Birthday Celebrations

ON THE 14TH MAY,
SAM SHOUTED HURRAY…
HE WOKE UP AT SIX…
TO OPEN “FLICK TRICKS”….
MUM WANTED TO SLEEP…
BUT THE CHILDREN DID LEAP….
HER TIREDNESS SOON WENT AWAY…
AS IT WAS SAM’S BIRTHDAY!

This week’s poem is written by Sam; I think he may be following in my footsteps of writing silly rhymes about everything!

As you may know it was Sam’s tenth birthday last week. He wanted to start the celebrations at about 5am but I’m afraid I wasn’t quite up to singing Happy Birthday at that point and sent him back to bed! It was a school day, so we had a quick present opening celebration in the morning…

“Flick Tricks “for anyone who doesn’t know, and who hasn’t got little boys, are miniature BMX bikes that you move with your fingers and make go up ramps and do tricks with. A bit like the stress relieving toys you find in Christmas catalogues for tired executives. Unfortunately the fun is also to take them apart and customize them, but the parts are so tiny they regularly end up in my vacuum cleaner, so Sam was very happy to get some new ones and set off to school.

Later on, Sam had asked for a couple of best friends to come back for tea. Birthdays do seem easier and more civilized now they are getting past the stage of bouncy castles, where the mum’s wait nervously on edge praying that no one bounces off and breaks any bones.

I had found a note in Sam’s school bag from his friend Max saying “I knew your mum would win, you are famous now Sam and I bet all your birthday food is from Iceland! Can’t wait to come to your party and frighten your mum with Larry’s present!”

I think that despite the presents I had given Sam earlier in the day, the present from his friend Larry was his favourite; it was utterly disgusting and boys of course really like that. I won’t go into too much detail, as you really don’t want to know, but it involved joke fake bodily fluids to leave around the house and frighten parents and visitors with. They went down a storm with Granny!

Max was right about the food, we had a lovely birthday tea with family and friends; the only thing not from Iceland was the birthday cake made especially by Granny. It all went down very well as always, including the healthy carrot sticks (carrots from Iceland of course!).

It was a good birthday according to Sam and as a mum, that’s all you ever want to hear. Rob even did all the washing up once all the guests had gone which meant it was good for me too.

Since the ‘turning ten’ celebrations, we have all been enjoying the fabulous weather. On the first day of this mini heat wave, I made the mistake of sitting down in the sun for what I thought would be ten minutes. Unfortunately I fell asleep in an instant and woke up later with lovely red stripes down the front of my legs and arms. Oops!

We have had loads more fun over the weekend with plenty of water fights and barbecues. Despite the heat, the boys never seem to lose their energy like I do, so on Sunday we went tree climbing in the park. (I just watched though, I think my tree climbing days are over!)

Rob and I also managed a lovely evening out when we went to see our own local Nailsea band ‘The Rinky Dinks’ play in Bristol. The Rinky Dinks are unlike any other band due to the fact that they play all their songs on their ukuleles! Everything from George Formby to The White Stripes. They have to be heard to really be appreciated, but it’s the sort of music you have to dance to and their following is so big in their home town of Nailsea, they hired a double decker bus especially for all their fans to go to Bristol and back.

Monday always seems to come around too quickly after a nice weekend but this week we had the added excitement of ‘Roald Dahl’ week at school, where everyone had to dress as characters from his famous books. Luke went as ‘Willy Wonka’ with top hat and cane and my jacket and purple gloves. Sam went as ‘Mr. Twit’ and complained that his beard was itchy. I’m not really surprised, especially in this heat!


The next exciting thing to happen in my new role as ‘The Face of Iceland’ is on Wednesday when I shall be spending the day with the Home Delivery team in Nailsea, meeting other customers like me. Please come back next week to see what happened and how I got on, you never know maybe I will meet you whilst I’m out and about!

Ellie x

A Grand Day Out!

On Tuesday Iceland sent a car...
I felt just like a superstar...
We were off to main HQ...
In a Chrysler, all shiny and new...
Rob couldn’t come and he was sorry...
But he honked as we passed, from his lorry!

This week I want to tell you about my exciting day at Iceland’s Head Office. After dropping the boys off at school I came back home to meet up with Jo, my brother’s girlfriend who was coming with me. We were guessing what type of car would be coming to pick us up and went through every possibility from a “Smart car” to the Iceland Bentley! At about 8.55 a very posh looking Chrysler pulled up outside my house and just waited. Whilst peering out of the kitchen window I said to Jo, “Do you think that’s our car?”, and she said “Well how many cars like that do you normally see in Nailsea!”

