I rarely read fiction; I’ve always held it to an impossibly high standard, and if I’m not gripped within the first few pages, I often return the book to a shelf, and never bother with it again. In my teens, I read The Bell Jar and Salinger, and they sort of Read more…
Morrisons have recruited lots of bloggers to become #MorrisonsMums and #MorrisonsDads to investigate their new cheaper range. They’ve permanently lowered the prices of over 1000 every day foods, and challenged the bloggers to do their bank holiday shop there. There is a long tradition in my family, of driving to Read more…
I’ve written before about how single mothers don’t get sick because there’s nobody else to look after the child or children if they do. As I write this, I am in quite a bit of pain. It started just before Christmas. I was sitting at my desk, and turned my head Read more…
September 2011. For the past few months I’ve been living in this house, returning to my own home only to pay rent and pick up my post. Living here is quite stressful; there are six children running around with very little in the way of discipline, guidance or boundaries. There Read more…
Seeing Kit this week has had me thinking a lot about the past two years. This time two years ago, I was just preparing to move into this flat. I had just gotten back together with S’s father for the last time. I thought I had seven weeks left of Read more…
April 2012. S is almost 3 weeks old. We’ve been out of hospital just under a week. We have an appointment today to register her birth. Because I am not married to S’s father, he needs to be at the appointment in order to be listed on the birth certificate. Read more…
My friend Simon and I have given up interacting on social media for Lent. You can read our first post about it here. Before I went to bed last night, I put a status on my personal page, and the page for this blog, explaining what I was doing and Read more…
S is one month away from turning two… and she’s reached the “Terrible Twos” already. Her behaviour of late has certainly been challenging, and I’ve found myself having to go into another room and take a few deep breaths more than once. I know a lot of people use the Read more…
Early Monday morning, I received a text from a friend: “I’m giving up Twitter and Facebook for Lent. I think you should too…” I thought he was joking, but he has this really irritating way of persuading me of things. By lunch time, we had agreed to both give up Read more…
S and I have had a lovely weekend. We’ve not had fancy days out; we’ve barely left the house.We’ve not spent loads of money; I think the grand total of our spending for the weekend was £6.60 and that included my buying a couple of candles yesterday morning. S ended Read more…
One of the best ways I’ve heard for explaining meditation is to think of your mind as a big lake. It’s something I’ve read in Deepak Chopra but also various other places. If you think of your mind as a big lake, your thoughts are creating ripples on the surface Read more…
S has been up three times this evening; I’m not even sure if she went to sleep in between times. Eventually I gave in, and put The Snowman on for her. It’s all music with no words, so usually encourages her to drop off to sleep. An hour later as Read more…
There is a rich tradition in my family of making excuses. Excuses for not helping each other; excuses for not going places; excuses for not doing things; excuses for not working. Our favourite thing to say is I can’t because… when what we usually really mean is I don’t want to. Read more…
As some of you may know, I’ve recently become self employed. One of my clients is Anandi, otherwise known as the Sleep Guru. She helps people to overcome insomnia and sleep problems with holistic solutions – no sleeping pills! If you ever have trouble sleeping, I’d check out her site Read more…
When I was pregnant, I came off the medication I had been on since my breakdown. My GP wanted me to go back onto it once I’d reached 12 weeks, but I refused. (I still refuse). As a compromise, she suggested I see a counsellor instead. I had been through Read more…
I am forever searching for something I give S for breakfast that’s reasonably healthy, but not too messy. I hit the jackpot when I came up with these apple, oat and raisin pancakes; they taste good, they’re tasty and they’re easy to make. This batter makes around 12 small pancakes. Read more…