We may still have a week of the summer holidays left, but already I’m thinking about Autumn breaks. It’s a bit sad really isn’t it?

I think it’s a positive thing though – I’ve enjoyed my summer breaks so much this year that I obviously just can’t wait to do it again. It’s not that I’m work-shy or anything, honestly.

Travelling and holidays with children is always a bit of a gamble, and not always terribly restful, as toddlers don’t seem to quite get the idea of lazing around on the beach. They tend not to enjoy sightseeing tours of cities much either in my experience, unless the sights you are seeing are play areas and ice cream vans, in which case you may as well save the petrol money, stay at home, and just pop to the park in the afternoon to be honest.

Going on holiday with friends has always worked well for me – friends who have children the same age and can share the ‘work’ of the holiday with you. When Belle was about a year old, we had a really lovely few days in Centre Parcs with a friend and her one year old, and it meant that the babies could amuse each other, while we concentrated on important holiday tasks like finding the corkscrew.

We’ve continued the holiday with friends idea ever since, and it has proved a big hit. Belle is ten now, but she still enjoys having someone to play with, and this year her holiday companion was her friend Ashley. He and Belle got to sleep in a yurt, climb trees and chase the farm dog, while Ashley’s mum Vicky and I had a little lie down with a book and a glass of wine. Are you noticing the theme here?

"yurt holiday"

Our holiday home this summer

Back in the spring, we were planning our holidays. “The kids will play of in the woods or something,” I say excitedly, “and we can lie around reading and drinking!”

“Hoorah!” agrees Vicky.

You see? Simple.

The risk of course, especially in small spaces like yurts, is that the kids start bickering and your friend drives you mad, but fortunately this hasn’t happened to me so far. It may have happened to Vicky of course. You’d have to ask her that…

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Let’s face it, we all love pizza.

It doesn’t get much better than tucking into a crispy base, munching on the stringy cheese and getting your teeth stuck into a range of wonderful toppings – pure heaven!

Although takeaway pizzas and shop bought ones are always tasty, they can often be a bit costly, not to mention the damage they can do to your waistline. So how about putting the takeaway menu down for a night and making your very own? Not only will it be quick, easy and relatively healthy (depending on the topping) it’s sure to taste great too!

"Homemade Pitta Bread Pizza"

Firstly, don’t bother spending ages making the dough. A great idea is to use pitta bread as the base instead. This means the kids can have their own pitta bread and put whatever they like on it, which is always a lot of fun. It’s also great to get them involved in the kitchen. Here are the ingredients:

  • Pitta bread (white or whole wheat)
  • Tomato pizza sauce
  • Grated cheese (low fat depending on how healthy you want to be)
  • Dried herbs (oregano or basil)
  • Toppings of your choice

It’s always a good idea when cooking with younger children to get all the ingredients out ready in small tubs or on plates. This means they’ll be able to use the ingredients in front of them rather than searching around the whole kitchen! Here’s how to make it:

  1. Preheat oven to around 200˚C.
  2. Spoon pizza sauce all over the pitta bread and spread well.
  3. Sprinkle evenly with grated cheese.
  4. Scatter a few dried herbs.
  5. Add desired toppings.
  6. Place on a sheet of ovenproof paper and bake for 5-7 minutes or until cheese has melted.
  7. Slice evenly with a pizza cutter and tuck in!

Let the kids really have fun with this by encouraging them to make various patterns and designs with their toppings. Anyone on a budget should check out the various Tesco voucher codes available too to save some cash on their weekly shop. A good tip is to stock up on cans and tins that you can keep in the cupboard for a later date so you can make your favourite dishes time and time again. The little ones are sure to enjoy making (and eating) their own pizzas and will probably want to make them more often. Whether you want a quick snack or you’re planning the evening meal, these pitta bread pizzas are perfect for having some fun in the kitchen.

"Takeaway Pizza Boxes"

Alternatively, if you really must get that takeaway for a special treat, there’s no need to pay full price for it. Take a look at the range of discount vouchers at Pizza Hut on different days of the week and you’ll keep both the kids and your bank balance happy!

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This week I have been in Amsterdam.

You know how I feel about pornography, but I couldn’t go to all that way and not visit Amsterdam’s Red Light District could I? Even if just to say first hand how seedy it is.

And it IS seedy. Let me tell you though how I got on, and you can tell me if you think it sounds sexy…

I’m in Amsterdam’s Red Light District on my own, and it’s about 9pm, and getting dark. The canal that sits serenely between the two rows of buildings is beautiful, but its hard to look at anything other than the windows framed in red neon, and the bright lights advertising live sex shows, each one claiming a better drinks offer than the rest.

