One of our Quality-time-family days-out over the summer holidays was to Wookey Hole – you may remember it being in the news a while ago when they advertised for a new witch. (What a job!)

We went with our friends Vicky and Ashley, and we really did have a lovely time. It’s one of those places that definitely makes the most of the space – it’s built around some caves and an old paper mill, and hats off to them for the amount of entertainment they have managed to cram in. In terms of ice-cream outlets per square foot, you certainly get value for money.

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This month I have been reading Freedom, the new book from Jonathan Franzen.

I haven’t read anything by Franzen before, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect, and if I’m honest I was rather daunted by sheer chunkiness of it. 570 pages to be exact.

I do love reading, I really do. So much so that in 2008 I made a resolution to read 100 books in the year, and managed 104. But, at the moment I just don’t seem to have the time – I read four pages in bed, fall asleep, then have to go back two the next night to remind myself what happened. I thought Freedom was going to take me years…

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OK, it’s not that bad really, not blood and guts gruesome, but everyone I’ve told in real life has been consistently repulsed, so I thought I would share – lucky you!

I recently went on a date, a blind date in fact, with a man I met through a dating site before I got too scared and hid my profile, and who I had kept in touch with via email.

It was a fairly regular, suitably awkward first date in most ways. I arrived early and settled myself on a sofa with the paper so I could be calm and collected when he arrived, and not do my usual trick of turning up ten minutes late, fighting the urge to run away and hide under a duvet. I was served by a rather dishy waiter, who maintained eye contact for slightly longer than was strictly necessary, and who rather threw me off my stride as a result – I couldn’t help but keep glimpsing him throughout the lunch and thinking ‘Hmm… I’d rather be on a date with you…’

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My last post about infidelity sparked some really interesting discussion, and has got me thinking about just what fidelity means, and how important it actually is in a relationship.

So, given I always get such thoughtful interesting responses, I wanted to ask some more questions about what loyalty in a relationship means to you.

Firstly of course we have the issue of what is cheating? I think we have established that the majority of men (all my readers excepted obviously), would probably cheat if they had the chance and knew they could get away with it, but what exactly do you define as cheating? Is it a kiss? Is it sex? Or do men take the Bill Clinton approach to just how much bad behaviour you can defend… ‘I did not have intercourse with that woman…’

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I was talking to a male friend at the weekend about infidelity and he came out with a rather shocking statement.

He said that the only thing that stopped men from cheating on their partners was the possibility of getting caught. He reckoned that if there was a guarantee that the wives and girlfriends would never find out, that ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of men would cheat.

I will say that again just in case you didn’t hear me properly – ONE HUNDRED PERCENT.

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I’m a sucker for a decent chick flick, and I really enjoyed the film version of ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’, so when I saw a copy of the book at a boot sale at the weekend for 20p – well, what could I do? We know I need all the dating help I can get.

The premise is this – if a man wants to ask you out, he will ask you out.

That’s it really. (I never said it was complicated). The authors claim that if a guy really likes you, he will find a way to get in touch, he will call when he says he will, he will want to have sex with you and he will ultimately want to marry you. If he fails to come good on any of these points, ever, then you face the facts – he’s just not that into you.

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Yes, you heard me right – I said chocolate weetabix.

*waits while readers pick themselves up off the floor*

Now before I start, I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking ‘there have been quite a few reviews lately – what’s Jo playing at? It’s boring – we come here to read the sordid, pathetic details of her non-existent love life and feel better about our own lives, not get lectured about teddies and breakfast cereals.’

Well fair enough, I won’t do any more for ages, promise, but things have been a little tighter financially this month, so when I was asked if I wanted to try some of these new chocolate weetabix I was basically thinking ‘one less dinner to worry about.’ What can I say. I’m a cheap date.

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I’m supposed to be on a date right now.

I chickened out.

I feel bad about it, ashamed, like a child who’s scared to make new friends, especially given all the hard work everyone put in helping me create my online dating profile. The trouble is, although you got my requirements spot on, you missed one crucial ‘must-have’ for my ideal man.

‘Must creep up on me slowly, catch my eye in a bookshop, be the last person in the world I expect to fall in love with.’ Pathetically romantic I know, but there you go.

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When I was invited to bring the girls to a Build a Bear Workshop to make our very own bears I knew I was about to become a Very Popular Mummy.

I’ve written before about the difficulties of having two kids with a seven-year age gap, and how hard it is to find things for us all to do that don’t bore Belle to death or make Bee’s face screw up with a look of revulsion. Well, I think I can safely say that Build a Bear is the one thing, possibly with the exception of dumping them both at Claire’s Accessories and saying ‘here’s twenty quid each’, that they can both enjoy in equal measure.

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Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there lived a beautiful princess with a fondness for good grammar, and an unsuitable prince who was devilishly good at scrabble.

One day the unsuitable prince told the princess he was in love with her. He seemed rather perplexed though, so while he had a little think about it he put the princess in a well for safekeeping.

The well was very deep and dark and the princess was rather shocked. She was in love with the unsuitable prince too, but hadn’t been expecting him to feel the same, and she certainly hadn’t been expecting the well. The princess lived quietly in the well for a while. There wasn’t much to eat, but suddenly she wasn’t very hungry, and managed quite well on a diet of wine and the occasional Babybel. Sometimes she thought about escaping, but the light at the top of the well seemed so far away, and the walls were slippery and difficult to climb.

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You know I  never imagined that being a blogger would get me free stuff. Honestly. I started the blog really just as a way to get people to tell me how funny and clever I am, not for freebies.

So it was a lovely surprise, a few months in, to find people offering me things. For free! I know – it’s amazing isn’t it? It makes me feel terribly powerful, as though people are watching to see what I do so they can be like me. Most of the time of course I get offered complete rubbish (no, I really don’t want to try out a TENS machine on my tennis elbow), or things that are completely irrelevant to me life, like baby thermometers. You can tell then that the person asking hasn’t actually read my blog at all, they’ve just seen the word ‘mummy’. If they actually read it they’d realise I am not the kind of mummy to take temperatures. I am much more a ‘really darling? *sips G&T without making eye contact* I’m sure you’ll feel better after a nice sleep…’ type of mummy.

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This is just a quick follow-up to my ‘would you let a man in your bed who didn’t know the difference between there and their’ post…

I have a google alert set up for my name (is that vain? probably…) and this afternoon I had an email to tell me that I was being mentioned on the ‘Forces Penpals’ website. Intrigued, I clicked through the link, and discovered, to my delight, that I am being quoted as a ‘relationship expert’ (if only they knew…), advising men in the British Forces to get their spelling and grammar up to scratch if they want to make a good impression.

It made me laugh quite a lot. I never knew I had so much power. Thanks to me, the Army will now be churning out thousands of wonderfully literate soldiers, penning beautiful love letters home from all over the world.

Ok, maybe not, but a girl can dream. And if it means that just one extra man takes a bit more care with his capital letters then it’s a job well done in my eyes.

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