It was our car, and we had a very friendly chauffer who insisted on opening doors for us and generally making us feel special. My partner Rob is a lorry driver and was unable to have the day off to accompany me but told me to text him as soon as we had set off to tell him the car we were in as he was travelling on the same motorway that day. We soon caught up with him and he honked his horn as we drove past waving!

On the way, Jo and I discussed what we thought Iceland Head Office would look like. I said I expected light, airy offices with huge pot plants and she said “Yes that’s probably more realistic, but I’m imagining Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory with huge iron gates and an eccentric man in a top hat coming to meet us”.

It turned out I was closest as we approached a big building with a glass front. I felt a bit in awe, but as soon as we entered the foyer we were greeted by the sight of a 7 foot stuffed cuddly penguin!

Time seemed to pass very quickly and it was soon lunch time but our lunch was quite unlike any other I have had before. We went along to the Iceland ‘kitchen’ where we met an amazing lady called Annie. Annie and her team think up new and exciting dishes for shoppers like me and you. Some make it into Iceland to become big sellers and some don’t, depending on the feedback given by the testing panel. Both Jo and I said we would like to be in Annie’s family as her cooking really was superb and the ideas she comes up with are endless. We had been told to pace ourselves but when the first three dishes were so delicious it was hard to remember the advice. I can’t tell you exactly what we tasted as its obviously top secret at this stage but can say it was a whole variety of sweet and savoury dishes and we definitely ate more than we should have!

After that we visited the Iceland Contact Centre. Working within a retail environment myself I appreciate the importance of customer care and also the challenges faced by the call handlers. I’ll never forget the time a customer came into the opticians where I work and complained that her glasses had “stopped working” and asked what we would do about it. On further questioning it turned out that the lady had been playing bridge, and had actually gone home with her friends glasses instead of her own, hence why she couldn’t see! She saw the funny side and went away happy, but I think it demonstrates the wide range of problems and queries dealt with on a daily basis by Customer Care teams.

There was just time for some photos with Iceland’s big boss Malcolm Walker, who I had previously met back on the judging panel at the London auditions. He is obviously a very busy man, but like the whole of the Iceland team I found him friendly and welcoming. Then it was time to jump back into our luxury car and head home.


Next week you’ll be able to hear about how Sam’s 10th birthday went and more about the adventures of an ‘Iceland mum’. Hope to see you then.

Ellie
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An Exciting Week!

Hello again,

What an exciting week it’s been!

I have to start with my favourite general election quote of the week from Luke my 6 year old. He asked “ Mum, why didn’t Gordon Ramsay win again this time?”. Normally I always try to give honest, truthful answers to all their questions however strange but, in this case, by the time I had stopped laughing, he had moved onto something else. Apparently I am not alone, other mums have told me this week that they have had comments like…“Who gets hung in parliament?”… and “I want Nutmeg” to win … (Nick Clegg)!

Anyway, that’s enough of politics. People have been asking me this week, “How does it feel to be The New Face of Iceland?” The only way I can describe it is to say that now I have two lives, ‘Normal life’ and ‘Funny life’. ‘Normal life’ is exactly the same as it always has been, make the sandwiches, do the chores , go to work , make sure football kit is ready etc...etc...but in ‘funny life’ anything can happen!

For example. On Thursday I rushed home from work after picking up the boys and then had 10 minutes to get us all changed and ready for a photo shoot! I was expecting a few poses and job done, like when the local newspaper photographers came, but oh no! He arrived in a van like the A -Team and proceeded to set up white background screens, lights in umbrellas and huge extension cables all over the sitting room.

Don’t get me wrong, it was very exciting and we really don’t normally have things like this going on so all good fun, but getting 5 children (Rob’s too) to be in the same place, smile and not pull funny faces was a challenge for even the best photographer! Rob tried to help by playing songs on the computer in the background such as “The Model” by Kraftwerk and “Girls on film” by Duran Duran but I must admit the children were starting to get hungry and, when he tried to make me laugh by changing my phone’s language to French, I nearly lost the plot. It’s funny NOW but not at the time!

The photographer must have taken about 100 photos of which I presume only one or two will make it into the magazine so I’ll be very interested to see which ones are picked.

‘Normal life’ then continued over the weekend until Monday night when I had to try and chose what to wear for my big first visit to Iceland HQ on Tuesday. I made the mistake of asking the boys if they would help decide as I put on the different options and asked for their feedback. All I can say is children can be very harsh. They turned into the judging panel from “Britain’s Got Talent” with Sam taking to the role of Simon Cowell like a natural. His comments included “ No, No, No, that’s the worst I’ve ever seen… what do you think Piers?” and Piers (Luke) saying “Come back next year when you have some new clothes!”.

That’s it for now but please come back next week when I can tell you all about my exciting day at Iceland HQ where I saw the biggest cuddly stuffed penguin ever!

