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Now my son is older, he’s much more portable and excited by travel than he ever has been before. Traveling with him is a joy and planning to travel with him is almost as much fun, pouring over maps and reading up about the places we’d like to visit. We have plans for 2019, exciting plans.

What’s on our Travel Bucket List for 2019?

Scandinavia – The boy has cultivated a bit of an interest in the Nordic countries. He’s heard us tell stories about our honeymoon in Sweden and our wintery break in Norway and he wants a piece of the action, and who can blame him? We quite fancy springtime in Copenhagen and I’d really like to drive across The Bridge.

North Devon – Summer always washes us up in North Devon. It’s where we are happiest and most comfortable. It’s such an easy place to holiday for a few weeks, weather permitting.

Majorca – Despite our love of UK holidays, my old bones crave the sunshine. We’ve taken to having a winter sunshine break and Majorca is something of a favourite destination of ours. The short flight and beautiful resorts are really appealing to us. Long stay holidays somewhere like Majorca would be perfect, especially during the winter months for me.

Glamping – We’ve recently returned from a glamping trip in the Lake District. The weather may not have been perfect, but we are total yurt converts now and very much looking forward to going glamping again in 2019. But do we fancy another yurt, or maybe a tree-house, bell-tent or shepherds hut?

Family Festivals – We love going to family festivals. Both the Just So Festival and Timber Festival are favourites of ours. The boy is already making plans for our Just So costumes.

Northern Lights – The one big trip I would really, really like to take next year is a cruise to go and see the Northern Lights with maybe some whale watching thrown in. I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights and if I could see it with my boy, then hat would be the best thing ever.

A Spa Break – I like to go on a couple of spa weekends each year. I love a visit to the spa with friends and a couple of days pampering does me the power of good. I like adult only, quiet spa hotels in the middle of nowhere, where you can just relax and unwind.

What’s on your travel bucket list for 2019? 

This is a collaborative post.

When we bought our first house and we had a new kitchen installed, we had spotlights fitted. It was very much the fashion back in 1999, but they were so expensive to run. There were times when I’d cook by the light of a small table lamp fitted with an energy saving bulb, because it was far cheaper than having eight spotlights burning bright. These days we’re moving over to having LED lighting throughout our house. They’re just as bright, if not brighter, and much cheaper to run.

LED lighting uses much less electricity than both traditional incandescent light bulbs and halogen light bulbs. They even outlast energy efficient light bulbs and are cheaper to run too!

To start with, we started replacing bulbs in our kitchen with LED lights. The kitchen is naturally a really dark room and changing over to LED bulbs made an immediate difference. We bought our bulbs from LED lighting specialists, LED Hut in their summer sale, which really helped to cut the cost of the bulbs too.

We also got new LED strip bulbs under the kitchen cupboards which illuminated the worktops. This was a real game-changer for me as I was able to focus the light where I needed it most. Plus the under cupboard lights are better for creating a bit of mood lighting, should your kitchen ever need to change its mood.

The next room we tackled was the bathroom. The bathroom is a tricky room to light. You need it nice and bright for when your husband is having a shave, or if you’re doing something you really need to see; but when you’re having a soak in the bath you just want to dial down the lighting. We replaced the existing bulbs with bright LED bulbs and again went for the under-cabinet strip light. I chose a waterproof one just in case. It means when I’m having a restful soak I’m not being dazzled by a bright light overhead; but there’s still enough light to read a book in the tub.

We bought a box of regular LED bulbs too. As the old ones around the house blow, we replace them with these new brighter, more energy efficient bulbs. It helps that we’ve had a smart meter fitted and each time I look at the amount of electricity we use, I have a dicky-fit. The monthly amount we use and spend seems to be slowly dropping.

I have high hopes that as more bulbs get replaced throughout the house, the less electricity we will use. I just need to persuade my family that we’re not actually living in Manchester Airport and we don’t need every light on at all times. Wish me luck with that one!

This is a collaborative post.

For all of us, memories are important. They are a great way to bring comfort, make you smile and motivate yourself. Good memories have the power to make you laugh, cry and feel every emotion in between. They are important, so, it is well worth taking the time to preserve them for the long-term. Here are a few ways you can do exactly that.

Decorate your walls with them

Specialist print firms like hello canvas make it extremely easy to take some of your treasured memories and have them turned into artwork to use in your home. All you need to do is to choose the photos you like best, work out what style of print or poster you want and upload the image to the printer´s website. When your print or poster arrives you just need to hang it up. If the hook is already there it will only take you a minute or two to do so.

Create little memory boxes

Sometimes memories are wrapped up in far more than just images. Of course, images do help you to remember special events in your life. But, they do not always tell the whole story. That is why it is always nice to preserve other items alongside the images.

You can do this by gathering certain items together in a little box. A skiing holiday memory box could include your piste map with all of the runs you skied marked on it. It might also contain the medal you won for your ski school slalom run, a cone you picked up when you stopped to take a photo in the forest and maybe a beer mat or napkin from the restaurant you had lunch in. These items do not sound like much, but when combined with photos and videos they really do bring back powerful memories.

If you are able to, include something scented in the box. For example, when you create a memory box for a person, try to include something they wore regularly, like a scarf, in their memory box.

It is surprising how quickly the memories flood back when you see that item and smell the scent that they always wore when you open their box. Stimulating your visual and olfactory senses at the same time has a very powerful effect on your memory. It enables you to recall things in a much clearer way.

Keep a diary or scrapbook

For more general memories, keeping a diary or creating a scrapbook is a great approach. It is surprising what you will remember when you sit down and read your diary. Add in visual clues like ticket stubs and you will have created a very powerful way to trigger happy memories.

If you find a scrapbook too messy or unwieldy get a shoe box and stow items in there instead. Using card it is easy to divide it up into sections to keep things tidy. This makes it far easier for you to be able to find specific items when you want to share a memory with a friend or family member. This short article explains how to create a memory box and keep it organized.

This is a contributed guest post.

When I was pregnant and on maternity leave I watched an awful lot of Top Gear. I blame my son’s obsession with cars on my postnatal obsession with Top Gear. He’s already told me he wants to be a racing driver when he grows up, and when we’re in the car he wants us to race the other cars on the road. We don’t, obviously, because it’s a road not a race track, but I can’t think of anything he’d enjoy more than being at an actual race track and taking part in a junior driving experience day.

Designed for children aged 11-17, there is a whole range of junior driving experience days to choose from. These experience days are available in five different locations across the UK. Depending on which experience you choose, it gives junior driving fanatics the chance to drive different cars; including supercars under the expert guidance of specially trained driving instructors. What a treat!

Imagine being able to drive a Ferrari, an Aston Martin, an Audi R8, a Lamborghini, a Nissan GTR or even a Porsche! Imagine what the other kids would say at school the next day! These junior experience days are such a good way to give kids who love cars the chance to be close to some of the best cars in the world; not to mention giving them the chance to drive them too!

I think experience days have come on quite a long way in recent years. I went through a phase of buying all kinds of things for my quite adventurous husband. Things like indoor skydiving and zorbing, but I know he would absolutely love a driving experience day. Maybe that’s something I could treat both of the boys to when the littlest one is a bit older and his feet can reach the pedals.

Have you ever been on an experience day? What’s the best thing you’ve done?

This is a sponsored post.