Today I’ve been working at a real office.

It is pretty fun. There are real people, I get a security pass, and there’s a coffee machine and everything. Today I got quite excited about having a macchiato, which made me feel a bit like Bryn in Gavin and Stacey experimenting with the wonders of mint Baileys and the World Wide Web.

I am very much a ‘grass is always greener’ person, so when I’m working a nine to five office job I long to be at home in my pyjamas, but when I get there, I’m looking for an excuse to get dressed and go to work.

Fickle some might call it.

I like to think of it more as a Hunger For New Challenges.

It got me thinking though about the way I work at home, and the extra pressures that come with being self-employed. Some I think are self-inflicted, but others must apply to thousands of people managing their own time. Here are some of the things I miss about being self-employed:

Holidays – this is the obvious one. When you work for someone else, you get time off, where they pay you to lie-in the sunshine. I know that effectively it just means they spread your wages out a bit, so you earn less on a daily basis, but it feels so much nicer doesn’t it? When you’re self-employed, all time spent not working is potential income lost. Even if you budget for holidays, it makes it harder to switch off.

Sickies – now obviously I have never taken a sneaky day off in my whole life, honest, but I imagine that if you did, it would feel very exciting, and give day time television a whole new appeal. Taking a day off when you work for yourself is really no fun at all. You don’t get paid, and it just means you have to do more the next day.

Coffee breaks – I’m sure there aren’t many offices nowadays where people take actual coffee breaks, but there is something really relaxing about being able to go off and make a drink, knowing you’re getting paid for it. Same with going to the toilet – you can have a wee and earn a pound. Bargain. I also like the forced lunch break, as I’m rubbish when I’m working at home at taking proper regular lunch breaks, and I rarely go out for any fresh air.

Other people – funnily enough, there are dozens of other people hanging around in my study at home for a chat and a bit of office banter, and if there were, I’d wonder where they all came from, and probably have to call the police. I love having the voices going on in the background, and it’s much more satisfying than just having the radio on, as people will talk back to you.

Regular income – I thought I might enjoy the excitement of not being sure exactly how much money I’d take home every month, but it turns out that it’s actually quite scary. Who’d have thought it?

(Are you beginning to get the impression that I didn’t really think this self-employment think through?)

(I didn’t.)

All in all though, I can’t complain. Yes you sacrifice paid holidays, sick leave, social contact and job security, but you do get to go to work in your pyjamas. And that’s pretty cool.

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When you think of me, as I’m sure you often do, idling away those quiet moments at work or at home, I’m sure that one of the things you think of first is hoovering.

No?

OK, so maybe it’s not the first thing you thing of, but I did once write that post about housework you know. I think I suggested throwing crumbs behind the sofa.

Despite my domestic sluttery however, I was recently chosen to be one of 25 ‘Morphy Richards Innovators’, meaning that over the course of the year, Morphy Richards are going to send me some stuff, and I will tell them what I think. I’m guessing they are looking for more constructive criticism than ‘housework is pointless, you do it once and then you just have to do it all again later.’

The first thing they’ve sent me is this, the Lift Away Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner.

Here it is, for you to cast your expert vacuum cleaner eye over:

"Morphy Richards Lift Away"

Pretty snazzy isn’t it?

Morphy Richards say “The new Lift Away Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner features Never Loses Suction* technology with constant pick up performance.”

Sounds a bit like a Lynx advert doesn’t it? A lot of men would love to enhance their pick up performance. I reckon there’s something in it. A man does become a lot more attractive if they do the hoovering regularly. Especially if it’s all by themselves, without you having to say ‘darling, would you mind running the hoover round?’

I’m not sure though that men really appreciate just how much housework can increase their chances with women. My first bit of feedback for Morphy Richards would be this – reassess your target audience. Come up with an ad that shows a normal looking man pushing a vacuum cleaner around, followed by swarms of beautiful women. A bit like the Pied Piper. There are all kinds of puns you work around the concept of ‘suction power’.

What was I talking about?

Oh yes, vacuum cleaners.

