Easter Bank Holiday Bingo – just for fun!

Bank Holidays can be pretty predictable things. If yours is anything like ours, you’ll be expecting a round of lie-ins, roast dinners, grass cutting and DIY. I’ve decided to play an exciting game of Easter Bank Holiday Bingo to see just how formulaic my Easter Bank Holiday weekend was. Shall we all play along and see how we all do? How many can you get and who will shout “House!” first?

Expecting a lie in but waking up at 5am anyway.
Cutting the grass the same time as both of your neighbours.
Eating all of your Easter chocolate.
Feeling sick after eating too much Easter chocolate.
Swearing you’ll start a diet tomorrow.
If it’s sunny, spending the whole day painting a room and not seeing daylight.
If it’s raining, spending the whole day staring at the rain lashing against the window and looking sad.
A drive to the seaside involving 6 hours in the car and just half an hour on the beach.
Seeing pictures of all your child free friends on Facebook sat in a sunny beer garden.
Drinking 18 pints of tea instead of sitting in a beer garden.
Having a massive row about nothing.
Visiting a garden centre.
Washing the car.
Unexpected and unwanted guests dropping round at an inappropriate time.
Spending the whole weekend tidying the house and it looking not a bit different when you’ve finished.
Losing a whole day watching Man V Food repeats on TV.
Panic buying ALL the food in the supermarket the day before the Easter Bank Holiday.
Easter crafts all gone horribly wrong.
Eating a big fat roast dinner with all the family.
Feeling guilty about being relieved when you go back to work on the Tuesday.

Easter Bank Holiday Bingo - just for fun!

I reckon we’ve managed most of them. How did you do? Was your Easter Bank Holiday as predictable as mine?

Compliments for beginners

Last week I received a compliment, I’m fairly sure it came from a loving place, but it came out all wrong. For about three minutes I was mortally offended and rather indignant, but then the giver of the compliment explained it and it made some sense. The compliment I took offence to was “Your eyes look very much like Mark Rylance when he’s looking slightly worried”. This is Mark Rylance, he’s looking worried, do I look like this?

On further examination I discovered the compliment meant my eyes look very thoughtful, like there are deep things being considered in my head. Fairynuff. My eyes generally get lots of compliments, which is nice.

I’m sure everyone has at sometime been given a back handed compliment. I’ve almost given up wondering why people can’t just say “your hair is nice” rather than “is it meant to look like that?”. My family are experts in making me feel like a muddy troll wearing tattered sackcloth whenever they see me. Compliments are just not done and if they are they’re clearly meant as a ‘could try harder’ motivational piece of sarcasm.

If you sometimes give compliments, especially to ladies like me who rarely hear something nice about themselves, then I’ve put together a list of nice things I think are good to try and say to people, and a list of things you should NEVER say to people, but have regrettably been said to me, sometimes more than once. Is it any wonder I have the self esteem of a worm?

What’s good:

You look nice.
You look pretty.
Haven’t you got lovely eyes/hair/smile.
That colour really suits you.
Have you lost weight? You look great.
You’re beautiful.
You’re hilarious, I love your jokes.
I love spending time with you.
I love your perfume, it really suits you.
You write beautifully.
Being with you makes me feel good.
You’re such a good person/mum/writer/driver/lover/maker of tea/whatever.

What’s not good:

Is that how you meant your hair to look?
Are you wearing make up, or do you have two black eyes?
*looks at old photo* Oh you used to be so pretty.
You should wear black more often, it suits you, makes you look slimmer than you are.
You’re not very wrinkly, but that’s probably because you’ve got a fat face.
Your eyes look very much like Mark Rylance when he’s looking slightly worried.
Oh, you’re not very tall are you?
Gosh you can drink a lot can’t you!
Have you moisturised? Your face feels greasy.

What’s the worst compliment you’ve ever received?

