So, I went to Lake Como last week. I won’t go on about it (much) but SERIOUSLY. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. And we had a Very Famous Person on our flight out. I realised something was up when one of the air stewards practically exploded with excitement and mouthed to …
Last weekend, Youngest Girl was 5 years old. She had a little party at home with her friends from school, involving a game of Pass the Parcel, Musical Statues and an early Easter Egg Hunt in the garden. I decorated the house with bunting and the cake with a tub of Betty Crocker chocolate fudge …
Bought from a junk shop in Cornwall years ago, this old dairy farm table has stayed with us through five house moves (I’m. Never. Moving. Again). And has seen countless children’s teas, dinners and Sunday lunches, not to mention the hours clocked up when covered with Airfix models on rainy Saturday afternoons. Then there’s the …
Some of you might remember the last time we went to a ‘do’, with an auction, we returned home with a painting. Two years on and it is still sitting in our garage. And so it was that on Saturday night we headed off to our boys’ school bi-annual fundraising Ball, with no intention of …
We’re back from holiday. Nothing terribly exciting to report; whilst Harry played strip billiards in Vegas, I was making another round of sandwiches for a trip to the beach. (Nb I didn’t see Harry naked on the internet. Not for any moral reason, rather there was no broadband where we were in Cornwall). Anyway, although …
Two booze-free days a week, that’s what we’ve been told by a group of MPs. I think that’s a sensible idea, not least because it gives us time to plan – on the wine-free days – exactly what we are going to enjoy a glass of on the non-wine-free days. In fact, a friend asked …
I had planned a short post about my new year’s resolutions, but given that mine are hideously unoriginal (eat less/move more/shout only when absolutely necessary) I point you to Potty’s declarations of intent. I love them, especially the one about chocolate and wine, where she suggests a little of the good stuff is usually better …
We moved into a new house earlier this year. It is a 1970s-built bungalow in the woods. It has a whiff of The Ice Storm about it, but without the swinging. A few of the houses do have pampas grass outside but as yet, no evidence of keys in glass bowls. So it was with …
Next week, after 16 years of continuous employment (bar three maternity leaves), I am going freelance. It is either going to be the best thing I ever did, or a really, really silly thing to do. Let’s see, shall we? With huge thanks and a bear hug to Hugh MacLeod. Current white in the fridge: Porcupine …
Watching the news this week has been shocking, depressing, awful. People’s lives and livelihoods have been wrecked. It felt just a little bit wrong but I was glued to the TV, distracted only by twitter. Last night found me bingeing on opinion pieces, with a Newsnight chaser. Tonight there is a Question Time Special. Cue …
The weekend before last, our school held a music festival to raise money for a new classroom they are building. Local bands played, most of which had at least one parent as a band member. My contribution was sourcing wine and volunteering to do a shift on the bar. How hard could it be? Turns …
Apparently 70% of all booze in the UK is bought when on offer. I was quite surprised by this. Until I thought about it, that is. I love a bargain. I can’t remember the last time I bought baby wipes that weren’t on a three-for-two offer. Crisps on buy-one-get-one-free? Ship ’em in. Washing powder, bags …
Every other week there is an alcohol-related story in the news – mostly the Daily Mail and their obsession with wine and the middle classes – but the last few days have seen a positive binge on bad booze stories. First, a major drinks company got slammed for funding midwives to educate pregnant women about …
A recent study claimed that we couldn’t tell the difference between cheap wine and expensive wine. When asked to decide which was which, only 50% of respondents got it right. Weird, because in my experience, give someone a £5 bottle and a £10 bottle and most people can differentiate. We might not always prefer the …
This week, I have mostly failed. Namely: 1) failed to finish my book before Book Club night 2) failed to make any inroads on mountain of washing 3) failed to meet one or two (OK, three) work deadlines 4) failed to post a thank you letter that’s been in my bag for a week 5) …
Heroines, I’ve had a few: Nightingale (Florence & Annie), Nigella and any number of Jilly Cooper characters included (the ones who weren’t obviously pretty but then became ravishing once drenched in Diorissimo and tight on thunderous G&Ts). Another heroine is Jancis Robinson MW (Master of Wine), a walking wine authority. Jancis started Wine Relief in 1999 and has helped raise nearly …
According to Lorraine Candy, editor of Elle magazine, it’s easier to run an office of 40 than build a Lego fort. You don’t say. When I was on maternity leave after Eldest Boy was born it was obviously joyous, but it was also mind-numbingly monotonous at times. Engaging with little people against a backdrop of dirty washing and a toy-covered …