Well, I can say, from experience now, that the Morphy Richards Lift Away does pick things up, which is a jolly good start. We’ve got a lot of floorboards, and I liked that it’s so simple to switch the set up from carpets to hard floors. It was perhaps a little more effective on the carpets, but then they’re the important bit to keep clean anyway aren’t they? Slightly dusty floorboards are fine. That’s just shabby chic.

I found the pivoting floorhead really easy to use, and also loved the ‘Lift Away Detachable Canister’, which means, as you may have guessed, that you can detach the canister as you clean, giving you more flexibility.

"Morphy Richards vacuum cleaner"

PIVOT! PIVOT!!

This was really handy on the stairs, especially as I’m a little on the clumsy side, and have a habit of bashing things against the walls (accidentally) if they’re too heavy or unwieldy.

Another great selling point? It’s purple! Funky.

I wouldn’t say it made housework fun exactly, but it certainly made it easy. We’ll just have to wait and see about the never-ending suction.

*cue those bikini clad babes*

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Today for my lunch I had goat curry. To be honest, I’m regretting the choice a little bit now, as the smell seems to be stuck to my skin, oozing out of me and making me smell like a Jamaican food stand, but it’s a small price to pay of the thrill of adventure. Life is all about new experiences right?

Yes I know, I’m getting a bit carried away with myself, it was only a goat curry after all, but there you go, I do what I can.

There are quite a few things I’ve had for a while now on my mental list of ‘things to do before I die, even I don’t really want to.’ They’re not terribly exciting things, but they’re things I just feel I should really have done by now. ‘Eat a goat curry’ wasn’t actually on the list, but I may add it now, just so I can cross it off. It’s always satisfying to cross something off a list.

Belle has her own list, one of the items being ‘have a car crash’. This seems an odd ambition to me, but she was very excited indeed when I crashed our car into a garage forecourt last year. “I did think it might be the last thing I got to do, and that I might die afterwards,” she told me, “so it was nice to get it crossed off.”

At the moment, for the next ten minutes at least, this list has been just in my head, but I’m hoping that by committing some of it to paper, or to cyberspace at least, that it might prod me into actually doing some of them. Perhaps I could aim to do one and month and report back? Or maybe you have some suggestions for things I could add – things you’d like to read about me doing. (No blindfolded rabid dog taming or anything please…)

Number one, in no particular order, is to go the opera. I’m putting this one off as I’m pretty sure I’ll hate it. A couple of years ago I went to watch some ballet, (something else from the list), and left half way through. Yawn! It’s such a grown up thing to be able to say you enjoy though isn’t it? This is the kind of conversation I imagine having:

Smart lady in pearls: “Any plans for the weekend Josephine?”

Me, casually dressed in a linen suit and delicate diamond necklace: “Well, I’m meeting my wine merchant tomorrow, and then I’m off to the opera in the evening with Humphrey!”

Smart lady in pearls: “Divine!”

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, number two on my list is to go to a football match. I’m talking a proper match, with real teams and real costumes, not a Sunday league effort, played on a school playing field, where the hungover players share a fag at half time. I’m fairly certain I’ll hate this too, but it would be good to be able to criticise football fans from personal experience. It would feel more valid somehow.

Number three is a trip to a casino. I’ve no idea why I’ve not done this already, as I’m a massive James Bond fan, have an online William Hill account and I’ve been to the races and the dogs already. I think possibly it’s a fear of ‘accidentally’ gambling away my children, as I do have a bit of addictive streak. I can quite picture myself, wide-eyed, martini in one hand, a pair of dice in the other, refusing to leave the table until I’ve won back the car.

Perhaps I’ll save up for this one.

Number four is to go on holiday, abroad, on my own. Not in a ‘singles coach tour of the potteries of rural France’ type way, just a weekend somewhere would be fine. This one comes from having accidentally* become a parent while I was still technically a child, henceforth rather limited my potential for exotic, independent foreign travel. Last year I got as far as going on a plane without a teacher present, and I’ve since been abroad on work, but I’ve yet to leave the country on my own purely for fun.

Number five is to run the marathon. Hahaha! Not really. Goodness me, I think I’d die.

