Home Office Mum

Somebody hand the Maclaren PR people a coffee. They need it

2009-11-11T12:36:00.004Z

So according to news reports, Maclaren, the British buggy manufacturers, are having to recall 1 million of their buggies in the US because 12 children have managed to get their fingers chopped off in the hinge mechanism. They're also distributing thousands of safety devices to parents to fit onto the buggies to avoid the problem. But they're not doing it in the UK.

Apparently, according to Maclaren and its PR agency, the buggies are safe if used properly and they see no need to issue the safety devices at this time. This has caused a parental uproar. There is no group of people more likely to get their knickers in a twist about something than parents.

The parents are split into two camps:

There's the A) 'What about us?' brigade who feel that the same recall should also happen here and that the safety devices should be sent out. The sceptics amongst them are saying that the only reason Maclaren is taking action in the US is because American parents are a more litigious bunch. They're baying for blood... just not from their children's fingers.

And then there's the B) 'Oh get a grip' camp who feel it is a parent's duty to look after their children and that they're just as likely to get their children's fingers trapped in car doors or door frames as anywhere else. And they'll also point out that the buggies meet EU safety regs and that you shouldn't open or close your buggy with your child anywhere near it.

Of the two camps, I'd prefer to be in B camp because I'm not a big fan of the sue culture and quite frankly don't have enough time to get too worked up about these things. On the other hand, I do find the sanctimonious rumblings of the 'perfect parent' brigade pretty hard to swallow too. Sometimes you do have to open your buggy with your child nearby. And surprisingly, children don't always do as they're told. And if a buggy has the potential to chop off fingers, perhaps a safety device would be nice.

But ultimately this is a PR disaster in the making. Any parent out there right now deciding which buggy to buy will at the back of their minds be thinking: Maclaren, oh yes, they're potentially not safe. Better look at something else. And then there are the hordes of genuinely confused parents who've heard the reports of a product recall and just don't know whether they're supposed to be returning their product or not. I imagine the helplines at Maclaren are a tad busy right now.

And it's hard to know what hell the Maclaren PR team are going through at the moment (I imagine it involves quite a few late nights and some extra strong coffees). What was the correct course of action? All crisis PR rule books say that you communicate, communicate, communicate. Which I guess they have been doing. But it's always been through a 'statement' or from an unnamed spokesperson. They need to get their MD out there explaining their case. Put a comforting, reassuring, sensible British perspective on this issue.

Perhaps their thinking went as follows: 'by offering the safety gadgets in the UK, we're admitting that our products are unsafe'. So perhaps they're trying to reinforce the message that their products are safe if used correctly, with no need for an extra safety bit. But then why give them out in the US? It invites the criticism that they're simply doing it to avoid being sued. Surely the product is either safe or it's not? Either offer the device everywhere, or not at all.

I suggest that they offer them in the UK under the advice of: "Our buggies are safe when used correctly. However, if you have any reason for concern, we can send you a safety gadget." Then send them the gadget with more explanations about why the buggies are safe. And then communicate, communicate, communicate with those customers. Turn the negative experience into a positive one. Let all retailers know that the buggies are safe but send them the safety doodah to give to customers as an option should a customer ask about it.

I think Maclaren is trying to be British about this. They're trying to downplay it. They're trying to tap into the the 'sensible British reserve in which one doesn't sue or create a flap'. Perhaps they think that the less the say, the sooner it will go away. But they shouldn't underestimate the power of parents.

Lost for words

2009-08-10T15:18:00.002+01:00

I need to blog about something because I can't stand having my previous sad post up any longer. However, I have so much on that I don't really have the time. I think that I might have to put Home Office Mum blog on hold until life returns to normal as the start of THE BIG RACE is scarily close (just over a month).

So for now, I ask you to visit http://www.moretolifethanlaundry.com instead. Having said that, I will now no doubt stumble upon something absolutely blog critical, which will mean I return here to share it.

But if I don't, don't assume I've vanished from the blogosphere. I'm still here, just.

And sorry that I've been rubbish in commenting on other people's blogs. I've been reading (speed reading) but haven't had time to comment. Perhaps I should just have a comment that says: HOM woz here - like a form of blog graffiti, just so you know I still love you all.

Till I return from Brazil then...

The day the world changed

2009-07-26T11:58:00.003+01:00

It was 3am. My friend Lynell's mum was standing over me, shaking me gently saying: Wake up. For a 14 year old girl, having a sleepover at a friend's house didn't normally involve a parental wake up call in the middle of the night. Confused I asked what was going on.
"There's been an accident and you need to go to the hospital."
"What accident?" I asked.
"There's been a fire at your dad's house. We don't have the details, but you need to go to the hospital."
"Oh, it was probably just my sisters having a midnight feast and setting fire to the food or something," I laughed, not thinking through that perhaps I wouldn't be woken at 3am for burnt toast.

It was the July school holidays, and just like every holiday, my sisters (16 and 11), brother (6)and I were staying with my dad in the house we used to live in before my parents got divorced and we moved closer to Johannesburg, approximately 1000 kilometers away. On this particular night, my sisters had a second cousin of ours stay for a sleep over and I was staying in town with a friend. My gran was babysitting as my dad was out.

Arriving at the hospital, I was walked along a corridor, still utterly confused as to what all the fuss was about. Glancing into one of the rooms off the corridor, I saw a room full of people. But I only noticed two. My sisters, both sitting silently, faces pale with haunting grey circles beneath their eyes. I still couldn't register what was going on, but I knew it must be more serious than a little stove fire to have so many people there.

I was taken into a room and my uncle Dennis took hold of me and said: "There's been a fire. Your dad's house has burnt down."
"What? What do you mean? Was anyone hurt?" I stammered.
"No," he said.

But the way it said it, or perhaps the way he looked at me, gave me the crushing realisation that it was worse than someone being hurt. Someone had died. It was the only explanation. My mind whirled. I'd just seen my sisters. Who was it? Then I remembered.

"Granny?" I asked.
He nodded. Then said: "And Charles."

And just like that, with two small words, my whole world changed. The thought that it could be Charles hadn't even entered my mind. It couldn't be true.

I recall hitting Dennis' chest repeatedly with tight fists while he fought to hold me still so that I could get a tranquilising shot in the backside before being moved to the room of zombies, all of whom were fighting the unreality of the situation.

I don't recall reaching out to my sisters or anyone else. I remember nothing except at some point drinking very sweet tea which I couldn't hold still as my hands were shaking so hard. And the constant rattling of cup on saucer triggered an hysterical giggling fit.

Then nothing.

The next day I finally saw my father, wearing soaking clothes from walking in the sea with a face awash with tears. I briefly saw my mother who'd had to drive for 12 hours to get to us knowing that her son, her youngest child had died. As a mother now with a son approaching his sixth year, I can't begin to understand her state of mind. My imagination won't let me go to a place that dark.

It's been 22 years. Yet on the 26th of July every year, we stop and remember the small, lovely boy who will never be forgotten.

In remembrance of Charlie
1 October 1980 -26 July 1987

Surviving the summer holidays: playdates for mums

2009-07-24T08:18:00.003+01:00

Day 1 of Holidaywatch. And I'm already stumped as to what to do. Yesterday afternoon for about 15 minutes we had a blaze of glorious sunshine and for that brief time I had a snapshot of what summer holidays could be like if it actually felt like summer. Ball games in the garden, picnics, BBQs, long walks, swimming - the potential was awesome.

But then a vast black cloud moved in and dumped a deluge of water on the garden and we retreated indoors. Just like that, the wisp of potential drained away.

Now I know that there'll be a bunch of lovely mums out there who are tutting as they read this. The minute the rain moves in, they're probably whooping it up with arts & crafts, baking, puzzles & games, or even putting on raincoats and wellies and heading out for a splash. All good stuff. And I agree that all of these things can be fun. But for how long? And perhaps they have children who actually do the arts & crafts rather, than say, paint the walls. Or who can play a game for more than 3 minutes before the arguments start about whether to go up the snakes and down the ladders or vice versa.

