“The thing all writers do best is find ways to avoid writing.”

I'd love to have time during the day to sit and plough through blog posts but with two demanding and adventure seeking children its just not on the cards. When everyone is in bed though (Mrs M included), I curl up on the sofa with my laptop and write. I don't generally like writing in silence so Netflix has been a great friend on these quiet lonely nights. I do try my best to pick something that isn't going to grab my attention too much, if I have work I desperately need to get done I will opt for something I love that Ive seen many times as it wont distract me and is just noise in the background. Sometimes though I click on shows I have never seen before and I get transported to another plane, where absolutely no writing gets done at all.

Here's my top 5 Netflix shows for binge watching (and getting minimal work done)...

1. 'Lie to Me' dragged me in by the title picture, I thought to myself 'there's that guy off of the Hulk movie, I like him' and BANG! that was a good few weeks of my evenings taken up with minimum work completed! Cal Lightman as a character won me over from the first episode. The show is about a deception expert who can read all manner of facial expressions and works with the police and private clients, it is extremely clever and well written and Tim Roths character is just the right amount of crazy.

2. Its really hard to find a show that me and Mrs M can sit down and watch together. I love action and gritty drama but Mrs M has a very nervous disposition and things tend to play on her mind so its usually the Carebears or Spongebob for us! (Seriously, if there is anything that Mrs M cant stand more than violence on TV its Spongbob). If Mrs M had it her way we would watch Gavin and Stacey or Sex and the City episodes each night. One evening though (again while I was trying to write) we came across 'White Collar', a show about a convicted conman working for a white collar division of the FBI to shave time off of his sentence. I'm not sure if it was the episode content or just the main character that hooked Mrs M but it was 5 seasons that took up many of my working evenings. It was great to have something to watch with Mrs M, who doesn't love snuggley sofa time!

3, From the list so far (and including this one) it seems that my top 5 is going to be police/crime heavy. I'd  actually not thought about it until I started writing this but I guess that must be what I like. 'Person of interest' was a great show for having on that had my attention but I still managed to get a little work done. The thought that we are being watched continuously is something that concerns me all the time. Im surprised this show didn't freak me out but I loved every minute of it and I am hoping the next series pops up on Netflix very soon.

4. Oops! another crime related show has jumped in. I wasn't impressed by the movie years back and I thought Ben Affleck had made a complete douche of the character but the Netfix Original series Daredevil was amazing. Being an enormous Marvel fan, the show really did the character of Matt Murdock justice. I debated putting Gotham in here as it was also and amazingly well written story line but for me Daredevil definitely came out on top.

5. I suppose I better put in something a little lighter and with less police presence despite going to add 'Prison break' in next. I was going for a show that me and Mrs M sat and watched together in its entirety but sadly 'Californication' is no longer on Netflix (such a shame as it was a great show). hmmmmm.... something funny??? Me and Mrs M have watched a few funny shows together. 'The unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt' was a great show and I loved 'The Fuzz' as it appealed to my very childish side but seeing as I've had to replace 'Californication', 'Benidorm' solely on the fact of the amount of time it has taken up while I have attempted to write. The show is cliche british humour at its best and I think thats what I love about it most.  Plus despite trying my best most nights to write, I'd take curling up with Mrs M on the sofa for a giggle any day.

This top 5 came about because as of tomorrow with the release of the Netflix original Marvel show 'Jessica Jones', I know that all writing will be on standby. There's nothing that is going to get in the way of a new marvel show and with Netflix doing such an amazing job with Daredevil I am expecting Jessica Jones to have me hooked within the first five minutes.

“Nothing makes a room feel emptier than wanting someone in it.”

The problem with deciding to have a couple of weeks of intermittent writing is that you spend the following few weeks playing catch up. A couple of weeks back Mrs M had to work away for a week in Holland and it was the first time we have had to spend this sort of time away from her. I wont lie it was really difficult, not because I need her home to help with things, me and the boys had that covered but more because we just need he about. All those little things that sometimes we take for granted, like tucking the boys in at night, reading, the crazy sofa acrobatics that they do and for me the way she looks at me when she tells me she loves me had been put on standby for 5 days.

For Mrs M the time flew by because she was so busy, but for us, not so much. She may not have been with us but she made sure that despite being away she made a huge amount of effort to make us all feel special (Do you remember the treasure hunt?). To show her how special she is to us, we spent our time making a banner so that we could surprise her at the airport.

The Friday evening we picked her up was really emotional. I had given myself a headache through the sheer excitement of her coming home, the boys were eager to get to the station the day before she was due to get back and as soon as Mrs M saw our boys standing there with their banner there was floods of tears. Despite the fact that we were away from her for the week, myself and the boys are so proud of what she has achieved this year in her career. For someone that puts so much effort in to everything she does and is passionate about her work she deserves everything that is coming her way.

Mrs M, you are an amazing person and I feel so lucky every day that you go to such lengths to look after us, I hope you know how much we adore you. X

"Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk."

Yesterday at the end of school Seth came out and asked me if I wanted to see his work, the classroom was open for parents to come in and have a look at all the great work the children had been doing. I love looking through Seth's work, it's always nice to see what he's been getting up to. His reading and writing is fantastic and he is in all the top groups, we couldn't be more proud as parents. The things that really interest me in Seth's work though are the way he expresses himself through drawing and his imagination when I read the short stories he has come out with.

I was in school for quite some time going through each of his subjects and reading his work, kicking myself with every page turn that I had left my phone at home as I wanted to take pictures of most of it. One piece of work was so cute and also really made me chuckle so when I dropped him in this morning I asked his teacher if I could take a quick photo of it.

In his science lesson Seth had been learning about how we change in our appearance throughout our life and had been asked to draw three pictures of himself, as a baby, how he is now and also how he thinks he will look when he is older. What made me chuckle is that firstly he's not expecting to have any hair but that he also feels that the bold head, beard/curly mustache combo is what its all about and is what he will be going for in his adult years, Never really pegged myself as a trend setter but clearly this is a strong look.

 When i asked Seth about it he laughed and simply said "I'm going to look cool like you when I'm older". Seth is too cute for words.

"Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments"

I love those beautiful moments that you get from your children. They wouldn't mean anything to anyone else but as their parents they are the sort of moments that make your heart melt. Opeie fell asleep in the car while on Our way to drop Mrs M at work. We pulled up outside and as Mrs M got out of the car he woke up waved at her and went back to sleep. I could feel myself welling up it was so adorable. I'm really starting to see now why Mrs M always says she doesn't want the boys to grow up. I'm definitely enjoying this age the most. The thought of him going to school is really starting to fill me with dread.