Family Affairs and Other Matters...the ongoing drama of navigating single parenting and life after divorce, supported by wine, travelling and friends.

presents


HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
March 18, 2012

Hope all you lovely mothers out there have had a really lovely day with or without your children or your mothers..... We are clearly a popular bunch as restaurants around the country were fully booked and what I loved was seeing teenagers - especially the boys wandering around with bunches of flowers, cards and boxes of chocolates. Yes, I know that we shouldn't all need a "special day" in which to force our nearest and dearest to spoil and acknowledge us, but still....rather like Valentine's Day, why not have a day allocated to make a fuss? What's wrong with that? Commercialism or otherwise. I didn't have my children today but with a bit of a spin on how it might be good to spend the day sans enfant, I found myself thoroughly enjoying my day. The kids came back at 7pm - my daughter with flowers:- and a homemade voucher to take me to The Wolseley for coffee which has become an annual event that I love (trying not to criticise the spelling):- and my 11 year old promptly got on with cooking us a three course meal! Spectacular. ALL BY HIMSELF. I believe he even got all the ingredients himself. So for a starter he made a tomato and mozzarella salad:- Followed by chicken in a spicy sauce with rice and then HOMEMADE chocolate mousse:- Very impressive. One male friend of mine was gobsmacked. He said if it had been his son who is the same age preparing a meal it would have been Rice Krispies followed by Cornflakes followed by yoghurt or possibly chocolate mousse if already made and in a pot. I'm very lucky. Oh and firstborn son sent me a text at 7am this morning:- "Hi mum! Can you please send the lead for the camera and get me that new sim card i've lost? Also maybe a memory stick or hard drive so I don't lose anything?" I replied and quietly mentioned that it was Mother's day btw..... "I looked it up and it says Mother's day is 25th of March???? But if it is today then Happy Mother's Day!" Rubbish.

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LAST MINUTE VALENTINE’S DAY PRESENTS
February 13, 2012

LAST CHANCE TO WIN LOVELY VALENTINE’S THINGS:- A gorgeous bracelet:- A pearl bracelet worth nearly Β£30 which you can see here:- http://www.handpickedcollection.com/pearl-tag-bracelet.html Delicious chocolates:- Bananagram Heart shaped game:- Check out my previous posts for specific details and hurry up and […]

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THE PERFECT VALENTINE’S DAY GIFTS
February 6, 2012

Gosh. Well that was surprising – after launching a competition related to head lice and mentioning that it wasn’t the sexiest competition I’ve ever done and that Valentine’s day was going to be a source of deep anguish for me […]

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BOXING DAY
December 26, 2011

SOOOO. How did you all get on? Was it a Merry/Messy Christmas? We had a great day with family and friends. Ate, drank, played Charades, drank more, ate more, forgot to watch the Queen’s speech and it was all good. […]

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HOW TO SURVIVE CHRISTMAS
December 17, 2011

Well. I'm not doing very well so far. Totally disorganised still and my children are very cross with me for buying a black tree. They have accused me of being an Emo. It's going to look great though - I keep trying to reassure them that this is the case. Here it is, looking a little smaller than I thought and bare and well...black:- and here is my son describing how he thinks it looks, which is more than a little bit miserable:- We will decorate it tomorrow and it will look splendid. I'm sure. In the meantime I am happy to point out that we still more than a week left before Christmas so LOADS of time to sort presents, food, activities, drink, plans in general..... I'm not panicking yet. Although I tried to order my turkey yesterday and have been told I've missed the deadline. So now what? Delegating my youngest son on to fudge making duties soon and hoping to even fit in an ice-skating trip somewhere.

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IT’S ALL ABOUT ME……
November 12, 2011