Yet another beauty fail

I am one of those peculiar women who don’t really do make up or beauty. At a push I might sling a bit of mascara and lip gloss on, friends know if this has happened it is a really big occasion, like a wedding or a state funeral. Occasionally I think I ought to make an effort so I buy something, play with it once, realise I look like Coco the Clown and stick it in a drawer until it goes off. I do not do beautification.

Despite all this, in my Christmas stocking this year I found a selection of nail varnishes. I bite my nails so I’m not really one for trying to draw attention to this by painting them bright red, so it was a curious gift in the first place. One of my nail varnishes was a Rimmel one, which promised “sugar textured nails”. Interesting, or so I thought.

It’s a school mums night out tonight and I’m keen to try and blend in a bit. I’ve bought a flowery top, some new jeggings and my Christmas boots arrived today. I even tried (and failed) to dye my hair a sensible mumsy brown colour, but it went bright red. I’ve already failed at trying to blend in. Darn it.

Tonight is one of those rare mascara and lip gloss evenings, so I thought I’d try out my new “sugar textured nail varnish”. Now if you’ve spotted this stuff in the shops and considered buying it, let me stop you right there madam. I have some points for you to consider.

Do you want nails that feel like sandpaper? Are you wanting to exfoliate small areas of your body using just your nails? Do you have a rough bit of wood that needs smoothing? Do you want to ladder your tights with your nails before you’ve even put them on? Additionally, do you want a strange, particularly unattractive looking finish to your nails? Do you want to try a nail varnish once, mutter rude things about it, then sling it in the bin? If so then look no further, I’ve found the very thing for you!

I’ll keep it on for tonight, thankful I’m not wearing tights and I have that rough patch of skin on my elbow I can have a go at while I’m out. Tomorrow the blasted stuff is coming off. So if anyone wants a slightly used bottle of sugar textured nail varnish I’ve got a bottle, free to a good home.

Rimmel Sugar Coated Nail Varnish 1/10 and I’m being generous.

Sugar textured nail varnish

No. You shut up!

This week I fell down the stairs. My mind was preoccupied with the roast dinner I was cooking and I was making my way past an avalanche of LEGO which had been thoughtfully abandoned on the stairs and I slipped. Ha ha very funny. Shut up.

For most people their natural reaction would be to soil themselves, mutter a swear word and then crack on that was exactly the way they wanted to come down the stairs, quickly, on their arse and screaming expletives.

Not so much for me. I fear the slip, trip and fall because of my precarious back and the worry that a bump might mean I end up in great pain, and at the mercy of a surgeon.

So I did my dramatic tumble down the stairs and took to social media to grumble about it. I cited injured pride as the worst that had happened (thankfully), but I’m watching a corker of a bruise develop on my left arm, I have a dodgy knee, a twangy groin and my right arm doesn’t like moving, twisting or picking things up. I’m bumped and bashed but I’ll live.

So why the blog post? Well dear reader, I’m pretty fed up with people who have known me for years, or followed me and interacted with me on social media saying stupid things like “haha did you get drunk and fall down the stairs again?”. Well no. Shut up.

Firstly I’ve never fallen down the stairs drunk in my life. I know better than that, when drunk the safest way to traverse the stairs is by crawling up or down them. You can take that advice and use it, feel free to pass it on. I am not and never have been a falling down drunk. I can count on the fingers of half of one hand how many times I’ve had a drunken fall in 25 years of expert drinking. I have a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long (drinking) career. The ability to stay upright and get home in one piece are high on that list.

Secondly if you knew anything about me, you’d know I have nerve damage from the waist down. Some days I don’t have real feet, I wake up with bath sponges on the bottom of my legs (I just can’t feel them, it’s a strange sensation), the feeling in my thighs is long gone and my calves are hit and miss. Stairs are always something I need to concentrate on, but today I was thinking about bread sauce and went arse over elbow. My fault, my fault and that damn LEGO left abandoned and unloved.