What would be on your list?

*yes I know, it wasn’t really an accident, I take full responsibility etc etc

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On this very day, exactly one year ago, we moved to Bristol.

It was an interesting day. Boyfriend was working in another city for the weekend, and Bee had a Very Important Party that she simply couldn’t miss, so the moving crew consisted of just me, Belle, and two removal men that Belle and I not-very-affectionately referred to as The Chuckle Brothers.

As a seasoned housemover, I was well prepared when they showed up at our door at 9am on moving day. Everything was packed, rooms were cleaned, we were good to go. What I was not prepared for however was just how many breaks The Chuckle Brothers felt it reasonable to take during the day.

They were about ten minutes in, and had loaded up the cushions from the sofa, when I thought I’d better offer them a cup of tea. This, it turns out, was to be a big mistake. I thought they’d take their tea, and have quick slurps between items, but no. Cushions loaded, although not the sofa itself, they clearer felt they deserved a break already, and took their teas, rolled cigarettes, and spent the next fifteen minutes sat on the floor of the van having a nice little chat.

Goodness, I thought, I shan’t be offering them any more tea! (This is my idea of cracking the whip).

Half an hour later though, and I wasn’t left with much choice in the matter.

“Would you mind sticking the kettle on?” Barry, (or it could have been Paul), asked.

A stronger person might have said no, get on with your work, but I’m not terribly good at being assertive face-to-face, so instead I sighed and got out the teabags. They did have all of my stuff literally in their hands – I didn’t want them getting annoyed and ‘accidentally’ dropping things or scrapping any more paint of the walls than was strictly necessary.

The pattern continued throughout the day, and it was several hours before we were ready to leave, and then another three of four hours of intermittent unloading and resting at the other end.

And then they were gone, thanks God, and Belle and I were left in our new house.

It was exciting, but scary.

I had been planning the move for so long, pinning so many hopes on it, as though moving to Bristol was going to be the solution to everything. ‘When we’ve moved to Bristol…’ I must have said at least 100 times in the two years beforehand. There was a lot riding on this move for me, not least the fact that neither Bee nor Belle thought it was a particularly good idea.

As you would expect, those first few months were difficult. When life didn’t immediately become full of new friends turning up on the doorstep, and invitiations to exciting new events and opportunities, I had a little* panic. What if it was all a big mistake? Had I really been thinking of everyone’s best interests? Was city life really the best choice, or was I simply running away from something? From myself?

We’d been living in Bristol for about eight months when I had one of those moments that tips you into a new way of feeling. I was walking to an appointment, and bumped into someone I knew, someone I had made freinds with since moving to Bristol. This doesn’t sound like a big deal I know, but this was the first time I’d properly just happened upon someone in the street like that. Until then, all my meetings had been planned ones, but this was the moment where I thought ‘Wow, I casually know people!’

I walked away from that chance hello with a smile on my face, looking up and around me at the buildings and shops that now had that familiar feel to them, and I knew I hadn’t made a mistake.

That was the moment that Bristol began to feel like home.

*Quite big

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Are you a glasses wearer? How do you feel about it?

I wear glasses, and have for over 15 years. I’ve also had two children. Clearly then, I’ve had sex at least twice in my life, so I can vouch for the fact that some men do actually make passes at bespectacled women. Does it put people off though? Do glasses make a difference to how fanciable you find someone?

"glasses"

Would these glasses put you off?

When I was younger I felt pretty uncomfortable about wearing my glasses. In fact, despite having a pair from about the age of 13, I didn’t wear them at school, college or university until I was 19. Needless to say there was an awful lot of squinting involved. Part of this was a crippling self-consciousness that didn’t need fuelling, but mainly it was down to the fact that my glasses were classic NHS prescription specs – I was unpopular enough at school anyway with my geeky ways, I really didn’t need glasses to reinforce the stereotype.

During my late teens and early twenties, I was still pretty vain, and would regularly sacrifice the power of sight on a night out. It  did increase my hit rate, but how much of this was due to me appearing more attractive, and how much was simply that I couldn’t see to make an informed decision? I suspect the latter, along with a good dose of Peach Schnapps and lemonade.

