Mummy at the School Gate

OK, so I haven't been around for a bit....sorry!   I've been uber busy organising life, and my little corner of me has suffered.  I've been lax and lazy. How I've missed my space! When stuff gets tough I tend to batten down the hatches and do a disappearing act.  I'm constantly berated for my lack of visibility (by my family), but it's the way I do it. I'm lucky, though. I don't suffer from depression. I don't suffer from that overwhelming sense of despair, and I don't have the feeling  of continual impending doom.  I suffer from anger.I suffer from irritation. And I suffer from compassion fatigue...and for a short time every month I become irrational. I cry. I'm angry and I blame the world, BH and the kids. A simple question or request becomes the most arduous of tasks.  I moan and groan about it and everyone wonders...for a short time...whether I'm completely bonkers. In short, I suffer from PMS or PMT or what ever the fcuk it'

Mummy porn or Fifty Shades of Shite?  It's never going to win the Pulitzer Prize (nor am I!), nor is a great work of literary fiction but it's the fastest selling book...ever!  Beyond Harry Potter and the DaVinci code this book has got our nation of women chattering, reading and debating. Fifty Shades of Grey has taken the nation by storm. Hmmmm...are we repressed or do we just like crap books?  To be honest I can't understand what the fuss is all about.  I know I'm going to get a slating here but after reading the first few chapters I've put it down and can't be bothered to pick it up again. Sam Brick ("godI'msobeautifuleveryonehatesme") is at it again but this time I kind of agree with her.   "Giving it this name of mummy porn, using this kind of safe, middle-class word, makes women think it's okay to read it." Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2167800/Samantha-Brick-slams-Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey-This-Morning

I've been looking through magazines for guidance on what to wear this summer.  It's all brights and colours, which is a bit annoying as I only do black (or grey at a push!). It seems like the 90's  80's and the 50's are back!! What?  Do we take our pick? Can we mix and match?  Some of the advice was to use what you already have with one stating we should "wear your cardigan backwards, or wear your coat as a cape!  A good idea, I thought but when I tried it this morning on my jaunt with the dogs, the Caped Coat not only made me look like Superman, it also made me look as if I had no arms, it slipped off my shoulders and fell in the mud!  Just how practical is this advice, when you're hacking through the undergrowth with two bounding mutts or  with a trolley full of Cheerio's , toilet rolls and three rugruts screaming for sweets? One useful tip was to "Revamp Old Faves".  I could certainly pull out my mothers old stuff, but I'm not sure he

Image: Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net I do a fair amount of flying, and  having travelled over the holidays and watched parents struggle with their children in confined spaces think it's about time I offered some of my expertise and experience. It's worse than hard for many....it's a nightmare!!  On many of the flights I do, parents cope admirably, but here are a few tips I can offer that would make your journey all the sweeter and help you enjoy your journey. Travel light.   It's all very well being laden like a pack horse, but do your self a favour...travel light! Take a light weight pushchair. The cheap telescopic ones can be pushed right up to the aircraft door. The larger your pram the less likely it will be loaded into the cabin. If your child is awake on disembarking, you can use the pushchair as a luggage cart, and if they're asleep...well, you have your pushchair. Bulkhead Seats. Very often when you're travelling with an infant, under 2 years you

Right, you lot, I'm on a roll here!  Here's another couple to try. Most of the cleansers on the market these days are made mainly from water.  The other stuff printed on the label I have no idea about, but it all looks pretty dodgy to me!  I have a drawer full of cleansers but rarely use them as sometimes, something in them makes me break out in all kinds of skin allergies. I've started using my own recipes now, and for the most part they're easy to make and I soak them in cotton wool and leave them in the fridge. Lovely and cool to use when you need them.  They seem to make a difference and clean off most of the make up, although I'm going to have to try and find one that removes the dreaded mascara.  If you're a vegan or have an allergy to dairy, you could use almond milk, or any of the non-diary products you normally use in your tea! Homemade Cleansers Herbal Cleansing Milk 2 tablespoons of elder flowers 1/4 pint buttermilk Slowly

When I was a kid I would be found either plucking all the petals from my Ma's prized roses or breaking off huge swathes of blossom from the most fragrant bushes I could find and mixing them with pond water in an attempt to preserve and bottle their scent. I would crush the dandelions and buttercups into pastes and mix them with flour and pummel the fallen apples from the trees to make apple juice.  As I grew older my Nan would share her tips with me, and as she was from an era of austerity, her "make do" regime stood her in good stead.  Even in her eighties her skin was creamy, with very few lines and she swore by her natural remedies. Sorting through my old notebooks and papers from days gone by I found some old skincare recipes that I had collected. The plan was to collate them into some kind of book.  Well, they've been sitting there for donkeys and I still haven't shared them and I think it's time that they saw the light of day. Most of the thing you

Hmmm... These boxes held two beautiful handmade Easter eggs....the boxes look empty....take a closer look...the bleedin' chocolate melted!

That Samantha Brick is a girl, isn't she?  I don't mean girl as in "girl" (but you know that, don't you?) but as in a girl who likes to stir up controversy. She's got the whole of the nation gabbing about her bit in the Daily Wail;  her follow up piece clearly written in haste (not!) and I wonder why the nation can't see that this has probably been one great, big PR stunt?  The Daily Wail had warned of the backlash (mentioned on This Morning), yet it wasn't tempered to suit the readership but to ensure that a campaign followed that would ensure her theory was proven correct and her profile elevated. And....reading between the lines I know it was more to provoke a reaction...the girl ain't that stupid....surely? In another of her pieces she's spoken of her agony of acne and how it's blighted her life and lost her a chance at success, so it strikes me as a bit odd that her current popularity (or unpopularity) is concerned with why women d

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I really don't think I could even compete in the tidy stakes, but what I do love is a gadget.  I'm not sure how to use them all, but I'm certain most of the time that they come in pretty handy for something, sometime..if I could find them.  I'll jump on the bandwagon the moment I see a new toy.  I'll play with it for a while; create some masterpiece then lose it somewhere in the depths of the homestead. At the moment my lifesaver has got to be the vacuum cleaner... and an air freshener!   Vacuum up the dog hair, the bits of food, and the Lego blocks lying around...squirt the air freshener..then hey presto...smells as clean as a whistle....shame about the clothes lying all over the floor!  Those, I just kick aside or hoover around them! I've heard that having a de-clutter is the way to go! De-clutter?  I need every last gadget I have! So, my tips for a clean and sparkling homestead: Don't wash the windows on a sunny day. Iron when you're angry...I