Me and my blog

 

About me and my blog

Hello. I'm Fiona, a thirty something woman living in London with my small family - Martin (my husband), little M and little L (my two young daughters - currently 3 and 9 months old).  This is my blog about finding fun in living a family life with one eye on the future - my family's future, our planet's future and my future sanity. 

I'll admit it - my halo has slipped a little. Well a lot actually.  When little M was born I was the queen of all things green. I insisted on washable nappies and natural baby toiletries, dressed her in organic or hand-me-down clothes, was an enthusiastic vegetarian with a love of lentils and planned car-free adventures a plenty.  Then I went back to work...then I was really tired because I was pregnant and up most nights with a demanding toddler... and then came our second bundle of joy, Little L, and a nice dose of childhood ailments thrown in for good measure.  I took a good look at my habits recently (through slightly bleary, tired eyes) and didn't like a lot of what I saw. 

So, I must try harder.  I make a mean list, have a healthy drive to get things done, a strong stubborn streak and have been into all things green since I was about thirteen.  "Great" I hear you say - you'll have your green mojo back in no time.  

Thing is, it's not just my green halo that has slipped.  Like many parents of small children I find that time for me has slipped.   Life has become a bit bogged down in day-to-day tasks and time for fun gets squeezed out far too often.  I'm incredibly privileged to have a beautiful family, be comfortably off and living in a vibrant city in a democratic, relatively safe and wealthy country. What's not to like?

Well, I'd like to find more time for fun.  My world has shrunk a bit recently.  I accept that as part of life with young children.  But I don't want to find that, by the time my life revolves a little less around minutes until next feed, nappy changes, potty training and liberal use of smily face stickers to avert tantrums, I've forgotten who I am and what I enjoy.  I don't want to stop learning, stop experiencing new places, meeting new people and generally being inspired by life and the many opportunities it has to offer.  So I'll be fighting the urge to retreat too far into domestic bliss. For my own sake and also for the sake of my girls.  I'm sure I'll embarrass them at times in futures years but I'll do my best not to bore them and hope to occasionally inspire them.

In this blog I'll be sharing how I'm challenging myself to learn to enjoy my new family life.  Finding ways to rediscover my personality that's a bit buried under the daily grind and to find fun ways of passing my long held principles onto my offspring.  I was going to call my blog 'Green and lovely' but my in-built (at times debilitating) cheese radar - which to be frank often verges on filtering out anything overtly 'nice' - has prevented me.  Wouldn't want to have to actually live up to being lovely, hey!  Still a lot of work to do on the 'learning-to-enjoy-myself' part of my challenge.  Rediscovering my green mojo might actually be the easier part of the challenge I've set myself. 

A word about my day job 

I work for a charity as a sustainability advisor (although I'm on maternity leave right now).  As a 'sustainability professional' I should find it easy to live a sustainable life outside work.  The knowledge I have gained through my work, and the choices I make in my family life are clearly intertwined. I'm not going to pretend that I don't think about all things green a bit more than your average parent, probably a bit too much at times.  But as a busy working mum to two small children I face many of the same challenges and dilemmas as people in many different walks of life.  I just about manage to read price labels when buying groceries whilst keeping one eye on an inquisitive toddler let alone scrutinise labels or do background research into the ethics of the company about to receive my hard earned cash.  This blog is in part about how I put my principles into practice whilst enjoying a (relatively) normal family life.  I'll share some of my ideas and knowledge about green issues that are relevant to family life.  They have been in part inspired by my work and the many brilliant people this has brought me into contact with.  But this isn't the place where I intend to play the expert - this blog is personal, not professional. All opinions are my own, not those of the organisation I work for. 

 

The small print

Reviews and commercial stuff:

If I mention a company, it's because I like them and think they're doing something worth sharing - not because I've been paid to review them or their products.  I don't do sponsored posts or paid for links.

 

Copyright:

Bike Lights in the Fruit Bowl by Fiona Dowson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Comments

[Ruth]

Hello! I'm really looking forward to reading more of your blog - thanks so much for including me in your blogroll :) Sounds like we are in a very similar place - both in terms of trying to cling onto green principles as parents, and in terms of keeping life fun!

Ruth x

[Fiona]

Thanks Ruth! I've discovered blogs quite recently - a great thing to read whilst feeding a baby - and have been enjoying your writing and photos. I'm still finding both parts of my challenge a bit...er...challenging but will keep working on it and share as much as I can!

[Carolyn]

Hello,

I just discovered your blog and it's great! Tricky having 2 kids so close together so I can fully empathise. Blogs are not a recent discovery for me but having my own blog is! I am still getting used to it all although I have been writing for a few months.
I also try to be as green as possible and we use cloth on the little one but my 2 year old leaks out of them really badly so he is in disposable (much to my dismay). We have begun potty training so hopefully he will only be in a nappy at night before long.
You can find my blog here http://chaiteamum.blogspot.co.uk/
I tried to follow you but for some reason it won't let me but I will figure it out when I am less bleary eyed.

Carolyn x

[Fiona]

Thanks Carolyn! Look forward to checking out your blog. We found a similar thing with cloth nappies - didn't make it all the way to potty train with our eldest in them. Good luck with the potty training.

Sorry about technical glitch - will try to figure out if it's anything I can fix. It's steep learning curve on all this stuff!

Fiona

[Fiona]

Carolyn (and anyone else who has tried, and failed, to sign up for email updates) - I've fixed it! I think I had the wrong type of link set up on the side bar of the main blog. There are now two options: you can sign up to via email or follow me on twitter to get notified of new blogs. Hope that makes sense.

Fiona

[Carolyn]

Thanks Fiona! I am now following you :)

[Bestof2Sisters]

Hi! THANK you for tagging us in your awesome meme! Love your blog concept - and your goals for a greener life. And your daughter's portrait of you is adorable! We have give you a shout out on our Facebook page and Twitter ;-)
/Camilla and Lou

[Fiona]

No worries - I'm not quite sure where the meme originated but I really enjoyed it. Hope you do too. Thanks for the shout out - look forward to seeing your portrait(s) and doing a return shout out :-)

[Shazia]

Hi Fiona

I think we have a lot in common. We are a group of kids and parents trying to do something about London's filthy air and we need your help. www.ilikecleanair.org.uk

At the current rate of change, air pollution levels will not fall to legal limits in London until after 2030. That is too late for primary school children. We think people with power have forgotten this and we want to remind them.

So we need people in London to take up this cause. We are planning a load of events in London so that kids and parents can give the Mayor the mandate to clean our air. We would like you to make this campaign your campaign.

What can you do?

-Please take a minute to sign our petition. We're asking the Mayor to reduce pollution to legal limits in all inner London boroughs by 2020.
-Get your child involved. Get them to write letters/draw pictures to CEOs of big companies asking them to tell their drivers to reduce vehicle idling or film your journey to school or design a poster.
-Why not get your school involved? They can mention the campaign in their newsletter and ask parents to sign the petition. You can even test the air around your school. We can put you in touch with suppliers of diffusion tubes.
​-If you want to become a Clean Air superhero then come along to our Clean Air Action Days. These will be held in central London in March. We dress up as super heroes and hand out flyers!
-If you just want to sing then sing your heart out for clean air at the London Assembly in May! We need parents and kids from all inner London boroughs to meet the prospective Mayoral candidates. Get in touch and we will send you the Clean Air Song to practise. It's very cool.

We are really looking forward to hearing from you.
The Clean Air Team.