Life

If you look through my website you’ll see that nothing’s been published for over three years! Let’s just say, life got in the way. To try and get back into the groove, I’ve signed up for the SEMrush Content Marathon.

Over the course of this week, I’ll be having a lesson per day and be following it up with an assignment. The first task is to just get writing. So here goes!

Just an average evening in the Birchley house…

Yesterday, my poorly one-year-old spent the day chilling with Granny while Mummy was at work. She had her 13 month injections last week and they’ve really knocked her for six.

Bubba was clearly tired so once we got home it was time for bed. We’ve been following the same bedtime routine for about six months now. Bottle, pjs, teeth, stories and then I turn on her Ewan the Dream Sheep and rock her to sleep while breastfeeding. This used to take about half an hour. But recently she’s started to fight sleep. The rocking becomes more like trying to wrestle a, a… well a toddler that weighs nearly two stone! On too many occasions it’s taken me over an hour to get her asleep and into bed.

Last night she went down too easily. I was back downstairs by 7.15pm and sat down to watch my SEMrush video. Within 15 minutes, she was awake and crying. It took me until 8.45pm to get her back asleep. My arms were killing me, my back was sore and I was feeling pretty emotionally exhausted.

I thought she’d now be settled for the night, so I sat back on the sofa ready to get the video watched and the assignment written. I managed to write the introduction paragraph to this post before she woke up. Cue a heavy sigh.

The next couple of hours consisted of crying, rocking, feeding, crawling across the sofa, thrashing about in bed and finally me clambering into the baby’s cot bed and falling asleep with her feeding. I woke up a little chilly to the sound of my husband coming home from work after 11pm. All that I had the energy to do after that evening was go to bed!

Motherhood is hard. But it’s also the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Her needs will always come before mine but I really hope she feels better soon! That cot is too small for me.

On Friday evening I could have walked out of work, turned left and walked home. Instead, I turned right and headed up to the Leas. It seemed a shame to waste such a lovely evening.

It upsets me when people complain about Folkestone. It might not be the best town in the world but it’s where I live and it definitely has a lot of positive points.

To mark the centenary of first world war, this arch was erected. It stand at the top of the Road of Remembrance, named to commemorate the thousands of men who marched down this hill towards the waiting ships in the harbour and the trenches across the channel. Opened by Prince Harry in August 2014, the arch stands proud on the Leas where it’s much admired. Of course, there are plenty of naysayers but I think it’s very elegant and a fitting tribute.

The crochet poppies are a year round feature along the railings from the arch down the hill towards the harbour. Anyone can make one and attach it. I think it’s pretty beautiful. The the Leas I walked through to the parish church.

The church of St Mary and St Eanswythe is where I got married. There’s been a church on or near this site since the 7th century. The oldest part of the current church dates back to the 12th century with the majority of it built in Victorian times.

It was a very special place to get hitched.

The Old High Street is at the heart of Folkestone’s Creative Quarter. It welcomes artists and independent boutiques to create a eclectic space that keeps changing. There’s some really cool graffiti at the moment. I think they’re commissioned to cover up wooden boarding. I love it!

All this is just minutes from my house. I took this walk, stopping to take photos along the way, and was still home before half past six. If I’m going to shift some pounds before the summer I think I’ll go for a walk every dry evening.

What does you walk home from work look like?

Rachel x

It’s been a bit quiet over here at RachelBirchley.com recently. That’s because I’ve been busy in the early stages of my new project, Chapterthirty.

This blog is very much a personal one, whereas Chapterthirty will be a magazine style blog inspired by the likes of The Everygirl and GenTwenty. I couldn’t find something similar that’s British and targets women hurtling towards their thirties so I decided to create my own.

We ( this is the theoretical ‘we’ at the moment!) will be writing about careers, homes, money and travel. I’m imagining each reader to be a bit like me really. Not really sure which career path is best for them – or if they do – how to get there, wishing they knew more about financial stuff, hoping to buy their own home sometime soon and also dreaming of using every bit of annual leave to its fullest.

I’ve found it hard to find this sort of information all in one place, packaged up in a way that I want to read it. Blogs tend to either be about travel, homes or careers, and finance blogs just seem to be a bit boring really. I want to bring all these things that matter to me together in one place as they form the cornerstone of the next chapter in my life. I’m hoping I’m not the only person interested in furthering their career, buying a house, making the most of their money and going on holiday, so these women with shared interests are who Chapterthirty is for.