Nowadays I’m more at ease with my short-sightedness, but still from time to time if I’m going somewhere fancy I’ll put in contact lenses instead. They hurt my eyes, and make me blink about 20 times a minute, but for some reason this feels worth it. It only happens about once a month at most, and I’ve bought a stash of daily disposables online, so at least it’s not pricey vanity.

What do you reckon? Have I been unnecessarily vain all my life, or do people really judge a glasses wearing book by its cover?

Photo credit – Paul Stevenson

 

 

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I’ve been playing netball since January. It was, like many of the new ‘hobbies’ I take up, a bit of a whim, but much to the surprise of all my family, not least myself, netball is a hobby that has stuck.

Something happens to me when I play netball that doesn’t happen with anything else I do. I’m sure for lots of people who play sport regularly this is nothing new, but I can honestly say that until netball, not in 34 years did I find a sport that made me feel this way, so to me it’s something worth talking about.

When I play netball, my head empties of everything else.

This in itself is an achievement, as I normally find it extremely hard to think of just one thing at a time for more than about 30 seconds. Even writing this I’m half compiling a shopping list in my head, half watching Wimbledon, half fancying a cup of tea… You get the idea.

When I play netball though, there is nothing else.

I don’t notice it so much while I’m playing, but I know it happens, because within minutes of leaving the court I feel all the thoughts flood back in again. ‘Oh!’ I think to myself. ‘There you are!’

Normally I’m pretty lazy, but when I play netball, my body sprints and jumps without me having any say in the matter. Half way into the session, I am sweating, red-faced and breathless, but I don’t want to stop. Last night, when there were too many teams to all play at once, I waited impatiently on the sideline for my turn, puffing and panting and rubbing the sweat from my face.

When I play netball I don’t think about how I look, or what I’m wearing, or even really how good I am – I just think about getting the ball, and scoring a goal.

When I’m doing other things, I always have an awareness of time, but when I play netball, the end always sneaks up on me – ‘Really? That can’t be an hour already?’

It’s no wonder really is it that the netball fade has lasted longer than the origami animals?

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Teenage mums get a bum deal don’t they? If you listen to The Daily Mail, teenage pregnancy is the root of all evil, costing the economy millions in benefits and bringing about the downfall of society. Generally, teenage pregnancy is felt to be a Bad Thing.

But is it?

Being a teenage mum is subject to a massive amount of stereotyping, but is it really the young mums who are costing us all the cash?

Having children when you’re young is perfectly natural. You body is better equipped generally to cope with pregnancy at a younger age, and recovers more quickly too. Postponing childbirth into your thirties and even forties is a very modern phenomena, and one, it could be argued, that has more serious implications health wise, for both mother and baby, than teenage pregnancy will ever have.

Studies have shown than pregnant women under 18:

  • Are more likely to have a normal vaginal delivery
  • Have lower rates of maternal and perinatal morbidity

Pregnant mums over 35 however have an increased risk of:

  • Gestational diabetes and hypertension
  • Placenta previa
  • Low birth weight
  • Prematurity

If you are having a baby and you are over 35, your risk of miscarriage doubles, and your baby has a 1 in 400 chance of Downs Syndrome.

All of these complications have a cost, both financial and physical. Keeping a premature baby in special care for example costs over £1,000 a day, and that’s a lot of housing benefit…

Is it really OK for older mums to pass judgement on teenagers, when their pregnancies are not only risking the health of their babies, but also costing us thousands of pounds in additional health care?

Dr Susan Bewley, of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London, agrees that middle-aged mums are putting a huge strain on the NHS as they are more likely to face problems conceiving, suffer pregnancy complications and have premature babies.

Dr Bewley told the Sunday Times: “Middle-age pregnancy is a public health problem because women en masse are moving out of childbearing and that brings preventable disease and stress with it. Middle-age pregnancy has complications in the same way as teenage pregnancy. We have policies to address teenage pregnancy but not middle-age pregnancy.”