So I start to look outwards, towards the countless number of places that keep children entertained at vast expense. Once you remove all those that aren't suitable for rainy days, you're left with a handful of options, none of which fill me with a huge amount of joy. I find myself doing a website roundabout tossing up between a museum or movie and eventually being debilitated by indecision, all the while the kids get bored and destroy the house.

Part of the problem is that any activity - whether it's a museum or finger painting, football or picnics - is so much better when you do them with a friend. And adult friend. Because then, in between breaking up fights, you can have a chat/commiserate and it feels less like hard work.

Don't get me wrong, I am perfectly capable of enjoying my children's company and I know the key is to not attempt to do anything else other than throw yourself into an activity with gusto. But just like the kids enjoy having a friend to play with, so do I.

But I've found it hard to find friends to do things with. We do have a good number of people that we'll be seeing during the holidays that we've pre-arranged things with, but what I'm missing is someone like a Who Wants to Be A Millionaire phone-a-friend type friend. The kind of friend who you know is sitting in the exact same position as you are, just as confused as to how to spend the day and just as open to last minute spur of the moment get togethers.

But everyone else seems to be so organised. They all seem to have every last minute of their holidays accounted for. They're all armed with playdough and museum season tickets. And friends. Lots and lots of friends.

Do they really all have every minute of the next six weeks accounted for? And how, without sounding like Desperate Dan or Norman No Mates, do you let other mums know that you're at home with two bored children and are more than happy to meet up for a spur of the moment play? There should be some kind of international sign - like a skull and crossbones flag (only the bones would be rolling pins and the skull would have bags under its eyes) - that you can fly outside your house. Any other mum who sees it can pop in and say: right, let's all go splash in the puddles together shall we? It turns an ok afternoon into a great afternoon for everybody.

I really hate being the person to call and say: are you free? Do you want to meet up? Only to be told that they have a free day at some point next Easter. I love last minute get togethers. They're the best kind. In fact Martha Lane Fox could set up a new kind of Lastminute.com to help mums get together, not only with kids but for the odd night out at a pub.

It's that whole fear of rejection which stops us putting a call into another mum and suggesting a meet up. But maybe, they are just like me, sitting there wishing the phone would ring.

I should start a campaign called Dial-a-mum in which mothers are encouraged to call people - even people they're not 'friends' with but acquaintances who they've met at the park or school gate who they could potentially be friends with. I'm sure I could get a phone company to sponsor it....

Anyway, I think we've decided to go to a museum. I think. And the kids are now killing each other, so I must go. But please tell me I'm not alone in this thinking.

Online auction for bloggers - help me sail to Brazil

2009-07-20T11:26:00.002+01:00

So as many of you know, I also have another blog - www.moretolifethanlaundry.com which tracks my progress as I attempt to sail from the UK to Brazil later this year. Taking on the Atlantic ocean, as it turns out, is a pretty expensive affair so I'm trying to raise some money. I have been given some lovely things from lovely people to auction off. They include:

- a family holiday from www.totstotravel.co.uk - seriously amazing holidays.
- £100 in vouchers from www.boden.co.uk, www.sweatybetty.co.uk and www.auntyollie.com - get yourself kitted out for autumn, get fitness gear to tone up for that post baby body (ha ha ha) alright, just get some yoga gear to zen out in, and fab kids clothes so that at least your kids look cool, even if you feel you need to be Gok Wanned.
- a cuddledry baby bath towel from www.cuddledry.com, making bathtime much easier
- a Wrapture from www.morrck.com (which you will lurve come this winter)
- a kid's electric guitar from www.stardustkids.co.uk . Yes seriously, a real electric guiter. My son fondles the box daily
- a lovely baby cardigan from www.daisychainbaby.co.uk
- a month's supply of Kiddylicious healthy kids snacks from www.babylicious.co.uk so that you've got next term's lunchboxes sorted
- a Melobaby all in one nappy wallet and change mat - very stylish, lovely removable fleecy change mat and it fits all you need in your normal handbag! www.melobaby.com
- a beautiful suede photo album for all those keepsakes thanks to www.darlinganddarling.co.uk
- a pamper box of lovely treats from www.pampercakes.co.uk

And if you don't want to bid on any of these things, you can always just buy a box of the Fink Family Edition conversation cards. www.finkcards.com. I used these this weekend during a family roast lunch. The kids were being a pain and splashing in their gravy, rather than eating. So I got the cards out and asked them some of the questions like: What makes you laugh? and If you had £1000 who would you give it to and why? Immediately they began eating and talking and not messing around. They're only £3.50 on my site so please support me and buy a pack.

It's all because of you crazy mummy bloggers that I'm doing this sailing madness . Thanks to all of you telling me to live in the now, I'm living in the now but am going broke in the process. So if you can support me by spreading the word about my auction, please do.

The auction closes this Sunday coming. You can find it here.

Thank you!

Milestones

2009-07-16T09:28:00.002+01:00

Life, as usual, has been busy. I've had reams to blog about but no time to do it. Particularly as I am reattempting the unconditional parenting techniques (as espoused by Alfie Kohn) to try and tame the beasties and this requires far less blog time and far more playing of hide and seek. Which is how it should be. However, it means I am falling very far behind on my blogging and blog reading.

But there have been three major milestones that are worth noting for posterity.

Milestone 1:
I got a genuine apology from son1 the other day. Not only that, it was a direct result of putting my newfound parenting techniques into practice. You could have blown me down with a feather. The boys had both upended their drink bottles in the car and deliberately squirted their drinks all over the seats causing quite a bit of damage to the upholstery. Husband opted for the military approached of putting them in their room for sometime to think about their behaviour including a fierce daddy lecture (why is it that mummy lectures never carry the same weight?)

I gave them time to calm down and then went in and instead of reprimanding or demanding an apology, I said I needed them to answer one question, which was: Why did you squeeze the drinks inside the car?

They were initially perplexed but ultimately we got the reason. It was long and convoluted but it did make sense from a small child's point of view. So I explained calmly why we had been cross about it. Son1 listened and then very genuinely and sincerely apologised for not thinking and messing the drink. Of course son2 just yelled his normal SORRY! But I couldn't believe how calm, rational discussion made such a difference. Much of it was just being willing to open up my mind to the reason why they did something rather than assume that they did it just because they're possessed by devils or are hell bent on annoying me. So I shall continue (as best I can) with this approach and see if it results in a calmer house.

Milestone 2:
Son 1 got his first ever report card. I can honestly say that I was nervous about opening it. Why for goodness sake? It wasn't my report card. But actually, it was. As a parent, your child's behaviour and performance at school is hugely influenced by how you parent them at home - certainly while they're young. Have I spent enough time doing arts and crafts with him? (apparently not) Do I encourage a love of reading by getting out books? (yes, gold star for me) Does he show care and concern for others and operate well in a group? (yes - amazing. He beats the daylights out of his brother). Is he punctual? (yes, and that is entirely down to me. If that was his own doing we'd still be looking for shoes at 3pm)

Isn't it strange how as a child you were concerned about the contents of your report card because you didn't want to get a bollocking from your parents. Yet your parents were probably just as concerned all along to see if what they've taught you at home is reflected in your school scores. It's only when your child gets a report card that this truth comes to light.

Milestone 3:
Son2 (aged 3 - will be 4 in a couple of months) has taught himself how to swim. Well, he can swim as long as he doesn't need to come up for a breath. Unlike most children who battle to put their face in the water, this child can't swim unless he swims underwater like a little fish. It's remarkable to watch. He just decided one day to take off his armbands and jump in. He went under the water and swam holding his breath to the side. And he's not looked back. How you teach a child to swim with their head above the water is another thing, but I'm thrilled (and a little astonished) that he's decided to skip learning to swim and go straight to free diving.

