Who would you want to meet in The Loo,The Ladies,The W. C,The Powder Room? This is the most critical question in my life at this exact moment. It’s answer,and how I construct my response,is of the upmost importance to me. Because answer well and I could be in with a chance to win a much coveted ticket for Cybermummy 2011 and a two night stay at Hoxton Hotel courtesy of In The Powder Room. And that would make me very very happy indeed. I’ve been pondering. Writing lists. I’ve given it some serious thought,I’m not answering it flippantly. Lets get the obvious ones out of the way first. Marilyn Monroe,Princess Di,Michael Hutchence,Grace Kelly,The Man (Men?) on the Grassy Knoll. Yes,I’d love to know exactly what happened but those conversations should be conducted in a more fitting,respectful location. There should be tea and biscuits on hand,a box of tissues,a comfy chair maybe. Cary Grant,David Attenborough, James Stewart,Paul Newman,Katherine Hepburn,Stephen Fry. Interesting people with endless stories to be told,but this is a gang for a good long dinner party. We’d swap seats after each course,there’d be wine,smoking,I’d listen to incredible anectodes and stories peppered with names of people who were true stars,worthy celebrities. There can only be one and that one is Gwen. Continue reading In my Powder Room…. 
Yes,it’s true. I found out earlier in the week that I am one of the lucky finalists for the MAD blog awards 2011 and I am genuinely thrilled to bits. I know that every finalist has been saying this but,believe me,it’s absolutely true in all of our cases. Blogging can at times feel a lonely slightly odd thing to do,especially in the early days,so it’s a wonderful accolade to have got through to this final stage. Scribbling Mum is finalist for 2 categories,MAD Blogger of the Year and Most MAD Family Life Blog. The 1st is panel judged so there is nothing that I can do but sit back and hope that they love my highbrow posts on facial hair,housework and the contents of my fridge. The 2nd is a voted for by all of you guys. So if you have a minute then please feel free to do so,you’ll find Scribbling Mum in the first drop down menu for Best MAD blog about Family Life here. I could very easily go all gushy and beg you to vote for me,tell all your friends,offer bribes etc but I’ll just thank you if you do manage to vote. More importantly I thank you for reading my scribbles,I love writing them more than ever and feel a renewed vigour since being nominated. Enough on that. Did you notice anything different? I still look the same but a little more polished? My gorgeous birdie is still here so you know you’re in the right place,it’s just had a tidy up. Big thank you to the talented Liz at Violet Posy for waving her magic blog design wand. 
…is this. 1. It only stays clean for a bit. 2. Things just get dirty again. 3. I hate doing it. Last Friday I cleaned my house. For the whole week before this,I’d been internally angst-ing about it. I knew it was coming,knew it had to be done but had my usual list of excuses up my sleeve for when I challenged myself;the kid’s will get bored and not let me do it, I don’t have enough time etc etc. But there was no escape. My mother in law was coming and I just can’t bare for her to see our bath scum line and the fluff balls that live behind the doors. There’s nothing like a visitor to make you bleach your loo. Actually,could someone please invent a room spray that smells of bleach to give the aroma,the illusion,of a clean pan without the need to actually clean it? I’d buy it. So I rolled my sleeves up,ready for action and tackled my most loathed cleaning task first. The bathroom. I hate cleaning bathrooms. Yet perversely it’s the one cleaning job that gives me the most satisfaction once it’s done. I love a clean bathroom. So when it comes to bathrooms it builds up into a really big deal in my head,it looms over me. When I see the dust building up on the aftershave bottles I just wipe it off with my finger,give the caked on toothpaste dribbles a quick go with my finger nail. Or I ignore. Mainly I ignore. Continue reading The trouble with housework…  This was the question posed to us by Ella at Notes From Home as part of her Friday Club. As soon as I read the prompt I was like,‘I know the answer to this one. Please Miss. Miss. I know this one. Miss. Pick me.’
