I am feeling hormonal today.

It’s probably more information than you need, but I don’t care, you’ve got it now. (That’s the sort of mood I’m in. I’m making a frowny face at the screen right now.)

Hormones, just in case you are a man and don’t know about these things, are chemicals created by some kind of devil being, designed to take what you thought was a perfectly nice life, and shake it around a bit in a big can of mud, until you are so cross and sad and confused that you don’t know what’s happening any more, or why you’re even mad.

*Makes sulky grunting noise*

Eating half a bar of Christmas spiced chocolate didn’t work, so I thought I’d spend a little bit of time looking at my favourite door pictures from Instagram. I don’t know about you, but when I look at pictures of beautiful front doors, I find it very hard to feel sad.

Like this one. 

When I saw this door in London this morning I was drawn to the fanlight above the door. I’m pretty sure that this door is trying to tell me something in code – BATMAN LIVES HERE.

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This morning I got out of bed and punched myself in the stomach, all in the name of the Hayo’u method.

Okay, so I’m dramatising to get your attention, but it worked didn’t it? You’re still reading. (Don’t stop now, just to make a point.)

I’ve actually been giving myself a good pummelling every day now for about two weeks, ever since I went to visit Katie Brindle. Katie is an expert in Chinese medicine and creator of the Hayo’u method. 

Katie Brindle Hayo'u method

So here’s the deal. Just follow me for a bit, because I know some people will be a bit sceptical about Chinese medicine, but even if you can’t get your head around the idea of Qi, (pronounced ‘chee’), then you can still benefit from Katie’s experience and get something out of her one minute rituals.  View Post

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Today I’m reviewing hoolio – the online fitness app.

Last week I faced a challenge. A very tough and serious challenge. Fiancé asked me to take a picture of myself, high fiving myself, without using the timer.

(Oaky, this is a lie, he didn’t say ‘without using the timer’, but I didn’t realise until afterwards that my phone camera has a timer, and then I felt a bit stupid, so I’m pretending that that was the challenge all along.)

It was tricky. Try it now if you don’t believe me. I tried various methods that involved propping my phone against things and trying to take the picture with my nose, but none of them worked. In the end, I had to take off my shoes and tights, and hold the phone between my toes, whilst twisting my body to get my hands around in front of the camera, and pressing the button with my toe.

I ended up with this, as well as a feeling that I probably have too much time on my hands:

HOOLIO FITNESS APP

As you can see, I struggled to focus the camera with my toe. View Post

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I get a lot of people on social media questioning my blog name.

‘You don’t look slummy,’ they say, ‘so where does the name come from?’

It’s true, I am glorious – a virtual goddess, always turned out impeccably and with full make up, so I can see where the confusion might arise. When I started Slummy Single Mummy, the slummy part of it came less from my physical appearance though, and more from my general attitude to life, especially my ‘relaxed’ style of parenting* and my lack of enthusiasm in the housework department.

To illustrate the point, here is my dressing table, as it was 24 hours ago:

dressing table makeover tidying tips

dressing table makeover tidying tips

You see what I mean? View Post

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Picture me now…

I’m at home, in my conservatory. The sun is streaming through the windows, (but it’s not too hot – you can get fancy glass for that now), and I’m surrounded by gorgeous plants. In my hand is some sort of delicious gin based cocktail – I have guests round and we’re chatting in a relaxed way about very interesting and intelligent things. Over in the corner where we keep the bar, my fiancé is fixing a drink for Stephen Fry and chatting about music and cricket…

Okay, you got me, none of that is real. What gave it away?

It would be ace though wouldn’t it? I’ve always felt that a proper conservatory is really the dream – I’m a sucker for plants, and a beautiful space that I could fill with them, whilst I reclined elegantly somewhere, would be ideal.

Perhaps a little something like this?

shutterstock_363302444 (1), Oakley conservatories

I think fiancé might have an actual heart attack if he came home and saw that. He’d like something a little more along these lines I reckon:

shutterstock_357007598 (1), Oakley conservatories

If you’ve often toyed with the idea of a conservatory, and want to make more space in your home for entertaining, but have never been sure about the practicalities, how about going along to a showroom? I have to admit that I didn’t know until recently that there was even such a thing as a conservatory showroom, but what do I know?

Oakley Green Conservatories has a showroom near me in Bristol, as well as conservatory showrooms in Thatcham and Maidenhead. The beauty of a company like Oakley is that they can also get involved in non-conservatory related building work, so if you want a major revamp, they can also help with kitchen designs. It would be rather nice to think you only had to go to one place for the whole project.

To give you some further conservatory inspiration, I’ve put together a Pinterest board full of lovely conservatory entertaining pictures.

You’ll be fixing Stephen Fry that drink before you know it.

 

Images – Craig Hinton, Joshua Rainey Photography – from Shutterstock. Sponsored post.