I’ve had a complaint from a reader – a reader!* – who’s asked me not to bang on about how bleak January is, about dieting or not drinking (as if). She wants wine recommendations and a laugh. That’s me told. So, I’m not a big spirits drinker: vodka makes me feisty, gin makes me cry, whisky makes me think …
Maybe it is the harsh jute-like feel of January compared with the velvet comfort of December, but I am struggling to get going. It might be the extra weight I’m carrying (booze/food, not baby for once) but I think it is just January. I’ll go straight to the wines, that’ll cheer me up. This week’s white in the …
I was talking to a friend last week about how the loss of someone you love puts everything in perspective. We were driving along a forest road, the snow blanket still tucked neatly over the landscape. The silence that followed our pondering was loaded. Up until the point when she said: “a bit like that guy in Spinal Tap.” Me: huh? …
We arrived back from the eldest boy’s swimming lesson tonight to see the house looking like this: No doubt tomorrow, bearded husband will put on the Christmas play list and that will be that. Until January. This week’s white in the fridge: Jean Claude Fromont Chablis Premier Cru 2008, £8, currently half price, Tesco Wine Club …
I went out on Monday night. It doesn’t happen often so I made the most. I wore an adored emerald green dress (Ghost), nail varnish (Rouge Noir), matching underwear (old vintage Myla) and really high heels. On Tuesday, I wore track suit bottoms, couldn’t walk properly and had two mouth ulcers. My body has decided to slope about doing everything at half-speed ever since, leaving …
Here in the cyber-playground, I’ve been tagged by the Merlot-swilling loving Eh, Mummy? and asked to write about my Perfect Man. Actually, she says I’m allowed to write about my perfect wine, which is a great relief because I couldn’t top her description in which she references John Holmes, dirty cow. My perfect wine has been, at various times, …
Life is too short for lots of things. Stuffing a mushroom, for one (Delia). Too short to be livin’ with stress, for another (Dizzee Rascal). Agree with both Delia and Dizzee but my own personal favourite, unsurprisingly, is that life’s too short to drink bad wine. Someone I know, let’s call her Josie, went to buy emergency wine …
My 6yo boy’s favourite current pastime is writing secret agent-type notes, folding them into paper aeroplanes and pinging them round the door of the kitchen. They land softly at my feet and he scampers back up the stairs, shrieking with laughter. Recent notes include baddies are poo heads and – my personal favourite – i love you big bum that …
Three brave fellow British Mummy Bloggers have just returned from a visit to Bangladesh with Save The Children to raise awareness for the Press For Change campaign, one that aims to help prevent the deaths of children. 9 million a year, to be precise. I’ve been following their trip here and whooping (to myself) when reading about …
Half-watching How To Look Good Naked whilst slowly sewing name tapes to school uniform sweatshirts/trousers/polo shirts before eldest boy goes back next week, I started thinking about my own failsafe rules. So here it is, the KMWC guide to how to look good naked: 1. Dim lighting Er, that’s it. Perhaps not enough mileage for a TV show, granted. Current white …
Dear Celebrity Masterchef, I thought I could do it. I thought I could go cold turkey, perhaps even use the time I used to spend with you doing something more productive. Perhaps take up the hem on the trousers I bought over a month ago, maybe finish the book I have been reading for the last two. Of course, I’d forgotten …
Or so my mother used to say to me when hurrying me out of the door to get to school on time. But that is exactly what it was. The length of our skirts, the carefully picked holes in our jumpers…we might have all been in school uniform but there were ways to mark ourselves out, or rather blend in. Now I’m doing …
I. Am. Knackered. And I definitely can’t top my John Torode story from last week. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll go straight to the wines. Current rose in the fridge: Clos Clementine 2008, £10 Hot weather demands pale rose, preferably a really good one from the Cotes de Provence region. Rose wine is made from red grapes …
I love putting pretty hairclips in my daughter’s hair, sweeping her long fringe to one side and sweeping the enforced-genderism-at-such-a-tender-age argument to the other. It’s a hairclip, FFS. Anyway, point is with two boys I’d only really considered childrens’ haircuts in terms of nit prevention. Not so with the baby girl: she has lovely hair, long enough to need aforementioned hairclips to keep it out of her eyes. At …
Saturday night was fun, if a little wierd. I returned from eldest son’s School Ball with a splinter in my foot from shoes-off dancing. My husband returned with a painting having bid for it in the auction. I think he had the fizz equivalent of beer goggles for art on with that one. Fart goggles, perhaps. We got home, navigated our way through …