This is the year anniversary of moving to our home and I know exactly why we live here. We have space. Everything’s open,our living space,the outlook. As soon as I come home I feel at ease,relaxed. Well,maybe not all the time. Not when there’s crying or huffing or bickering. I can open the back door and let them run out in the garden. And I can open the front door and they can scoot up and down the street safely. We wanted to be part of a small community and that’s just what I feel we’ve got. A mixed community with friendly people and open arms. We were fed up getting in the car when we wanted to go for a walk. I could never get my head around that,it drove me crazy. Now we just put on our shoes and walk. There are nice pubs,an ice-cream shop,a Co,a good chippy and a kids park all within a ten minute walk of the house. There is one school in the town and it’s a big focus for the whole community. It’s a small primary school with about 300 pupils surrounded my hills and the playground is lined by fields. But it wasn’t like this from day one. We knew it was time for a move from the house we’d been in for seven years. We both had an itch and knew we wanted to find the house that the girls would grow up in. I think we all have one house that you think of when you look back on your own childhood,that you think as the house and this house will be my kids one. Continue reading Why do you live where you do? 
As I snuck into bed next to my lovely warm sleeping husband the other night I realised two things.
1. It was after midnight and I was still awake.
2. I was the last one going to bed. Wind the clock back eighteen months and these occurrences would never have happened. Eighteen months ago I was the one that started thinking about bed at 8.45pm,first yawn at 9.15pm,made my excuses by 9.45pm and tucked in with my minty fresh breath by 10.00pm ready for an episode of Criminal Minds. Sometimes with The Boy beside me,but often with him finishing off a game of football on the PS3 downstairs or reading a ‘Top Ten Cool Gadgets You Can’t Afford Anymore ‘Cause You’ve Got Kids’article in Stuff. But that was Before. Before I started writing. You see,not to sound too sad or knobby but my life has changed since I started writing. Not in a ‘I’ve got a regular features column and have given up my day job’-type of change. But it fills every minute of my free time. Fills my head all of the time. It occupies my mind. It niggles me. And,like anything,I now can’t remember what my brain did Before. Continue reading BB. Before Blogging. 
It’s been a year since we moved into our fancy house out of town. And,as I knew would happen,it doesn’t feel so fancy anymore. In a good way. We’ve grown into it,filled it and it’s now simply our home. I can remember moving into our first ever home together and it was like a castle compared to our one bedroom flat,it felt vast. We spent the first night shouting out to each other,‘Where are you?’‘I’m upstairs in the other toilet!’. It echoed for many years until the babies came home and it was filled up with all the guff that comes with them. Miss L has settled better than I could have expected. I have to remind myself about her sweet group of nursery friends and how scared and worried I was that she’d not cope without them. Being in the big school nursery is really getting her used to going to into the school building every morning,it’s a great first step towards the Big First Day in August. I’ve started dropping it into conversations about starting school and sometimes she can be excited and all ‘Yeah,whatevs’and other times she looks a little freaked out ‘Will I have to go every day?’ I can feel myself starting to worry already about how she’ll cope,and I’ll admit to being terrified about the whole girls-are-bitchy vibe. Alpha girls that struggle for power,not caring who they crush on their way there. I’d dread it if she became one. What would you do if your child turned into a Mean Girl? No parent wants that but it must happen to nice normal folk like me,their kids turn into little shits. I shudder at the thought. But until school she’s still my dramatic little baby,all arms and legs,brown as a nut and getting more gorgeous with every day. Being big sister is flavour of the month right now. She loves the grown up role,enjoys teaching,explaining to Little P. ‘Boys and girls are a bit different. Boys have a willy at the front. But they have the same back bottoms. But boys’ones are hairier.’ Continue reading #Live in the now dude 
