whether the weather be hot

I have some serious packing to do. One suitcase is going to a snowy place and will be full of ski stuff. One suitcase is going to an icey place and will be full of warm layers and waterproofs. And one bag is going to sunny Spain....which WAS sunny but may not be when we arrive. I've been casually glancing at the iPhone weather app every 10 minutes for the last 3 weeks and it's been sunny and hot. But next week the phone says ....rain. RAIN? In Spain! WTF?

i can't hear you

The little one has got MORE new headphones. He goes through them at break neck speed. I don't know what he does with them. The last ones (which he only got at Christmas) inexplicably snapped in half. I made him save up and buy new ones himself. They are AllSingingAllDancingWirelessBluetoothNoiseReduction headphones.
He now can't hear a word that I say when he wears them. Which is All. The. Time.
I got annoyed and shouted really loud at him. I said "You'll have to take the bloody things off 'cos I can't even talk to you any more!" He looked at me, sighed, and said "Just text me mum."
Ace.

happy easter

Happy Easter people... if you celebrate Easter. If not, just eat chocolate. Like all day.

counting sheep

The little one has the most ridiculous Easter hols ever at his new school. He had today off and he has Monday off. But then he goes back to school for the rest of the week. Then he has two weeks off. What's going on there then??! Whose idea was that? 
Someone who has rubbish ideas, that's who! It is disrupting my normal school holiday lie-in pattern for a kick off.

Anyway. We had the day off today. We went to Sherwood Forest to ride bikes. With my sister and her kids. 
I'll be needing my lie-in tomorrow.

easter in asda

My characters are all over Asda's Easter range this year. Quick, go snap them up before it's too late!

easter break

I don't believe I've done any showing off about our upcoming Easter getaway...how did that happen?
This Easter the big one is going on a school trip to Iceland ...and in an excellent piece of inter-school planning the little one is going skiing in Austria with his school at the same time! Which left me and the other half with no other option but to jet off to Spain for a few days of child free sun, sand and er...sightseeing ;)
Woohoo! Can't flipping wait!

girls night out

We got told off last night. In the pub. For laughing! I admit it was a loud laugh. And there were 7 of us laughing. At the same time. But really. That's what you're meant to do in a pub isn't it? Laugh? The landlord shouted from the other side of the room that we should keep it down because there were other people in there. Well actually Mr grumpy there were only about 6 other people in there. On. A. Saturday. Night. In a pub that used to be so busy you couldn't even move. Doesn't take a genius to work out why. We left. And won't be going back. Like ever.

international women's day

I just took a little break from all the million 'top urgent' work demands coming my way to do this...a quick squiggle to just please myself. Hiding for 10 minutes from the multi-tasking juggling act that is my life this week.
Happy International Women's Day ladies, go do something nice for yourself for a change...and don't feel guilty ok?

happy mother's day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mums.
Especially my Mum. She's the best one.

world book day

The illustrator Chris Riddell was on the radio this morning saying how absolutely fabulous he thinks World Book Day is and how marvellous it is to see all these kids dressing up as their favourite book character.
I'm fairly sure from his comments that Chris has never been in charge of bodging an outfit together at 10pm the night before because he completely forgot about it/didn't have time to do it before. I doubt that he has ever had to scour the dressing up box at midnight in the hope of finding something that remotely resembles some random character from a book he's never read. Or had to convince his kid that yes HarryTheCrocoFairyWitch really IS a character from a book.
I realise that there are plenty of parents who love the idea of dressing their little treasures up in a homemade giant Cat in the Hat suit that they've spent weeks assembling. An outfit that gets envious looks from the mums who just dragged out the creased-up Disney Princess outfit. Again. But I'm afraid I never fell into that category. We managed a decent Where's Wally once. In the days before EVERYONE did Where's Wally 'cos actually it's quite easy to rustle up the day before. But apart from that our World Book Day outfits were at best mediocre. And they always involved a lot of stress the night before. And mucho moaning from me.

Anyway. This year both my kids are at high school. They don't do dressing up any more.
So I would just like to say how absolutely fabulous World Book Day is and how marvellous it was to see all those kids dressing up as their favourite book character this morning. Keep up the good work mums :)

happy leap year

An extra day. Yay! What did you do with yours? I did some work with mine. And some food making. And some dog walking. And some child nagging. And some picking-up-of-all-the-crap-everyone-dumped-around-the-house. And of course my February round-up picture. 
Actually I didn't. I did that whilst watching telly last night. But all the other exciting stuff was true. I really did do all that. In. One. Day. 
Awesome.

flowers

You wait 12 months for a bunch of flowers and 3 come along at once! Lucky old me :)
First I got the Valentine's Day roses. Then my friend dropped off another bunch along with her kids when they came to stay for the night. Then yesterday I met another friend for a coffee. Her Dad died recently so I took her some lilies. And in a freakish coincidence she turned up with some for me!! Lilies! The same! How weird is that! 
Feel free to send me a bunch next week people. My studio is a happier place with flowers.

sleep

It was half term this week. In sleep terms it started off good. Really good. No alarm clocks just WakeUpWhenYouWakeUp. The kids sleep late these days. The big one would sleep all day given half the chance. So all was good in the land of nod. But then on Thursday me and the other half went to this wedding and didn't go to bed till 2 o'clock. In. The. Morning! And then on Friday night my friend's kids were staying over. Which was ok cos they're 7 and 10 and know how to sleep. But in a last minute plan change the sister-in-law asked us to have our niece as well. She's 3. She doesn't know how to sleep. She knows how to wake up 4 times in the night asking for Mummy. And she knows how to wake up super early full of beans and raring to go.
I am past that stage in my life.
I am exhausted.
I had to have a NanaNap this afternoon. 
That is all.

valentine kisses

If no-one bought you flowers go buy yourself some. Or chocolate. Or both. Buy both. Get wine as well. You deserve it.
I got beauty red roses :) 
It's the only day I ever get them so no apologies for showing off :)

it's a lurve thing

Love is in the air this weekend... but it will have to wait till tomorrow in our house. I'm out with the girls tonight. Well, this afternoon actually. We're starting early. Need to avoid all those annoying Valentine couples....