks like! ;-)


Ok, time to wrap up as once again I've written heaps and some of you will be nodding off by now... just time for weekly photos of my bump at 18 weeks - feeling more solid now and can't hold it in anymore!

1981 - 1992 then quantum leap to 2011

Hey, check me out - next post the week after the last, as promised! I'm proud of myself, let's hope I can keep it up . . .

Flashback to the 80's!!

It would be fair to say I haven't lived a boring life, well at least I don't think so, boring compared with some perhaps but for me it's been an interesting ride so far. Just to give you a bit of background I thought I'd make this post a bit of a random summary of the first part of my life and will continue each week with a bite size write up of the next few stages of my existence, then you should know a bit more about who I am and why I do what I do etc. Don't worry you won't be encountering a full autobiography, although it is something I've thought about, well a slightly fictitious version to spice it up a bit anyway! Not for a blog though, don't panic!

So, I was born an 'Adams' and brought up in Hertfordshire until I was 11. I had a great childhood, most of it spent outdoors with my brother, Karl and close friends Nina and Henry, where we had many an adventure - building camps in an old disused railway line that we could access from the bottom of our garden, rescuing distressed animals / birds, creating our own clubs - art, wildlife etc etc etc. We literally spent our lives down 'the old railway' or in Nina and Henrys Summer house and sometimes our parents wouldn't see us all day, as we'd set off in the morning, usually with a packed lunch of some kind, and sometimes wouldn't return until dusk when we were tired and hungry - fantastic memories and if I could go back and re-live some of those days I'd jump at the chance! Not sure how I'd feel now about my own child / children disappearing for a whole day though?? How things change when it's your turn to become a parent! ;-)

                                           Me and my Brother Karl as mischievous toddlers!

Sadly, my Mum, Karl and I left Hertfordshire when I was just about to start Secondary school. I even had my place at Roundwood School in Harpenden, uniform ready and everything. Then the move happened, a bit quickly, during the Summer holidays, as we had to get up to Norfolk (our new home) before the new school term started. My understanding is that we had to move as, after my parents got divorced, my Mum could no longer afford for us to live in Herts as it was too expensive and at the time she had several jobs and was working her socks off to keep us fed and watered (bless), so although naive about money at that age I think we understood why we had to move to pastures new. It was tough moving away from family and friends and I was sad that I didn't get to say goodbye to most of my school friends (and if I remember correctly a boyfriend I had at the time - I know! I started very young!!), In those days without the internet and social networking sites we have today, some of them probably didn't even know I'd gone for a while - if any of you are reading this now you'll realise why I just disappeared so suddenly, I'm really sorry but glad we hooked up again (probably via the wonders of Facebook). I was a quiet girl at this stage in my life, a little shy around people I didn't know I guess - luckily I didn't have long enough to worry about how I was going to cope with a whole new life and making new friends at the age of 11, else I probably would have hidden in one of those camps we'd built to escape going!

BACK TO 2011 . . .

It's funny writing about your childhood, as you remember things that you'd totally forgotten about and my mind is now completely full of memories and visions of me as a little one. That's the thing with not growing up with friends that you've had since you were really little, you don't get to talk about the really young stuff often enough. For this, I'm already thankful for starting this blog as I can remember so much more than I realised I would!

So, what have I been doing since my last blog update . . . I'd been suffering with my back for a week prior to the last blog so went to see the Physiotherapist about that, although typically by this time it was pretty much better. I'm not moaning about this though, as I'd rather not be in pain anymore. It was horrible, I literally couldn't move so was housebound and unable to drive for a week - housebound living in the middle of nowhere is not good! Although, saying that if the weather stays as beautiful as it has been over the past two days it wouldn't be so bad, as long as I had plenty of supplies - mainly ice cream and food in general! I am eating for two you know! ;-) I do some relief work for Norwich City Council too so couldn't get there to do the shifts I'd had allocated and I hate letting people down but luckily they're an understanding bunch so fully appreciated my situation. The beauty of my own business is that I can do it whatever and wherever so this all still got done and I even got a new client onboard for Social Media marketing, so I was really chuffed about this, as my goal is to try and get a new client every month between now and July / August. 4-5 more to go!

I've since had a shift back at the council and have been cracking on with heaps of work at home, as well as some other projects, like getting my business website designed by a third party. I tried to do it myself after what I thought was a successful-ish trial with my personal site but unfortunately just couldn't do all of the things that I wanted to do, so after much deliberation decided to get the professionals in and at least get a site up as a platform for my business, as a helping hand to get some more clients on board. This should be complete within a month so I'll keep you posted and you can let me know what you think . . . it's a budget option so don't be expecting anything too amazing!