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I have come to the conclusion that 95% of kitchen chairs are just ugly.

I’ve been trying to find some lovely, simple, elegant dining chairs, and it’s pretty much impossible. Everything is high-backed and made of leather. Yuk. If someone could point me towards something beautiful, I would be very grateful.

I will need to wait until I own my own house of course until I can actually make my whole kitchen beautiful, but I do think about it a lot. I had a press release earlier this week in fact, which inspired a new Pinterest board. It was of this cooker from Everhot. I will give you a minute or so to have a little sigh and imagine yourself here, eating a slice of warm chocolate cake.

Everhot cooker teal, blue green kitchens

It’s a bit gorgeous isn’t it?

I love a bit of colour at home, and blues, greens and teals are lovely in a kitchen. They have a wonderful clean, freshness to them, and give you the feeling that it might be spring, even if it’s raining. (I am very gullible, and can be made to believe pretty much anything.)

The Everhot cooker is a teeny bit out of my price range for now, but you don’t need to have masses of cash to add colour to your kitchen. Coloured glass is always nice, and I have a whole shelf full of LSA glass. My latest addition is the teal LSA Basis jug in teal – the one in the middle here. It looks lovely with a few long-stemed flowers, or use it to serve summer cocktails. I have these tea and coffee jars too, from Amazon, which add some blue, retro style.

LSA basis jug, blue green kitchens

I LOVE this kitchen.

I love the contrast of the white with the greens and bright teal coloured tiles. I love that it’s full of plants too – I think bright white makes a brilliant background for plants and splashes of bright colour like this.

When I grow up…

 

If you’d like a bit more green/blue kitchen inspiration you can check out my Pinterest board.

What colours do you like in a kitchen? 

 

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The cult of celebrity is a funny thing. I think, as a society, we’ve become a bit obsessed with it over recent years, fuelled by the explosion of social media. We have this idea in our minds that ‘celebrities’ are not quite real people, that they live these lives that are slightly removed from reality, and that they don’t face exactly the same issues and anxieties as we do every single day.

Of course this is nonsense. People are people. Whatever you do for a living, or however much money you earn, you still get tired when you’ve been working hard, you still find it difficult to make time for yourself, you still deal every day with parenting guilt. That’s just life.

It’s something that was brought home to me recently when I met up for lunch with a handful of other bloggers and the lovely Alesha Dixon. Alesha is the ambassador for a brand called Swisse, who are the number one multivitamin in Australia, but new to the UK market. They are available online or from Boots.

Alesha Dixon Interview Swisse VitaminsWe had all been using supplements from the Swisse range over the last month, and had come together to chat about how we were getting on, and, more generally, how we all manage the pressures of juggling work and family life. As you can see from my picture, I’ve been taking the Women’s Ultivite – a blend of vitamins, minerals and botanical extracts, all brought together to help you function at your best. I’ve definitely noticed having more energy, and my nails have lost that worrying bendy quality. (My wee has turned a slightly fluorescent colour but we are assured this is normal, so don’t panic if this happens to you!) View Post

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Did you see my botanical interiors post earlier this week? It was good. You should. (If you like plants).

I really enjoyed doing it. Pinterest is really fun isn’t it? Well dur, I know it is, that’s the point of it, but I do tend to come to these things a bit late. Bee and I call it ‘having a beach holiday moment’ because of the time I said ‘Gosh, do you know what would be lovely? A holiday somewhere really peaceful, perhaps near the sea, where I don’t have to do anything at all. Maybe I’d just lie on a beach all day’, as if no one had ever thought of that before.

She humours me though.

This time I went for more of a country living vibe. I like a good country living inspired interior because it still has an element of nature, but it has a bit more of a solid, traditional feel to it too. There are still a lot of natural materials, but there is something very secure and safe feeling about it. Safe in a ‘returning to your family home’ way rather than in a ‘magnolia wall’ way.

If you go down to the woods today… a sneak peak of the #AW16 woodland inspired collection from @georgeatasda #georgepressday

A photo posted by Country Homes & Interiors (@countryhomesmag) on

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I have a thing about plants.

Spider babies, you know, are a bit of a favourite, but it’s other plants too. For me, a house just isn’t a home without plants. They add something that no amount of stylish furniture or accessorising can – a sense of calm, and connection with the world. Of course it doesn’t hurt to have a huge, plush green velvet sofa and a wall of solid oak bookcases too, but you have to have the plants. Lucky for me then that botanical interiors are big at the moment – if I wait long enough, something I like normally comes into fashion eventually, even if only briefly.

This is my desk at the moment, to give you an idea of what I mean. Note the obligatory spider babies in giant gold and silver thimbles. (These are from Red Candy if you like them.)

botanical interiors desk workspace

I had a quiet half hour at work this morning, so I thought I’d put together a botanical living room Pinterest board. As you do. Because there is so much colour in plants and botanical inspired accessories, I think they tend to work well against plain white backgrounds and natural materials.