I’m moaning because I’ve had a bit of a sense of humour failure. Or maybe people aren’t funny. The “haha did you get drunk again” people are the same people who say stupid things like “cheer up love it might never happen”. They think they’re helping, but their silence would be more helpful. Them backing away and never entering your breathing space again would be pretty magical too.

I guess I’m one of those people with a hidden disability, I look, act and walk (for the most part) in a perfectly normal way, so it’s easy to assume I’m just clumsy or a shambling alcoholic, but I’m not. So kindly keep your *hilarious* suggestions that I’m a bumbling alcoholic to yourself. I’m lucky to have legs that work as well as they do, I try and be good humoured and upbeat about my lot in life, so I hope you’ll forgive me the odd sense of humour bypass and you’ll find a way to shut the hell up. Capisce.

Ten things 2014 has taught me

If 2013 was a year of drastic change and a bit of drama, 2014 was about appreciating what I’ve got and learning to be me again. Here are some of the lessons 2014 has taught me.

1. The reliable things in your life are reliable until you take them for granted, then your whole life can shift. Don’t take people for granted.

2. Small people grow, they continue to be adorable in different ways, but cherish each moment, because each day they’ll be a little bit older and a little bit different.

3. Work and money can be scarce, but when you really need it, the universe somehow provides it, be thankful and don’t say no, you never know what it will lead to.

4. Good friends are awesome and can be relied upon to buy you a brew and cheer you up with a natter, or an impromptu delivery of Milk Tray in TGI Fridays on your birthday.

5. Don’t bore your good friends to tears with the same old story. Recognise that you’re a stuck record and change it. Only you can change the tune you play.

6. People you love go away, but they will always be part of your story.

7. Say yes to things you would have previously have said no to. It can open new doors for you, or teach you new lessons or be a mistake you can learn from. Mistakes are ok.

8. Drink less, stay in, cuddle the people you love, tuck the small ones in and read them a bedtime story. Watch them sleep, hold that memory to your heart.

9. Look after your back. Keep moving, keep exercising, don’t let pain stop you. Take your pills, power through. You’ll never be as good as you are now, so don’t let pain stop you.

10. Stop. Look at what you’ve got. Hold hands, smell the flowers, listen to the birds in the trees, admire the sky, put your head on his shoulder. Tell him you love him and mean it.

Happy New Year to you and yours.

Cameron Must Go

I am a woman of quiet values, I vote at every election and referendum. I read widely across the media, I watch interviews on Newsnight and on Andrew Marr. I take in everything, but rarely open my mouth; why bother when there are those much more politically articulate than me, more passionate about their cause, more able to instigate change. But I can stand no more.

I am a woman of quiet actions. Food banks are my own personal cause. I know what empty cupboards and having a hungry child can be like. I don’t like to think too hard about the empty bellies of the children my donations feed, I quietly collect what I can, non-perishable items which are sent to whichever local foodbank shouts the loudest that week. This is England. This is 2014. We should not have hungry, malnourished children living and dying in extremes of poverty.

I am a woman of quiet pain. My story is no secret. I have a debilitating spinal injury. I am in pain every day and will be in pain every day for the rest of my life. Right now it is a level of pain I can manage and cope with. Without the NHS I would be at best paralysed in a wheelchair, or worse, dead. I used to work for the NHS, I know what it achieves every single day, what miracles it performs, it’s not perfect, but it’s a billion times better than any alternative and it is worth fighting for. We must not lose it.

I am a woman who quietly notices. I see more homeless people on our streets. I hear of friends who have lost their homes and are “sofa surfing” until they can get back on their feet again, but that might not ever happen. I see children staying in hostels and B&Bs, wholly unsuitable places to raise a child, but better than the streets. I notice more soup kitchens, more shelters, more help needed. Government cuts biting hard at the most vulnerable in our society.

