He is very funny, I promise. Please make him very welcome – clap, throw coins etc…

I am guest posting on Slummy Single Mummy today. Which is weird as I am neither a mummy, single or particularly slummy. Married Daddy Anal?…hmm…Married Anal Daddy?…maybe not….Daddy Married Anal?…that’s just wrong – but it’ll definitely increase SSM’s traffic. Oh, the comments she will get…

I suggested that we write on the subject of booze as it is a nice wide subject, and something that we have all tried and it can also be interpreted loosely (I feel as if I have inadvertently strayed back into my previous paragraph’s subject matter) . If any of the five people who used to read my blog are now reading this blog you will know that I am a great fan of lists so without further ado I shall catalogue the 6 stages of drunkeness: View Post

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“I want to do a blog post,” I say to my friend Vicky, who is sat on the sofa opposite me telling me a rather disgusting story about the time she snapped her little toe. “Right now.”

“OK,” she says, “what about?”

“I’m going to interview you,” I tell her.

“Right ho, off you go then.”

Oh dear, I’m on the spot now. “What shall I ask you?” I ask.

“I don’t know! It’s not my interview,” Vicky quite rightly points out.

“If you were a biscuit, what biscuit would you be?” (It is surely just a matter of time before The Times snap me up for a weekly interview slot). View Post

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Today I have spent a lot of time pacing.

Some days my pacing is productive – I wander around the house, come across little jobs that need doing, and get them done. I feel relaxed and productive. I’m happy. Sometimes I hum or do a little skip. In these circumstances it is not really pacing, so much as pottering.

Other times though my inability to settle in any one place is not productive or relaxed. It is distracted and futile and makes my neck hurt. I am writing this in a bid to stay in one place for more than ten minutes but I’m finding it hard and the inside of my legs feels fizzy. I’m restless, like a tiger in a cage at a zoo, only far less glossy and agile.

Last week my removal boxes arrived, and this weekend I’ve begun sorting and packing. Yesterday it was definitely pottering – I methodically unstuck blutac from walls, stacked books, unhung pictures, but today I can’t recapture the same easy rhythm.

I keep starting jobs and then getting bored. I walk into a room, look around, with my hands of my hips, sigh loudly and pull a face, and walk out again. I’ve half filled several boxes and half filled the car with off cuts of wood and broken screwdrivers, but not got as far as the tip.

I even started watching an episode of Wife Swap while I ate my lunch, but got bored before the rule changes and instead decided to empty the bottom of my wardrobe. As I type, my bedroom floor is awash with old shoes, squashed handbags and broken coat hangers.

Last night I was just the same. I kept waking up in the night, feeling angry, repeatedly sitting up, frowning at my pillows, kicking my legs around and then grumpily lying back down again.

Nothing is actually wrong, so why do I have this permanent scowl?

I need some tips. What can I do to sooth my restless self, uncoil my shoulders and stop my brain from twitching? What works for you?

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Today was Bee’s last day of school.

“Gosh, you don’t look old enough to have a teenager!” is the standard response when I tell people my eldest daughter is 16 this year.

“I’m not old enough to have a teenager,” I normally reply. The day people stop looking slightly shocked will be the day I know I am old.

I can remember my last day of school, 17 years ago, very clearly – all the Year Elevens gathered in the school hall, the shirt signing, the tears. Weird how at the time those people feel like your whole life. That afternoon in the hall, the mascara running and the hormones surging, I thought we’d be friends for life. View Post

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I’ve hit a wall.

It’s been a couple of weeks now since I wrote anything and now I don’t know where to begin. It has become a thing, a chore, a nag at the back of my head – ‘you really should write a blog post you know…’

Yes I know, thank you brain for your ever helpful input.

You know when you leave the washing up for too long and you get to the point where you’re having to butter bread with the back of a spoon because all the knives are dirty? You know you should just wash up, but somehow you can’t. You’ve left it too long and it’s become too much. It almost feels like it would be easier to just sweep all the dirty dishes into the bin and start again with new ones.

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I’ve decided it’s time to stop Belle watching so much television, effective immediately, with an additional complete ban on the Disney Channel. It’s a tough decision, given that the TV represents a significant chunk of my childcare, but I fear I have to do it, for two reasons.

Partly it’s because she seems to have become possessed with the spirit of Hannah Montana, and just cannot do as she is told without either hideous amounts of heavy sarcasm and talk-to-the-hand style arms gestures, or furious door slamming and feet stamping.  Also, I’m becoming seriously concerned about the amount of advertising she is being exposed to. View Post

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When Littlewoods asked me to take part in their style challenge, to choose my perfect child-friendly holiday outfit from their women’s clothing range, I felt it only fair to warn them what they were letting themselves in for.