The Chapterthirty mission statement:

Chapterthirty wants to inspire women in their mid to late twenties to turn their dreams into reality, whether that’s finding the perfect career, homeownership or a round the world trip. You can achieve anything you set your mind to.

Don’t be scared of the prospect of turning 30, it’s just the start of a new chapter.

I’m looking for contributors

Whether you have some practical advice or an inspirational story to tell, if you can relate to our mission statement, Chapterthirty needs you! Email editor@chapterthirty.com (that’s me! :-D) if you’re interested.

At the moment, I’m at the stage of writing blog posts, ‘about’ pages, contributor guidelines, and so on. I’m also trying to decide on a theme. After spending weeks coming up with the name, the next hardest thing has to be choosing a WordPress theme. I have a shortlist at the moment and think there’s a favourite but I need to earn a few pennies first before buying the theme; it’ll be the biggest investment so far.

My aim is to run Chapterthirty like a business. There’ll be advertising space available, hopefully some brand collaborations, and one day I hope to be able to pay contributors. I’d love to be one of those full-time bloggers so that I can dedicate all my efforts to this project. At the moment it kind of feels like work is in the way!

To begin with it’s going to be a lot of hard graft and the only thing I can offer guest bloggers is an author bio with links to their own blog or website and social media profiles, and of course an outlet for their creativity. Perhaps you’re a beauty blogger who would like to write about travel but don’t want deviate from your main theme on your own blog? Chapterthirty can give you an outlet and perhaps we can share some visitors.

So don’t be concerned if I go ‘off radar’ for a while. I’m not really going anywhere just hiding out over on chapterthirty.com instead! If you visit before the site’s live, apologies for how it looks. I promise it’s going to look awesome. At least I bloody hope so!

Wish me luck and don’t forget to get in touch if you fancy writing for Chapterthirty.

Rachel x

Last weekend was hubby’s birthday. He turned 29, so he’s caught up with me for a while! He likes to joke that I’m a cougar, but I don’t think it counts if you’re only three months older! Since his birthday was on the Friday I took the day off work so we could spend the day together.

As it turns out we didn’t really do too much. I had my last counselling session in the morning and then we popped over to his parents so he could blow the candles out on his cakes. I thought it would be a bit weird if we did that at home, just the two of us!

The cupcakes I baked were amazing. I followed a recipe for Cosmopolitan Cupcakes from Peggy Porschen’s Boutique Baking book. They were orange flavour with boozy cranberries and copious amounts of Cointreau. Not the manliest birthday cakes ever, but they went down very well.

In the evening, we joined my sister and our friends for a birthday meal at a new burger place that has recently opened in Folkestone. Big Boys Fine Burger Company has taken over a building in the Old High Street and it’s a good job we booked because it was packed!

Le Garcon Francais

This was my choice of burger, Le Garçon Français. It was a 6 oz beef patty with bacon, huge chunks of brie, lettuce and wholegrain mustard in a brioche bun. C’etait delicieux! Sis opted for El Chico Mexicano, which had guacamole, tortillas and chipotle ketchup in, one of our friends had the BBFC Mother Clucker, a burger with fried chicken in it too, and the three boys each chose the signature Fat Boy. Beef patty, pulled pork, bacon, cheese, lettuce and tomato.  Epic.

For sides, hubby, sis and I shared ginormous onion rings, amazing smoked bacon beans and homemade coleslaw.

It was an awesome meal and I was so stuffed but determined to give one of their milkshakes a go. Having told everyone at work that I didn’t like milkshake (forgetting that I’d previously happily supped a KFC Crushem) I realised that actually I love milkshake! But only ones without fake flavours. This one was rather special. Behold, the Bakewell tart milkshake…

Insane

From this point I decided that all desserts should actually be liquidised. They’re so much easier to consume! We finished the night with a drink at Wetherspoon’s and were home in bed by 11 pm. It’s a crazy life we oldies lead!

Saturday

On Saturday we drove over to Canterbury to visit The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge where they’ve just opened a new temporary exhibition about Enid Blyton. Celebrating her life and works, Mystery, Magic and Midnight Feasts is a wonderful gallery filled with transcripts, illustrations, diaries and even the author’s old typewriter.

