Are you ready for your child to start school? If someone had asked me that before my eldest started reception last year I would have responded in the affirmative. Of course I was ready, I had been ready for ages. In my defence she is a September born child who was looking somewhat out of place at toddler groups (she was mistaken for a helper a couple of times). I was dying for her to have consistent Monday to Friday structure (free childcare). And if I’m completely honest, to have the onus of teaching her every single thing about every aspect of life taken off me a bit. It’s a lo ..read more

    So, as you may know from my Instagram page we recently attended Neverworld festival in Hever, Kent. Full disclosure: I asked for tickets for this event, filled out a PR form and was gifted 2 adult and 3 child tickets to attend. We paid for Fiona, our caravan, to come along for the literal ride (£70 for a large live-in vehicle) and we also splashed out an extra 70 quid for electricity for her. Our thinking was that if we have a working fridge then we can take along all the little necessities (milk, bread, beer) that make ‘camping’ with kids a little easier. Plus food at festivals ..read more

    Have you considered the future of giving birth? No silly, I’m not talking about anything sensible like advances in medicine or the ability in the future to give birth through a much bigger orifice (for me personally I’d have to nominate my mouth). I mean live tweeting, webcams and #crowning. Emojis of pregnant bellies and women contracting. Actually come to think of it they may have already nailed that – I think I looked a lorra lot like this . This totally normal train of thought came about when I was discussing the irrelevance of some emojis in depth with my husband. Once you ..read more

    One of my most popular* posts to date was about what NOT to bother doing with your kids at Christmas which just goes to show that sometimes us parents need to be cut some slack – a little time to shrug off some of that permanent upper backache and be given permission to sink back onto the sofa and relax. So voila! Here we are – permission granted, I give to you a comprehensive list of what to not bother doing with your kids. You’re welcome. (*Most popular = survey of 2 people. Married to one. Am the other.) Do NOT do any activity which takes longer than 10 minutes to set up ..read more

Routine. What did it mean to you before you had kids? I was all like ‘yeah I got a routine’ y’know. I go to work, I get paid. I normally go to bed. I always clean my teeth but sometimes if it’s too late or I’m too tipsy I skip washing my face (oh shuddup, you do too). Sometimes I eat breakfast but if I’m not hungry I just grab something mid morning and then have a late lunch. Yeah. Routine’. And then you have kids. And someone is offering to look after them for you because you need to pop to the shops and the hairdresser this afternoon. Brilliant! Perfect! and the person who is looking after t ..read more

  I have a new policy – let’s call it the ‘never say no to help’ policy. Aptly named because these days – I NEVER say no to help. I’m not proud, I can use all the help I can get. But I haven’t always been that way. After I had my first child I was making visitors cups of tea in between polite conversation and trying not to rip my stitches. More fool me. Nowadays if you offer to look after my children then expect me to whip out my diary and hold you to it. What’s that you say friendly supermarket cashier? Do I need help with my packing? I most certainly do, and if you could hold this toddl ..read more

The Cliffhanger They are the digital equivalent of a frustrating ending to a book. Good news or bad news they provide you with no news. Status’ including things such as ‘can’t quite believe it…’, ‘so sad…’ or ‘the BEST news…’. They use the dot dot dot to gain intrigue. You don’t know them well enough to ask for more information but you check back sporadically to see if ‘the cliff hanger carer’ (below) has contacted them yet. The Cliffhanger Carer This person either puts on a bloody good job of pretending that they care about the good/bad news The Cliffhanger is teasing them with or they are in ..read more

  Let me preempt the punchline of this piece by telling you that there are 4 people in this house who are addicted to dummies and only 2 of our 3 children would take one. Can’t work it out? I’ll give you a second. Got it? That’s right – my husband and I have been equally addicted to dummy usage as the two of our children who use(d) them. This piece is timely because after our youngest having a dummy free period of time, during which I actually dished out advice to other people with children who were giving up dummy usage (I know, I dislike me intensely too) we have had a relapse of monume ..read more

  What have you got against January? I’m not one to rant (ahem) but as a true Brit there is nothing I love more than an underdog, and an unpopular one at that. Who keeps the crap acts in X factor out of sympathy? Me. Who backs the horse with the worst odds because they feel sorry for it? Me. And who’s starting a campaign to love January? I think you can see where i’m going with this. So as January’s ally I feel like we should clear some things up… Yes Christmas is over. It’s over every year. Get. Over. It. How amazing was it really? I know what you’re going to say.. 1. It was so nice to s ..read more

  Fiona was in a really good way when we got her – she was clean, very well looked after and not at all shabby on the inside. In fact after we got her I was half considering leaving her as she was, but I wanted to put my stamp on her and inject a bit of personality (plus the fabric that they use in caravans -what is that all about? Even looking for new ones is confusing as they all look old…) So the most important thing for us to think about was how to tackle the cushion covers. Here were my options and problems: Option 1: Make new ones. How hard can it be? Well actually incredibly bloody ..read more