Suddenly teenage pregnancy doesn’t look like such a bad option.

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When you think of the beauty brand Dove, what does it mean to you?

If the answer is ‘nothing at all’, this post is probably not going to fascinate you to be honest. You might have more of a laugh reading this one about me getting a smear test instead. If you’re intrigued though, read on.

Dove are currently running an exhibition, exclusively for Dove facebook fans, to encourage women to showcase what the beauty brand means to them.  All you have to do is come up with a creative design that incorporates the iconic bird image and that has emotional resonance for you – from a place that inspires you, to a person who makes you feel beautiful.

"Dove bird logo"

The Dove Bird in full flight

I do use Dove products, and have ever since I was a teenager. When I think of Dove I think of something very simple and pure, and I guess it’s this purity that Dove are trying to capture. Dove’s message after all is that beauty isn’t about complicated beauty regimes and treatments, or difficult diets and layers of make-up, beauty is really about something simple – you.

Here’s a little video that tells you a bit more about the exhibition:

 

The personalised designs can be a photograph, drawing or graphic incorporating the Dove bird – the more creative the better.  Once digitally submitted, the designs will be showcased for fans to enjoy and ‘like’, with the most likes of each week being celebrated on the Facebook wall. The first 100 entries will receive a unique set of 10 printed postcards featuring their bespoke design to share with friends, so why not visit the Dove facebook page now and get creative?

“The Dove By You Exhibition is a chance for our loyal fans to celebrate their creativity with one another.  Real Women have always been at the heart of everything we do, and this new Facebook activity gives them a platform to show just what Dove means to them.” says Ali Fisher, Dove Marketing Manager. “For many of us, the Dove bird has been a symbol in our lives for as long as we can remember. It’s a symbol synonymous with what Dove cherishes most, the celebration of Real Women and Real Beauty.”

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“I don’t believe in God, but I miss him….” wrote Julian Barnes in his book ‘Nothing to be frightened of’.

I heard this quote on the radio this afternoon and it really struck a chord with me. People talk about the ‘God shaped hole’, but this sentence to me perfectly summed up the whole idea. I don’t believe in God, but I still feel the hole sometimes.

In ‘Aubade’ by Philip Larkin, he talks about his terror of death, and the fear of ‘nothingness’:

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.

Pretty bleak isn’t it? But then he was apparently terrified of dying, of ceasing to exist. Later in the poem he says:

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear – no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

It’s that one line that gets me – ‘created to pretend we never die’ – because ultimately isn’t that what religion is? I would quite like to believe that I am never going to really die, however much of a pretence that might be.

I don’t believe in God, yet sometimes I feel the absence of what to me God represents – a faith in something bigger than me, a sense of purpose, a set of ‘rules’ and beliefs to guide me and to inform the decisions I make. Most of all I suppose God, and religion generally, offer reassurance, a comfort that this isn’t it.

I miss having that solid faith in something more. No one wants to believe do they that this is all there is?

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Would you like to make money from your blog? Perhaps you harbour dreams of making the move from amateur blogger to professional writer or journalist?

A while ago I reviewed the expert telephone service from Greatvine, and found it really interesting, so I very happily agreed when they offered me the chance to review their new email expert service.

Because the question and answer are exchanged via email, I thought it would be great to ask a question that you all might be interested in, and to then reproduce the answer in full, so that you can get an idea of exactly what you get for your money.

My expert was Joycellyn Akuffo, a journalist and online business coach, and founder and editor of Mothers Who Work. I asked Joycellyn this:

"Make money from blogging"

Grab that cash

What advice do you have for ‘mummybloggers’ who want to turn their hobby into a job? How can someone go from being a blogger to a paid writer, earning a living while at the same time working flexibly around their family?

The answer came back to me in less than 24 hours, even though it was a weekend, and Joycellyn’s answer was very thorough. I would have perhaps liked to have seen some further sources of information included – it was an email, so it would have been easy to include hyperlinks – but then to be fair my question was fairly broad. I guess too that the experts want to leave scope for further questions!

