If you’re going to have a massive strop and fall asleep, why not do it underneath the piano so it’s really tricky to get you out again…………………..
Sub piano strop – Wicked Wednesday 3 February 2016
Jamie Oliver’s strops – Wicked Wednesday 20 January 2016
Let’s all go to Jamie Oliver’s for dinner (one of his Italian restaurants, not just popping round to see him, Jools and the kids – clearly!) we’ll have a lovely family meal out.
So the 4 year old declares ‘I’m not eating dead chicken anymore’ and puts herself under the table with her iPad.
Then, for some reason, the 5 year old decides to show everyone her knickers:
These photos are my entry this week for Wicked Wednesday over on BrummyMummyof2’s blog – do go over there and see other photos of real family life:
Sisters are doing it for themselves!
I am the eldest of 3 girls (poor Dad!)
I am the only one still to reside in a Birmingham postcode (although we actually live in Worcestershire, which sounds a bit posher?!?) Youngest sister is a 2 hour drive away, and middle sister is a 2 hour plane journey away.
There’s 22 months between me and middle sis and then 4 further years to the baby! (Although once, when she had 2 children and I had none, we were asked if we were twins – I found this highly amusing – ‘my twin’ was not so impressed!!)
We probably only all get together about once a year – and then there are husbands / children / parents in tow. We might have managed the odd night in the pub, or sing song around a piano, as just the 3 of us – but we’ve never done anything more.
As kids we were lucky to do lots of family holidays to France / Scotland / anywhere in between – but then we were always accompanied by our parents. As adults we’ve done return visits to both of the above – but with parents and husbands and kids too.
I remember each sister coming to visit when I was at Uni – but not both at the same time. (We won’t mention that I took little sister clubbing and to see Pulp Fiction when she was only 14 – given her daughter is older than that now!!)
Youngest sister hit 18 and spent a year in the US, and when she got back I was in Australia, and middle sister was living in Germany. Then littlest sister got pregnant with her first child (now a gorgeous 15 year old). Between us, we had 7 kids in 7 years – so going away as a threesome has just never happened.
Over the festive period the middle sister hit the big 4 – 0, and celebrated on a warm (but windy!) beach in Egypt with her husband and kids. But we are prolonging the celebrations (hey, I celebrated for a whole year when I was 40!) by going away next weekend – just the 3 of us – to a spa hotel in the German mountains.
We are all ridiculously excited – it will be so bizarre just being sisters for the weekend not mums / wives / daughters.
Happy 40th Birthday lovely middle sister!!
Book Review: Life After You by Lucie Brownlee
“He crashed on to the pillow next to me, heavy as a felled oak. I slapped His face and told Him to wake up. Our daughter, B, appeared in the doorway, woken up by the screaming – I must have been screaming but I don’t remember – and she was crying and peering in. I told her the ultimate adult lie; that everything was all right.’
Sudden death is rude. It just wanders in and takes your husband without any warning; it doesn’t even have the decency to knock. At the impossibly young age of 37, as they were making love one night, Lucie Brownlee’s beloved husband Mark dropped dead.
As Lucie tried to make sense of her new life – the one she never thought she would be living – she turned to writing to express her grief. Life After You is the stunning, irreverent and heartbreakingly honest result.”
I saw this book being raved about on Facebook (and subsequently as a Richard and Judy Book Club book) and so thought I’d download it. It seemed particularly poignant as a Dad in my daughter’s class at school had recently died – albeit after an illness and so not suddenly – but I still thought it might be relevant and give me an insight into someone being a young widow.
Despite being such a difficult topic – I really enjoyed reading this book, and couldn’t wait to get back to it. It was so well written – and I can imagine being a mate of Lucie’s. She writes amazingly – and I hope goes on to write more after this first book.
She deals with the aftermath of her husband’s sudden death – and the effect on her, her young daughter (the same age as my youngest child) and her friends and family with great emotion and passion – but also with humour and irreverence.