In each window stands a young woman in her underwear and high heels, trying her best to look seductive. Most just look bored. One stands with her hand on her hip, weight shifted onto one foot, checking her phone. Nobody smiles.

Amsterdam's Red Light District

A lot of the attention seems to be on the clubs and shows. “Why are you looking so serious?” a man on one of the doors asks me. “Where are you from?”

“I’m from Bristol in England,” I say. “And I look serious because I think this whole thing is pretty shocking really.”

“I have a cousin in Bristol!” he tells me and I laugh.

“Of course you do! I bet you have cousins everywhere.”

“You think I’m playing you?” he asks, looking offended.

“Yes.”

“You think I like this job?” he asks. “I hate it as much as you do. I hate these people,” he says, sweeping his arms and genuinely looking fairly disdainful. “I just sell what’s inside, but I stay out here. You should never judge people. You see me here, you think I’m trying to sell you a lie. I’m not.”

He is distracted then by a young couple, loitering nervously. “Stay there,” he tells me, “I’ll tell you.” He turns to the couple. “You want to come in?” he asks them. “We have four shows, including a cigar show, and our drinks are much better than next door.”

“When does it start?” the girl asks.

“No start time,” he says, “they just do it on a loop.”

It sounds awesome. Who doesn’t want to watch a couple have the same sex they’ve had already half a dozen times that night? I shift my attention to a group of British men sat on some benches nearby, who turn out, surprise surprise, to be on a stag do.

“Look at this!” one of them says, and pulls up his shirt to reveal ‘BAD BOY’ written on his chest in marker pen. “A girl just wrote that with the pen in her you know…” and he raises his eyebrows and points down. “Pretty good isn’t it? The A is a bit wonky, but other than that.” He looks very pleased with himself.

“Wow!” I say. “It’s not bad is it? Nice muscle control.”

“Do you reckon you could do it?”

I laugh. “I’ve had two babies,” I say, “I really don’t think I have the pelvic floor for it.”

Another of the men chimes in, pointing to one of his mates. “He’s just paid 140 euro to have sex with two women,” he says, matter-of-factly. The friend looks a bit sheepish, but he’s smiling, like secretly he’s pretty pleased with himself.

“How did that work then?” I ask, both intrigued and appalled. “Was it two separate times, or both at once? Was it buy one get one free?”

His mate, the one so willing to volunteer the information in the first place, laughs. “Nah, it was buy one, get another at the same time for another 70 euro!”

He hasn’t done it before he says, but just shrugs when I ask how he feels about it. “It was fine,” he adds, not giving much away.

“That’s not what you said at the time!” says his helpful friend. “You came out and high-fived all of us!”

“So do you really think this whole set up is sexy?” I ask. “They just look bored to me.”

“One of mine was on her phone a lot,” he laughs.

“She was tweeting,” adds his mate. “I bet she was using the #worstsexever hashtag.”

They tell me about the live show they’ve just been to. Apart from the chest writing, they aren’t impressed, particularly not by the man who was dressed in a leotard, which he just pulled carefully to one side for the act itself.

“They were really old,” one of them adds. “And he was wearing kneepads!”

“Was it like watching your mum and dad do it?” I ask.

“I reckon my dad would have put more effort in to be honest…”

Have you been to Amsterdam’s Red Light District? What did you think of it?

…

*They did let me take their photos, and were happy for me to blog about them, but I’m thinking that the morning after, it might not have seemed like such a good idea. Would you want your photo on the internet with the caption ‘this man just slept with two prostitutes’?

Image credit – Amsterdam’s Red Light District from Michal_R / Shutterstock.com

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I have to confess that I’m not really a terribly girly girl when it comes to skin care products and make-up.

As much as I’d love to believe that an investment of just thirty odd quid would keep me looking young forever, I just don’t. If it worked, no one would ever look old would they?

Dur.

I do like to moisturise, but it doesn’t need to break the bank. A basic, light moisturiser with built in sun protection is all you need – I’ve been using mine for about 20 years and I got asked for ID to buy a bottle of wine in Sainsbury’s just a matter of weeks ago, so it must be working.

I’m also not taken in by fancy pants shampoo and conditioner adverts, which show Cheryl Cole, inch deep in foundation, waving her extensions around over-dramatically, telling me I’m worth it. Worth what exactly Cheryl pet? Spending unnecessary amounts of money on a shampoo that will give the appearance of stronger, healthier hair? (When you listen, all the ads say stuff like that – it doesn’t actually make your hair healthier, it just makes it look it.)

"Pantene"

Wash your hair with Pantene and you too could have breasts like ripe canteloupes. Seriosly – WTF??

