If you asked any of my close friends or family to describe me in three words, it would be a pretty safe bet ‘trendy’, ‘glamorous’ and ‘fashion-savvy’ would not be among them.

If you look at my profile picture though, you could be forgiven for imagining that I go about everyday beautifully coiffed, with foot-high hair and an inch of make-up. I do not. I’m afraid to say I do not look like this in real life. In fact, I often have to take off my glasses and tilt my head, pretending to talk into a phone, to even convince people the photo is me at all.

Still, it does mean that I’m often approached by fashion and beauty companies, who mistakenly believe I am super hot and stylish, and want me to try out their stuff.

One such company is Mint Velvet, a rather sophisticated range of elegant, luxurious knitwear, dresses and other outfits in lovely muted tones – all definitely things proper grown up ladies would wear.

Really?? I wanted to say. Are you sure you mean me? You do know I like to wear spots with floral prints, and firmly believe that blue and green really should be seen?

I didn’t though. I kept quiet, and pretended to be the sensible, naturally stylish woman I feel I really could be. Underneath the layers of rainbow coloured cardigans and peacock feather hair accessories. Besides, I thought it would be a good challenge for me, to see if I could incorporate some decent clothes into my dubious, charity shop based wardrobe. The idea behind the range after all is that it is meant to be flexible, and fit in with the ever changing needs of modern women. So this is my diary of how I got on… View Post

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I want to go on holiday.

I know it’s only a few months really since we went off to Spain for ten whole days, but I really would quite like another holiday now please.

I suppose it must be the time of year, and the fact that my nose seems to be maintaining a temperature roughly ten degrees cooler than the rest of my body, that’s making me yearn for sunnier climes. I’m fed up of feeling chilly and shivering in bed. I want to be outside, and feel the sun burning my shoulders.

I’ve had a real hankering lately to go and stay in a yurt somewhere. We’ve never really been a package holidays kind of family, and for a few years running we spent a week every summer in the UK in a yurt. Like this one. And yes I do realise it’s just a cheaty, middle-class way of going camping but I’m sorry, I just don’t want to put up a tent. We do camp at festivals, but not even being able to stand upright while you put yesterday’s damp clothes back on is not my idea of an idyllic break.

Lately though too I’ve started imagining holidays further afield, which isn’t like me. We didn’t go abroad as children, so I’ve never caught the travelling bug, but in the last year or so I’ve spread my wings a little, and am feeling a bit braver. Who knows, one day I may even make it out of Western Europe.

For now though I’d be quite happy perched outside on the steps of a yurt, surrounded by trees, perhaps with a few chickens pecking at the ground around me.* In my fantasy holiday Belle has of course made friends with some good-mannered yet confident children in the tipi next door, and they are off in the woods, doing something wholesome like making bark rubbings or throwing sticks at birds’ nests. I’m cradling a large mug of tea and nibbling on some sort of organic, farmhouse cookie.

For now though summer seems a long way away. Looks like I’ll have to make do with a blanket on my knees and an Aldi rich tea biscuit.

*At a reasonable distance obviously. I find close up birds a bit frightening.

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Would you rather have a child or a horse?

It’s a very good question, and a prime example of the kind of high-brow discussions that go on at a Cuddledry team meeting.

“I’d definitely rather have a kid,” declared Helen, Cuddledry Director, mum of three, and all round savvy businesswoman, “horses have got more legs.”

The conversation stopped, and we all turned to look at her.

“What?” she said, looking at us blankly as though it was a completely obvious point to make. “Seriously, have you seen the price of Clarks shoes lately?” View Post

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I love Christmas.

There. I said it.

I’m not ashamed to be one of the people who gets excited hearing Slade played in shops in November. It makes me happy.

It’s not the actual day so much, which tends to be a bit of an anti-climax, dominated by that slightly over-full-probably-shouldn’t-have-had-bucksfizz-for-breakfast feeling, it’s the build up I love. And the longer the better in my opinion. The smell of a Christmas tree in the morning, choosing presents, eating mince pies and brandy butter for breakfast. It’s all good.

To try and get even the scroogiest of readers into the Christmas spirit, I’m giving you the chance to win £100 to spend on presents in the Tesco Christmas Gift Guide. One hundred whole quid. That’s not too shoddy is it? View Post

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Chickenpox is one of those illnesses that as parents, we actively want our children to get. Allegedly to try and protect them from having a more serious reaction when they are older, and not just because we want them to be all listless and lie quietly somewhere.

Many of my friends got terribly excited when their kids were small if they heard of anyone with the pox, and would take their own healthy offspring round to ‘play’. I say play, but mainly it revolved around plenty of coughing, sneezing, and generally rubbing the children up against each other as much as possible.

In this UK we don’t vaccinate against chickenpox, but in the US they do, and parents worried about their children’s reactions to the vaccinations are adopting more extreme, alternative methods.

Like sending licked lollipops through the post.

