Back to the Moon for Good at the National Space Centre

October half term was filled with almost intellectual activities for the children. We went to the ballet, I took them to the House of Lords and we went on a whistle-stop tour of the major sights in the area, spotting Princess Anne and George Osborne along the way (not together, I hasten to add). We even went to see a Victorian underground reservoir near home that was going to be demolished a few days later.

The end of the holiday week saw us getting up early on a Sunday when we could have had a lie in and heading down to Leicester to the National Space Centre. Once we'd passed the downpours (we were ahead of this accident by 10 minutes), it was a bright sunny day and we made the trip from Lancashire in a couple of hours, arriving just before it opened. 

After a brew and a bit of breakfast (which meant Monkey foraging for what food he could find), we went off to explore the Space Centre. The children loved the interactive displays, and had fun being weather forecasters, bein astronauts and looking at rockets. We went in the scenic lift up to the top but it was too high for me. Children didn't even notice. 

The main purpose of the day was to see the worldwide premiere of the film called Back to the Moon for Good which tells the story of the Google Lunar X-Prize. Teams around the world are currently competing to be the first to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon, get it to travel 500 metres and send video, images and data back to earth. It's designed to renew interest in space exploration again and all these teams are private groups, not government funded. The prize is $30 million. Worth having then! (If you want to have a go, you're already too late; teams had to be registered some time back.). The film was made in-house at National Space Centre by their creative team, who are obviously very clever and talented people. 

The film was shown in the Sir Patrick Moore Planetarium, which is a full dome planetarium showing this film and the largest of its sort in the UK, that opened just last year. That's right - a full dome. To give you an idea, here's a photo I took inside before the film started. Bit blurry,  but that's all screen! I was a little apprehensive because the last time I watched a film in a similar set up, I was 18 weeks pregnant with Monkey and I started feeling very sick from motion sickness (something I don't usually get) and it took me about 20 minutes to recover. 

Before we went in, we were treated to a gourmet popcorn buffet - never thought I'd see the day when I'd say my favourite flavour was goat's cheese and black pepper. 

When the film started, it is truly an assault on your senses. You feel like you are in the film. The way it is put together is incredible. I loved it and would definitely recommend seeing it but during the film, the sense of movement is so strong that my brain started getting confused and started making me feel sick (tho it could have been too much popcorn!). I had to keep closing my eyes when there was a sense of movement on screen. Obviously, it's just me as no-one else seems to have been bothered by it. 

The children were completely mesmerised by it all, so much so that a few days ago, some two weeks after this event, Monkey told me that he'd been "dolly-daydreaming" about going into space. I guess that's part of the reason for the prize - not just to get people doing it, but to inspire future generations too. 

After the film (and I started to feel better almost straight away), we were able to ask questions about the prize. Someone from Google attended, as well as members of the German team competing for the prize. The children managed to wheedle a poster each out of us before we left, even though they had been given a cuddly space animal each already. 

Google plans to send a copy of the film in flat screen form to all schools. However, if you can, catch it in a fulldome. You can find all the locations where the film will be shown here. There are 11 around the UK and over 80 around the world. 

(NSC invited us to spend a day visiting the Space Centre and to attend the premiere of Back to the Moon for Good. Thanks also to them for providing lunch, gourmet popcorn, and  pace toys for the children.)

An A to Z of the web - courtesy of my browser

Recently, the lovely English Mum started a post called Around the web in 20 clicks listing her top 20 recent reads. I got a mention in Tara's post of the same name, although she actually had 24!

I wondered if I should have a go myself. However, I don't think I could ever choose.  Then I had an idea.....

I am not big on storing things in my browser's favourites. I do favourite some things - mostly long and obscure URLs that point to a particular page that I use from time to time. The rest of the time I just type in the address bar and I often use the auto-complete feature. There are certain sites whose addresses pop up as soon as I type in a single letter because of my regular usage, so I thought I would go through and list the sites that are stored in my browser when I type a single letter into the address bar. There aren't 26 as some letters don't give me an answer but this gives you a flavour of my internet usage habits and where I like to hang out.

And so, I give you my browser's A to Z guide to the web.