What else?

Oh yes, last Friday I did a half day course with Enriched Training through Karl's partner James' business 'Ditavi' - it was really inspiring and I'd recommend that anyone that is self-employed or has a small to medium size business gets booked onto one asap. It really makes you step back and re-assess your goals, values and what you want out of life - personally and through business. I'd love to hear from you if you do go on one as you tend to meet similarly minded people and we could always arrange some networking sessions between us . . .

Sunday, I did a full day photography course with James Neale in Norwich, which has really taught me all of the basics that I need to know about how to use my camera and make redundant the 'auto' setting! I did photography A Level at college but it was more about the composure and dark room work and we didn't have digital camera's to use then, so this is a totally different kettle of fish and I'm excited to get stuck in. I'm quite a creative person really but over the past 10 years I haven't really used my creative brain enough, as tend to get bogged down with work and business related projects. Although some recent copywriting projects have been creative and probably helped to open my mind back up to what I used to enjoy so much. Here's a link to a few comic related projects I've worked on for Reynard City if you're interested in having a read . . .

I also had my second midwife appointment Monday, so got to hear the babies heartbeat - that was pretty amazing - it's so fast! My 16 year old sister / best friend, Yazmin, came with me and she looked as amazed as I was by it - the first sound of her little Neice / Nephew must have been pretty cool through a tummy! Weirdly it sounded a bit like a dog barking, my chocolate Labrador will be pleased!

The bump is still nocturnal and I am still lucky enough to be blessed with a flat stomach in the mornings but don't think this will be for much longer - another two photos of it is below, although probably not much difference from last week, however I've started this so I'll finish! Apologies now if you're bored at looking at my stomach already, I appreciate for the non-maternal this part is probably painstakingly dull but I think family and friends who I don't see much will appreciate the development updates, rather than the shock of seeing me in a few months when I've fully transformed from slim to a fully-fledged beach whale!

Whoops! Hello sneaky March!!

So it's true, I am totally crap at being a regular blog writer! My last post was mid December and started off much like this one . . . 'sorry for not writing for ages etc etc' - let's face it this is frankly going to get boring, if it hasn't already! If I'm going to continue something HAS to change . . .

Excuses aside (and of course there are plenty!) I just haven't got around to writing a new post and if I want to attempt to entertain anyone with my writing / life then I've got to make more of a go of it than I have so far. I don't know why I haven't done it? I love writing and a blog is the perfect opportunity to switch off and open up my mind, letting it spill onto my keyboard. So what more of an excuse could I possibly need to get my backside in gear and start writing and writing REGULARLY?!!

For starters I've been thinking I need more of a theme to stay motivated to write . . . I've thought about blogging over the past few months but struggled to see why anyone would be interested in reading it, so haven't bothered. This time I need a new angle so have been racking my brain about what it could be and it turns out that the theme is here, right in front of my nose, slap bang in my face and ready to be written!! Well, I'm sure you are all desperate to hear what it's going to be about so here goes, prepared to be interested or completely turned off of ever reading my blog again . . .

It will continue to be a diary type blog, but the thing that is going to make it interesting (in my mind anyway) is the fact that my life is about to change significantly and I want to tell you all about it; from here and now, with clips back into my past to explain who, why, what, when etc and most importantly recording what's next . . .

So, I turned 30 last month, which in itself is a milestone BUT that's not the point . . . on the 30th December last year I discovered that I was expecting a baby! Now, I'm 16 weeks and in the midst of my pregnancy. This may not seem a big deal to most of you but for me you should know it is MASSIVE! Up until last year I thought I never wanted to have children and have spent most of my adult life as a travelling, career minded woman. This, I need to tell you is not about to change - I'm still building up my business and looking to take on freelancers to help me out when the baby joins us (my lovely husband, James, and I) and travelling is something that will be a major part of our new additions life. In fact, we took the microscopic bump over to Morocco for it's first 'in womb' adventure last month. I hope this doesn't sound too selfish, as I can assure you I have the little ones best interests at heart and think building my business is a must for us to be able to spend more time with each other in the future as a family and having travelled a fair amount I am confident this is the best education a child can have. I also intend to learn new skills in addition to business and travel, those being to be a loving and family orientated Mum - hey, if I can do all this I think it's safe to say I will have created the perfect life . . .

As part of this quirky blog I thought I'd keep you updated with the growth of my bump - so here I am at 16 weeks - it's coming . . . ;-)

Next post coming VERY soon (I promise!!)