Whilst it is written in her context – losing a husband very suddenly – I think it is relevant to anyone going through the hideous emotions of grief. And whilst I sincerely hope it’s not something I have to go through in the near future (the fact her husband is ‘Mark’, like mine, added an extra dimension) -I also hope it’s given me more empathy for people going through this, or similar, traumas.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone (and it’s alter ego version ‘Me After You’).
It makes me very grateful for my Mark and our brood…….
Book Review: My Big Fat Christmas Wedding by Samantha Tonge
I reviewed the first book in this series, Game of Scones, earlier in the year – and was pleased when this sequel dropped on to my Kindle. I also liked the play on ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ theme for the book title – just like ‘Game Of Thrones’ before!
Here’s the Amazon blurb:
“Things don’t always run smoothly in the game of love…
As winter comes to her sleepy Greek island, former hot shot city girl Pippa Pattinson loves her new life of rustic simplicity, running a quaint teashop with her hot fiancé, Niko. But it’s been a quick change to slow living – and you can’t blame a girl for wondering as Christmas approaches, ‘how did I get here?’
As her Christmas wedding approaches, a trip back to snowy England for her ex’s engagement party makes her wonder if those are wedding bells she’s hearing in her mind, or warning bells. She longs for the excitement of her old London life – the glamour, the regular pedicures. Can she really give that all up to be…a fishwife?
There’s nothing for it but to throw herself into bringing a little Christmas magic to the struggling village in the form of a Christmas fair. Somewhere in amidst the sparkly bauble cakes and stollen scones, she’s hoping she’ll come to the right decision about where she belongs…fingers crossed in time for the wedding…”
I have to say I’m a sucker for a sequel – I always like to see how things have panned out for the characters of the previous book, and it feels like revisiting friends. This was great – catching up just a few months after the end of Game of Scones – and I still liked Pippa (although occasionally found myself shouting at her just to talk to her fiance!)
I liked the way it was mostly set it Greece – but with a brief trip back to London – it showed the real difference between the Christmas season in both places.
The Greek austerity issues were dealt with well in the book, and you really felt for the families and their fight for survival in the smaller towns of Kos. However, I felt the refugee crisis was kind of shoe horned in, It felt as if the book had been written, but then the author felt she couldn’t leave out the current issues facing Kos with refugees, so it had to be shoved in somehow.
I also found it quite odd with the Greek people in the book sometimes speaking perfect English – and at other times complete pigeon English – it just seemed a bit strange and inconsistent (although in both cases way better than my Greek would be!!)
Another random thing – the actual book finished at 84% on my Kindle (which was a bit disappointing and abrupt – I know that they often don’t go to 100% but I was expecting more than it suddenly finishing so far before the end. This additional 16% (see, geeky mathematician like Pippa!) was preview chapters of another book which I didn’t want to read.)
Also, I’ve ended up ‘unfollowing’ the author on Twitter. I realise that Twitter is often used by authors for self promotion – but she was posting literally every hour about the book – or her other books – and it all felt a bit exhausting. It’s a shame – as I do like following authors on Twitter to see what they’re up to, and when new books are going to be out – but perpetual advertising does not make for an interesting feed.
Overall the story was fun, and it was an easy read, and if there is a 3rd book in the series I will probably read it (and look forward to which TV series / film the title is a pun of!)
Time to step off the wagon?
So – my 30 days are up (well, they are tomorrow morning). I’ve managed not to have a drop of booze for a month. I am pretty proud of myself.
I have to say I may well have given up if I hadn’t been so public about it – or said I was doing it to help Fin fundraise but I have stuck to my guns (despite people trying to tempt me, and the universe conspiring at times) – but a month on the wagon is done.