Following two weeks of tasting hundreds of wines all day, every day here, my take on the current wine-scape is this: 1. New Zealand Pinot Noir is usually divine. 2. Cheap South African red usually isn’t. 3. Champagne with a bit of age is much more interesting than young stuff. 4. Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon from the Colchagua region tastes a bit like chocolate. 5. The Nebbiolo grape (of …
My mother and I went to the cinema last night to see The Swedish Film With A Really Long Name, currently showing in cinemas (the type of cinema where you can take your glass of wine in with you, naturally). Now, I loved Wallander but TSFWARLN was a three hour version but without Kenneth Branagh. And the furniture wasn’t nearly as …
Much excitement all round: we’re off to Venice for a few days to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. The children seem to sense the highly indulgent grand-parenting that lies ahead. I thought I’d buy something new for the occasion and today I did just that. Underwear that actually matches? A Spring-tastic print scarf? Clogs to make it clear I still read Vogue and …
The five year old has a pair of enormous green Incredible Hulk hands. A Christmas present, rather than his actual hands, obviously. Anyway, you wear the Hulk hands over your real hands and then bash things, whereupon a voice from the glove shouts: “Don’t make me angry, you won’t like me when I’m angry!” The two year old has taken …
I was locked in a padded cell in a karaoke bar in Soho for two hours on Saturday night and learnt the following: 1. Girls Aloud is not as good karaoke material as you might think. 2. I Know Him So Well – with one playing Babs and the other Elaine – however, is very good indeed. 3. The end …
For a while my habit was out of control. Not that I knew it at the time, of course. I thought I could control it: one week Hello!, the next Grazia, the following week, OK! My knowledge on high street fashion, royals and Cheryl Cole was impressive. But before I knew it, I was doing all three in …
Last night we held a Knackered Mothers’ Wine Club tasting at a local restaurant (the amazing Graze) to raise a bit of cash for our local nursery. It was a heady mix: eight wines + inquisitive people up for trying different wines + company of friends both old and new. The result was delicious. Lots of laughter, slurping, a bit of spitting, far more …
There are few things more dull than being stuck with the man who talks to your boobs rather than face at dinner but there is someone who trumps him in my experience: The Wine Bore. The WB uses wine knowledge like a weapon, beating those around him into submission with presumed superior wine powers. I’d be mortified to be labelled as such but if you ever catch …
One of the tips for new year, new you is to clear out your wardrobe, throwing away anything unworn over the past year. Whoever wrote that clearly doesn’t realise that there are clothes that I haven’t worn for five years BUT I AM DEFINITELY GOING TO WEAR THEM AGAIN. I just need to lose a couple of, er, pounds. …
That is the question, as it turns out. My husband is sporting a beard (grown pre-Becks, he likes to remind me) and I just can’t decide if I like it or not. One minute he looks like a manly bearded man, beautiful like a grizzly bear. The next he’s more like a wierd looking vagrant who’s wandered into our kitchen, …
I measure all pain on the BC scale: before childbirth. Even using an epilator is a walk in the park nowadays. But there is a mother who has raised the bar when it comes to showing the love. This particular one has her babies, then lets them eat her. OK, so she’s a spider rather than an actual person …
There was a time when the Sunday Papers were read cover to cover all before our first glass of wine at lunchtime on a Sunday. No longer. Now, I might manage one article in short bursts over the course of the morning in between feeding/dressing/conversing with various small people in the house. By the time lunch has been …
All I had to do was make something for the middle son’s nursery charity cake stall on Saturday. Good people made glorious cakes, chutneys and jam. I, however, made my step-mother an offer she couldn’t refuse: a bottle of robust red wine for a pile of fairy cakes. Sometimes the work/life balance doesn’t work and …
Big night in our village tonight: the Harvest Supper. I was on the ‘young’ table (i.e. six out of eight were under 45) and we were entertained by a singer who made her name singing the hook line for the old Fairy Liquid adverts. Then there was the raffle (notelets & dusty bottle of Hock: …
My mother is about to appear at the door with our supper. She doesn’t do this every night – that would make me lazy – but she lives a few doors down and her roast chicken always saves me whenever I’m husband-less and on the verge of morphing into a shouting nightmare. We’re going to …
My husband says I’m not to mention him in this blog unless it is in a positive light. So, unless my devastingly good-looking, intelligent, witty, so-hands-on-with-the-children-I-don’t-know-how-lucky-I-am husband does anything to upset me, he won’t be featuring. And so to the wines. A girlfriend turned up tonight to drop her son off for a sleepover and …
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