A is for A|Wear, an Irish clothing retailer who sell to the UK. I was very lucky earlier this year and won £1000 store credit on their site so I am forever planning what to buy from them. I still have about £300 to go and it's been fun picking stuff, ordering it, and it turning up - all without costing me a penny!

B is for Blog Up North, a blog written by Garry aka himupnorth. We've been twitter buddies for what feels like forever and it is because of him that I started writing (I wrote him a couple of guest posts earlier in the year) which led me to start this blog. Form an orderly queue to thank or complain as appropriate.

C is for Chorley Guardian which shocked me as I really don't read it all that often these days.

D is for Disqus - which you may recognise as my commenting system. I log on to reply to comments so that I don't miss replying to anyone that's taken time to comment on a post.

E is for English Wikipedia's main page - again, I was surprised by this as I don't think I visit too often. I am more likely to access Wikipedia direct to an entry from Google.

F is for Feedburner which creates a blog RSS feed, allowing people to subscribe to my blog via readers or email.

G is for Google, which I guess is not a shock really. I am forever googling pretty much everything.

H is for He Tore A Hamstring, a blog written by Rohan. He writes a lot about sport - in particular Liverpool FC - but also about his life. He writes poignantly about his struggles with depression but also last year, he lost his fiancée Dani and many of his posts are inspired by her, documenting his journey through grief and his enduring love for her. Some of his posts have just blown me away.

I is for (I am) Typecast, a blog by Nickie. A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, Nickie was asking opinions on new blog templates etc and the conversation turned to domain names. The lovely Marylin from Pure Unadulterated Softthistle offered her a free domain. I came up with the name "iamtypecast.com" which turned out to be available and the rest is history. You can read the full story of that night here.

J is for JAG's Fitness Blog, written by Jo. I've known Jo for several years online, mostly from the Handbag  discussion boards. She started her blog to document her weight loss journey in 2009 and lost 50lbs in a little under 6 months. Her posts document what she's eating, how she's training and other details of her life. She is truly inspirational and her blog has a sizeable following.

K is for Kirsty's Gone Bananas blog. Kirsty lives in Florida, although she is half British. She has a daughter who suffers from epilepsy and at the moment, she is blogging about that throughout National Epilepsy Awareness Month. She also hosts the Friday Food Fight, along with her sister Karen who blogs at If I Could Escape and who has recently moved to the UK with her family.

L is for Lancashire Evening Post for which, the entry for C also applies. I don't read it that often but I do look at the news.

M is for my mailbox. Not a lot to see here, move along now.

N is for National Rail Enquiries - and I don't go on trains that often. Still, it's useful to find out train times - the fares bit is rubbish tho.

O is for Ocado. They're the only internet food retailer I will use now as they are so reliable and they rarely make mistakes. I booked my Christmas food shop with them last year and then spent an agonising 8 hours waiting for it to turn up as we were knee deep (ok, ankle deep) in snow and the delivery lorry bringing orders up from their warehouse blew a tyre on the motorway. They got here - but the van got stuck on our road. I don't use them all that often, but it's always a nice treat when I do.

P is for Pizza Hut. Not entirely sure why - although the kids love pizza, we don't go there very often.!

Q is for Quidco. This site allows you to earn cashback on your internet purchases. Liking a bargain, I always check for deals before I buying anything large!

R is for Random.org which is a random number service. I used it to help me draw entries for the competition I ran a couple of weeks ago.

S is for Sticky Fingers, written by Tara. It is, of course, home to The Gallery most weeks so I'm constantly visiting to load pictures or to check the prompt. However, the whole blog is great and unsurprisingly, it has some great pictures too.

T is for The Five Fs blog! Hardly surprising, is it?!

U is for, erm, nothing.

V is for Very Bored in Catalunya. It is a blog about Very Bored and her life as an English ex-pat mum of one in - strangely - Catalunya (northern Spain).

W is for Who.Unfollowed.Me, a tool to discover who has unfollowed you on twitter. I know some people use it and agonise over any unfollows. To be honest, it doesn't bother me unless it is someone I am very close to. I guess I just like to know who has unfollowed me. Sometimes, I do ask people why they have unfollowed if I feel I know them well enough to do so and it is usually a twitter problem. I generally check it 3 times a week although sometimes I forget to do it.