Here is what Joycellyn said, so you can decide for yourself. Do let me know if you find it useful.

…

Writing and blogging – these days you could be forgiven for thinking that they are all the same. Some bloggers really know their stuff and they have a natural knack of getting the point across to thous ands of people every day or month.

But the two specialties differ, and with it does the training involved or required, and the income can vary too.

Making money from a blog

Let’s start with blogging. First of all a blog can be run by someone who isn’t a writer – most of them are owned by non-professional writers. Some are run by professional writers, journalists and editors.

There are a number of ways to make money from a blog, but they all require one basic thing – traffic and lots of it. So here goes:

1. Search Engine Advertising – this can be using the age-old Google Adsense ads. You would have seen text ads on some blogs, with Google Ads written on them, and sometimes banner ads, again with the Google branding on them. These won’t make you rich, but  if your blog gets lots of traffic, you could probably pay for your hosting or a handbag and shoes three or four times a year. How much you make will depend on the top ic of your blog (these ads are keyword based), and the cost that advertisers are prepared to pay for each click in the sector. Some keywords cost as little as a penny, others cost a couple to a few pounds.

Other search engines like Yahoo and Bing also have their own advertising programmes that basically do the same as Google Adsense.

2. Affiliate Marketing – this is when you promote other people’s products and services on your blog. You can sign up to affiliate platforms like Tradedoubler.com, Affiliatewindow.com and Clickbank.com and start adding links and banners from well-known brands to your website.

These can bring in commission as little as 5% per sale to around 20% per sale. Some schemes (though few and far between these days) will pay per click like Google Adsense, but they are mainly cat per action (this can be per sign-up for surveys, for example, or a purchase).

Many people like promoting relevant products on Amazon th rough their affiliate programme, but like all of these schemes, it won’t make you a millionaire.

3. Direct Advertising – this is when you deal with a brand or company directly. Either you call and speak with their marketing department or they contact you. This form of advertising could be a sponsored post, where they supply you with an article (or you can charge a little extra to write a post yourself).

A lot of advertising agencies do this and will contact blogs offering a pittance to put a post up to see if the blogger will either be too inexperienced to know they are being ripped off, or are too desperate to tell them where to go!

Sponsored ads can bring in from say £50-£500 per post, and will depend on not only your website’s traffic, but also your page rank.

If you’re interested in this form of making money, you should really create a media pack. This is usually a PDF which you can send out to advertisers when they request it (or when you’re trying to get advertising off your own back), and will contain details about your blog’s traffic stats, the type of people who visit your website, a rate card (cost of advertising) and contact details.

4. Selling Products/Services – if you can sell products or a service (like webinars, membership or other service), you can start to make ‘proper’ money. You will basically be providing something that your website visitors need and want and keep them coming back for more. It doesn’t have to be lots of products or services – sometimes just one or a handful will do the trick.

To move from being a mummyblogger to a money-making mummyblogger, you could use a mix of the above, or option 4. With a product that people want and need, and with enough promotion, your blog could become a business run by you, in your own time, generating the income that you need to sustain the right work-life balance that your family needs.

Writers

Without teaching a chicken to suck eggs, a writer is usually a person who writes books, or may come from say a medical background and is seen as an expert, so starts writing a column or a regular feature for a publication or website. Journalists are sometimes (incorrectly) lumped into the same group – especially freelance journalists, but clearly they come from a media background and have had the training and experience looking for a story and crafting it etc.

Writers of books and novels may not necessarily be trained. Some may have taken a creative writing course, if their interest is in books.

Journalists, like I said earlier are trained. They would usually have done a media writing course, a media law course and have worked on various publications – some have a specialty and some don’t…a journalist is trained to be able to write about any subject, you see.

If you are a blogger who is an expert, you could make money spiriting books. These days, you don’t need a great big publisher to succeed – thanks to Kindle and just having the ability to sell your own ebooks from any website. How much you make really depends on how much interest or need there is for your subject area, and how much promotion you can do. A lot of these types of writers often get a break with one good media push and then they get in a bestseller’s list and start raking in the cash!