If you’re just too jazzy for white walls, how about a botanical wallpaper? I particularly love Justina Blakeney’s range for Hygge and West. Personally I would use these sparingly though, and they would need to be the focal point – I don’t think you’d want to go super crazy with botanical accessories if you had something bold like this on your wall:

Anywho, if you’re a fan of botanical interiors, do have a browse through my botanical inspired living room pins below. (I figured out how to embed the whole board into the post, so you can scroll through it here without even having to go to Pinterest. Aren’t you a lucky sausage?)

What are your favourite interiors trends at the moment?

 

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A lot of people tell me I look young for my age. This is me, sporting a rather fetching Christmas pudding hat:

Jo Middleton Slummy Single Mummy, anti-ageing tips

I’m actually 57.

Not really. I’m 38 though. I have a bit of a party trick when I meet new people – I casually mention that I have children, and they say ‘Oh right, how old?’ expecting me to say three and one, or something like that, and I say 13 and 20, and watch them wrestle with their face, not sure if they are allowed to say anything.

It’s funny. I deliberately say 13 first, as that seems to shock people enough, and then when they are on the back foot, I go in with the 20. Boom.

Often here they will gasp and say “God, you don’t look old enough to have a 20 year old!”

“I’m not really,” I will say, smiling knowingly, and making them even more confused.

So, I had a genius idea – I thought I would have a bit of a think, and put together my very own anti-ageing tips for you! Like a proper beauty blogger, only more disgusting, as you will see.

Don’t wash

An easy one to start with. Let those natural oils flow guys! Your skin doesn’t want to be getting wet and dry again all the time now does it? Washing your hands all the time is just going to leave you looking like one of those old ladies with wrinkly hands and lots of gold rings. No one wants that.

Avoid the sun

Everyone knows it’s bad for you, so scrap the picnic, skip the trip to the park and stay in and watch Peppa Pig instead. Your skin will thank you for it.

Many people think that the time we should start thinking about anti-aging skincare is when we reach our retirement days. Contrary to that belief, we need to actually start taking good care of our skin and keep it from aging as early as our 20s.  Wrinkles and fine lines becomes visible when skin begins to lose collagen. Too much sun exposure also contribute as it can weaken the elasticity of the skin. Anti-aging creams and sunscreens can be helpful to prevent premature aging but be sure to check if the products you use best fit your skin type.

Train a child to wash up

As with point one above, you really don’t want to be sticking your hands into hot soapy water day in day out, so assign washing up to one of your children as a chore as soon as possible. Stand them on a chair and turn it into a game. They’ll soon learn to be careful with the knives.

Try not to care too much generally

That worry will show on your face! Instead of bothering about which schools your kids will get into, or whether or not they’ve had enough fruit and vegetables, concentrate on the trivial things, like which of your spider babies needs repotting next, or whether you want to read Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys in bed tonight.

Avoid crafts with children

GLITTER!!! ARGH!!! Seeing your kitchen covered in red paint and cornflour will age you by at least five years, instantly. Avoid it wherever possible.

Use your natural oils

If you find yourself sat on a train with a spare moment, take the opportunity to use what nature has blessed you with and rub some of the grease from your nose and other oily bits of your face onto the drier areas, like the skin around your eyes. It’s fine, it’s natural. 

Moisturise

Every day. It’s very important. Choose a moisturiser with built in sun protection.

What are your favourite anti-ageing tips?

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I think it would be fair to say I’m not a natural in photographs. Video I can do, still shots, not so much. You know that episode of Friends, where Monica tries to get Chandler to pose for an engagement photo? I’m like that. Something happens to my face. Also, I really know nothing about clothes, so when George at Asda asked me to style some looks for their jeans range, what I should have said is ‘honestly Asda, you don’t want me in your clothes, it won’t be pretty.’

What I actually said was: ‘Sure! That sounds fun!’

D’oh.

Now the idea behind the challenge is that George wanted to show me that they have a range of jeans for any occasion. Jeans are a wardrobe staple after all, and can always be styled up or down, depending on what you’re doing and where you’re going. They’ve put together this little video, illustrating the point.

Which jean are you?

Needless to say, I do not look like this woman, so, in anticipation of the photos that you’re about to see, I’m going to spend a little bit of time first telling you about the jeans in words, as they are actually really nice, and I want that to come across. View Post

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cool instagram stationery accounts

One of my favourite ever things is stationery.

I like buying it, I like looking at it, I like arranging it nicely on my desk and taking pictures of it. I even like looking at it online, as an emergency measure, if there is no real life stationery in the vicinity. I follow loads of stationery accounts on Instagram, all of which are full of lovely pretty pens, neatly arranged rulers, and other such delights. If you want to follow some too, here are six of my favourites: View Post

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