So you see - we've had some big stuff going on, hence the blog silence. And today we have pre-school sports day in which I sincerely hope son 2 will take part in. Last week I got to go to son 1's sports day and once again, got to watch other people's children running as he refused to join in until the very last race. At which point he cried that he hadn't had enough turns. Sigh

Bloggy kisses to all

Boy talk

2009-06-26T19:05:00.002+01:00

In case you are the lucky owner of little girls with no insight into the world of little boys, let me fill you in. I've just driven back from an outlet centre about 30 minutes away. This was the (pretty much one-sided) conversation my son had with me all the way home:

Son: Mum, you know the Transformers?
Me: Mhmm. (not really but sure I'll go with you on this)
Son: Well you know the bee guy? Well he is super powerful. Crossed bones is also super powerful, but not as powerful as bee guy.
Me: Oh right. Why's that?
Son: Well crossed bones is powerful. He goes THWAK BOOM BOOF. But bee guy, he goes POW BASH THUNK KAPOW
Me: Wow. That sounds pretty powerful
Son: But there's that other guy. You know. What's he called again? You know the slime guy?
Me: Not really my darling. I've never seen transformers.
Son: (as though I'm not even there) Well slime guy always attacks bee guy, but crossed bones goes THWACK BASH to both of them. And then they go KAPOW, SMASH, AAARGGHHH, DOOF, BASH, AAAARRRGGGHHH. Come here sucker! I'm going to smash your head. KAPOW, SMASH. No, you die slime man. BOOF. I'm going to steal your power. You will have no power crossed bones. No! You'll have no power bee guy. SMASH. SMACK. BASH. BLEEUGH. AARGGH

This goes on for quite some time.

Eventually the killing action from the back seat is over and he says:
Mum, when can I get a transformer toy?

Funnily, I'm not convinced I'm going to buy one anytime soon.

Pool of tears

2009-06-22T09:31:00.004+01:00

I gotta tell ya, I'm a woman on the edge. I can feel it. I'm like a pressure cooker and am about to blow. I cannot deal with anymore stuff going wrong. What is it about this year? So far in the space of the last two months we've had:

- our kettle died - new one needed
- our microwave died - new one needed
- our washingmachine died (but could at least be fixed instead of replaced)
- our dishwasher has begun leaking (this problem has so far been ignored)
- our roof started leaking requiring us to rethatch it for a cool £13 000
- the three year old decided that the rotary washing line made an excellent swing and has broken it. New one needed, not yet bought.
- the kids needed new beds as trying to squeeze a five year old into a cot bed just wasn't working. So new ones had to be bought
- the phone died and had to be replaced
- the printer cartridges for the printer I have (which isn't THAT old) are no longer being made. This means I will very soon need a new printer
- my computer is so old and slow that it gasps along at a 1995 pace. I'm ignoring this because I cannot afford a new one
- but topping the list of things that have gone wrong is the swimming pool.

If you ever buy a house, no matter how lovely the house is, DO NOT BUY IT IF IT HAS A SWIMMING POOL. Not unless you or your partner are a swimming pool engineer.

Our pool was built in the early 80s. Everything about it needed to be overhauled (including the fence around it). We have until now ignored this because pools are expensive. VERY.

But given the forecasts for a hot summer, we thought it was high time we fixed it. So we got a man what does to come and fix it. And he did. And I paid him £1200 of your British Pounds for the priviledge. For one glorious (yet rain filled) week the pool worked (we didn't go in it because of the rain and cool temperatures so the fact that it worked sort of passed us by).

This weekend I had to backwash the pool. I followed the instructions given to me. Except, one of the vital instructions (which was told to husband, not me) was that the backwash hose must be kept straight with no kinks in it. Unbeknownst to me, husband had mown the lawn and had curled the hose up. Husband hadn't passed either of these facts onto me. So I backwashed the pool and low and behold, the fitting holding the hose in burst. Costly mistake number 1.

Then I attempted to empty the leaf basket, as per the instructions. I did this but noticed as I was doing it that it meant plenty of air was getting into the system. The man wot fixes pools had managed to get all the air out. But I didn't know how else to empty the basket without opening it and letting air in.

Anyway, I then tried to manually vacuum the pool. This worked for about 1 minute before the suction went - exactly as it had done before I paid £1200 to have it fixed. I guessed it must be air in the system. Husband came and helped to bleed the system. It still wouldn't suck. So I resorted to the automatic cleaner instead.

The automatic cleaner got stuck, so while I attempted to move it to the shallow end, a pipe came undone. So I had to turn the cleaner off to get it back on. Once reattached, I went back into the shed of evil (as I've now come to call it) and turned it all back on again. But apparently I turned something on in the wrong order. I still don't know quite what.

In a split second, the filter lid cracked open and sprayed water everywhere. I hit the 'TURN EVERYTHING OFF AND PANIC SWITCH' and ran to call husband for help. (You might be wondering right now why he isn't in charge of the pool as this is obviously a boy job. Good question. One I have asked myself many, many times. Answer is still awaited). Husband took one look at the cracked lid and proceeded to have a strop. Rightly so. I had in the space of 20 minutes managed to break three things that before I got there were all working well.

He stropped. I wept. I stropped. We all ignored the pool. We didn't have a happy father's day.

This morning I called the pool man. I explained, rather embarrassed, about the littany of disasters that had taken place. I could hear him rolling his eyes down the phone.

Now here's the really, really good bit. Our type of filter no longer exists. It is obsolete. The chances of finding a spare part for the bit that has cracked is roughly equivalent to our chances of winning the lotto, which would incidentally solve all of our problems.

The man said he would call around and hunt for the proverbial needle in the haystack, but we'd probably need to buy a new filter. Filters are not cheap. They are vast pieces of machinery that probably easily cost the same as a pleasant weekend mini break to Paris, including a champagne dinner.

But without one, the pool cannot function. At all. So we can either pay for this new piece of kit or just ignore the pool altogether and laugh off the £1200 already invested in it. I'm all for filling it in or turning it into a fish pond or emptying it out and making it a skate boarding pit.

I have no money left. Nothing. Not a penny. The tax man will be expecting a small cheque from me by the end of this week and he might just have to have a tear filled telephone call from me instead.

Sigh.

I don't like being a grown up.

Virtual reality

2009-06-17T21:03:00.002+01:00

This will be a brief post as I've just updated my other blog and it's 9pm and my husband will be home any minute and might expect me to be a 50s housewife and actually have produced him some dinner (I haven't) so will have to rustle up something exotic like pasta and pesto. With peas.

Anyway, I had to post because on Sunday I did something I've never done before. Well, that's not strictly true, I've done it once before but his was different. I met people from the interweb in real life.

I first became addicted to the internet when I lived in NYC and was planning a wedding. Back then, every spare moment I logged onto www.theknot.com - a fabulous forum for wedding obsessed bridezillas. And while I did give away all of my many wedding magazines to a fellow knotter, she just picked them up and I never met her.

Then I moved to the UK and had a baby. A difficult baby. Cue www.thebabywhisperer.com. Without the kind souls on that forum, I might have just curled up into a ball and wept (actually I did that anyway but at least I felt I wasn't alone in doing it). But I certainly never met any BWers.

Then I had a brief flurry on www.mumsnet.com but the people there just scared the bejesus out of me and there was no way I'd ever have gone to a Mumsnet meet up.

Then we moved house to a new area and I knew no-one. So I used the www.netmums.com meet a mum boards and did actually meet some people from the internet. But it wasn't like we had a long virtual friendship first. It was kinda: hey, anyone want to get out and chat instead of going slowly insane on your own? I stayed in touched with one or two but nothing more than a Facebook alliance now really.

Then came the world of mummy blogging. I didn't even know it was a world. I just stumbled upon it and thought how marvellous it was that you could spout off reams of twaddle and have random strangers feed you twaddle back. It is amazingly addictive how you come to know people so well, and experience all the highs and lows of their lives with them. It makes reality tv pale into significance.

