If you’d have told me a year ago I would be in the final of the Mad Blog Awards 2016 and shortlisted for the final of the Britmums Brilliance in Blogging 2016 Awards, I don’t think I would have believed you. Let alone if you also told me I would have a facebook following of more than 5000 people and do a weekly live broadcast where I mostly chat about where I’ve been in the last week. A year ago I had just increased my hours to working full-time doing a job I really enjoyed, and I was also very pregnant with baby no.2. Blogging? What did I know about blogging? Ok I’ll re-phrase that, what did I know about writing a successful blog that attracts thousands of unique visitors every month? Hmmm. Not much. I have dabbled. I bought more than 100 retro cookery books in a local auction and decided to cook one recipe every week from one of them. The blog was called ‘that’s your lot’. I recall having been inspired watching Julie and Julia. It was fun for a while. The dishes were mostly disasters of course. And there’s a reason why the ingredients for bacon roll are no longer on our shopping list – it’s so fatty. It lasted a few months. I got bored and went back to spag bol.
I know what you’re thinking… She’s working hard, probably getting tired as the bump gets bigger, has done a blog before but lost interest… it’s not really the best time to start a blog. The thing is, you’re right. And thankfully my friend, lets call her ‘clever friend’ said exactly that when I turned round to her a year ago and said ‘I’ve got an idea…I think it’s a good idea… I should start a blog’. My eldest little boy at the time was approaching two and I loved taking him out to do fun, ideally cheap or free stuff. But I was always searching for places locally to take him to. When we found somewhere we liked, I’d tell our friends about it. I figured many parents would be in a similar position so wouldn’t it be useful if there was a way of sharing the knowledge? A blog, yes? No. For reasons mentioned above, clever friend said it would be a lot of hard work at a time when quite frankly I was busy enough. I didn’t do it.
I know. This whole thing is about the Milton Keynes Kids ‘journey’ and how I got to be shortlisted in the country’s biggest parenting blogging awards…. and so far I have a good idea but there’s no blog. Back to the story… I still had a creative itch and this craving to share the knowledge. Clever friend had another suggestion – I should start a facebook page. Yes, I like it. I’ll do it. I’ll set up a facebook page to share details of events and places that other people might like too. And so the Milton Keynes Kids facebook page was born. It turns out a lot of other people did think it was a good idea and I went from mostly just my friends liking it, to 1200 likes in 48 hours. Oh. Right. It had to be good now.
Over the next few months the page increased in popularity and I had lots of suggestions of places we could visit. Brilliant. It did a number of things for us as a family too. Having some knowledge of what play equipment, trails, sandpits or animals we were about to see, I would get excited about the next place we would be going to and that enthusiasm was passed on to both my little boy and husband. Husband became the official picnic maker and we’d look forward to a good ‘pack-up’. A good pack-up in our house consists of salmon and cream cheese bagels, delicious fruit like strawberries and blueberries, a savoury snack like ‘pizza pockets’, chocolate fingers and the supermarket equivalent of cheesy wotsits. We have encountered better pack-ups by the way. Friends of ours who accompanied us to Castle Ashby Gardens brought three kinds of homemade quiche – such a treat. A not-so-good pack-up is when we haven’t been food shopping and is usually penne pasta with pesto, an apple each and some sticks of cheese. We also started spending less money on going out because we discovered so many places to go where you didn’t have to spend a fortune.
Where are we? Ok so now I have this facebook page and along comes little boy no.2. Still no website. I’m thinking about a website. I think I should do a website. By this time, I have so many pictures of places we’ve been to and have done that many facebook posts that it’s got to a point where I can’t even be bothered to scroll back to find them. A blog would be an excellent archive of everywhere we’ve been and give me the flexibility of writing about places in more detail. Having quite a few nights of disrupted sleep though with the baby boy waking up for baby milk, so blog is put on hold for a bit. Start constructing the blog in September 2015. It takes weeks. Well it took 4 weeks to get everything on there. I can’t really remember much about blog design so a friend recommends a theme… and then I youtube how to do everything. Blog looks ok. Start utilising the other social medias to promote blog. Set up subscription feature on blog. Start writing some useful stuff on blog. Thousands of unique visitors start visiting blog. Yay.
So what’s happened since then? I’m delighted that I can now have some influence. A facebook post about charity Christmas lights went global reaching more than 285,000 people and subsequently the residents raised thousands of pounds more in 2015 than they had in previous years. Several local Tesco stores started doing free fruit for kids after I highlighted about a shop that we visited doing it. Local attractions that we rated highly have reported an increase in visitors after blog posts were widely shared. But most importantly we have had a great year as a family. I’ve lost count of the number of different parks, country parks, farm parks, woods, miniature railways, treat days out, bookshops, museums, Christmas lights, garden centres and events we’ve been to. We’ve probably had around 100 mini adventures. Most I’ve featured on this blog, but I have a huge backlog of loads of others we’ve visited that I simply haven’t had time to write up. Not only that but it’s great to hear daily positive feedback from my followers who have been inspired to take their children somewhere different.
So that’s it. That’s how Milton Keynes Kids came about. What’s next? Well my toddler turns 3 in the summer and the baby boy turns 1. We have mini adventures at the moment, but as they grow, our adventures will get bigger and we’ll also be able to explore many of the places we’ve already been to in different ways. Exciting times ahead. Someone once said to me ‘what will you do when you’ve written about everywhere?’ The thing is it’s never-ending… new events, new play equipment, new followers… it doesn’t stop. Oh dear. What have I got myself in to?!
I currently don’t make any money from this blog and write it all in the evenings. I have missed so much good tv in the last year. I made time for bake off but the whole OJ Simpson series totally passed me by. Anyway, if you have enjoyed my blog, there’s one thing you could do…. I’m up for two blogging awards and I would love for you to vote for me. Please vote for Milton Keynes Kids in the family travel category of the Mad Blog Awards and in the new voice category of the Britmums brilliance in blogging awards. Or click on the icons below. Thank you so much, Laura
A great site for letting me know where on earth am I going to take my Grandchildren. or Great Nephews or second (baby) cousins .. MK tourist board has never been any good at providing information on places to go for young children. When i contacted them a few years ago as my great nephews were visiting for a month .. i was told to go to the local pub or supermarket where leaflets stands are … have you ever read them ? they are generally full of places of interest that do not involve MK … So well done Laura for finding the time .. where from, I don’t know … for providing us with a fantastic insight into the places around MK that we can take all of our treasured little visitors. Wishing you lots of luck with the nominations well deserved.
Christine, that is possibly one of the nicest messages and compliments I have ever received. Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a lovely comment. I’m so pleased that you are finding my blog useful. Every time we visit somewhere I get so excited about telling everyone about it, it’s become quite addictive. It’s so great to hear that people like you do enjoy it. Laura