I grew up with Enid Blyton, from watching and reading Noddy, to sharing the Famous Five’s adventures and wishing I went to boarding school so I could have midnight feasts and play lacrosse. The exhibition brought back lots of memories, and it was great to see that young children today are still enjoying her books. My only regret is that I’m too big to go down the slide and wear the dressing up outfits!

Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed inside the exhibition so I’ve borrowed the below picture from the Beaney’s Facebook page.

Thank you to Annabelle at Canterbury Museums and Galleries for inviting me along.

We’d booked a table at Pizza Express for lunch but had time to kill so found ourselves in Costa. I also did a little bit of shopping, purchasing a new lanyard for my work pass from Cath Kidston, and of course I had to pop into Lush and grab a unicorn horn bubble bar (because I’d seen them all over the internet and wanted one!) and some solid toothpaste tablet thingys because I thought they’d be handy for when I fly to France in the summer as I’m going hand luggage only. They’re rose flavour so that’ll be interesting!

Gold chocolate!

Massive chai latte

Waiting for pizza

The birthday boy!

Emilia pizza at Pizza Express

Canterbury purchases

Obligatory unicorn horn selfie!

Sunday

A lazy day for me but hubby went to help his friend give his car a good scrub and polish up. They then both came back for dinner, which was just an easy all in one pan roast chicken pieces with vegetables.

We also watched the BluRay of The Equalizer that I bought hubby for his birthday, which was a pretty good film if a little gory in parts, before watching Top Gear. I made up for all the testosterone by watching Call the Midwife afterwards!

So that’s pretty much my weekend! Hubby had a good birthday now I need to decide what I want for my birthday (my 30th’s in October – eek!) and start dropping some not-so-subtle hints!

What would you want for your 30th birthday? Tell me in the comments below!

Rachel x

I’m quite a visual person, so naturally I do like Instagram. I’m always trying to find new people to follow so keep reading those ‘who to follow’ articles in the hope to stumbling across an Instagrammer I adore.

So to give a little back, and hopefully help you to find new Instagrammers to follow too, here’s whose photos I’m loving in my feed right now.

The Everygirl

For inspirational life photos follow The Everygirl

A photo posted by The Everygirl (@theeverygirl_) on Jan 28, 2015 at 7:50pm PST

The Everygirl is an awesome website. My favourite is the home tour section, mostly because I’m nosy! This site is for young women and it’s full of inspiring career profiles, finance advice and the aforementioned home tours. If only my house looked anything like any of the featured women’s fabulous pads.

Milkbubbletea

For the prettiest Instagram you’ve ever seen, have a gander at Becky’s. Her milkbubbletea blog is her life in white.

A photo posted by Becky ♡ (@milkbubbleteablog) on Jan 29, 2015 at 1:45pm PST

I’m too messy to even consider taking photos around my house but her pictures are just so lovely. And her little sausage dog Oscar is adorable.

Michelleoutsidelondon

For Devonshire life and cute doggies, Michelleoutsidelondon doesn’t disappoint.

A photo posted by Michelle (@michelleoutsidelondon) on Jan 26, 2015 at 4:50am PST

Expect country walks, cakes, cups of tea and plenty of cute spaniels!

Furdeforce

For all the puppies it has to be furdeforce.

A photo posted by Furry friends of Fleur & Mike! (@furdeforce) on Jan 29, 2015 at 1:10pm PST

This is the dedicated Instagram account for Fleur and Mike de Force’s gorgeous pets; Piglet, Treacle, Squidge, Beaver and Growler. I personally could never see too many pictures of Piglet. I’d love a little sausage dog, I think they’re so cute!

A Beautiful Mess

For brightly coloured, home and food inspiration it has to be A Beautiful Mess.

A photo posted by Elsie + Emma A Beautiful Mess (@abeautifulmessofficial) on Jan 28, 2015 at 9:02am PST

Their website inspires me to want to make loads of cool shit for my house. Why have a house that looks the same as everyone else’s when you can make it your own?

Do you have any recommendations for awesome Instagrammers to follow? Please leave me links in the comments!

Rachel x

p.s. Follow me on Instagram too if you like!