And then thanks to Susanna at British Mummy Bloggers and Silver Cross, there was a mummy blogger meet up. The chance to meet virtual friends in real life. I'll admit, I had an ulterior motive for going along to meet other mummy bloggers. I wanted to understand the community better and how the meet ups might work so that (wearing my dashing PR hat) I might be able to advise clients on it all. But I was also intrigued to find out who some of these people were who have supported me in my mad plans to sail across the ocean and whose lives I have shared so initimately for so long.

We met at the Rain Forest Cafe in London, which is an amazing place and somewhere I'll be taking my kids in the future. The other mummies had their children there and they were enthralled by it. Silver Cross demoed their lovely new products, which were almost drool-worthy enough to tempt me to have a third child. But not even the Halo Buggy and Doodle High chair are that good.

The strange thing was, that chatting to the fellow mummy bloggers felt like I was meeting up with old school friends. You don't really know them, but you do. Their real life personalities are just like those on their blogs. You have an instant understanding because you've shared so much of their lives already. So it was really lovely to chat to so many of you. I know I should name and link to you (as many of you have kindly done to me) but I a) know I'll forget someone and will feel like a poop for doing it and b) I really, really do need to go get some food on the go.

But suffice to say it was a great experience and one I'll certainly repeat. And any other mummy bloggers who didn't go to this one, do try to make the next!

Right, now to tie my apron on, prepare a G&T for my husband and prepare to look cheery and gay while asking him about his day. That's what the books say right?

Schizophrenia - I am a PR person and a mummy blogger

2009-06-12T09:46:00.007+01:00

I had a fabulous meeting with the lovely Suzanne from A Modern Mother yesterday. We spent a good amount of time discussing how businesses and their PR people should be interacting with mummy bloggers. Now I don't normally talk shop on this blog. This blog is about me being a mum. But when I'm not being a mum, I run a PR business from home. So I wear both the PR and mummy blogger hats. And it's not always a comfortable fit (try wearing two hats at once and you'll see what I mean).

Anyway, Suzanne has written a great post inspired by a similar post from GeekMommy over in the US about how companies shouldn't expect mummy bloggers to run their competitions for them for free. And I fully agree. Any PR or company that thinks they can get a blogger to not only host but also run the mechanics of a give-away on their blog for nothing other than a free sachet of soap powder is 'aving a larf. But apparently this is happening a lot in the US. Give it a few more months and I'm sure it will be happening here in the UK too.

The comments section of GeekMommy's post made for fascinating reading with many bloggers jumping in saying that they're fed up with being expected to do the PR's job for free. There were lots of the usual comments too about how PR people don't even bother to read their blog and send them info about baby products when they actually have teenagers or ask them to write about a cleaning product when their blog focuses on fashion. Or whatever. I'm making some of these examples up but that was the gist of it.

This same accusation is levelled at PR people by journalists who say that PR people have never read their publication and send them completely irrelevant info and just expect a free plug for their client instead of giving them a decent story.

PR people are I believe, hated the world over. I often think you'd be better off saying that you're a prostitute, a banker or a politician than admitting to being a PR luvvie dahling.

But wearing my PR hat, squashed quite firmly over my ears, for a minute, here's the challenge we have:

Challenge 1: The scope of the media and blogosphere
Think about how many magazines, newspapers and websites there are out there. Think about how many writers - i.e. individuals with their own specific likes and dislikes - there are that PR people are expected to know inside out. Now add to that the huge number of bloggers, all with their own lives you as a PR person are expected to know even more personally - from what age their children are to whether they're an eco warrior or a fashionista. It is a nigh on impossible task.

A good PR person will have a database of contacts who they come to know over time and will give them the things they need in the way they need them. But it is still a task that takes a gargantuan amount of time, time not usually paid for by the client. Which is why things aren't always as personalised as they should be. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that with pressure from clients to reach as many people as you can, it's pretty hard to keep things personal.

And if you're still thinking: Tough, that's your job, well yes. But imagine for a minute that you as a blogger or journalist have landed the golden egg and some publisher wants to turn your musings into a book. You want your book to be bought in the thousands, if not millions, so that you can buy an island and drink daiquiris for the rest of your life. You're not allowed to employ a PR person. You need to get the book out to as many influential people as possible. Start writing a list of every newspaper, magazine, TV show and blog you'd like your book to appear on. Now find out who covers book reviews at those titles. Now find out what type of books they like to read, how far in advance they review books, whether they like exclusives, whether they always require free books to give away in order to publish a review, where to send a book to, how they like to be contacted etc etc etc. And that's for one book. One product. One customer. Multiply that out for several customers with several products and you'll start to feel the enormity of the task facing PR people.

So to sum up, while I'm in now way excusing shoddy PR practices of spray and pray, if you receive a pitch from a PR person that isn't 100% personalised to you, try not to hate them too much for it. If it really annoys you, delete it or let them know what you do like so that they can get it right next time.

Challenge 2: How big is a blogger's scope of influence?
We know that bloggers are influential. The reason they're influential is because what they write is perceived as honest, not PR puff. The minute it smacks of PR puff, people will be turned off. But not all blogs are created equal. How many of your client's target audience is each individual blogger reaching? Probably not that many. Add up multiple bloggers and you start to get a cumulative effect. But your client wants to reach as many people as possible - whether that's through one uber-influential blogger or multiple less influential bloggers.

The challenge for PR people is knowing who the influential bloggers are. How do you work out which bloggers are the influential ones? By number of comments? Number of followers? Asking for their visitor stats? Do all bloggers even track their visitor stats? At the moment, a lot of it is guesswork. Trial and error on the part of PR companies. And measuring the results can be difficult too. Sure you can track links and click throughs but it's not all scientific. So you're spending a lot of time getting to know people and personalising info for them without really knowing whether it's going to have an impact on the client's bottomline. Tricky.

Challenge 3: Not all bloggers know who they are
Many mummy bloggers are new to the game in the UK. It's growing fast. But how many of the bloggers even know themselves what they want their blog to be? Most start out as a journal - a place for personal musings (like this one). But many quickly realise that blogging takes up a good amount of their time, time they could be spending earning a living. So they start to think about how they can get their blog to earn them a few pennies. It changes identity from a journal to a revenue generating venture. For some this is very low level, pocket money really. While others try to turn their blogs into information portals or ezines (or they might have set them up with this in mind in the first place) to actively generate revenue and make a living from it. Then there are the blogs that are set up purely as an extension of their business to help them boost their SEO and business credibility. They're often desperate for content but are they willing to promote another company's product? And if so, will they only do it if there's a quid pro quo?

So you see, the PR community is trying to understand and interact with a community that doesn't fully know yet what it's trying to be. The PR community need the blogging community to help provide some of this clarity. And I know from some of the work underway at British Mummy Blogger Network, this is starting to happen.

Challenge 4: PR is not paid for publicity
PR people are tasked with getting their client's 'free' publicity, not paid for advertising. The minute they have to pay for anything other than product, it starts to drift into the sphere of advertising. So if bloggers ask to be paid to write about something it's a) not normally something the PR people have the budget for and b) it brings into play the whole question of ethics and would seriously impact bloggers' credibility. You don't pay a journalist to write about your company in a newspaper. They're paid by their publication. This gives the journalist freedom to write whatever they like. Bloggers want the freedom to write whatever they like, yet expect to get paid for doing it. Why would a PR person do that? They might as well then pay for an ad and then at least they can be sure that they're going to get the message they want out there. It's a difficult area. I don't think bloggers should work for free, but equally, an outright payment model just isn't right either.

Taking my PR hat off for a minute (it's getting scratchy) and donning my lovely mummy blogger hat (sensible with a wide brim), let me say this to PR people:

How do you get a blogger to write about your clients/company? Sending them a press release will never cut it. You do need to know your blogger, what they like, dislike, how old their children are, what they write about, whether they're single, going through a divorce or about to set sail across the Atlantic ocean. (Gosh, who could that be?)