Journalists usually pitch an idea to an editor. This is a small proposal of a few paragraphs which details what the article is going to be about, plus an idea of case studies/expert quotes etc.

What they are paid will vary – smaller publications can pay as little as £250 for a 1,000-word article…maybe less if the journalist has less experience. Larger publications like the nationals can pay up to and in excess of £1,000 for an investigative piece or a good celebrity interview. Again, it depends on the experience of the journalist and the editor’s budget.

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Today I have a recipe for you, a recipe for the ultimate cheesecake.

We were out for lunch at a lovely restaurant today called At The Chapel in Bruton, to celebrate my sister’s birthday, when I came across said cheesecake recipe. While we were finishing our lunch, the venue was being prepared for a wedding party, and the wedding cake, made of cheese, was taking pride of place on the bar.

"cheesecake recipe"

Please pass the crackers

To make this beautiful cheesecake for yourself, follow my simple cheesecake recipe:

  1. Place one massive cheese on a large wooden board.
  2. Place a slightly less massive cheese on top.
  3. Then add another large, but more manageable cheese.
  4. Finally, finish the tower with an ordinary sized cheese.

Enjoy!

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What do you reckon? Is the power of suggestion enough to rid you of food cravings and help you lose weight?

Apparently so…

For a few weeks now I’ve been trying out a new weight loss technique from Thinking Slimmer. The theory is that it’s not a diet at all, rather a shift in the way you think about food, which means you will lose weight without the need for willpower. This is a good job, because I don’t have any.

Every night for at least 21 days to start with, you have to listen to a recording – your ‘Slimpod’ – and over time you form new habits and new ways of thinking. According to the website, the Slimpod will “gently change your relationship to food and exercise by retuning the way your mind works, so you never diet again. There’s no calorie counting, no horrible tasting food replacements, no hunger pangs, no anguish, no guilt and no pain.”

There is the added bonus too that the man on the recording sounds a lot like Jude Law, and having Jude Law whisper how confident and lovely you are in your ear as you lie in bed every night is rather nice.

Sounds all too good to be true doesn’t it?

Well, I’ve listened to mine now for the initial 21 days and I must say I really have noticed differences in the way I think about food. Normally I think about food a lot, and I mean a lot, but it was less than a week into the trial before I began to find my thoughts less consumed with food than they normally are. It wasn’t a dramatic shift, just a gradual realisation that I was going for longer without thinking about snacking. When it does come to eating I seem to have a much more ‘take it or leave it’ approach, which makes it much easier to make the right choices.

Can you think yourself thin?

No thank you.

Saying no to puddings doesn’t feel like I’m depriving myself anymore, it feels like a positive choice, and this is a massive difference for me. I haven’t lost any weight yet (although I haven’t gained any either), but apparently this is OK, as it’s a long-term lifestyle change. I will keep listening, and let you know when the weight does start to shift.

Alongside my Slimpod, I’ve been listening to a Fitpod, designed to make you feel more inclined to exercise. To motivate me even further, I was given some fancy sportswear by Debenhams. My not very encouraging family took some pictures of me in it.

“Not like that,” said Boyfriend, “you look ridiculous. Just stand still! What’s wrong with your face?” Talk about pressure.

“Try and look sporty?” suggested Bee. So I did.

"Debenhams sports wear"

Me looking sporty

“Oh dear,” said Bee, “not like that. Try something else.”

“How about a bit of casual stretching?” I said.

"Debenhams sportswear"

Casual stretching

“Well, it’s better than the sporty look,” she admitted, “but still weird.”

We gave up in the end, and I went off to my netball match. My new sports gear does make me feel more professional on court than when I used to go in a pair of old pyjama bottoms and a Johnny Cash t-shirt, but to be honest I haven’t noticed the effects of the Fitpod as much as the Slimpod, and would still rather have a little sit down 95% of the time if given the choice.

I did wonder if it’s because the Slimpod comes first on my playlist, and I’m always snoozing by the second track, but I’ve been reassured it shouldn’t matter if I fall asleep.

Perhaps my laziness is just more deeply ingrained than my greed.

 

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