I am going to *try* not to slip in to the bad habits of wine every night, as I feel so much better for not drinking – and have even lost a bit of weight – but it will be nice to share a bottle with my husband, have a G&T with visiting friends, or numb the frustration of a child with tonsilitis refusing to take her medicine!!
But you can still make a donation if you’d like to recognise this achievement – and help raise money for Brain Tumour Research. Thank you to those who already have too.
Grrrrrrrr
Today I parked at the ‘wrong’ side of a railway bridge, so I could march up the stairs and across it and walk down into the village to go to the Post Office whilst waiting for my daughter’s train home from school. Part of this was to rack up lots of steps and flights of stairs on my Fitbit. A great plan.
Until I got half way back and went to check my steps and realised my Fitbit was still plugged into my computer at home being charged.
Grrrrrrrrrr.
Book Review: Ours Souls At Night by Kent Haruf
I wanted to read something different – and out of my usual comfort zone – and this was recommended in Red Magazine – so I went for it.
Here’s the Amazon blurb:
“Addie Moore’s husband died years ago, so did Louis Waters’ wife, and, as neighbours in Holt, Colorado they have naturally long been aware of each other. With their children now far away both live alone in houses empty of family. The nights are terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk to. Then one evening Addie pays Louis an unexpected visit.
Their brave adventures-their pleasures and their difficulties-form the beating heart of Our Souls at Night. Kent Haruf’s final novel is an exquisite and moving story about love and growing old with grace. It is a lasting tribute to the extraordinary author who wrote it.”
I was initially a bit confused as to how it was written. Often the lines are being said by people in conversation – but there are no speech marks or ‘he said’ / ‘she said’ – you kind of just have to go with the flow – and once I was in the swing of it, I totally ‘got’ it.
It is a really beautiful book. It follows the stories of Addie and Louis – and in part Addie’s son and grandson – and is very beautifully and innocently told. You really feel you get to know Addie and Louis and it is incredibly moving.
It’s only a short book – and all the more poignant as Kent Haruf passed away shortly after writing it – but I would definitely recommend it to anyone with a heart!
Times when I would like a drink
As I wrote a few days ago, I have given up booze for 30 days. This shouldn’t be too onerous – but I keep coming across situations when a nice glass of wine would not go amiss……
- Half term. Juggling 4 kids and work over half term is fun. The nanny being on holiday for the week is making it even ‘funn-er’. Doing all of this whilst knowing I won’t be sinking into a large
glassbottle of wine each night is just like the funn-est thing ever………………. - My sister visiting. I have 2 sisters, and the middle one of us has the occasional glass of wine, but isn’t the hardened drinker that the youngest sister and I are. My little sister (she is 35 before you get the impressions she’s underage!) did ‘dry January’ this year and reckons it was one of the toughest things she’s ever done – and made her think about booze ALL OF THE TIME. She came to visit on Saturday, and normally we’d share a bottle of prosecco or two – but this time I wasn’t drinking!! My brother in law tried to get me to drink ‘Go on, have a drink, we won’t tell anyone’ and ‘Have a drink now and just add on an extra day at the end’ – but I held strong – just look at me with my mug of tea whilst the BIL is on the beer!!
- Christmas cake making. In fact, anything Christmas related. The reason the aforementioned sister was visiting is that we make Christmas cakes with all of the kids each year. I am renowned for my lack of Christmas spirit – which I offset with spirits during the cake baking process – but not this year.
- 4 year old’s birthday party. I was attending this party as a punter – and it almost drove me to gin. I have realised that my own youngest daughter’s 4th birthday party – to be held at the same soft play centre – is going to be within my 30 abstemious days. Oh dear………….
- Parties in general. I spent Sunday afternoon at a party where all of my friends were drinking beer / wine / prosecco / gin – and it was very hard to resist! But seeing as the guest of honour at the party was Finlay – whose fundraising I am supporting with my attempt – I couldn’t really fall off the wagon!
