Topless cycling

Yep you read that right.  It is the new thing for this season, isn’t it? Isn’t it? It isn’t? Then why is this an advert on a website? I came across this on Sunday whilst looking for some cycling shorts to go with my new birthday bike. Why doesnt she have more clothes on?  She can’t ride a bike like!  And would it really detract from advertising the shorts if

Read More

The Gallery — Sky

Sky.  Oh I love sky.   I miss not being able to see too much of it living in a built up area.  In cities I love to stand and look at the sky, watch the clouds roll by; the planes criss crossing it; the stars twinkling at night. When we went to Cornwall recently I stood staring at the sky for ages.   It was huge!!!   So I

Read More

Dear Lord Sugar

You are quite the bully, aren’t you? Nobody can deny that over the years you have been very successful in business, of that there is no doubt.  You remind people often of how you started off selling electrical parts out of a van.   Not an episode of The Apprentice goes by without you making some reference to Hackney or your market stall. However now you are just a bully

Read More

I might be asleep

but I can still hear you.    My eyes might be shut but this ear is all I need to turn me into a lean mean barking machine. Asleep to Attack mode in 2.5 seconds. I know EXACTLY what is going on. So watch yourselves, alright? If I hear that lead get rattled…. I will be up and out of this bed quicker than you can shout TEVEZ.

Read More

Food shopping

It started with a text: Mum, we are just leaving dad’s.  See you in a couple of hours Shit, what?  I thought you were coming home tomorrow.  There is no food in the fridge you can’t come home yet.  We have been away for the weekend and have been living on take aways and “Dine in for a tenner” deals.  Oh and wine. Sunday’s dinner was virtually all liquid.  

Read More

The Gallery — Emotions

Another great category for the Gallery this week.   Looking back through old photos always brings back the emotion of the event being photographed for me. Most of the photos that convey emotion in my collection are of the children either laughing or looking terrified on roller coasters.  And they don’t like me using photos of them so the hunt continued. And then I found our wedding photos.  And this

Read More

PS I love you

There was talk in the press last week that it is, on average, seven weeks into a relationship before one party utters those three all important words. I was quite shocked at that.  I thought it would be much sooner.  We seem to love everything these days (well I certainly do!). But are they really important to say? Do you need to hear “I love you” from your partner on

Read More

Royal Mail Fail

So let’s say you have something of value to post.   For argument’s sake some vouchers from a luxury department store that are an item for a friend organising a raffle.   The top prize to entice people attending a village fete into buying raffle tickets for a very worthy charity. You want to make sure they are safe in transit from the midlands to the home counties so you

Read More

The Gallery — Sport

Sport. Hmmm not a big thing in this house. Until it comes to boys and going fast with petrol power. Show my boys (and by boys I mean a 46 year old and an almost 17 year old) something they can race and they will jump at the chance: Not content with once in an afternoon. But twice, only this time J dragged E along If jet skiing was an

Read More

The hundred year old man who climbed out through a window — August 2012

So here we go, August’s book for the MummyBarrowBookClub It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson. Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin. The mayor is going to be there. The press is going to be there. But, as it turns out, Allan is not…Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into

Read More

The Gallery — Delicate

  Hmm now how to interpret this one?  It’s a tricky theme this week, I think. I actually planned on photographing something else when along came this last night: Four real “melt in the mouth” macarons served with our tea at the end of dinner (sorry about the lack of the other three, they sort of evaporated). Even the doily adds a certain something to how delicately we should assume

Read More

Dear Twitter

I love you.  Really I do.   I have loved you for a long time so I hope you don’t mind me approaching you in this way. I have a problem with you. And it is a serious one and I know I am not alone so I am going to cut straight to the chase. You need to sort our your Terms and Conditions of use and make it

Read More