Adventures with Alice

When on holiday in Llandudno last week I noticed lots of references to a book I loved as a child - Alice in Wonderland. I wasn't aware of any link between the two but a quick google told me that Llandudno is the home of Alice in Wonderland.

Alice Liddell was the real life Alice in Wonderland. She spent her holidays in Llandudno with her family and her adventures there are believed to be the inspiration for the book.

Llandudno is proud of it's connection to Alice in Wonderland. There is an Alice trail you can do. It's only £2.99 and can be a nice walk but be warned it's not buggy friendly! After walking round the Orme and managing to get the buggy down some steps we were faced with a gate we couldn't get through. Luckily Daddy Monkey was there to lift the pram over.

If you ignore the pram disasters, we enjoyed the trail. It was a nice walk in the sunshine, we found new places to explore and Monkey seemed to like the statues.

Once we were back there was really only one bedtime story we could have. Monkey is still too young for the original book but in a strange coincidence we had borrowed the Ladybird First Favourite Tales version from the library before we went.

This is a great version of the story to read with young children. There is lots of rhyme and the main parts of the story are told simply and clearly. It's a very colourful book with lots of bright pictures which Monkey enjoyed.

We'll be looking out for more in the series!

Allergy friendly ice cream

We had a little holiday with Monkey last week which is why the blog was quiet. We went to Llandudno and had a fab time. That's a whole other blog post though. For now I just want to talk about the highlight of the holiday for me....

ICE CREAM!!!!

It's just one of those things you do at the seaside isn't it? Or at least it is for most people. When you're dealing with multiple allergies it's not quite that simple.

There are certain foods it really upsets me that Monkey can't have. Ice-cream is one of them. Yes, I know it's hardly a staple and she doesn't actually need it but it's always been my number one comfort food and what kid doesn't love ice-cream?

So it was a lovely surprise when we stumbled across The Looking Glass, a gorgeous ice-cream parlour. They do home made ice cream in lots of lovely flavours. We were gazing longingly through the window thinking we might nip back when Monkey was asleep when I saw a sign saying they had dairy free, vegan and gluten free options.

I went in for a chat thinking surely it was too good to be true. It was bound to contain soya and once again I'd have a disappointed little girl. But nope - not only did they have something Monkey could eat but she actually had a choice! All the sorbets were suitable and there was a choice of about five.

I've bought sorbet from supermarkets in the past but it's never felt like ice-cream. The texture is all wrong. The Looking Glass' sorbets weren't like that at all though, they looked and tasted just like ice cream. Monkey has started to notice when we give her something different but she really felt like she was having the same as us.

It's hard sometimes as an allergy mum having to say no especially while Monkey is still too young to understand why. It's even harder whilst on holiday. I want her to be able to have treats but I'm less likely to take risks. At home we have a GP, health visitor, consultant and dietitian supporting us, away from home we're on our own. I felt confident at The Looking Glass though and seeing Monkey eat her first ever 'ice-cream' really was the highlight of my holiday.

Look in my letterbox #3

It's Saturday again and that means it's time to link up with Alice Megan for Look in my letterbox

It's been a very quiet mail week at the Monkey House with only two penpal letters for me and one for Monkey. Hers did come all the way from Dubai though and was written in a very cute home made card. I really love these tiny penpals. I hope it's something Monkey will continue as she gets older.

Monkey was very excited by another piece of post I received. She seems to have inherited my love of christmas. I've started my shopping already but I know a lot of people don't like thinking about it this early. I'm mentioning it for a good reason though because today we received our christmas card from World Vision.

It wasn't a card for us. It was a card for Regina, the little girl we sponsor through them. It might seem early but it's got a long journey to get to her village in Uganda so we need to get it on it's way. We enjoy writing to Regina and don't want to miss this chance to wish her Ssekukulu Ennugi & Omwaka Omugya ogwe'ssanyu (Merry Christmas & Happy New Year in Luganda).

What's been through your letterbox this week?

Stories, fruit and paint!

It's Monday and we're all messy. It can only mean one thing - baby book club!

We had our big scary meeting at the children's centre last week. It wasn't actually that scary! The manager was lovely and we're now all official. We've got the room and we're open to everyone.

Today we read one of my favourites from when I was younger - The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.




As always we started by reading the story with the babies in a circle. We had lots of toy caterpillars out for them to play with as they were listening.

All the food in the story made us hungry so we had a tasting session. Apples for Monday, pears for Tuesday, plums for Wednesday, strawberries for Thursday and oranges for Friday. Monkey can't have apples and pears although we are working on reintroducing them so I had to distract her with banana. She enjoyed the rest of the fruit though and oranges seemed to be her favourite.

We didn't eat the weekend meals as they were so huge. I think Monkey was a bit disappointed as she does love her food.