I mean seriously, I know Americans have a bit of a reputation for not always being the sharpest tools in the box, but come on – licked lollipops? For a start, chickenpox is mainly an airborne virus, but even if it wasn’t, it’s just a bit gross isn’t it? Who wants to lick a second-hand lollipop that’s been through the postal system?

Weird.

Perhaps it will catch on in this country as a way to get out of school or boring meetings at work.

Don’t fancy going in today but don’t like that awkward phoning in and trying to make yourself sound ill? Simple, just go online and order yourself a half eaten sandwich from someone with D&V, or a partially nibbled Snickers from a leper.

I think I see a gap in the market. Dial-a-disease. You heard it here first.

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In my head, on the page, my story is real.

I am in the story, I can feel the characters’ breath on my neck. I sigh when they sigh, I see what they see. It is a work of genius. I sit upright. I’m smiling.

Read out loud to the group though my words become clumsy and uninspiring. Moments of intense pain sound hollow and cliché. The more I read the more foolish I feel for the smile I had on my face, the enthusiasm I had when I offered to read. My voice stumbles, I can’t catch my breath, I twist the ring on my left hand frantically.

When I’m done, people say kind things. But then they would wouldn’t they? I interpret the silences as awkward pauses, where no one can thing of anything good to say, so they decide not to say anything at all. I slump back in my chair, fold my arms across my chest and vow not to volunteer for the next reading. View Post

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This week I’ve been having a lot of fun designing colourful spreadsheets and creating calendars of work for the coming year.

I like this kind of planning. I think partly it’s just a complicated, technology based form of procrastination, but it also makes me feel more in control of work, and gives me the confidence to feel I can legitimately claim to be knowing what I’m doing.

Outside of work though, I find planning very difficult, whether it be the ‘what shall I take out of the freezer for dinner tonight’ type planning, or something a little more long-term. I just can’t help but think ‘How do I know?’ View Post

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“Only boring people get bored,” my Gran used to tell me.

This is now my stock response to Belle whenever the TV gets switched off.

“What am I supposed to do NOW?!” she wails, as though we don’t have a house full of Sylvanian Families, novelty stationery sets and ‘decorate your own fairy mirror’ kits.

“I’m sure you’ll find something,” I say. View Post

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Well, given that it turns out the hand sniffing was a bit weird, I thought I’d quickly change the subject to something that shows me a in slightly better light. Let’s just pretend the last post never happened yeah?

So, moving swiftly on…

Last Friday, I had a rather lovely day out, and I went up to London to have a look at the Littlewoods Christmas collection.

Normally I hate shopping – that moment where you catch a glimpse of yourself from behind in a brightly lit changing room is never great for your self-esteem – but it turns out that when I have a professional photographer on hand, and someone to do my hair and make up, it’s really not so bad. Who’d have thought?

Fuelled by a delicious cake selection and glass or two of mulled wine, I threw myself into the occasion, trying on everything I could get my hands on. Here is me working what I like to think of as my high-class hooker look:

Littlewoods review

I actually loved everything about this outfit, particularly the coat. It’s not something I would ever normally wear, but there’s something about it, when you put it on, you just feel lovely, like a friendly bear is giving you a big hug.   View Post

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My hands have a funny smell this afternoon. I’ve washed them, but it won’t go away. It’s a sort of bitter but slightly meaty smell. I wonder if it could be the three day old chilli I reheated at lunchtime, oozing out of my fingertips.

I can’t stop thinking about the smell and even though I’m at work, in an office full of people, I can’t resist the urge to keep sniffing my fingers, just to check if it’s still there. I appreciate that office based finger sniffing is not really OK, and so try to disguise it by scratching my nose at the same time.

I email my boyfriend at work to check that this is the kind of thing that other people do and not just me, because sometimes I tell him things that I think are quite normal, and he tells me I am a freak.

“My hands have got a funny smell on them that won’t come off,” I write, “and I keep doing that thing where you can’t help but pretend to scratch your nose and sniff them all the time. (That is a thing isn’t it?)”

His reply is not reassuring.

“You’re weird.”

I feel suddenly very aware of the other people in the office. I decide to keep my hands on the keyboard.

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Do you believe in God? Or angels? Or technology? Or yourself?

According to a recent survey, around 17% of the UK population have no doubt about God’s existence. Another 18% are sure the whole idea is nonsense. That leaves an awful lot of people in the middle, the people who think perhaps there is something, that we can’t just be doing all this alone, unsupervised by something or someone bigger and more powerful, but unable to put their fingers on exactly what that might be. View Post

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…is a lot of people. That’s more than the number of biscuits I’ve eaten in my lifetime, which is fair few by anyone’s standards.

According to the United Nations, 31 October – which is one week today – will be the day when the global population hits seven billion, for the first time ever. Sounds a lot doesn’t it? But when you think that their predictions go even further, and that by 2050 we could be looking at 10 billion+, well, suddenly seven billion seems a bit paltry, positively roomy.

I wonder what the world will be like in 2050?

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