That requires a LOT of time. It means actively reading and commenting on bloggers blogs. It means engaging with them about things that actually mean something to them. It means being a blogger yourself. And if you're not a blogger and you're not a mum and you're trying to reach mummy bloggers, might I suggest that you employ a mummy blogger to help you out on your campaigns? There are plenty of mums out there who would love to be able to work around their children, doing something part time. Why not recruit one of them to work on your campaign to help you understand who the other mummy bloggers are? It's a win win.

Don't post spam in the comments box. Do it and you deserve a slap. With a dead fish. And yes, it is obvious that it's spam even if you say 'I love your blog, look at my great new site for kids toys.' Flattery works, but we're not that gullible.

Product reviews. Right now, UK mummy bloggers are probably still open to receiving products to review if there's something in it for them. For example, if I was asked to review a new washing powder, I just wouldn't. Because quite frankly I could give a rat's bum about soap for clothes. Sparkling whites just aren't on my list of priorities. However, if Musto or a similar sailing company sent me a pitch and asked me to review their new ocean going boots/gloves/quick-drying shirts I'd say yes please and would be more than willing to give a fair appraisal of them on my sailing blog. Because I need that stuff and getting it free in exchange for a review seems fair to me. From their point of view, they'd have to ask: how many other sailors are reading this blog? What if she slates our stuff? Are we trying to attract more women into sailing? If the answers make sense, then it's worth them doing it. If not, it's not. Simple

And if the people at Musto weren't sure about the answers to the questions above, they should take my next bit of advice and ask bloggers what they want and who they reach. I know this takes work, but once you've identified which bloggers you think are most influential for your company/client, email the blogger and ask them for more info about their audience, visitors stats and what they want from you in exchange for writing about your company. Is it free products, the chance to try something out, publicity - what? These are people, not businesses you're dealing with. Often they won't even know what the answer is, but by starting a conversation with them you're on the right track.

Product reviews are just one tool. A key thing for most bloggers is audience. They want people to visit their blogs. - whether it's to drive revenue, catch the eye of a publisher, meet more people or simply have the notoriety. They want people to comment on their blogs. Any publicity you can give them will help them boost their numbers, so think of ways you can help promote them in exchange for them promoting you.

Think creatively. Run competitions to write about a subject (not a product) where everyone who gets involved gets something and the winning entry gets a bigger prize, heaps of publicity and a ticker tape parade (just kidding on the last bit). In exchange, they agree to include a link to your site or mention your site in some way.

Remember most of all that mummy bloggers are a community. We're a virtual network of friends who rarely if ever meet but with whom we share hugely personal information with. Try to understand this dynamic. Know that the mummy blogger doesn't live to write about your stuff. They're looking after children, running businesses, going to work, doing laundry, cooking, shopping, having sex (probably not much), doing hobbies, running PTA meetings, staying in touch with family members, remembering birthdays, walking the dog and generally living. They also happen to blog about it.

I don't think anyone has the perfect answer as to how to work within this dynamic - I'm both a PR and mummy blogger and I don't have a de facto answer - but thinking like a mum is probably a good start.

Seven years ago today

2009-06-08T20:06:00.007+01:00

Seven years ago today I was doing this:

And this:

And even this:

Seven years ago I was in South Africa, in the mountains, surrounded by family and friends and several bottles of champagne.

Tonight I am alone with my pc, two sleeping children (thank god) and a husband who is on the far side of the USA on business. I should feel melancholy but I don't. We had a marvellous evening out on Saturday in which I drank almost as much champagne as I did on our wedding day. What's more, this year I got the anniversary present right. Read here for how I didn't last year.

I'm not sure I've ever blogged about me the bride (aka Bridezilla - who woulda thought it?) but now is not the time. I am too tired. But I shall revisit the subject at some future point when life is less busy. I could also have written about how things have changed in seven years (new country, two kids, new jobs, new houses, less sex, more wrinkles, less money) but I've used up my word quota for today so can't write anymore.

The purpose of this blog post was just to mark the occasion, otherwise it might pass by altogether without notice. And that would be something worth being melancholy about.

Happy anniversary to us. And just because it's such a marvellously mad picture, here's one more of the happy couple taken slightly more recently - Presenting Mr & Mrs Home Office Mum:

May we continue to laugh for the next seven.

Enid Blyton - the new supernanny?

2009-06-03T19:03:00.003+01:00

I am currently reading my children Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree triology. I have to confess that the Faraway Tree books were my absolute favourites for years and years and years - way longer than it was acceptable for them to be really. So I am thrilled that my children are now old enough to listen to a story being read without the need for pictures (although pictures would be useful for the three year old who tends to get ants in his pants after about five minutes). When I was a child, we had a hard back full colour beautifully illustrated version of the books. I've searched the interweb far and wide but have yet to find it or something approaching it.

Anyway, that was not the point of this post. Re-reading Enid after all these years makes me realise that parents were a LOT stricter back then. And children were FAR better behaved than they are today. Jo, Bessie and Fanny seem to spend days and days toiling in the garden, darning worn clothes, ironing, doing laundry, making beds and taking care of their mother when she was poorly. They do this without a single gripe or groan. Neery a whinge nor a whine.

And then at last, when they are released for a day of freedom from toil, they're sent off on their way with a fabulous picnic of bread and butter and some fresh peaches. Not a cheese string, Innocent smoothie or packet of pom bear crisps in sight. Not even lashings of gingerbeer, because that was reserved for the Famous Five and possibly the Secret Seven. The Faraway Tree bunch never had anything quite as outrageous as fizzy pop. However, they did scoff down inordinate quantities of pop biscuits, google buns and toffee shocks, all of which I'd still like to try before I die.

So how exactly did Jo, Bessie and Fanny's mum get it so right? She was certainly fierce and when Curious Connie came to stay, told her in no uncertain terms that crying will get her nowhere and that if she didn't do as she was told she'd go to bed without any supper, a fate worse than death by all accounts. And she certainly wasn't shy of doling out the odd spanking. On the one occasion the children wanted to wear party clothes to a tea at Moonface's she insisted that they wear their old clothes, which they griped about, but she put her foot down and said it was old clothes or they weren't going. So the children dutifully donned their shabby chic attire and skipped merrily off.

That wouldn't have happened in our house. In our house it would have resulted in several screaming tantrums from all parties before they finally left the house in their old clothes but with some fuck you nod to the long arm of the law like wearing underpants on their heads.

If I could employ Mrs Jo, Bessie and Fanny (not sure of their surname) to take charge of my sons I would. Having started out my parenting journey with such good intentions about behaviour and being consistent and instilling good values and having angelic children, it all seems to have gone tits up.

Behaviour is a constant battle. My children seem to think it's ok to hit their mother and give a huge amount of cheek and fling things about in a fit of pique despite me having tried reward boards, positive parenting, time out, naughty step, buddy charts, sending to bed without supper, shouting, out and out bribery and even smacks (aplogies to the anti-smacking brigade). Obviously I didn't do this all at once. That would have confused even me. And possibly the lack of consistency has been my downfall, but I challenge any parent to keep on and on and on with the same method if it just doesn't seem to work.

I'm starting to think that the more military style of parenting of the Enid Blyton days had a place. Children were more courteous and had good manners and cleared their plates and were grateful for boiled onion skin soup and dry bread. Are today's children just too spoilt?

I'm beginning to think so. My children are not given masses of anything, but they do seem to think it's fine to break brand new toys, walk around the garden in socks with the express purpose of destroying them, take one bite of an apple and put the rest in the bin and demand whatever they see advertised on tv as though it is their god given right to have Lellie Kelly shoes and make up set (yes, the five year old wants those despite being a boy). And they are called out on all of these things, but it's as though whatever lesson was learnt yesterday is forgotten today and so the craziness continues.

I've seen very fierce parents in action and think that they are being too mean to their children, they are people after all with their own minds. I've seen parents who are horizontal about disciplining children and I want to give them a good shake and say "Children need boundaries!!" I like to think I'm somewhere in between. But inbetweenville seems to be have little effect at all.

