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Serena Lee 莉娜 🇲🇾🇬🇧

@serenaleechua

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london life but slow it down 😌🫜
🪷 women's fitness instructor, yoga + pt
💘 👧🏽🧒🏼👶🏼
📗 author of vegan london
💌 ugc? let's chat!

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🌒 Michael Rosen's performances of his poems are *really* funny, my daughter told me some time ago. It's not easy to make her laugh so I took note. I knew his children's books from my own childhood (I think I mentioned my We're Going On A Bear Hunt cathartic writing method on here not long ago).

I spend a lot of time in the library, and picked up a copy of Rosen's Getting Better early this summer. It was a big hardback and so, reluctantly, it sat on my bedside table while we were in Italy and I pretty much swallowed it whole as soon as we were back. As typical millennial readers do, I went to follow him on Instagram as soon as I'd finished the book, and saw he'd be at a poetry event marking the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street in October. I booked tickets for myself and my daughter straight away. There was an invitation to submit a poem about East End identity, so I spent half an hour expanding my thoughts on a magical moment I'd had with my middle child that I felt cemented him as a true East End kid.

I was very happily surprised to be invited to recite the poem at the event 😭❤️ to share a space with @iammichaelrosen was an honour and so unexpected. He whooped when I mentioned Arsenal and I was giddy (see my giddiness in that photo ☝️ lol). Then I realised I had made a rookie error in not taking the poem in my pocket and I botched the last two lines but it's all good; I've never read aloud anything I have written so it was super new and nerve-wracking and I'm just proud to have done something fun and to have shared it with my daughter 🥹. Thank you @stepstotogetherness for a beautiful event, I'm tagging some of the poets from the night too.

Please take this as your sign to Do The Thing 🙋🏻‍♀️ because all roads lead to either fun or good lessons or both.

As my much-loved, much-missed 100% doer of a friend Moko used to sign off,
Big love ❤️

✌️🌻💛 taken in St George in the East by @serenaleechua

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6 days ago

🌖 What words did you grow up saying totally wrong because of your immigrant parent(s)? And where are they from because I'm nosy and also loooove languages and I'm nerdily interested in how different native languages affect English pronunciation 🤓
Here are four that I have said confidently many times over the years before being corrected 😌 there are ...many... more 😶‍🌫️

✌️🌻🧡 taken in Hackney Wick by @serenaleechua

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20 days ago

🌒 Never 👏 been 👏 this 👏 far 👏 postpartum 👏 (without being pregnant/postpartum again) and it's 🎆JOYOUS🎆! (Yes I absolutely wanted three kids lol it's just that the "baby years" are a slog, a BEAUTIFUL slog and a total blessing to moan about.)

I'm just starting to get a glimpse of what life with children rather than babies might be like and it's so exciting 🥹 I'm celebrating that in my lil online diary here not with cute pics of them (because I'd only hide their faces anyway) but with pics of myself feeling NOT PREGNANT AND NOT REALLY POSTPARTUM 😌 my belly skin will prob forever be very puckered and wrinkly but I'm so grateful for what it's done 🥰 I tried to be all 💁🏻‍♀️💁🏻‍♀️ here with my high-waisted bikini that my MIL got me for my birthday but ive popped a Sharpei-belly pic in at the end so you can see what it looks like irl when I'm not trying to pose 😅.

The more structured high-waisted bikinis are the best imo for the stretched skin, I felt quite held together by this one, it was putting in a shift 🙇🏻‍♀️

I know it's the end of summer but if you have any fav bikini brands let me know for future, best time to buy on vinted is out of season when people want to get rid of their stuff and will accept offers 🤭👙 (this one is aerie)

✌️🌻🧡 taken in Capannori, Lucca by @serenaleechua

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a month ago

🌘 is this real life 👽 four years on a hackney gymnastics waiting list lol. how long did you have to wait to get your kids into a sports club? are you in london/a city/rural? taken in Hackney Wick by @serenaleechua

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a month ago

🌘 GLUTEN-FREE GALS if you get glutened does it ruin your period?! Please I need to know if this is a thing or whether it's a string of coincidences 😭

I'm not actually sure if enough gluten-free people follow me on here for me to get any intel 😅 can you send this to anyone you know who it might apply to pleaseeee?

