Mum-e Blog

Poor Posh

mum-e — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:30:25 +0000

I didn’t think I’d ever hear myself say this but I feel really, genuinely sorry for Victoria Beckham.
Have you ever seen a more desperate looking woman? Only someone seriously unhappy and grappling for control would allow themselves to become as emaciated as her. She looks frighteningly thin in the latest pictures taken at the Burberry Show at London Fashion Show last night – have a look at www.dailymail.co.uk. They actually make me want to cry. Never has a woman looked more sick or scared or sad and she really needs some help.
I bet it’s all to do with David. Here’s an interesting thing about the Beckhams. How many women find David attractive? Er, every woman in the world if she’s honest. How many men find Victoria attractive? I don’t know one. Does David fancy his wife? I can’t imagine anyone would actually find her sexy at the moment – she’s a bag of bones. Instead, he must be terrified at what his wife has turned into and not know what on earth to do about it.
When you think about them as ordinary people, rather than celebrities, it kind of makes more sense.
Gorgeous, successful husband has affair, publicly humiliating his wife and the mother of his kids. She manages to hang on to him but becomes increasingly neurotic and borderline anorexic as she worries he is going to do it again and leave her with a pretty empty, ordinary life.
You know what you should do, Victoria? Get some serious counselling. Work out what is properly important to you and would give your life some meaning. Then go and do it. Study architecture, learn to paint, do yoga, play the violin, go to Africa and help someone….it doesn’t matter what it is, but you need to find stuff to do except pose at fashion shows and pout at photographers outside fancy restaurants and starve yourself. Grow, girl.

Then...

...and now

Trumpet lady

mum-e — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:27:17 +0000

The only discussion I had with Not So Alpha Male this morning before I went to work (looking after the features at London Lite, the evening freebie paper, covering a maternity leave for six months) was about the lesbian trumpet teacher.
Should she have been jailed?
‘Not really,’ said he. ‘The pupil was consenting, the relationship is ongoing, the teacher is obviously fantastic and was a child prodigy, plus she is really pretty and not like some vile butch predator or something. I feel really sorry for her.’
Such a typical bloke’s response. How many relevant points can you see there?
Er…none.
The woman was a teacher. The girl was a pupil. And not just that – she was going through the trauma of her parents separating, by all accounts. A teacher has a duty to look after and support a pupil, not do rude sex stuff with her, particularly when she is at a vulnerable point. How on earth do you end up going on to have ‘normal’ (I don’t mean straight, I just been balanced) relationship after that?
Of course she should have gone to jail…if she was a man I don’t think anyone would doubt that. The fact that she is talented, blonde, looks like she wouldn’t harm a fly and used to go out with that cute, fair-haired guy in G4 is totally nothing to do with it.

The bloke from G4 probably won't turn up at prison looking like this

It’s a dog’s life….

mum-e — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:06:16 +0000

Well, the holiday is well and truly over and it’s back to the chaos (did I say relief?) of school. It might all be fine if there weren’t so many mountains of stuff to deal with. And suddenly it’s nearly winter and none of the girls’ clothes fit anymore and there are simply not enough hours in the day to do everything and manage to get six hours’ sleep.
Thank goodness for Rufus – one of the great things about getting a pooch is that you have to find time to go for a walk every day which is great for making us spend proper time together as a family rather than rushing around all weekend.
This weekend we went to Rickmansworth Aquadrome. If you live anywhere near it and haven’t been, you must go.

Three beautiful lakes with a sailing club (we have booked a lesson for next weekend), canoes for hire, waterskiing and a nature reserve. Plus lovely walking/cycling paths, a great play area for the girls and -best of all – the most fantastic cafe that does proper food. I had a Leon-style superfood salad with quinoa and broccoli and chilli and feta. In a park cafe! And there are lovely sweet potato and salmon fishcakes and smoothies for the kids. And the fussiest husband in the world raved about his Gruyere and spinach and salsa hot sandwich.
All great reasons to buy a dog.