Do I need to return to the Enid Blyton school of parenting - perhaps send them off to Dame Slap's school for a while? I'm sure by today's standards it would be viewed as tyranical parenting but I'm beginning to think that that's what is needed. How do you instil that old-fashioned respect that children used to have for adults? How do you get your children to respect you as a parent? I know it's earned, but HOW DO YOU EARN IT? I'd like to think that what I've been doing as a parent should rustle up a smidgeon of respect, but it doesn't seem to have.

For some reason if I threaten them with 'telling your father what you just did' they beg me not to, not because he's in any way fierce, but because they don't want their father to think less of them. So why don't they feel that way about their mother? Sigh.

All suggestions to be sent by a squirrel in a tatty red jumper please.

Dilemma: summer body or summer food?

2009-06-02T19:54:00.005+01:00

This must be the longest spell of good weather I have experienced since I moved to the UK in 2003. If this is global warming, bring it on.

We have a swimming pool in in our garden. I'm not sure why but I always feel that I have to justify myself when I say this. We don't live in a mansion with acres of grounds, a tennis court, stables and pool. We just happen to have a pool in our garden. It is a pain in the arse 99 out of every 100 days. But for the last few it has been marvellous. The boys have swum everyday and have had friends over to splash around with them. We are the envy of all.

Yesterday we had a friend over and the mum coolly whipped off all (I mean all) of her clothes in the garden without batting an eyelid before slipping into a bikini. Yes, she has a child and wears a bikini. And she looks like super model in it. I wanted to weep into my iced elderflower cordial. I decided that I really did need to give myself a good talking to and stop eating so much, not to mention cutting back on the gallons and gallons of wine I've been consuming of late.

But what's the point of al fresco dining if not to dine? Admittedly, summer foods can be a lot lighter than stodgy stews and steamed puddings, but we've BBQd so much that I'm starting to resemble a sausage. And although I've eaten my body weight in salad, I've washed it down with good helpings of creamy potato bakes. Then there are the lazy smorgasboard dinners outside in the sun, cold meat platters, cheese boards, grilled asparagus - just lovely summery food - but lots and lots of it.

And today, given the magnificence of the weather, I felt it was my patriotic duty to create a summer dessert that celebrates the infamous British strawberry. After reading a recipe in the Sunday Times magazine this weekend, I made sure the Ocado man delivered all the necessary ingredients so that I could create a dessert masterpiece, something I've not done for a while (well since deciding to sail across an ocean).

So I made this:

It was dead simple, dead gorgeous and dead tasty. It would also quite possibly result in dead me had I attempted to eat all of it, such is its richness.

So you see, this is why I can't wear a bikini. Summer food is just too good to ignore. It's a tricky choice: summer food or summer body? I know which one is winning around here.

Sod it, there's always winter to slim down.

Discussion of the day

2009-05-23T22:31:00.002+01:00

Should you or should you not write blog posts while excessively tired or very inebriated or both?

Discuss.

(That's as much as I can manage as am both). Hic. snore.

The mummy rollercoaster

2009-05-22T19:24:00.004+01:00

Oh. My. God.

There isn't really enough wine in the world to help me recover from the last hour.

You see it all started like this. Boy across the road had the friend from school to play but didn't invite my son. This was a problem. I knew it would be. But he wasn't invited and that was that. As we can see into their garden, staying at home this afternoon wasn't an option. We had to go out. First we had to live through the sheer heartbreak of a child who wanted to play with his friend on the last day of school, but couldn't. Compounded by the taunts of the friend going to play with the neighbour who at school had said: 'I'm going to play at Xs house and you aren't' as is the way of children. So that was nice.

I knew it would be like that so I went into supermummy mode. I had pre-planned and prepared. I had the car packed with bikes, scooters, football, board games, picnic blanket and bucketloads of crisps/sweets/cocktail sausages/miscellaneous picnic snacks. I donned my 'Yay, we're going to have the best afternoon ever' voice and tried to gee up the troups as we headed for a nature reserve well away from the friends.

It was hard, hard work. Eventually once we were safely consuming our 15th fizzy sherbert sweetie, the sobbing stopped and we all managed to have a genuinely fun afternoon exploring the woods, riding bikes, playing football, making dens etc. All was well. I even managed to convince them that what we were doing was infinitely more fun than playing on a boring old Wii (which is what had been advertised as the activity over the road).

I patted myself on the back for being a good mummy and salvaging a good afternoon from the jaws of nightmareville.

We came home. The friends across the road were still there. So my son stood at the fence yelling across the way asking if he could come and play. I kept saying that he couldn't as it was after 6pm, and besides, it smacked of desperation and norman no mates-ness and I didn't want the poor child to be begging for a play, particularly as he still hadn't really been invited.

So I ushered them indoor and served them dinner, which only moments before they'd been nagging for. My son took one look at it and tried to throw it onto the floor. I caught it. Asked him if he was sure he didn't want it. He had a name calling session and was adamant that he didn't want it (I am toning this all down a LOT). So I said I'd eat it if he didn't want it as there wasn't any left for me. He took off outside again in a strop, slamming doors en route.

I gave him five minutes then recalled him. He came in like a small thunder cloud, and as if the last five minutes had magically been erased from his mind, demanded his dinner in a tone that didn't exactly make me want to rush into the kitchen and rustle something up. So I said that I'd eaten it. Which I had. At which point he grabbed the bowl out of my hands, flung the remains on the floor, hit me, called me stupid and slammed the door.

Now I know he's had an emotionally wrought day. And I know he was probably tired. I know that the correct thing to do was to sit with him, be understanding about the fact that he wants to be outside and more importantly with his friends. I should have been calm and rational.

But this type of behaviour happens a lot and I'd had enough of it. I'd also used up every ounce of my energy in trying to get through the afternoon without more emotional meltdowns. So I instructed him that he had just lost out on bathing and bed time story priviledges, that he may wash his face, hands and clean teeth and could go to bed.

Let's just say that didn't go down well. At. All. The end of my tether was reached and surpassed by a good mile or so. I won't go into the details but it wasn't my finest moment of parenting. I had as much of a tantrum as he did. And he ended up going to bed (eventually) sobbing and asking for his father who certainly wouldn't have taken a more favourable view of his behaviour. I now have an almighty headache and feel utterly deflated.

All of my good mummy hard work of the afternoon was wiped out in an hour in the face of fairly vile behaviour from a child who was never going to be in a great frame of mind today. Now I feel guilty and rubbish.

It's the mummy rollercoaster.

If only I'd read the sign before boarding: Step right up. Tickets cost you most of your life savings. Brace yourself for a white knuckle ride with unexpected twists, turns, highs and lows. May cause whiplash. And nausea. May make you scream hysterically or laugh uncontrollably. Once you're on it, there's no getting off it. Good luck.

Blah (A poem for those feeling... well exactly like that)

2009-05-20T18:23:00.008+01:00

This poem is for anyone feeling blah, but in particular all self-employed mums (or dads) who have the occasional crisis of confidence and want to jack it all in. I'm certain I won't be Poet Laureate anytime soon but here it is nonetheless:

Blah

There are times when one feels blah.
It could be caused by an ill-fitting bra.
Or not ticking your to do list
Letting things get missed
Or simple feeling decidedly un-hoorah.

There are times when confidence takes a hit
And you feel like you just want to quit
You wonder why you bother
Why not simply be a mother
And give this work lark up for a bit.

Today is one of those days
When I'd like work to simply go away
But as an self employed bod
There's no-one else to do the job
So there's only one thing left to say:

You are good at what you do
Somehow you'll make it through.
So have a glass of wine
Tomorrow you'll feel fine
And sod everything that's gone to poo.