That lovely lady Josephine over at slummysinglemummy has tagged me in this god awful sounding meme. But to be perfectly honest it’s a nice and easy one which doesn’t require much brain power so I’m all up for it. My poor head is struggling to re-boot again after the haze of the last few weeks of lazy sunshine and bank holiday fiestas. Plus doing this makes me feel marginally less guilty for not having yet done two other tags that I got from Heather at SAHM(lovingit) and Julia at I need curtains for the window in my head which I have woefully neglected for no other reason that I’ve had too much on my To-Do List,sorry ladies. So tell us,I hear you cry,what the hell is in your fridge lady? First off,a SMEG it ain’t. I can but dream of a duck egg blue,rounded block of shininess with a chrome handle and an air of retro cool. The reality is this fetching ‘wooden-look’exterior. You’ll see the door is home to the creme de la creme of Miss L’s pictures. She comes home every single day with arms laden with drawings,cards,creations of every sort involving boxes,tinsel and Quality Street wrappers. A few weeks ago I was chatting to another Mum at nursery about the incredible volume of stuff that our daughters created at the craft table every day. ‘There are too many to keep and display’we both agreed. Then,at exactly the same time… She said,‘I just make little scrapbooks and stick them in.’ And I said ‘I just put them in the bin when she’s asleep.’ Continue reading The contents of my fridge 
I nearly forgot about today. What that date means. A date that I couldn’t ever imagine forgetting. The date my Dad died. Eighteen years ago. Eighteen years,that’s forever isn’t it? And this is the year that I’m longer without him than with him. I wouldn’t know his voice if he called out to me. My children would walk past him in the street. Stranger danger. And I never thought I would go a day without thinking about him,mourning something that I can’t quite describe. It’s not mourning him,no I don’t feel like I knew him enough to miss him as a person. Missing what could have been maybe? But I do. Weeks can go past and I’m ashamed to say he never enters my head. Continue reading The 28th of April 
I’ve surprised myself. I’ve realised that I’m really rather looking forward to the royal wedding. Not full on buy-a-fascinator excited,but looking forward to it yes. As a Scot I’m not sure it’s the done thing. I think most people are just glad to be given an extra day off work,what with only having had the dozen or so off during April and May. A brilliant excuse to have a few cheeky beers,maybe get sunstroke,but no real plans to mark the actual event. But I’m fast warming to the whole occasion of it. Surrounded by so much hard to hear news you can’t really beat a wedding can you,Royal or not,to lift your spirits and give you that goose-bumpy positive vibe. I’m clearly a sucker for happy ever after. Miss L is five so she pretty much wants to be a Princess. It’d be wrong of me not to tell her all about it and let her enjoy the ocassion,an historic occasion after all. She started Rainbows this week and,naturally,the first badge that they’re working towards is the ‘Royal Wedding’one. She’s been learning about the Royal family tree and making tiaras. Next week I need to give her a Barbie to take so she can design her a wedding dress. Hers,I am told,will be pink. Continue reading Princess wedding 
We’re just back from deepest darkest Cornwall where we stayed with my best friend and her brood. It’s been a much needed break and one I’ve been looking forward to for ages. Not least because I used our Tesco Clubcard vouchers to pay for the four return flights. Bonus. Between us we have four girls,very close in age,and our lives are pretty much what we hoped for when we talked about domestic bliss sixteen years ago. Apart from the chickens. Neither of us have chickens yet but she’s thinking of getting some ducks so if that happens we’ll have everything ticked off. And I don’t mean that in a smug ooh-life-is-perfect way. I just mean that I can remember conversations when we were young and wasted where we’d talk of living by the sea,wellies,meeting boys who’d get on with each other,blonde haired kids,stripes,chickens,that sort of thing. It feels like we’ve been away for weeks,in a good way. We have walked on beaches,put the girls in wet suits and let them run freely,made gigantic packed lunches,eaten fish and chips outside on a chilly day and read team bedtime stories. When it finally went quiet upstairs we ate grown up dinner,drank wine,reminisced,drank wine,laughed till we cried and then in the morning couldn’t remember what’d been so goddamn funny in the first place. Was it something to do with After Eights? Continue reading Cornwall days | |
