Mummy at the School Gate

"Cup of tea?" "Yeah" "Get a move on" "Later" "Taking the dogs out!" "Stay" "Peewee! No!" "Tired" "Later "I said later!" "OK" "What did you have for lunch?" "Good day at the office?" "Oh?" "I said later!" "Bed!  Now!" "Not tonight...I've got a headache!"

I once tried not to buy anything new for a whole year...I lasted 5 days! So much for my year of austerity.  I caved in because I saw an eyeshadow that I knew would change my life. I love recycling, it gives me a sense of doing something worthy.  We've always brought second hand furniture (BH says Antiques), but the effect is the one we're always after.  A great afternoon for me is a wander around the Junk (antique) shops, in the hope of a great find. It's not for me, the expedition to Ikea, although I do like their napkins....and the meatballs with gravy and cranberry sauce!  BH gets palpitations in Ikea, and pulls at the neck of his shirt.  I can tell he's getting a bit angsty, so I divert him with a plate of herrings and smoked salmon. Years ago, I was a regular car boot attendee.  I'd take a fiver, and give Bart £1, and off we'd go on a Sunday morning (before rugby took over our lives), I'd find great books, great dresses, and great crap...I once boug

I watched something quite awful unfold on Twitter last week, and I began to wonder whether we are being a little bit too open about our personal lives?  I have nothing to hide about my personal life (except my identity!), and  my personal details are there for all to see. There are "crazies" out there, that we can be sure of, but I never expected to see such vitriolic abuse targeted at one individual. To cut a long story short, an individual, for reasons of their own decided to target a particular lady who had been campaigning and raising awareness for different charitable groups.  This lady had been open and honest and had suffered her own personal tragedy, but for some reason " the crazy" had decided that she was a charlatan.  Over a period of a week her "friends" had become the subject of a barrage mad tweets and saw the lady being reduced to a  quivering wreck and trying to explain to friends what had happened in a very moving audio boo .  Subsequent

We're not a morning family.  Our ride to school is generally quiet.  We don't talk.  Bart commandeers the radio as we make our 30 minute journey to the beat of drum and bass.  There's no arguing or fighting.  It really is quite peaceful apart from the thud of the radio. We pass two lollipop people on the way.  One elderly man and one elderly woman.  The lollipop man always waves as we pass and the kids wave enthusiastically back.  For some reason we call him Bob.  He's wiry and small and his bike is always propped up against the lamppost. A further 10 minutes into the ride is the other lollipop person. The lollipop lady never waves back. She never smiles. She too, rests her bike against the lamppost. We call her Miserable Madge.  The kids think that she maybe blind as she never sees them waving.  I've tried to tell them that it would be impossible to have a blind lollipop lady, but they're not having any of it.  We've been doing the same journey for the pa