Holiday!

mum-e — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:22:39 +0000

Off to Italy tomorrow for what might at first glance look like a smug family trip. Fifteen of us – my twin brothers and their wives and kids, plus my parents – off to a big villa in Tuscany, very generously paid for by my lovely Dad. It’s a lovely villa on the Tuscan coast, with a pool and a huge long table under a gazebo for lazy lunches al fresco – and we have even got a cook coming in a couple of nights to we can collapse with a bottle of chianti or eight once the kids are in bed. Plus my parents are running a kids’ club for their seven grandchildren every day for an hour or so, so we exhausted parents actually get a chance to sunbathe with a book for a while each day. So, er, yes, it is actually a really very smug family trip. Sorry about that.
If you were ever thinking of doing something similar, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Tuscany Now. They are the most amazing company who can organise anything, from babysitters to cooks, in whatever size villa you want, all with pools and properly checked out each year to make sure they are up to scratch. We’ve been away with them about four times and they have always been brilliant.
Anyway, I’ll be off the blog for a week so in the meantime I will leave you with my favourite pizza recipe. I promise, once you have had this, you will not want to eat restaurant pizza again, it is fantastic, and great fun to make with kids. Mine like to make their own and like flower or heart shaped pizzas which they then decorate with loads of vegetables they would not usually eat. Somehow peppers and mushrooms that would usually be considered icky are really appealing on pizza. Maybe it’s all that melted cheese….

Best ever home made pizza

Makes enough for two adults and two kids.

For the dough:
500g white bread flour
1 sachet (7g) easy blend yeast
12 fl oz water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

Topping
Jar of tomato pasta sauce (or make your own with passata, onions and garlic plus a tsp each of salt and sugar, simmered until thick)
1 bag of grated mozzarella
Anything else you fancy – my kids like black olives, mushrooms, sweetcorn and red pepper; I like fresh basil, anchovies, capers and olives; husband likes artichoke and tuna.
Olive oil
Black pepper

Heat oven to 220C.
Put all the ingredients in a food processor with a dough hook, and knead for five minutes, or knead by hand for ten minutes.
You end up with a wet dough. Leave in a warm place for about 30 minutes, til the dough has doubled in size.
Punch out air and shape (or roll) into two round pizzas and place on baking sheets, lined with greaseproof paper or oiled.
Spread tomato sauce over the base then add cheese and other toppings.
Drizzle with olive oil and grind over pepper.
Bake for 20 minutes until cheese is bubbling madly and the base is just cooked through.
Yum!

Little Princess no 1's flower pizza about to go in the oven

Birthday bonanza

mum-e — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:17:02 +0000

It’s LP2’s birthday coming up and as usual I am not quite on top of the situation. Last year I made her a cake I am still very proud of – it’s Peppa Pig in case you don’t recognise her.

Peppa Pig cake

This year I am not sure I am going to have time for that though. So I am thinking of using www.caketoppers.co.uk who can make and send you edible cake decorations, which means I can have a birthday cake and matching cupcakes from a photo – I am thinking of using one of Rufus, our labradoodle. The cake decoration is less than £10 which is a hell of a lot less than the cost of all the icing I used (and had to throw away when it went wrong the first 24 times) on Peppa.
The other site I like to use is www.vistaprint.co.uk which I used last year to print invitations with the girls’ photos on and thank you cards with pictures from the party, which my kids (or I) can personalise by writing on the back. They cost £11.99 for 20 cards which I thought was pretty good and they look really professional. I use them for business cards too.

Obviously, however much I say I am going to do all this, I probably won’t get round to it in time. In fact, I bet I’ll still be up at 3am the night before the party re-rolling the icing for a cake in the shape of the Little Princess and cursing my total lack of organisational skills…

Are we nearly there yet?

mum-e — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:25:02 +0000

The drive to Aldeburgh in Suffolk, where we are spending a few days, is only a couple of hours from home, yet the kids spent the whole journey whingeing. This despite a packed picnic of ‘treats’ (breadsticks, homemade gingerbread men, a few crisps, a chocolate crispy cake…) and endless CDs of everything from Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton stories to High School Musical 1, 2 and 3.
Still, now we are here it is blissful, the puppy loves being at the seaside and we are going to spend the day at Rendlesham Forest where there are marked walks and a great playground.
My top tip for making sure they don’t start moaning again that their legs hurt or they are hungry?
Make an I-Spy board. Basically draw a grid, fill it in with pictures (don’t worry if your artistic skills are limited, it only needs very basic drawings) of things they might see. Make some of them easy – leaf, bird, branch, cloud, that kind of thing – and some harder eg stream, pine cone, woodpecker, blackberry. And always have a prize for when they have filled the whole thing in.
I’ve bought them each a Crayola magic ink colouring set in the desperate hope that it might keep them entertained for two hours on the way home at the weekend….