Stretch marks though are a bit different. As hard as I try to see them as a ‘badge of motherhood’, they really don’t do it for me. The trouble is, I’m a total skinflint, and would much rather spend my cash on a book or a nice cup of coffee, so the lotions and potions that friends use and swear by, and that might actually work, like Apothederm stretch mark cream, never quite make it as far as my dressing table.*

The paradox in my reluctance to spend money on skin care though is my love of bottles, boxes and pretty packaging. I love how it looks, just not what it does. I have happily over the years lined up my Chanel nail varnishes, still in their boxes, admiring the elegant, sleek black lines they makes, but you know what? They chip quicker than Rimmel. Fact.

Don’t get me started on ‘scrubs’ either. Who needs to pay extra for shower gels with bits in when you can just use a bar of soap and give yourself a good hard towel down afterwards?

But then if it were left to me, I’d probably just not wash at all. I never did like showers.

So tell me – am I missing out? Can you recommend any fabulous products you love that might lure me into the shower?**

*Lifts up t-shirt for a nose and wonders if it’s an investment I really should make.

**I don’t mean into the shower WITH you. That would be creepy. I would be using them in my own bathroom obviously. In private.

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I read an article in Grazia this week that made me mad.

It was written by an anonymous male journalist, who was claiming that being cheated on is basically much harder for a man than a woman. He was empathising with the recently wronged Robert Pattinson. “Believe me,” he said, “it’s so much worse when a woman cheats on a man.”

Of course it is.

Just like it’s always worse when a man gets a cold?

(Did you detect my oh-so-subtle sarcasm?)

He goes on about how much harder it is for men to be cheated on, because it leads them to doubt themselves and their sexual prowess and makes them wonder what they were lacking as a man that made their partner stray. “When women have their hearts broken,” he whines on, “they get endless counselling sessions from friends until they feel better.”

Seriously, does it get much more patronising than that?

Firstly, anonymous male journalist, I would like to point out that just because we don’t have penises, doesn’t mean we are immune to worrying about our sexual performance. Newsflash for you – women occasionally experience self-doubt! Gasp! We also like to think outside the bedroom too, so our trampled self-esteem will affect lots of other areas of our lives as well. (This is similar to multi-tasking. It’s that thing women do when they think about more than one thing at once*.)

Also, this sweeping statement about women finding comfort in their friends makes several very basic and not always correct assumptions. It assumes that all women have friends that they feel comfortable confiding in, and it assumes we want to bang on and on to them about our problems. Neither of these are necessarily true. Heartbreak is often a very personal and private thing, and although men may have this image of women gathering in packs, necking Chardonnay, proclaiming all men to be bastards and immediately ‘feeling better’, it’s simply not true.

The fact is that being deceived by someone you love and trust is gutting, whether you’re a man or a woman, 18 or 80. Just because women might be more inclined to vent their emotions with friends sometimes, doesn’t mean the pain cuts any less deep.

If anonymous male journalist is still wondering what it is that he lacks as a man, perhaps he should focus less on the contents of his trousers, and more on his understanding on how women think and feel.

*Said in an anonymous male writer style patronising tone

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Before the summer holidays started, I sat down and had a little talk with Belle about the impending six weeks, and exactly how we were going to manage the whole work, fun, childcare balance. As much as I didn’t want to, I explained to her, I was going to have to do some work, and as useful for me as her week away with Gran was going to be, we needed to come up with something else too.

“Don’t make me go to Clifton College holiday club!” she wailed, a look of panic on her face.

“I won’t make you go there again,” I reassured her, “I promised didn’t I?”

She looked relieved.

“I don’t want to go to the holiday club at school either,” she pleaded, “they just make you decorate keyrings all day.”

“OK,” I said, rapidly running out of options. “How about sports?”

We were quiet for a moment, both thinking about the disaster of the two-day football camp the previous summer. Belle, as you may have worked out, is not a fan of the whole ‘wrap-around-care’ concept. For her, holidays and after school are for watching all the television she has been kept away from during school hours.

“Well then,” I said, laughing hysterically inside at the very idea that she would agree, “the only other option is a residential camp, where you go away for the whole week with lots of people you don’t know.”

“I’ll do that one,” she said, and turned back to MI High, the conversation apparently now over.

Well, that was a shock.

So, tomorrow, she’s off. Monday to Friday, sleeping in yurt dorms, wading through swamps, meeting red squirrels, and tagging crabs. She’s only going to be about an hour away, but I am so proud of her. She’s getting pretty excited about it, and this afternoon has been sorting out what she wants to take, and zealously labelling everything with her rather lovely personalised stickers, provided specially for the occasion by This is Nessie. This is Nessie do a whole range of gorgeous personalised stuff, so if you are a stationery geek like me, they are well worth a look.

