I have been all about the competitions over the last month.

It seems there is something about Christmas that makes everybody just want to chuck presents at each other. (Not literally obviously. That wouldn’t be very festive. Although I did recently get a netball as a present – that would probably be OK to chuck if it was to someone looking in your direction.) My Win Christmas competition finally drew to a close on Saturday night and those gifts are now all wrapped and in my living room, waiting for me to post them off to the lucky winners.

It’s enough to make you want to refill your sherry glass and crack open another chocolate orange.

In this spirit of giving then, My Family Club are holding an advent giveaway. Every single day in the run up to Christmas you can click on the advent calendar to open up another competition. View Post

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Of my my very favourite bits about Christmas – obviously – is the food and drink. Not only do I generally like eating and drinking, but I also like giving and receiving foodie things as gifts. At least when you give someone a box of chocolates you know that they are going to eat them and not just leave them for ten years getting dusty in the bathroom cabinet. (Unless you give them to my sister, in which case you know that you will have to eat them for her six months later when they are approaching their sell by date. Win win.)

I’ve been trying out some festive treats over the last few weeks, selfless woman that I am, to bring you a few food and drink Christmas gifts that I think anyone would be pleased to be given. View Post

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This week I took part in a live cookery Google hangout with Great British Chefs and Tesco Real Food.

 

I have done a couple of these now and they are always great fun. You basically get to cook along with a chef – in this case Galton Blackiston – and ask them questions about anything to do with the recipe as you go. We were trying out one of their Christmas recipes – Christmas pudding ice cream.

If you are anything like my family then you buy a Christmas pudding because you think you should, have one portion out of it, and then get left wondering what to do with the rest. This recipe is a great way to use up those leftovers, but can work just as well with Christmas cake or dried fruit. It’s much easier to make than you think and you don’t even need an ice cream maker. View Post

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Belle’s new secondary school has a fancy online payments system. Rather than take dinner money, every child has a card that you can top up from home in chunks. They also use the system to take payments for school trips to save the kids carrying round and then losing crumpled up cheques.

It’s a good idea, but having all your payments in one place does have its disadvantages, namely that you can actually see what you are having to pay for, rather than just writing a cheque early in the morning when you are being hassled on the doorstep and then instantly forgetting about it.

I logged on this week and this is what I saw: View Post

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This is a guest post.

So, the first term of the year is nearly out, and it’s about this time that the routine and all your good habits go out the window. Thrown off by the shorter days and the threat of snow, the uniforms are unpressed and everything has become just that little more stressful. As the longest term of the year you’ll probably be contending with kids who are swinging between sheer exhaustion, and massive over excitement about the impending festivities. To put it frankly you’re all likely to be a bit frazzled. It’s okay! Just get through the last few weeks of term and then you have two weeks off to do a life reset and start over in the New Year. View Post

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We have a lot of plants in our house. Plants in every room, even the bathroom. This is because whenever my spider plants grow little shoots, I cut them off and re-pot them. Then these ‘spider babies’, as we (I) affectionately refer to them, have babies, and so on. Just like rabbits, but with spider plants.

spider plants

They are filling up the house fast. I sent Belle out recently to try and sell the excess spider babies, as one of her favourite things to do is try and sell things she has made, usually biscuits, to the neighbours. The spider babies were a nice new challenge for her and she actually managed to sell most of them. I even asked Bee to take some to university and put them in all her flatmates’ rooms as a welcome gift. She didn’t seem very enthusiastic, even when I suggested she could pretend the university had actually put them there. View Post

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Boyfriend has been doing his best since the tap incident to send me links to things that will make me cross.

He sent me a link to an article in the Guardian this week that almost succeeded, but in the end just made me want to give the writer a big hug, adorn him with fairy lights, and gives his cheeks a squeeze. I fancy this would infuriate him much more.

The post was all about the ‘cutesification of everything‘ and claimed that anyone who dared to count the number of sleeps until Christmas* deserved basically to be strung up like a turkey and be forced to read the back of Innocent smoothie packs – “essentially an In the Night Garden script about fruit [that] will cause me to involuntarily clench my fist so hard that I’ll cover myself in apple pulp.”

innocent hats

Good grief.

What is wrong with this man?

Sure, the world of marketing can get a bit sappy sometimes, but has he not had a look around at the state of this planet? People are literally dying left, right and centre. The rainforests are being demolished, seas and rivers are poisoned, we have weapons trained on each other, our fingers hovering over the big red buttons. We are screwed.  View Post

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It’s a very good question, and one I feel sure my mum would have known the answer to when I was little.

When Belle asks me questions like this, I tend to try to look thoughtful and say things like ‘Hmm… good question, you should definitely look that up’, as though I actually do know, but just want her to gain the research skills. In reality, my thought process is going something like this: View Post

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I have been away this weekend, staying with some friends in Scotland. Before we left I told Belle that if she saw me using my phone, that she was allowed to tell me off. For the whole weekend I restrained myself from checking my emails and tweeting, except for a couple of occasions late at night or in a toilet, which I’m sure is absolutely fine and not at all a sign of a problem.

This was me making an effort at being a Good Mummy.

It would take a little more though I fear than restricting my Twitter usage to public toilets to get me on the Tesco Mum of the Year Awards shortlist, packed as it it full of women who are actually amazing parents.  View Post

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“What on earth is that noise?” asked Boyfriend at about 9pm one evening. A gentle buzzing, that sounded a bit like a dentist drill, was coming from the ceiling.

“Oh that’s just Belle in bed, playing with her automatic pencil sharpener,” I told him.

“Oh right,” he said, and went back to reading.

We’d been given a voucher to spend in Ryman, courtesy of the Ryman blog team, and Belle had fulfilled a lifelong wish that day and become the owner of an automatic pencil sharpener. That’s not to say that the trip went completely smoothly…

We were in the car on the way there, chatting about what we might get. Belle and I are both big fans of stationery and had been looking forward to the outing all week.

“Money wise then,” said Belle, matter-of-factly, “I was thinking 50-50?” View Post

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I’m really spoiling you with competitions this month aren’t I? It’s because it’s nearly Christmas and I love giving presents. Ask American Express – they’ll have a look at my statements and tell you it’s true.

People get in touch with me, they want to give you something lovely, I can hardly say no can I? Where are the good tidings to all men in that?

If you’re a coffee drinker and you love Christmas as much as me then you are going to love this Christmas coffee hamper from Beanies, The Flavour Co. It includes winter warmer, Christmas pudding and mulled spice flavoured coffees, a couple of mugs, some chocolates thins and some biccies to dunk, should you feel so inclined. It’s basically everything you need (minus the blanket) for a cosy Christmas night in. View Post

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I ran for 20 minutes.

I didn’t stop, or even walk for a bit when no one was looking. I went slowly, but I ran the whole way. This might not seem like a massive thing to some people, but this is by far the furthest I have ever run non-stop in my whole life. Ever. (I have never been what you’d call ‘sporty’).

Here I am just after I finished. See how pleased I am? So buzzing with enthusiasm am I now that I am even adding ‘run a 5k’ to my list of 40 things to do before I’m 40. (If I commit it to virtual paper then I can’t back out.) View Post

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