Another week, another link…

mum-e — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:55:37 +0000

Goodness, Monday again, that happened quickly…
The weekend was fun. I had a dinner party for ten which I had been a bit nervous about – most of the people hadn’t met before and I hadn’t entertained in ages. But it went really well – the last guests left at 2.30am. We ended up playing a great game called Tunes with Spoons which basically involves everyone having a spoon, picking some cheesy songs on the iPhone, sticking it in the docking station and turning it up really loudly and then pretending to be a pop star, singing along. Kind of like a rubbish version of karaoke.

Anyway, it was a good giggle until LP1 came downstairs and asked us to keep it down, did we know what time it was…
Then yesterday after dinner she asked if she could play a game, like we did. I really didn’t have the head for loud music again, so I looked on familyfun.go.com and found some games the kids could play in the garden. So, that’s my top choice for this week.
Another good one is http://www.picnicrecipesandgames.com/ – great ideas for picnics and what to do when you’ve finished eating.
Now we just need a few more sunny days.

Swine flu

mum-e — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:00:40 +0000

Little Princess number one woke up the other morning saying ‘I’m hot, my throat hurts, I can’t move, I feel sick.’ With that, she ran to the loo, threw up and then went back to bed. Her temperature was 40, Calpol didn’t seem to be helping and – of course – I was worried that it was the dreaded swine flu.
I went on to the government website where you can tick a few boxes about symptoms, and get prescribed Tamiflu. Scarily, it seemed she had way more of the elements you need to qualify. My daughter had swine flu.

But something didn’t feel right. She hasn’t been in contact with anyone with it. And anyway, I’ve read lots about Tamiflu and I was worried about giving it to her.
I called a doctor friend who advised me to get her examined by a doctor, rather than just use the website.
‘It could be anything,’ she told me. ‘Tamiflu has horrible side effects and it could be that she has toncilitis and needs antibiotics anyway, not Tamiflu at all.’
I was concerned that the local surgery wouldn’t see me, but they made us an immediate appointment, put us in an isolation room, and the doctor came to examine LP1.
‘It’s a throat virus,’ he said. ‘Well done for not just going down the Tamiflu route. It’s not necessary at all. And it can cause bad sickness as well as hallucinations that can be very scary for a child. Lots of fluids and Paracetemol and she’ll be fine in 24 hours.’
And she was.
Which got me thinking…is the government getting its swine flu figures from the number of Tamiflu prescriptions going out? If so, the numbers could be awfully wrong. I know at least half a dozen people who have taken it, none of whom saw a doctor first and who almost certainly didn’t have it at all – they recovered way too quickly.
So…my top tip for the day. If you think your child has Tamiflu, go to the doctor. The web is brilliantly useful in loads of ways. But for prescribing drugs to kids? I’d rather stick to the old fashioned way.

Just another Magic Monday…

mum-e — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:54:32 +0000

My two favourite websites of the day….

1. www.woolworths.co.uk
Hurrah, Woolworths is back – albeit only online – selling clothes, toys and party stuff, really cheaply. And they are offering free cinema tickets – you just have to sign up as a VIF (Very Important Family) first.

2. allrecipes.com
I love this site because it has recipes from real people, given ratings by other real people, so they do actually work. You can search under any ingredient or occasion and the recipes tend to be really straightforward. There is now also allrecipes.co.uk, but there aren’t so many rated recipes as yet. I tried these Maple Walnut Muffins (I am a bit of a muffin freak) and they were YUMMY.

Walking with Dinosaurs

mum-e — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:23:49 +0000

If you haven’t booked tickets for this yet you really should – it’s touring the UK. Brilliantly educational and entertaining for kids and adults – the animatronic dinosaurs are brilliant. I saw it in the States because I was writing a review and can genuinely say it’s a must see. It’s showing at loads of arenas around the country – including the O2 in August.