Meet Victoria: Modern Day Mummy & Local Businesswoman

July 26, 2020 Chris 2930 Views 0 Comments

Hello, I’m Victoria, a 29-year-old mum from Saddleworth.

I am the owner of local baby boutique Hugo & Me and as you can probably guess from my shop name, I am a mummy to Hugo who is now 4.

I am so excited to be writing my very first column article for Around Saddleworth and Tameside and so grateful to be able to write a bit about my biggest passion, motherhood.

Table of Contents

About Me

I was born and raised in Saddleworth and just last December I opened a Hugo & Me baby boutique on Uppermill high street. I am a single mum to Hugo, I work full-time as a medical research scientist and have been running Hugo & Me for the last 3 and a half years, so as you can imagine my life is pretty hectic most of the time!

Career & Motherhood

Jobwise, I have always loved my career in science starting from when I was 18 undertaking a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences and then going on to complete a PhD

(and having Hugo in between).

Unfortunately, a career in science isn’t always secure as we work on highly competitive funded short-term contracts. Consequently, the fear of job insecurity led me to discover a plan B. I wanted to set up a side-line business to fulfil my new found passion, Hugo.

Mummy on a Mission

Once Hugo arrived, he suffered badly with eczema from being only a few months old. I was constantly on the search for anything that would help soothe his dry skin and one of the suggestions I came across was organic clothing.

As organic clothing eliminates toxic and harmful chemicals from its production it is much kinder and softer on baby’s skin, so I was sold. Although, I really struggled to find beautiful organic baby clothing.

Hugo & Me

I prefer neutral colours and simplistic classic designs, which seemed hard to find on the high street. I began sourcing organic clothing online and stumbled across some amazing organic brands from all over the world. I selected a few of my favourite brands, quickly threw together a website and before I could talk myself out of it I started selling organic baby clothing from my newly created business, Hugo & Me.

Ever since then life has been one big balancing act, between working full-time, mummy duties and spending quality time with Hugo and also running Hugo & Me online (usually late at night from my laptop in bed). But luckily with a lot of help along the way from my mum Jo, who helps me out with Hugo and also helps me to run Hugo & Me.

The Grand Opening

Opening the shop in December has thrown an even bigger challenge into the mix, which has been chaotic but a whole lot of fun.

Then, of course, we were all flung into lockdown in March which for most of us I’m sure, threw life out of balance and messed up all our plans for this year. But if we can take anything from it, hopefully, we have managed to gain a new perspective of what is really important in life.

Time for Me

If you’re anything like me, you like take a few minutes to yourself to have a well-deserved coffee and flick through a glossy mag, maybe take a few tips or a recipe, read something uplifting or have a little giggle.

Hopefully, with this column, I can share with you general ups and downs of parenthood, some parenting tips I’ve been given or picked up along the way, fun activities or recipes I’ve tried and tested with Hugo and of course must-have baby and children’s clothing, toys and furniture.