"Personalised name labels"

Who do these belong to then?

In the morning, we’ll be up early, and by 9.30am I will be child free for five whole days, as Bee is away next week too, doing some very grown-up work experience.

Five whole days!

I’ve never actually been alone in the house for that long. What will I do? Who will I talk to? Looking at Belle’s programme, I’m quite jealous. I quite fancy a safari scavenger hunt. Bonfires, marshmallows, yes please.

Maybe I’ll book myself in…

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What can you get nowadays for 99p?

You’re probably thinking ‘not much’ – penny sweets are about ten pence each nowadays, and what happened to Mars Bars being 25p eh? When did that stop? When did I become old??

If inflation is making you feel your age, you need a trip to the 99p Stores.*

Now reviewing the shopping experience at 99p Stores may not seem like the most glamorous of assignments, but bloody hell, we certainly got a lot for our money. We were given £50 to spend, but as there were only baskets, not forklift trucks, we quite literally couldn’t spend it all at once. We physically couldn’t carry fifty quid’s worth of cereal.

We did manage to spend £29.70 in our first trip, and this is what we got:

"99p Stores"

Cor blimey, what a lot of shopping.

If you’ve never been to a 99p Stores before, you might be surprised to see that they actually sell a lot of branded items – food in particular. We eat a lot of cereal in our house, but normally I’m too tight to buy brand names, so we stocked up on lots of horribly over sweet breakfast items, at bargain prices. It really is a lot cheaper than you could buy in the supermarket, and the choice is quite amazing. I picked up three totally random things I have been meaning to get for a while – a pair of flip-flops, some more cord for our strimmer, and a book light. And each less than a pound! Bizarre.

I was shopping specifically though with a small picnic in mind, as Belle and I were meeting friends today at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta. I picked up some sandwich spread, which was a bit of a blast from the past, drinks, dip, fruit bars, mini-cookies, and some intriguing looking ‘hummus chips’ – crisps made with chick pea flour. That’s the lovely thing about 99p Stores – yes, they have the brands, but they also have some really unusual things you just wouldn’t see anywhere else in your average UK shopping centre.

"99p stores picnic"

Om nom nom

I worked out that this little feast came to less than four pounds, which was about the price of a Mr Whippy at the fiesta.

The staff were helpful, the choice was great, and we even picked up a One Direction stationery set for Bee.** When I go back to spend the rest of my vouchers, I’ll definitely be taking Boyfriend, so he can stock up on pickles and cleaning products – two of his favourite things. We might just get some more of those hummus chips too…***

*This works quite literally too, as they do a lot of skin care products.

**Don’t tell her. It’s a surprise.

***Brushes crumbs away guiltily.

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Last Wednesday, in the midst of our rather soggy Cornish holiday, Belle and I sheltered from the rain in Boscastle in the Museum of Witchcraft.

Belle likes a bit of mystery and magic, so enjoyed poking around, checking out the various curses she might be able to employ against me should I ask her to do anything hideous like tidy her bedroom. I enjoyed the Hitler pin cushions that were apparently popular during WWII and the wartime ads in the Readers Digest, encouraging us all to make our own Hitler dolls and stick pins in them. Every little helps I suppose.

We also both had a go on the tarot machine:

"tarot machine"

Belle was given the magician:

Pretty positive I thought. A good sign for mine and Bee’s plan to propel Belle into a career in musical theatre.

I put my coin in, crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t end up with something depressing like the death card, and was very pleased to have the arrow land on the sun:

Now obviously I know that it is just a random arrow spinning around. I know that my happiness isn’t necessarily assured just because the Museum of Witchcraft tarot machine says so, but I found it comforting all the same. I guess it’s really just an extension of positive thinking, of adopting a mantra designed to inspire you, and it really did do the trick.

I’m the same with horoscopes. Of course I know that I’m not going to have exactly the same kind of day as one in twelve people in the country, just because we happened to be born around the same time, but it can still feel good sometimes to have a bit of extra direction and motivation can’t it? ‘This week will see a great opportunity present itself, so seize it with both hands’ – a lot of nonsense really, but encouraging nonetheless.

What do you think about fortune-telling? Is there anything in it, or is it just a harmless bit of fun that we can use to promote a bit of positive thinking?

It might have rained for most of our holidays, but with my future happiness assured, the sun is definitely shining on me.

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I’ve been to quite a few festivals in my time, (any excuse not to wash for a few days), but I’ve never seen anything like the fireworks and animation display that celebrated the end of Camp Bestival 2012.