Winning friends and influencing people

2009-05-18T11:02:00.002+01:00

I should not be writing on this blog. I should be working. I have so much work to do I could keel over and die quietly in a corner, but I have a pressing issue I need to get off my mind, which hopefully will leave more room for me to concentrate on work stuff.

So I've posted previously about son 1 and his issues with friends and school and life in general. It's getting worse. He goes to a teeny tiny school and has only 7 children in his class. Two of whom are girls and therefore in the eyes of a five year old boy, don't qualify as human beings much less playmates. This leaves 4 potential people for him to play with. Of these 4, he seems to only want to be friends with one. He plays with the others but they're not his 'friends'. The challenge is that his 'friend' wants to be friends with someone in year 1 more than he wants to be friends with my son.

This is causing my son unhappiness in the extreme. You can't force children to be friends. You can encourage them to play nicely and treat people well but more than that, there's not much you can do. I've tried encouraging him to be friends with the others in his class but there just doesn't seem to be the same chemistry for him.

What's more, he is a nightmare going into school in the mornings, frequently running out of the building, clawing and scratching at me. Once in school, he is fine. He reserves this behaviour for me. But I also know that he cries almost every night because he doesn't want to go to school because of the friends issue.

He's recently started asking to go to a different school. I am now trying to make playdates with old friends who now go to different schools in a bid to make him happy. But it's not solving the day to day issue.

The straw that broke the camel's back happened this weekend, when his 'friend' was invited to the coolest boy in the school's birthday party (he's in year 6) and my son wasn't. He was devastated to say the least. How do you explain to a child why he wasn't invited? It would have been fine if I could say: Well he only invited kids in his year group. But he obviously hadn't. He'd invited my son's best friend and not him. I'm not surprised. Despite the year 6 boy being very friendly to my son, he probably sees him screaming and wailing in the playground every morning and thinks he's probably a bit too babyish to manage a big boys party.

Sigh. It was heartbreaking. I've been close to tears all weekend as a result. All parents want their child to be liked. To be popular. To have friends. But what do you do when it doesn't work out that way?

I have considered moving him to another school, but the next closest is so full (30 kids in reception class already with no limit on the numbers) and the others are oversubscribed and a fairly long drive away. I like him going to the local school we can walk to, but if it means another 6 odd years of this, I might lose my mind. And my poor child will certainly lose his.

Tomorrow I'm going to do something that I'm dreading but that I'm doing (officially) to give my son some moral support. (Unofficially, I am trying to buy him street cred by showing the other kids in his school that he's got a 'cool mum' - at least I'm really hoping that's what they'll think - ergo, he too is cool and worthy of being friends with).

The theme of the week is Around the World, so I've agreed to go and give a presentation to the school on my Around the World sailing adventure. This is going to tax my geography skills somewhat, but I've shown my little presentation to my son and he thinks the kids will love it and he seems to be bursting with pride and excitement. I'll take my sailing gear too so they can try it on and there's a short motivational video for them to watch which should have them all nagging for sailing lessons.

It's a pathetic attempt on my part to try to help him win friends and influence people, but I don't know what else to do. I'm going to attempt to speak to his teacher, but I've already had to speak to her sooooo many times about his not going into school issue that I fear she might just silently roll her eyes and curse whoever has landed her with this problem child.

Wish me luck. And feel free to share your ideas on how to tackle this issue.

2009-05-06T20:40:00.006+01:00

I've been tagged by Mosey Jones, (also known as Morag) author of the Mumpreneur Diaries. I'm very honoured to be tagged by someone who's actually written a book. I mean we all want to write a book. Right? But to actually do it. To sit down and concentrate and not notice a spot of bolognaise sauce on the sofa that needs to be vanished, well that takes staying power.

Anyway, my task at hand is that I've got to answer these 20 questions, but I also have to replace one question. And add one question. And then tag some bloggy people. This is hard because time is short these days. And answering these questions takes some thought. But I will endeavour.

1. What are your current obsessions?
Sailing. Refusing to accept that just because I'm a mum I can't do something utterly ridiculous. See http://www.moretolifethanlaundry.com/ for more details on this life altering obsession.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Jeans. I have several pairs:

- Oasis - dark blue in good nick. For when I need to look smart (snort)

- Hobbs - used to be my looking smart jeans, now ripped in the crotch area from overuse and have been used for gardening but still in second smart place.

- Random old faded light blue jeans that are too tight, too short and has a zip that goes down all the time

- Very tight jeans that make my legs look very skinny but cause a muffin top and are impossible to sit down in.

3. What was your favourite childhood meal?
Macaroni cheese. Still love it, although now I wash it down with gaviscon.

4. Last thing you bought?
A piece of red carboard. Intrigued as to why? I'm not telling.

5. What are you listening to?
Take That - The Circus. Have Hold Up a Light on repeat cycle. Love it, love it, love it.

6. Wine or chocolate?

Wine. Duh.

7. Favourite holiday spots?
Selous Game Reserve Tanzania. Yes, I do sound like a bougois (sp?) snob. We went there on honeymoon, before the days of kids clubs...sniff.

8. Reading right now?
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

9. Four words to describe yourself.
Away with the fairies OR alternatively: Very, very, very busy

10. Guilty pleasure?
Listening to music and imagining my life as a music video

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?
The blokes on my last sailing training week. Can't decide which story was funniest - the gorilla choosing between the cabbage vs poo to have for lunch, or the elderly gentleman's testicle popping out of his boxers. You had to be there, honest.

12. Favourite spring thing to do?
Wear flip flops for the first time after months in confinement

13. Planning to travel to next?
Sailing 5,300 nautical miles to Rio de Janeiro (jealous yet?)

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
Illicit bag of peanut M&Ms. Didn't realise I wanted them till I ripped the bag open and scoffed the lot in under a minute.

15. When did you last get tipsy?
Last night. And I fear tonight might be a repeat performance

16. Favourite ever film?
The Sound of Music. Singing nuns and clothes made from curtains. What's not to love?

17. Care to share some wisdom?
This is the life we've been given, so open your mind and start living.

18. Song you can't get out of your head?
Compare the market.com; Compare the meerkat.com - it is driving me sodding insane and if I ever come across the marketing person for this company I will personally introduce a meerkat to their nether regions and see if they'd like to compare before and after snaps.

19. One thing you'd really like to do this year
I'm doing it! Crossing an ocean

20. What or who makes you irrationally rage and totally not proud of yourself at the same time?
People who drop the Ts in words, like saying be-er instead of better. I was almost moved to point out to some teenagers recently that the word Better had two Ts in it and neither are silent. But instead shuffled by mumbling about the youth of today and then thinking that maybe their parents never mentioned the fact that the word actually had Ts after all.

I'm not going to tag any bloggy people. I'm rubbish that way. But feel free to have a go if you fancy it.

Escapism

2009-05-06T18:12:00.005+01:00

No matter the size of your laundry pile.
No matter the microwave that's died a sudden death.
No matter the teetering pile of unwashed dishes.
No matter the uneaten dinner. Again.
No matter the lack of milk for breakfast.
No matter the car that needs to be MOT'd.
No matter the VAT bill that needs paying.
No matter the to do list that is running off the page and into next year.
No matter the constant stream of childcare issues.
No matter the tantrums, strops and sulks.
No matter the nagging, whining and clinging.
No matter the jeans that won't do up.
No matter the highlights that are in dire need of redoing.
No matter the neighbours with their new extension overlooking us.
No matter the thatched roof that is costing us £13k to replace.
No matter the garden that masquerades as a jungle.
No matter the husband who is away again.

No matter how vile my day might have been, with an iPod plugged into my ears, a few tunes will transport me away from it all. The most mundane of tasks are tapped out methodically while my mind, heart and spirits can drift to far away places.

Music changes the colour and emotion of life. It gives imagination the freedom to run to undiscovered places or revisit favourite memories. It washes the banality of chores away. It eases the tension flickering across shoulder blades. It gives goose bumps. It makes me smile.

Or perhaps it's just me?