X, Y, and Z are for .... erm, again, nothing.

So, there you go. I think I may have revealed myself as obsessed by blogs, stats, information, saving money and food and possibly retail therapy.  I fear my browser says way too much about me.

You know you're a Mum when....

I've picked up this great meme from Christine at Thinly Spread. She decided to write about the things that mark her out as a mother of children. I thought I'd add mine. (Assuming I can find 10 new ones of course!)

1. You're not grossed out by anything anymore. By the time you become a mother, your dignity has gone anyway, considering the number of people that have surveyed your private parts during pregnancy and birth. And then, unless you are very lucky, within days, you will have been peed, puked and pooed on, sometimes all three at the same time. Actually, newborn nappies are a doddle compared to the ones you get after weaning..... anyhow, you've seen it and done it all by then. Nothing is too gross, nothing can faze you.

2. You find yourself singing a tune, which at first you don't recognise, and then realise that it's the theme tune from a children's TV programme. And it will not go from your head, however hard you try.

3. You notice ambulances/police cars/fire engines/diggers/tractors whilst out driving, point them out excitedly and then realise you are alone in your car. Good job no-one else is there to see your embarrassment.

4. Your fridge looks like this. Party invites, reminders, school dinner menus, certificates, notes from school and nursery, reminders for all sorts of things placed somewhere where you can grab hold of them quickly. Oh, and your little darlings' artwork. Before children arrived in this house, it would have been a surprise if more than 4 things were stuck on it. (Some of those fridge magnets weren't my choice either!)

5. Tidying your house is akin to painting the Forth Bridge. As soon as you finish at one end, it's time to start again at the other and it's never all tidy and clean at the same time.  Ditto laundry. Ditto ironing, if I did any.

6. You have random conversations on topics you never thought possible. Recently, I got asked if the baby Jesus only had one hand (too long to explain that one) which was interesting for July. When I explained to the children that my Mum's cat had passed away, they thought she'd gone to Devon, which is where their aunt (my sister) lives, so confusion abounded for about 10 minutes at the end of which, I was crying with laughter.

7. You have finely honed negotiation skills on a par with the United Nations. Seriously, a group of mothers could deliver world peace. You take no nonsense from your children after the 147th fight over who is going to sit on "your side" of the car. There is no storming off, sulking, ceding to unreasonable demands or walking unwittingly into flashpoints. World statesmen would not stand a chance. You are a formidable, and irresistible, force.

8. You see a spot/red mark on your child that wasn't there a few hours ago. Immediately, your brain races off on a kind of instant and internal Google search. First, you search "meningitis symptoms" and grab a glass to press on it. It blanches and you exhale, not having realised you've been holding your breath since noticing aforementioned mark. Next, it's "chickenpox" (even if your child has already had it) and your inbuilt family diary flicks back over the last few days to see if you think your child has been near anyone who is or who could be pregnant. You check for other, similar spots. You take their temperature. You dispense Calpol, just in case, even if won't cure spots. You cross your fingers that they will be OK tomorrow and they don't miss school/nursery/their best friend's party they have been looking forward to for yonks.

9. You well up, or cry at everything. News stories are never the same once you are a mother. You hear of a death or deaths and you can't help thinking "that was someone's son or daughter". You know that someone somewhere is grieving the loss of a child, however old that child was, and you can only imagine the pain that they must be feeling. And that sets you off. On a lighter note, so does the end of most children's films.

10. Your heart melts when your nearly 4 year old daughter stops what she is doing at music group, comes up to you, wraps her arms around you and says "Mummy, are you very proud of me?" Right at that moment, whatever else she's done that day, she's forgiven and you love her without question. Which you always do anyway; it's just that sometimes, other stuff gets in the way. Your kids can pull up really fast with a few words or a single action, and you are reminded that you ARE a mother, and that you are their world to them. Deep stuff.

So, there you go, there are my 10. Do you like them? I'm not going to tag anyone in particular to pass on this great meme, but feel free to tag yourself and have a go. Place a link in the comments if you want my other readers to find it, and whilst you are at it, why not visit Christine's fantastic original post and leave a comment with your link there too? Get yourself a badge too (see below). Dads, please note - there is a badge for you too on Thinly Spread, so don't consider yourself excluded.