I am a woman with a quiet voice. But it doesn’t make my words less valuable. I am prepared to stand up and argue. I won’t be waving any placards anytime soon, but I will do what I can in my own way. The world is full of people like me, introverts with quiet voices and passionate hearts. As Stephen Hawking once said “quiet people have the loudest minds”.

Don’t underestimate the public and the strength of feeling about the current regime. No government pleases all of the people all of the time, but any government which gleefully pushes families into poverty, sanctions the sick, brushes the homeless under the carpet and at the same time gives themselves a whopping pay rise isn’t a benevolent, caring, supportive government serving its people.

I’m not seeing any significant positive economic changes as a result of these apparently cost saving measures, only poorer people getting poorer and hungrier, the vulnerable being victimised and treated unjustly and the systematic breaking up and selling off of the public service infrastructure of this country. The UK is a not for profit organisation. It should be run by the people, for the people, not by the privileged, for the privileged. This is why Cameron must go.

Balance Transfer Your Life with MoneySupermarket

My family is probably fairly typical, we’re always busy-busy, always on the go, juggling work and family responsibilities. Don’t get me wrong, we have a lot of fun, but sometimes some mundane tasks get forgotten about, or put on the back burner until someone can be bothered to sort it. I often fantasise about having my own PA to deal with all the really boring stuff like bills and paperwork, giving us more time to make cakes and go for walks by the river and so forth.

Somewhere a fairy was listening and waved her magic wand, MoneySupermarket got in touch to tell me about their “Balance Transfer Your Life” scheme (or #BTYL if you’re on Twitter). Balance Transfer Your Life is a really, really cute competition, you just tweet them your neglected job, for example, painting the bathroom, new clutch for the car or maybe a trip to see Granny in Wales, whatever you’ve been meaning to do but couldn’t either find the time, motivation or money to do, tweet them and they’ll pick ten of the best and make those dreams come true.

For our part, we chose to treat our son on his birthday. The big day was fast approaching but we’d not managed to arrange anything special, nor did we have many spare pennies to splash out on the kind of treat he deserved. Very kindly, the MoneySupermarket fairy arranged for us to go out for a fabulous meal on his birthday, complete with a brilliant cake, balloons, singing and ice cream.

We had a slap up meal in Zizzi in Didsbury, Manchester. The staff couldn’t have been more welcoming and lovely with us. Our meal was delicious, my Ravioli Di Capra was among the best I’ve had and Hubs had a Calzone which he happily polished off and said he’d definitely have again (praise indeed from my man of few words).

The small boy had a build your own pizza which looked really tasty, we’re fans of a thin base with extra cheese and he got exactly that. Then they brought out the huge chocolate lion birthday cake, the small boy loved the fuss and the cake (who doesn’t like chocolate cake?). We had a thoroughly memorable family meal and a proper birthday treat.

Moneysupermarket started the ‘Balance Transfer Your Life’ competition because they knew that some people end up paying high interest rates on their credit card debts. Although there are offers available which let you transfer your outstanding balance to a zero per cent balance transfer card, leaving you interest free on your debt until the deal expires, it’s something which is easy to put off. Despite being a big money saver, the process of sorting it is one of those little tasks that people put on the back burner.

Things like finding a credit card with a free balance transfer, there are loads of these little niggling tasks that we just keep putting off, which is why MoneySupermarket is getting involved and offering you the chance to ‘balance transfer your life’ – no matter what the little chore is.

You can find out more about this great (and really easy) competition from MoneySupermarket on their website.

Autumn’s Best Bits

I love autumn, I mean what’s not to love? Crunchy leaves to kick through, warm fires to cozy up in front of, the autumnal festivals of Halloween and Bonfire night. I love it. It helps of course that my birthday falls at the start of autumn, and the small boy’s falls towards the end, so autumn is quite literally party season for us. I’ve picked some of my favourite pictures taken of us and our adventures during autumn, what were our best bits?

I love this one, my son and his cousin at Bramhall Hall during half term, wrapped up against the chill and having an awful lot of fun.

