I like gin as much as the next self-employed mother of two. It’s ace. Some ice, a good splash of decent tonic water. Boom. Job done. Some gins might taste a little nicer than others; personally I find it hard to tell the difference unless it’s Asda basics or something like that. Gin is gin. 

I was having a browse through a Christmas gift guide in a newspaper at the weekend though, and saw at advert for Silent Pool gin. I’ve never had it before and I’m sure it’s very delicious, so apologies to Silent Pool as this is nothing personal.

BUT.

There was something on the bottle that really wound me up. This gin is not just any old gin you see, this gin is ‘intricately realised’ and distilled from grain ‘precisely crafted’ in England.

Ooooh!

silent pool gin

Jesus Christ.

Intricately realised?? What does that mean? It was complicated to make?! You took a bit of care over your ingredients? Good! I didn’t expect gin would be easy to knock together, or we’d all be making our own wouldn’t we?!

It seems there is a trend that has developed over the last year or two for all of the best things to be hand crafted, by authentic, artisan makers, who live just to make the very best whatever it is that they can possibly make. At the weekends they retreat to the woods to carve spoons and nibble their hand crafted, organic quinoa biscuits because they are just so bloody precious they can’t just eat a Jaffa cake and watch TV like a normal person. View Post

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Today my blog is five years old. Can you even believe it? In internet years that makes it about 27.

Five years ago today* I was living in Bridgwater, a single mummy to a 14 and a 7 year old, having recently quit a full-time job I hated to work for myself. It was pretty scary but I had a desk I had bought on ebay for ten pounds and a nice little office space at home, so as far as I was concerned I was good to go. Who needs relevant experience or qualifications when you have a nice white desk and a wall full of inspirational postcards?

A lot has happened in the last five years including three house moves, one child leaving home, becoming gay and changing her mind again, various men putting in appearances, including one with an unsightly mole, a trip to Ethiopia, attempts at skiing, a milkshake in a diner in Arkansas, over 35,000 tweets and very nearly 1,000 blog posts. This one is number 979 I think.

That’s a lot of words.

I really can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for you continuing to read; sometimes I feel I’ve been suitably witty and entertaining, sometimes I’m a bit melancholy and often times just a bit boring. That’s a probably a pretty fair reflection of life as a working single parent though.

As a thank you for hanging on in there I thought I’d hold a little giveaway and what better prize than something that has remained a constant in my life during these five years of change – gin and chocolate.

Hoorah!

*refills ice tray expectantly*

The chocolate for your prize has been kindly donated by Mackie’s and the gin comes to you courtesy of ME as I couldn’t get any gin brands on Twitter to give me any freebies in the two days between deciding to do a birthday competition and hitting publish. I actually went to Tesco and bought a bottle with my own money, that’s how grateful I am to you for you reading.**

And there you were thinking I never paid for anything.

gin competition

Mackie's chocolate(If you win you definitely need to fan out the bars like this and crumble a bit of chocolate next to them seductively.)

To enter just have a fiddle with the Rafflecopter widget below before Big Ben chimes midnight at the end of 2014.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*My first ever blog post includes an interesting comment from ‘Boz’.

**Definitely don’t think of this as a bribe. It’s just an innocent thank you…

 

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FIVE MORE SLEEPS!!

Can you believe it? Only five more sleeps until Father Christmas comes!

It is very exciting.

I get so excited about Christmas, that I’ve actually bought most of my presents by the beginning of December, but just in case you’re not quite as thrilled by the prospect of Christmas shopping as me, (I’m looking mainly at the men in the audience here), I’ve got some ideas for things that your wife/girlfriend will definitely want for Christmas.

Gin
I wouldn’t be Slummy single mummy if I didn’t suggest a nice bottle of gin would I? Go for something really glam looking and make sure you wrap it up nicely – no copping out with a wine bag or anything. Girls love a bit of fancy wrapping. This pink gin from Harvey Nichols is rather beautiful:

"pink gin"

“Eccentric, irreverent and innovative” apparently. The gin’s not bad either.

Underwear
Every woman likes to made to feel special at Christmas, so you can’t go wrong with some lovely underwear. Think sexy and glam without the porn star edge. A wonderbra from figleaves.com would be perfect. Hello boys…

Chocolate
It feels unoriginal, but what girl doesn’t love chocolate? Seriously, there isn’t anyone. Pink gin, a great cleavage, a box of liqueur chocolates – surely that’s anyone’s recipe for a very merry Christmas?

"Liqueur chocolates"

I have actually bought myself a box of these very chocolates and given them to Belle to wrap up for me. That’s totally fine isn’t it?

An iron
You just can’t go wrong with a decent iron. A good steam function, an easy grip handle, an iron is surely what every woman wants for Christmas?

WRONG.

Never, I repeat never, buy your wife or girlfriend an iron as a gift. Unless you want it in your face. The same applies to aprons, oven cleaner, hoovers and pegs. Just no.

So ladies, what would your dream Christmas gift be?

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It hardly seems like any time at all since I was ‘looking forward’ to six weeks of summer holidays, yet here we are, with only a few days until they are back to school and I can return to messing about on the internet in peace. I mean working of course.

I’ve never been terribly organised when it comes to getting ready to go back to school, so was actually pretty impressed to find myself in Clarks on Monday, a good week and a half before term begins. Despite my valiant attempts at beating the crowds, it was still packed with excitable children and panic-stricken parents, and the dreaded ticket system was in operation. They were on 83 when we arrived and we were number 92. It didn’t take too long though, and when they called out ‘number 92!’ I resisted the urge to ask for 4oz of olives and half a dozen slices of crumbed ham, so all was well.

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