I fear I am not cut out for a tee total life of sobriety forever. Still time to sponsor this effort if you so wish?! My mother told my yesterday that if I actually manage this (nice faith in me there parentals!) they will make a sizeable donation!!
Just the 20 days to go………………
No Vino November
Social media appears to be full of people giving up booze and Going Sober for October, or giving up fags with Stop-tober (imagine people doing both – bet they’re fun to be around!!)
Nicotine is not one of my vices, but alcohol is.
Had a good day? Celebrate with a glass of fizz.
Had a bad day? Commiserate with a G&T.
Bad period paid? Self medicate with a chilled sauv blanc.
A freakishly sunny day in the UK? Pour an ice cold lager.
Etc etc!
I will sometimes decide to ‘be good’ and give up booze, but within a matter of days (usually 5 if I started on a Monday) giving up booze has become ‘giving up drinking in the week’.
Then the next week, well, we don’t have childcare until Tuesday, so that’s really when my week starts, so I can still have a glass of wine on Monday night, right?
Then – well, Thursday is allegedly the new Friday – so that makes the weekend 5 days.
So I’m managing 2 booze free days per week.
**go Libby** #ironicfont
Now I’ve been pretty abstemious each time I’ve been pregnant and that’s been 3 years of my adult life – without also counting the time I was breast feeding and so was also reasonably reduced in my booze consumption. No spirits, and with the boy no champagne as it gave him bad wind. It also did if I drank orange juice – so guessing if I’d had a Bucks Fizz he may have exploded?!
But since then (and the baby will be 4 in a couple of weeks) – I’ve never quite found the willpower.
I had decided I couldn’t go sober for October as the husband and I were going away for 3 childfree days – and that means booze too – especially when it’s free in the lounge, on the flight and at happy hour at the hotel! (Clearly it’s not free, it’s included within the prices of the plane tickets and hotel room, but they are sunk costs – so Libby logic says it’s free!!) The first 2 days were a fabulous combination of sunshine, quality time with the husband, sleeping and booze! But then the last night there I could not sleep at all. I put it down to the espresso martini I’d guzzled (I don’t usually do caffeine – so it was somewhat foolish to drink one at 9pm!) The next day I had a horrid headache – and it got worse as the day went on. I tried to push through with wine in the afternoon – but wasn’t feeling it. Then I tried again with a G&T at happy hour – but still I didn’t really feel like drinking. By the time we got to the airport I was sweating ridiculously and white as a sheet – not quite how I expected to be after a chilled few days in the sun! The husband knew it was serious when I turned down champagne when we got on the plane and asked for orange juice instead.
Once we got home I pretty much took to my bed for 3 days – which, like refusing free fizz, is unheard of! So – I’ve not had any booze since Friday 16th October.
I was planning ‘No Vino November’ – but seeing as I’ve had a kickstart, then it’s starting now! This does mean next week’s dreaded combo of ‘no childcare and half term’ will have to be survived ‘sans gin’ – but I want to prove to myself that I can do a month without any alcohol.
Now I can imagine this causing much mirth and amusement amongst my friends (and potentially a profits warning for both the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Italian prossecco producers, as well as gin and tonic suppliers nationwide) so I thought I should put my money where my mouth is and do this for a good cause. Hopefully that way my ‘friends’ won’t try and tempt me from my path of tee total-ness!
So – I will accept this mission on behalf of my liver, waist line, occasionally fuzzy headedness in the morning – and one of our lovely friend Finlay’s charities – Brain Tumour Research. In fact – if I donated what I would spend on booze in the 30 days, we could come close to matching the Angels Without Wings Ball fundraising total (it was £55k – so maybe not quite!)
If you would like to make a donation then Fin’s Just Giving page is here – it would mean a lot to me, Fin and the Church family – and hopefully inspire me to stay on the straight and narrow (until mid November at least!)
Cheers! (With a raised mug of hot water, honey, lemon and ginger)
xx
This Price is Usually Right 