Ellie
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Becoming the “New Face of Iceland”!

Writing a blog is new for me and the last time I did something like this was when I wrote a diary as a teenager (which I still have!) and most of the entries were concerned with new leg warmers, Duran Duran records, going roller booting and when the next school disco was!

I will begin by telling you a little bit about myself.

My name is Ellie Taylor and I am 39 years old and I have two sons called Sam and Luke who are 10 and 6. I say Sam is 10 but he isn’t actually quite there till 12:05 midday next Friday 14th May but when you are nearly 10 you don’t like people saying you are 9!!

I have a partner called Rob who doesn’t live with us but spends a lot of time here and who has 3 children called Charlotte James and Jodie and they are 15, 11 and 7. When we spend time together I describe us the Von Trapp family without the singing talent!

As some of you may know I entered a competition to become “The New Face of Iceland”. Iceland had stated that instead of finding a new celebrity to front their next advertising campaign, this time they wanted a “real Iceland shopper”, someone who could be their face as a normal ordinary mum and as a regular shopper there… I thought that’s me!!! The night I submitted my online application was a Thursday, which for us is the night Rob brings his children round for tea and we all eat together. It was the normal crazy night with the kids all running around and shouting things like “Sam’s being mean and won’t let me go on his scooter!”….. “Jodie stop it!” …. “Can I go on the computer mum!” but this particular night I said “No I’m doing something!” To cut a long story short somehow I managed to write coherent answers to the online questions such as... “what is a typical day for you?”… “If you won the lottery how would you spend the money?”…. “what does family mean to you?” etc…etc.. and the end result was being invited to audition in front of Iceland bosses AND Coleen Nolan and then getting into the final 7 and winning the online vote for the winner!!!!!

We had been told that we would receive a phone call between 11.00 and 11.30 on Friday to tell us who had won. I was at work at Specsavers and all my colleagues including my boss Ali were buzzing with anticipation. Our Director Nic Johns was also there which I thought was strange as he has other Specsavers stores too and had been with us the day before as well but I didn’t realise why until later! I did not expect to win and was all prepared for my phone call giving me the bad news but had not prepared at all for what happened next………

At approximately 11.20 I was standing at the work bench which faces the shop doors fixing a ladies glasses and I looked up to see the whole Iceland team including sound men and camera men (and ladies!) walking through the door with champagne and the biggest bunch of flowers you have ever seen in your life!!!! They were saying “Congratulations Ellie Taylor you are the new face of Iceland” as they walked in. I just stood there frozen like a rabbit caught in the headlights and the first thing I could think of to say was “I’m just putting a screw in these glasses hang on a minute the ladies coming back in a sec”. It was so completely surreal I felt like I was in a very strange but amazing dream! I looked over to my boss and other colleagues at the reception desk and they were all crying! Luckily my mum arrived at that point as she said she would pop in to see what the phone call had said and then she saw everyone and started crying too!

I was whisked off from work (Thanks to my lovely bosses at Specsavers!) and taken off to my local Iceland store around the corner where we all opened champagne and my mum cried again! (I was still the startled rabbit!).

The Iceland team wanted to take me for lunch and “treat me like a celeb” but before doing that I insisted we went round to ALL the shops in Nailsea that had helped me win votes by putting up my “vote for Ellie” posters in their windows! Then I still really wanted to tell the boys and Rob’s children more than anything else in the world so I persuaded the team to drive me up to school in the chauffeur driven Bentley (they had planned to go after lunch but I just couldn‘t wait!). It was as I saw the 4 of them Sam, Luke, James and Jodie waiting for me at the entrance of the school that the tears came! As I rushed out to meet them it suddenly became real and I realised I had won and started blubbing!!

I was then brought back to reality when they were allowed to sit in the Bentley with its WHITE leather seats and I started having palpitations about them destroying something HA HA ! As it turns out they were very good and even all took their shoes off before they got in (PHEW!).

We then went for a delicious lunch at the New Inn in Backwell, just down the road where I found my next door neighbour also having her lunch and rushed over to tell her the fantastic news too!

It was soon 3.00pm and I had to get back to school to pick up the boys . The good bit was they let me use the chauffeur and Bentley again to collect them! We then rode home in style with the boys searching for Chucklevision with the remote controls of the TV’s in the back!

I can honestly say I have never ever experienced anything like this before in my life and after befriending many of the other 6 finalists on facebook I realise just what a lucky privileged position I am in as they were all so good too. This is going to be a fantastic, exciting year and I intend to cherish every moment of it and look forward to sharing my next experiences with you.

Back to work tomorrow and hoping the lady is happy with her glasses repair that I was doing when the Iceland team walked in!!!!!

Ellie
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