The craft activity today was very messy but lots of fun. We used hand printing to make a caterpillar picture and made butterflies using footprints. There was paint everywhere! The babies were covered and I ended up wearing a lot of it too. We did manage to get some on the paper though and Monkey made this lovely picture.

Book club is fast becoming one of our favourite activities. We can't wait for the next one.

Look in my letterbox #2

Welcome to week two of nosying through the letterbox of the Monkey House. We're linking up with Alice Megan again for Look in My Letterbox.

It was a quiet mail week for me again this week. I started the week with a parcel of biscuit wrappers all the way from Dubai. It sounds a strange thing to receive I know but I save them to raise money for charity so I was really grateful for this donation.

I've had three penpal letters this week, all from UK pals. I really need to start working my way through my replies if I want to get any more.

Monkey had a bumper post day on Tuesday. Look at all this!

She had letters from three of her little penpals. One penpal had remembered how much we love giraffes and sent her this teddy. She also received this season's membership for the world's greatest football club - FC United of Manchester!

Have you had anything interesting in the post this week?

Keeping Monkey going

I always find breakfast difficult. I love my food but it's hard to be creative so early in a morning and I find I tend to eat the same kinds of thing each day. When you throw in allergies to dairy, soya, egg, wheat, apples and pears breakfast gets even more difficult. Poor Monkey has had the same breakfast every day since we started to wean her - Neocate spoon (prescription food to help with her weight), porridge fingers made with oat milk and if she's feeling really hungry (she usually is!) a banana.


So we were delighted to discover Keep Me Going, a brand new cereal which is free from all Monkey's allergens and also free from all the rubbish that is often found in kids cereals. We were even more delighted when they sent us a box to try!

Keep Me Going is the first in a new range of cereals developed by a dad who was worried about the salt and sugar content in many of the breakfast cereals available. It contains less sugar, less salt, is low in fat, high in fibre and has a low GI. All that and safe for Monkey to eat. The main ingredients are oats and barley with nothing nasty added.

I wasn't sure how Monkey would do with cereal. We did baby led weaning with her and she refuses to be spoon fed. Her own spoon control is still not great though so this had the potential to be a messy breakfast. I decided to serve it up with just a small amount of oat milk. She managed to eat the lot though with none going overboard. Surely an empty bowl from a happy smiley 13 month old says more about the product than I could ever do with my ramblings. She seemed to love it.

I don't usually eat cereal as I don't like milk. No allergies with me, just fussiness so the alternative milks are no good either. I've taken to grabbing a handful of this stuff and eating it dry as a snack though. It's really quite tasty!


Keep me Going is designed to appeal to all the family. It's not specifically marketed at kids so no cutesie characters on the box or anything like that. They have included three trading cards with each pack though. They're a Top Trumps style game based on countries of the world. You can print out a world mad for the trading cards at www.keepmegoing.net

At the moment Keep me going is only available from Ocado. It's £2.65 for a 375g box which I don't think is a bad price. It's certainly cheaper than most of the Free From ranges. Ocado isn't somewhere I usually shop but there are discounts available for your first order with them. The company are in talks with other supermarkets but they want to see how they perform at Ocado first. I'm really hoping they'll do well and I'll be able to buy it in Tesco for my Monkey very soon.

Look in my letterbox #1

We're a bit obsessed with post in the Monkey House.

As a kid I loved Postman Pat and one of my favourite toys was my post office. I used to play with it for hours and wanted to work in a real one when I grew up. I still do! The only problem is I want to run one of those little country post offices that they're shutting down everywhere.

By the age of seven I'd found the perfect hobby to go with my obsession - penpalling! And nearly 30 years later (how did that happen?) I still love it. I have loads of penpals from all over the world.

Monkey has started to share my hobby and has five penpals of her own. Some are the children of my penpals, others we know through my facebook baby group. Obviously at 13 months old Monkey isn't writing a letter but she draws pictures and loves it when I read her letters to her. I'm hoping it's something she'll carry on with as she gets older.

Towards the end of last week I discovered a wonderful linky called Look in my letterbox and I knew I had to join in. Typically that means that this week has been a slow post week but here's what arrived this week.

Monday and Friday were rubbish days with no post. They're very rare at the Monkey House.

On Tuesday two boxes of cereal arrived for Monkey.

This is a brand new cereal that is completely safe for Monkey to eat. We've been sent a few boxes to try and will be reviewing it here very soon.

I also received a letter from my penpal Elaine on this very cute Guess how much I love you paper.

Wednesday and Thursday was the battle if the loyalty cards as I got vouchers from Tesco clubcard and Sainsburys Nectar card. A letter from the Czech Republic also arrived on Thursday.

This morning I had letters from pals in Glasgow and Slovakia. I love seeing all the stamps from different countries. They're so much prettier than ours.

I wonder what the postman will bring next week.