“I’d love to take part,” I said, “but I should probably make it clear upfront that I have no style.”

Sad, but true. I really have no sense of what looks good, and am renowned amongst friends and family for having always had a ‘unique’ dress sense.

“Interesting choice of outfit,” my sister said when I was staying with her recently.

“It’s my Easter outfit!” I replied, beaming. “See? It’s yellow like a chick.”

“It wasn’t really the yellow I was concerned about,” she replied, eyeing my leggings, bright yellow t-shirt and denim ra-ra skirt combination suspiciously.

If I’m going anywhere important I’ll always get Bee to check what I’m wearing. Sometimes it’s immediately clear I’ve gone horribly wrong. “No,” she’ll say, shaking her head pityingly, “just no.”

Other times it’s less certain. “Well… I wouldn’t go out in it, but it looks very you.” I don’t think that is meant as a compliment.

Littlewoods assured me that it would be fine to get help, but I thought perhaps it was time for me to go it alone, so I tried to pick something all by myself. I started in dresses. I like dresses.

Initially I found a rather colourful long pink and purple one that I liked, but I’m guessing it doesn’t really fit with the whole practical/casual beachwear thing.

So I looked a bit more, and found a natty stripy number, which is very me. I thought it might look nice perhaps with some cropped leggings underneath. Wonderfully practical for when I jet off on my child-friendly summer holidays.

Given the British weather though, I thought I should be prepared. So to go with it I’m taking this lovely hat in case it’s sunny and a nice rain coat to protect me from any sudden spring showers.

And that’s me done. I’ll be looking pretty hot don’t you think?

PS I am currently on the short list for the ‘Style’ award in the Brilliance in Blogging Awards. Please take half a minute to cast your vote and tick the Slummy single mummy box.

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I am middle aged.

It’s official.

This week I stuck my new National Trust members badge inside my car windscreen, and on Sunday I actively chose to watch Antiques Roadshow. And enjoyed it.

“And my periods are getting closer together!” I moaned to my friend Lucy.

“Well that’s it then,” she said, “early menopause. It’s downhill all the way now.”

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This week I have spent a significant amount of time on Sarah Beeny’s dating website My Single Friend.

I’m not looking to get rid of New Boyfriend already, (what with being rather fond of him and everything) – I’m actually looking for a special someone for my friend Jacqueline.*

The idea of My Single Friend is that you get a friend to recommend you and the whole thing is slightly less like a painful self-marketing exercise. The principle is sound, but don’t be fooled. It’s basically a way for your single friend to get you to do all the work for them.

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A little while ago my friend Emma at Me the Man and the Baby tagged me in a post, asking me to open my fridge to the world. When she tagged me, I looked in my fridge, and just couldn’t bring myself to take a picture of what was basically cans of lager and some cheese. I have been waiting since then for the day when my fridge looked as clean and wholesome as Emma’s, but unfortunately that day has never come.

This is the outside of my fridge, covered in magnets, including the rather funky scrabble magnets that Belle bought me for my birthday this week. The top of my fridge is covered with all manner of junk, including my collection of ‘milk jugs in the shape of chickens where the milk comes out of their beaks’.

Fridge magnet collection

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Yesterday I made a classic slummy mummy error.

After over a fortnight of being at home with children I was looking forward to having six hours a day again to call my own, and as we drove up to school I was planning in my head all the things I was going to do during the day in my lovely, peaceful, empty house. I found somewhere to park easily. Too easily. Where were all the cars?

I spotted another mum, kids in tow, and was briefly reassured, until I noticed that she too was looking around nervously. We both eyed the locked gates suspiciously.

In service training day. Crap.

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Trying to sell you raincoats in the midst of an unseasonable April heat wave might seem a little foolish, but hey, I always like a challenge. It’s much like trying to get Belle out of bed for school in the morning – difficult, but not impossible, and very satisfying if you do manage it.

If you clicked on the link last week to my creativity feature in Inspired Times magazine, which I’m sure all of you did*, you’ll have read about my friend Sally. I met Sally on a writing retreat in 2009, where we bonded over our shared hands-off parenting style and, although we didn’t realise until later, a mutual crush on one of our tutors.

Since then we’ve become very good friends, so much so that last summer I dragged my kids across the country to stay with Sally and her family in their beautiful cottage in Cambridge. At the time, Sally was very excited about her new business – the Cambridge Raincoat Company – which was in its early stages, and between lounging around her house eating, drinking and generally making myself at home I was allowed to cast my eye over fabric swatches and coat samples. All very exciting. View Post

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