I love the skies in autumn, clear and blue, with fluffy clouds and sunsets where the sky is a thousand shades of orange, pink and red.

I love this picture of my son blowing out his birthday cake. His birthday party was a very cold day and him and 16 of his friends enjoyed a trip to the miniature railway, braved the cold and were rewarded with lots of cake. It was a lovely day.

This was our “pumpkin patch” from Halloween, I love the colours of pumpkin and squash, they’re so cheery.

This is another one of the boy and his cousin. They were doing some autumn leaf craft with some leaves we’d collected from the park, it’s a reminder of a lovely day and it was a nice, interesting thing to do with the boys.

Another of my favourite autumn pictures is this memorial bench in our local park, it’s dedicated to a local lacrosse player and is a stunning piece of wood carving. I love the way the small boy is peeking over the bench, it gives it an idea of the scale of the carving too.

Possibly my favourite picture is this one taken during early autumn, it was still warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt but the leaves were beginning to turn and the evenings had a definite autumnal chill about them. The boy looked and was so happy that day.

I love each of these pictures for different reasons. If I were to pick one which I felt represented autumn it would be the boys making the leafy tree. We had such a good time collecting the leaves, then making the tree, it’s a real autumnal memory for us all.

My Autumnal Top Ten

I love autumn, it’s my favourite season, or my least favourite season, I’m still undecided. So in the style of a teenage girl doing a pros/cons list on a potential boyfriend, my favourite things about autumn are…

1. Kicking through crunchy leaves on walks
2. Hot chocolate with optional whipped cream and marshmallows
3. Warm snuggles under a blanket
4. Halloween parties
5. Stew and buttery mash
6. Rainy day crafting with the small boy
7. Watching firework displays from the bedroom window
8. Collecting conkers
9. The evening sky in autumn is often incredible
10. Stodgy, happy puddings with lashings of custard.

But I really hate autumn for these reasons…

1. Rain, endless rain
2. The dark
3. It’s cold
4. Slippery leaves on the pavement
5. Falling conker concussion
6. Arguing over putting the heating on
7. The resulting heating bill
8. Diets are hard, like really hard, I want sticky toffee pudding
9. It’s too cold to go out and exercise, I wanna stay under the blanket
10. Stupid fireworks, it’s not November 5th yet

I could go on, but I won’t, that angry nerve in my eye is twitching again. I’m still undecided. Autumn definitely is a love/hate season for me.

Autumn

Five things that make mornings easier

Now the small boy is at big school, mornings are a bit of a kerfuffle. Husband drops him off at school on his way to work which is a massive help, but mornings often feel like a Generation Game style challenge. There are a few things which make the rush in the morning easier to cope with.

Here are our five morning wins…

1. The small boy wakes up well rested and in a good mood. This makes everything exponentially easier. He’ll do almost everything you ask with hardly any fuss if he’s fully topped up with sleep.
2. Opening the wardrobe and finding that what I want to wear is clean and hanging up, not crumpled up on the “that’ll do another day” chair, or worse, festering in the laundry basket.
3. Someone in the household has had the presence of mind to put a pot of coffee on. The smell alone is enough to gladden the heart.
4. The small boy eats something for breakfast. He’s gone off virtually everything bar scotch pancakes and Belvita biscuits. And he eats them so slowly. Eat your breakfast or we’ll all be late!
5. We get a kiss, cuddle, or a backwards glance as he runs to his friends in the playground. Goodbye son, have a good day…oh.

Belvita biscuits are a bit of a godsend to be honest. When the small boy refuses to sit and eat breakfast, we can’t force him so we often nibble a little packet on the way to school, or they go in my bag for when we get peckish later in the day. I think of them as a healthier biscuit, like a treat but filling us up and giving us that slow release energy that kids (and their parents, let’s face it) need.

What are your morning wins?

This post is an entry for #MorningWin Linky Challenge sponsored by belVita Breakfast. Learn more here.