This month for me includes:
· Almost debilitating front cramps
· Shooting pains from near shoulders down to uterus kind of area
· Nerve pain everywhere
· Headache
· Fatigue beyond regular tiredness

Italy this summer is the worst I've been glutened (at least three times 😩) and I feel like it's made my period so much worse. But maybe it's a bunch of leftover symptoms and then randomly a bad period too. I usually just get back cramps and like... the previous month was so smooth 😭

Btw I'm very lucky to normally have easy periods and *really* feel for the many many menstruating people out there for whom every cycle is dreaded ❤️‍🩹

Gluten-free love to u all xxx
✌️🌻🧡 taken in Hackney Wick by @serenaleechua

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a month ago

🌗 Pleeeease if you're in your blissful, chaotic motherhood era, chuck your kid(s) out of the photo at least once and try and get some pics that will remind you that you existed not just to serve them 🙈 I haven't read any parenting books so can't say exactly whether we are "attachment style", but what I will say is they are ATTACHED TO ME physically at most times. Pep & I have had one night together away from them since they were born and it was for work 😳.

I've tried a couple of times in Italy this summer to take photos that make me feel like a "woman" instead of just a "mother" (yes I know they're not necessarily separate) but my little-little one kept pushing me from behind buuuut I persevered and almost managed to get him out of shot. Almost. If I crop it a bit.

This is the furthest postpartum I've been without having another baby (no more no more) so I'm trying to figure out the next step of womanhood. Please let me know if you have any advice on how to feel like yourself again once the slings have been sold 💃🏻

✌️🌻🧡
P.S. the song choice is because toddlerhood reminds me of this song 👅🪟 taken in Bologna, Italia by @serenaleechua

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a month ago

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2 months ago

🌕 snaps my 8 year old took in reverse. tried to teach me how the youth make a heart shape with their fingers but that sh** is COMPLICATED do i have to be hypermobile or something??? did i even do it right in the end?!

also turns out halternecks are fairly bfing-friendly which i have just learned 8.5 years in 🙃 when worn over a bikini anyway, i'm yet to find a halter nursing bra, do those exist? 🧐 so many questions.
i'm living on cecina, lentil soup and gf gnocchi and the most pathetic crumbly gf crackers here in lucca in tuscany but the fruit is soooo good. green figs that are jammy and red inside are my favourite.
hope you're having a lovely summer 🌞

p.s. i've woken up every night for a week with the same five lines from this song in my head, please take them away from me xx

🌻✌️🧡 taken in Lucca, Italy by @serenaleechua

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2 months ago

🌗 Four stretches you can do whilst sitting down 🪑 to help with sciatica!

My sciatica flare-up has finally gone 🎉 for now at least...
If you want more intense stretches, see my previous stretches for sciatica video ⚡ (linked)

Let me know if there are other stretches you love for this specific pain. Or if you have other complaints that yoga & stretching might help with, I can share more 🤗

✌️🌻🧡 taken in Hackney Wick by @serenaleechua

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2 months ago

🌔 If you suffer from sciatica, try these stretches with me 😁 needed to relieve my horrible flare-up before going out, but the only space I had was my bed so here we are in my corduroy trousers, four of my fav stretches to help alleviate the pain ⚡

These are the ones I like to do just on the floor/yoga mat, there are others that can be done on a chair 🪑

Let me know if you have any other ways to make sciatica not the bane of your life for a week to a month 🙃 I'm all ears.

✌️🌻🧡 taken in Hackney Wick by @serenaleechua

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3 months ago

🌒 HONEST OPINIONS can you wear the actual same clothes you've kept since you were 12 when you're in your mid-thirties 👀 and is 2005 surf casual back in 2026 I've been in like maternity and postpartum/bfing-friendly clothing for 9 years and I don't even know what to wear anymore helppppp taken in Hackney Wick by @serenaleechua

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3 months ago

🌖 4am Whimsy

I've always been a morning person, son,
But I need
To sleep
First.

Your eyelashes flutter
Your wide eyes barely an eye's width from
My face.

Mama?

Uuuuggghhhh...

I'm going to answer the register in Spanish today!
Hola!!!

One day, son,
You won't climb into my bed at 4am
With your wide eyes
And your 4am whimsy.
I miss you already. taken in Hackney Wick by @serenaleechua

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3 months ago