Who Am I?

I am a wife.

I am a mother.

I am a thirty something.

I am a Yorkshire lass.

I am a chronic illness sufferer.

I am a sensitive soul.

I am an idiot at times.

I am gullible.

I am naive.

I am ferocious.

I am creative.

I am passionate.

I am ambitious.

I am not a blogger. At least not for now.

For six long years blogging has been a major part of my identity. It has given me purpose. It has give me focus. It has given me a sense of pride. It has made me confident. It has brought friendships. It is the only thing I have ever stuck to and one of the few things I remained passionate about. It gave me a place to record every memory. It gave me a place to offload. It gave me a voice. And now it feels like that is lost somewhere. One more thing stolen by this illness. One more battle lost.

For a few months now things have not been right. My head has been too busy for my body to keep up with. I've spent too much time in bed and too many hours trying to stop my brain from it's endless cycle. I have been fighting to keep up to it all, to retain my normality as much as possible, refusing to give in or back down.

 But I can't keep it up anymore. Something has to give.

I am so angry and so, so sad to lose this part of me. But I want to be there, to be present in my own life, and be awake long enough to watch my children grow and spend time with my husband, family and friends.

So with a heavy heart I am giving up this part of me, the thing I said I never would do. Hopefully it won't be for long, but it must be until I feel I have enough left to give. So this is a bit of a goodbye to anyone that reads this little part of the Internet world. Hopefully I will be back, we will see what the future holds.

Family Days Out in Lancashire: Liverpool

Growing up in Yorkshire I had only ever visited the west coast of England once as a child. That is until I decided to go to university thirty minutes outside of Liverpool and suddenly a whole new area was opened up to me. There are so many places to visit on this side of the country - Blackpool, Southport, Lytham and not to mention easy access to Wales. Of course on top of all these is 2008's capital of Culture and somewhere very dear to my heart, Liverpool.

Family Days Out In Lancashire: Worsley Village

Today's post features a place very local to us - Worsley Village. Despite driving through Worsley many times, I'd never actually stopped and visited, nor did I realise what there is to do there. It's a great place to spend half a day and finish off with a lunchtime treat and definitely somewhere to visit for the day as a family.

My Photo Of The Week

This weeks photo was actually taken by my husband (yey for getting in the shot!) and I love it. Jack on we're sat together on the edge of a rock with a waterfall gushing next to us, just having a lovely moment together. I love that my husband captured us all together like that.

Is It Ever OK To Argue In Front Of Children?

Is arguing in front of your children ever a good thing? Is it healthy for them to see conflict and know life isn't like a Disney film, or does it cause them unnecessary upset and stress that we as parents should shelter them from? It's something I've gone back and forth on since I became a mum.

Family Days Out in Lancashire: Fairy Glen

Now the weather is picking up a little bit, Mr H and I have decided to try and get out for a family day  at least once over the weekend. This isn't always easy for me when I'm trying to manage having Chronic Fatigue, but if I'm having a bad time we will still try and go out even if it's only to the cinemas. I've been searching and saving ideas for a few weeks now of local places we can try - not being from the area originally myself I don't have my childhood to look back on and Mr H is no help at all! Thanks to various Facebook groups and local friends, I've got quite a collection saved up, so this weekend we decided to try one that looked relatively close to home and make the most of the appearance of the sun.

Me & Mine February 17

Hello and welcome to this month's round up of our family. February has been an up and down month for us all and I think we are all definitely looking forward to Spring and lighter, warmer days. Half term flew by without much upset, the children enjoyed their time off and I appreciated spending time with them. Both are flourishing at school, both academically and socially and Mr H and I enjoyed a quiet Valentine's exploring a bit of our local area we hadn't visited before, finishing with a cream tea.

Holly