I’ve just realised it’s a week since I wrote anything.

It’s funny, because blogging in some form or another is what I do for a living, and yet sometimes I forget to actually blog, if that makes sense. I get distracted by other projects, or bits of work, and then I don’t know, I guess I just imagine it sort of ticks along, writing itself. 

Clearly it doesn’t, or I wouldn’t be waffling away here to fill the void.

So, what have I been doing instead with my time? Well, I’ve was in London at the end of last week – I had lunch with Alesha Dixon (fancy!) and then met with the lovely people from eHarmony to talk about the relationship advice blogging I do for them (haha!). Then Belle and I spent the weekend in a yurt, which I will tell you more about in the next week or so, and then this week I’ve been back in London again.

I haven’t met any celebrities for lunch this week, but yesterday I did go for a lovely (and very hot) walk around Notting Hill, looking out for pretty door pictures. Instagram is one of the things I’ve been distracting myself with, so if you’re a fan of a door, do go and have a look.

 

I normally do a central door, but I couldn’t not include this beautiful wisteria.

A photo posted by Josephine Middleton (@slummysinglemummy) on

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I never really went to university.

I mean I went – I have a degree and everything – it’s just that I didn’t go in the sense of moving into halls, staying up all night playing drinking games, sleeping all day and generally dossing about eating pizza. (That’s what students do right?). I lived in a little house with my toddler, Bee, drove in for lectures and went to bed at a sensible time. Drinking games with a two year old are generally frowned upon.

Said toddler is now in her second year at university and has gone in the proper sense. She lives in halls near Waterloo, with a lovely view of the London skyline, and I’m sure eats less fresh fruit than she should. She is doing an amazing job of living on her own in a big city and is working really hard on her course too – I am full of pride and admiration for her. Well done Bee.

Not having had the full student experience myself then, I turned to Bee’s instagram feed for some inspiration to help me come up with some top tips for students. Here’s what I picked up:

Make the most of wherever you are

The temptation I’m sure is to spend as much time as possible asleep or in a Wetherspoon’s but don’t! Any decent university city is going to have a lot to offer culturally and you may very well look back in ten or twenty years time and wish you’d made more of the opportunities on your doorstep.

London skyline View Post

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I have Bee with me again today, taking her new LEGO lunch box and flask out with her during her first week of university. 

There’s no getting around the fact that being a student in London in pricey, however there are some useful habits a student should get into to save money where they can.

Eating out can eat into your budget – buying a meal deal everyday for 3 years will cost you approximately £3,285, which is enough to buy a used car or pay rent in halls for over 24 weeks. Therefore it’s important to take food with you when you’re going out for the day to avoid having to pay £3,000 for lunch.

No one wants to be the chump with the crusty old Tupperware box, so invest in a super cute lunch box to stay awesome while you al fresco.

I took my LEGO lunch box and flask out for the day in London to see if it was the right lunch box for me. View Post

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Last weekend Belle and I had a little weekend away together in London. With work and school, the weeks get very busy and we really enjoy taking time out every now and again to spend some quality time together.

Quality time. How wholesome I sound!

This time our trip was extra lovely, as we had been offered a room in the Cavendish Hotel, just off Piccadilly Circus. I had already been to the Cavendish once for afternoon tea, so was very excited about getting to spend the whole night there.

Belle has a thing whenever we are away somewhere, of wanting to spend as much time as possible in whatever our accommodation is. If we are at a festival for example, she is always nagging me to let her go back to the tent. I don’t know why, she just seems to like being in something. View Post

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That exclamation mark in the title isn’t just me being jazzy, it’s actually part of the name of the attraction. It’s like Ripley’s are saying ‘we are so much fun, even our name is bonkers!’

Ripleys

Belle has been wanting to go to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in London for a while – she loves weird facts – so given that quite a lot of her Easter holiday is going to be spent amusing herself while I sit in a corner of the living room working and telling her to sshhh, I thought a nice day out at the beginning of the break would be a nice treat for her, and win me some much needed ssshing points. View Post

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I have been to London twice this week. No matter how many times I go though it still feels like an adventure.

Growing up in a selection of small towns and villages, cities in themselves have always held a fascination  for me – the huge buildings and shops, the hustle and bustle of so many different types of people, so many Actual Proper Things.

London though remains one of my favourite cities. Even just walking through a tube station or crossing the street there is a powerful sense of being part of something bigger – a strange feeling of being important yet at the same time being very tiny.

And everyone is so stylish! Smart black suits and black thick framed glasses jostle for space on the train alongside those men looking effortlessly stylish in jeans, shirts and tweed jackets – the ones who look like they are too wealthy and influential even to need to wear a suit. The click of heels echoes through the underground and smart ladies’ coats, belted around tiny waists, waft Chanel No. 5 at me on every corner.

In my ill-fitting jeans and waterproof mac I feel like I stand out a mile. (Because I do). I may as well open my map out full size on my lap and pop a sign around my neck. ‘I don’t come from here,’ it would say. ‘I am obviously not cool enough to live in London.’

I don’t care though, I revel in it. I stare (carefully of course on the tube) at all the grown up ladies with their glossy hair and lovely shoes and try to guess where everyone is going and has been.

Simple things please us country folk.

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So, this week is half term, joy oh joy. Seriously, what is it with all the school holidays?? Just when you’ve settled back into work – BAM! – there’s another one.

Anyway, this week, to make up for the fact that I’m spending most of my time working, (by which I mean hiding), in my attic office, on Tuesday I took Belle and a friend from school to London. We began our day with a tour of the CBBC studios, where they got to do all kinds of exciting things like pretend to be Newsround presenters, and sit in chairs that Take That had once sat in.

Although Belle spent the whole tour with an autograph book clutched in her sweaty paw, we didn’t see anyone famous. No Chuckle Brother photo opportunities for us. Outside the studios though, while we were deciding which tube to take, we had better luck.

“Look!” Belle’s friend whispered excitedly, nudging me and jiggling about on the spot as a vaguely familiar looking man strode purposefully past us, “it’s HIM!”

“Who, who!!” Belle joined in frantically.

“Well don’t just stand there then,” I instructed, always one to play it cool, “run after him!” View Post

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Ever caught the eye of a handsome stranger across a pile of 3-for-2s in your local bookshop and wished you could strike up a conversation? Or maybe you’ve got chatting to someone in a supermarket and it’s led to happily ever after? If Hollywood blockbusters and American TV shows are to be believed, single thirty-somethings are forever meeting potential partners in the dairy aisle and securing dates in art galleries. But does this kind of chance encounter ever happen in real life?

Social anthropologist and relationship expert Jean Smith is living proof that it does. Jean has travelled the world studying human behaviour, looking in particular at how humans flirt. Jean herself has met partners simply by striking up conversations in cafes and at bus stops, and for the last seven years has been passing on her skills and experiences through her own interactive flirting seminars and tours.

In your twenties it was easy to get chatting to people in bars and clubs, but once you get to a certain age, and would rather have a nice sit down somewhere quiet, trawling bars losses its appeal. This can leave single women wondering just how to meet like minded men. So, in the name of ‘journalism’, (honest), I recently decided to test out one of Jean’s ‘flirting tours of London’, hoping to pass on some top tips to single women everywhere.

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