The weekend had been fantastic already, with surprise treats such as Chic – who’d have thought they wrote so many songs?? – and more predictably incredible entertainment in the form of Rolf Harris, but who’d have thought that something so amazing was going to be tucked away last thing on Sunday, long after I’ve normally given up and dragged the kids home?

The afternoon had been warm and relaxed. I’d spent a happy hour lying on the floor of the spoken word tent, thinking about how much more I liked Russell Kane as an author than a comedian, and then I’d teamed up with some strangers for a music quiz. A quick pint of pear cider and a last-minute entry into Ecover’s ‘Feel Good Giveaway’* on my way to meet Boyfriend, and after a special moment sharing our dislike of the Happy Mondays, we were ready for some firework fun.

This video, courtesy of BrightonArt, is about fifteen minutes long, but it is well worth the watch. Set against the already stunning backdrop of Lulworth Castle, the combination of fireworks and animation was just breathtaking and made for a really spectacular end to a wonderful weekend.

 

*I could win £2,000 of family clothes from Boden! Nice. Fingers crossed I get lucky, so I can fit right in with all the yummy mummies at Camp Bestival next year.

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If you follow me on twitter, you may have picked up on the fact that I was at Camp Bestival this weekend, courtesy of the very lovely people at Ecover.

"Ecover at Camp Bestival"

Yay for Ecover!

Despite the BBC predicting heavy rain, the sun shone for the whole weekend, and Boyfriend and I had a really wonderful time. I’ve been to Camp Bestival a few times before, so understood the whole family friendly vibe, but it was interesting to see Boyfriend’s confusion, as he compared it to his only other festival experience at Leeds. ‘When are people going to start pushing over the portaloos?’ he asked at one point, after telling me a rather nasty story about a guy, not wanting to lose his place at the front of a crowd, doing a poo on the floor.

Camp Bestival, needless to say, is not like this.

I shall be doing a proper round-up later in the week, including my personal highlights, but this is just a post to say thank you very much indeed to Ecover, for sending me off on such a fantastic weekend. If it wasn’t for Ecover, I’d never have seen this legend would I?

"Rolf Harris at Camp Bestival"

Can you tell who it is yet??

Thank you Ecover!

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Last week, my talented colleague Bee and I paid a visit to the Argos Christmas gift show.

Well, well, well. What can we say? We were NOT impressed.

Now I totally accept that there may be some inherent differences between boys and girls, with girls often being inclined to enjoy more traditionally ‘girly’ toys, and vice versa. I also know though that there are plenty of girls who like playing with robots, cars, dinosaurs, and other things that aren’t bright pink, so why on earth did Argos feel the need to shove such horrible gender stereotypes down our throats?

See here, we have toys for girls:

And here, the toys that boys are allowed to play with:

It got worse.

On one side of the room, you had a hairdresser, offering women the chance to get their hair curled with the latest appliances, and opposite, you had this, because we all know that only men can play musical instruments:

Women obviously are too busy getting their nails done and arranging their daughters’ toys into different shades of pink.

Come on Argos. We’re in the 21st century now. Pull yourself together.

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Variety is the spice of life, or so they say, but sometimes I worry that I take it too literally.

I was out with some friends a couple of weeks ago that I haven’t seen for a while. I was talking about a new job I’d recently started working on, and saying how nice it was to be doing something that got me out of the house and into an office with other people.

“You’re a bit like that though aren’t you?” one of them said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well you know, a bit fickle,  always wanting to move on to something new.”

It wasn’t meant as an insult, just a fact, but it got me thinking.

It’s true of course that I do like to try new things, and get bored very quickly. It was less than a year ago after all since I was handing in notice my from an office job, and thinking how nice it would be to be able to stay at home and not see other people.

What I can’t quite get my head round though is whether this is a Good or a Bad Thing. Most of the time I try to put a positive spin on it – I like new challenges, it’s good to try new things etc etc – but other times I feel slightly ashamed of myself for not just being able to pick a job or a house or a hobby and stick to it.

I’m totally behind the idea that if you’re not getting what you want, not feeling fulfilled, you often need to just move on, but at what point does that go from being a healthy acceptance of change to something a little more compulsive? Is my apparent inability to commit to something long-term a weakness, or a sign of courage, strength of character, and a desire not to ‘settle’ for what I know isn’t quite right?

It frustrates me – one minute being totally content with a situation, and the next feeling sick of it. How can something make me smile one minute, and yawn the next?

So fickle am I in fact, that I’m bored of writing this already. I think I might go off instead and open a coffee shop or take up fencing or something…

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