You see? I told you it wouldn't take me long to move from my children being the most important thing in the world to sulking about the free raffle present my mother gave me for my birthday..... HOWEVER, after starting the day with my mother and two children sitting on the bottom of my bed it just got better and better. I had a really lovely lunch at one of my favourite places in the world - Petersham Nurseries - you can avoid the vastly expensive restaurant and have a reasonably priced lunch in one of their splendidly etherial glasshouses:- Here are my friends and my mummy and my goddaughter:- CAKE options - always a winner in the cheer me up stakes:- The glasshouse....and gorgeous friend:- This is what it looks like inside - I want to live in it:- Then I came back and drove children about to football training and youth clubs and my firstborn finally appeared from Leeds with a bunch of flowers and my daughter FORCED me to eat more cake and then look who all arrived on my doorstep? My lovely brothers and sister in law (very sadly other SIL and niece couldn't come). They know me so well. I couldn't have been more delighted with all the fuss:- Happy happy happy:- Champagne & cupcakes:- We drank the bottle of Ridgeview English sparkling wine my friend recommended and it was really very good indeed. You should try it - a lot cheaper than French champagne. Then we all went out for a chinese meal. Just lovely. On the way home I tried to get a lift home from a lovely family in a minibus who were just coming out of a restaurant. I was with my three kids. The others had gone in another car. "Shhh. I told the kids, I don't think they'll notice, just queue up behind them" and then when we were spotted I said "it's my birthday - can we please get a lift home in your car?" I asked the bemused strangers - turns out it was their mother's birthday too and so they offered me some strawberries off her cake but no lift home. Oh well. Back home to a minutes silence at 11.11.11 on 11.11.11. and then our "Pata Pata" family anthem dancing and my mother barely able to keep it all together, dancing with my son but so so desperately missing my father it's really very painful to see. Anyway. Another year gone. Not much achieved in the great scheme of things. Must try harder next year. Have six weeks to think about resolutions. In the meantime I promise my next post will be called "It's All About The Economy" because that's quite enough about me and quite frankly we are well and truly f*cked as far as I can see. David Cameron needs to start talking to us all like adults about what is going on and what plans he has to save us because although we don't appear to be suffering as much as other parts of Europe that is frankly only because they are being louder and faster than us. Our public debt is monstrous. Our personal debt massive. What is the plan? Our students are angry. Ditto public sector. Ditto actually pretty much everybody who isn't either a shiny gold banker or somebody who works for a debt management company. We don't even seem to care about the personality of our leaders at the moment which is a worry - it means that we are properly beginning to have an economy to worry about and all we want is someone who knows what they are bloody doing. Do you know what you are doing David? I hope so. Because nobody else seems to know what to do and I can't see many convincing saviours out there either. Depressingly a quote I heard the other day from someone who lives over Asia way was "It is time for Europe to be put in a frame and hung on the wall". Oh dear. Anyway, sorry - this is not actually my economy post. This is my "All about MEEEE" post. Enough already.

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PEDICURES
July 8, 2011

Phew. My youngest child had his 11th birthday yesterday and I think he had a good day. I worry more about their birthdays since I have been divorced for obvious reasons. It is hard to get it right. To know whether to attempt to all get together or work out a way for him to see both parents separately without feeling anxious. Last year the five of us went out for a meal, this year, I'm not sure we would have managed that. Apart from anything else, both his older siblings are away on holiday so it was just him and me in the morning and I was really worried he would be upset. His missing brother and sister had gone to great lengths to make him feel special and I was impressed. The 18 year old had actually bought him a card and a present. He'd apologised for being away and offered him 2 x tennis lessons and 2 x personal training sessions in addition which was very sweet. My daughter texted him throughout the day. He'd had his party the week before when we were all together and my mother was here - a movie party with the surprise arrival of the inordinately popular ice cream van, complete with that wonderfully evocative plinky plonky music that immediately makes me salivate. It even brought out neighbours on my street to buy ice creams. As somebody who has managed to get through a lot of children's parties (43 and counting) I would HIGHLY recommend the Movie Party. All you need is a good DVD, individual bags of popcorn and sweets and somebody to keep popping into the room to calm them down. Then, for the most part you can sit about in another room with your friends and family being smug that you don't have to do much (apart from hoover up much popcorn at the end). After the film you give them all a hot dog and a piece of cake and send them on their way. Job done. They all loved it. So. His birthday list went something like this:- Gun Money Exploderz (Watergun) Phone Fishy Feet Boxing lesson (private) Surprises (lots) Small presents Money He didn't get a gun. His uncle bought him a fab water gun and he did get his phone. He also got a boxing lesson and a few surprises - I bought him a pack of Arsenal playing cards, although, much to his disgust it turned out to be Liverpool so I must go and sort some glasses out for myself soon. We went out for breakfast to Giraffe which is a brilliant restaurant with kids for breakfast. We always have the pancakes. Then we went and bought his new phone and after that we had the fishy feet experience he had requested. A pedicure given by loads of tiny little fish. SO WEIRD. The first 30 seconds were slightly horrific. Tickly and unusual. I wasn't sure, but got used to it. What would happen, I wonder, if you accidentally fell asleep with your feet in the water and woke up the next morning. Would they have carried on eating all your dead skin until you were left with skeleton feet? I was, I have to say slightly worried that they would all float to the top having gorged on all my dead skin, but they seemed to cope admirably. Not sure I liked the idea of another person having to put their feet in that water. Yuk. It worked though. My feet feel very smooth. My son enjoyed it hugely, just for the experience so that was good. I actually can't show you a picture of my feet taken from above because they are so revolting, so here is a shot taken of a friend's feet instead:- and here is my son's hand in the water being nibbled:- After that we went home and set up his phone. His father arrived to collect him at 4pm and off he went to spend the evening with his new family. I think it all worked well for him. He's come a long way this year. After a dodgy start at his new school it all fell into place and I think he's feeling pretty happy with life at the moment. He's managed to lose a lot of weight too. Sheer willpower and some positive reinforcements have helped. He was ready to make it happen, which is half the battle. Last weekend I had 10 EXTRA people staying overnight - it was a massively busy weekend. But in about an hour his father is going to pick him up for the weekend and I'm going to be on my own. From one extreme to the other. I know which one I prefer, however, I'm exhausted so I might just sleep all weekend.

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