*Written to the background strains of Newton Faulkner's 'Dream Catch Me' with lyrics that go:
There’s a place I go
When I’m alone
Do anything I want
Be anyone I wanna be

How apt.

Planes, trains and automobiles

2009-04-22T07:03:00.004+01:00

WAHM-BAM posted a review on Sea Life Centre in Birmingham, which she and her family got to by train. She asked if anyone else had been on trips over the holidays and given we did, I thought 'What the hell, let's review it!'

Last Friday was like the Battle of Arnheim - a bridge too far in terms of entertaining small over-excited boys in dire need of some school dicipline. We couldn't rustle up any friends to play with and another day of bouncing on the trampoline just wasn't something my pelvic floor could cope with. So I did a bit of internet searching for inspiration, and while I desperately wanted to take the boys to the Science Museum to see the Wallace & Gromit exhibition, I couldn't get tickets and the price of the non-obtainable tickets could have seen me buy myself a new pair of shoes instead.

So I opted for the London Transport Museum as an alternative. Firstly, it has trains and buses in it. Secondly it's right next to 'daddy's work', which meant we might get see my husband during office hours (what a novelty).

We opted to go in by train and tube (just to emphasise the whole transport theme). The train ride was probably more exciting to the boys than the propect of the museum. Well the first ten minutes of excitement were, before they started asking 'Are we there yet?' That mantra holds true regardless of your mode of transport.

After navigating our way through the bowels of London's tube system, during which my children were determined not to mind the gap or the yellow line preventing them from throwing themselves in front of an oncoming train, we finally got to the museum.

We were greeted to a long line of people standing in the rain. I should have bought tickets in advance but didn't, having bought things in advance too many times, only to have a child decide to slam their fingers in a car door or be beset by dysentry as we're leaving the house, cancelling the day out.

So we waited. In the rain. Children aren't particularly blessed with an ability to wait. Their concept of queuing is decidedly African in nature (if you've ever lived there you'll know what I mean) i.e. stand as close as possible to the person in front of you or simply ignore the queue altogether and saunter up to the front of the line with a 'and who's going to stop me' attitude.

We finally got in. It cost me a tenner (would have been £8 if I hadn't gift aided it) and kids under 16 go free. Hooray!

After checking raincoats (for free - another hooray!) we started following the arrows that lead you through the mazelike tour of trains, tubes and buses. It's all a bit loud and colourful, with huge maps of the world's underground systems painted on the walls. I felt like a tiny person who'd been shrunk and set loose in a giant A-Z. Perhaps this would seem less frenetic if you hadn't just had to use London transport to get there.

Anyway, we hopped in an elevator which cleverly acts as a time machine with a counter that rewinds time from the present to the 1800s, with matching sound effects changing from hooting cars to clip clopping horses.

You exit and face an array of old carriages, some of which the children are allowed to climb on, some they're not. When going to a museum with children, you don't get to read any of the explanatory signs about what you're looking at. You simply charge as fast as you can from one thing to the next, pushing as many interactive buttons as you can en route. I gather - from my speed reading efforts - that people used to get around London by horse and carriage and that the carriages turned into bus length carriages at some point. But the number of horses and subsequent poo issues meant a better solution was needed.

We interrupted our tour at this point as it was lunchtime and daddy could escape the confines of his office to meet us in the museum cafe. The cafe served many things in bread: beans on bread, fish finger sandwiches, paninis and burgers on buns. The food was ok, but the prices could have kept a Somalian family in food for about three months. Top tip: pack a picnic. There is a picnic area downstairs. Save your money for the toy shop because that's when the prices go from stupid to utterly ridiculous.

After shovelling food into our mouths (well the children ignored theirs but that's not an indictment on the food establishment), we went back to the start of the maze and rushed through the horse and carriages all over again, remembering to stamp our sticker sheet en route. There are stamping machines all over the place and the intention is to collect different stamps as you work your way around. The stamping machines are tricky to figure out and always have a queue of children around them as they battle to figure out which way to insert their maps. So much of our time was spent doing that.

We then headed downstairs and got to learn all about the early underground system (jolly clever chaps who made that) and learned that it initially ran on steam, which wasn't particularly good for people's health and made an underground trip even worse than an overcrowded tube on a hot summer's day when your face is wedged into someone's sweaty armpit.

So they managed to use electricity instead. I think. This part was glossed over as there were many buttons to push and trains to hop into and out of and stamps to collect.

Gradually we moved up to current day tubes, with the most interesting thing for me being the change in tube adverts over the years. The boys were more interested in whether they could squeeze themselves into the gap between the signs that said: DO NOT ENTER so that they could enter.

Having had our fill of tubes, we visited the buses and trams. Again, these went from old to new. Ordinarily my children would have loved these. Buses are even more lovely than trains in their eyes. But sadly for the buses, they were positioned next to the play area. This has a collection of trains, boats and cars made of mdf that children can clamber over and play in. There's also a big train track / road system with cars and trains for kids to play with. It is next to this play area that you can have your picnic or buy cold drinks and snacks. The boys had died and gone to heaven.

There really was no need for me to have travelled all the way to London. We could simply have gone to a soft play area down the road and they'd have been just as happy. Sigh. At least I could convince myself that it had been educational (they had at the very least mastered the use of the stamping machines).

We finally left, forced out via the museum shop. Instantly the nagging for tat started. The prices were eye-wateringly extortionate. I vetoed almost everything (it's amazing how badly children want a piece of bendy rubber with an underground logo on it) and said they could each have £2 to spend. It was very hard to find anything under £2 but we finally came across tiny bags of wine gums and jelly babies that cost £1.95 each for about 5 sweets in a bag. Weeping at the rip off, I handed over the money and frogmarched them out before they spotted the Underground Ernie sets.

We then got to visit daddy in his office and said ooh and aah about shiny desks and plush carpets. We had countless people say: 'Oh they're so cute' as the boys were paraded by (little do they know. Let them spend the day with them in a museum and they might change their minds).

And finally we got to complete our transport journey with another tube and train ride home, by which point the novelty had utterly worn off. Wine was needed by me and bed was needed by the boys.

All in all, I think the museum is great for children as there's lots for them to touch and try out. And I'm sure something educational does sink in, only to be unearthed months hence when you're least expecting it - like as you're wiping someone's bottom and you'll be asked why carriages are pulled by horses. But really, it's the play area kids are most keen on. And definitely take your own picnic and avoid the shop unless you actually enjoy burning money for shits and giggles.

Now to start saving for the Wallace & Gromit exhibition...

Beastie boys

2009-04-20T07:23:00.003+01:00

It's been almost a month since I updated this blog. Bad me. In my defence, I've been a little busy and I have a brief interlude before I get busy again. But between sailing the high seas and running a business, life with two small boys has continued with all the normal chaos.

A highlight has included son 1 learning how to ride his bike without stablisers. I am very, very pleased about this. Mainly because it means I can tick another thing off my to do list. Children come with long to do lists: get them to sleep through the night, introduce them to solid foods, get them potty trained, get them to dress themselves etc etc etc. Teaching them to ride a bike requires less sleep deprivation than getting them to sleep through the night and less mess than the introduction of pureed sprouts, but it's a killer on your back. It also requires much patience, something I am not blessed with.

Son 1 is a reluctant trier. He can be cajoled into trying something once. If he doesn't immediately get it right, he throws a hissy fit, lashing out, calling everything and everyone stupid before stomping off into the distance. His stablisers have been off for several months but due to many of these incidences, we've not made much headway. But last week we had a breakthrough and he can now balance (precariously) on his own and can even get started without someone holding onto his bike. Now we only have to teach him to read (hopefully school will help with that) and get him to swim without armbands (a task I've been tackling for ages with very little to show for my efforts). Thereafter I can sit back and wait till he's old enough to learn how to drive a car (god help me).

Son 1 has also finally come into his own on the football pitch and is not only joining in, but doing well. Hoorah! Unfortunately, these small steps forward in development seem to have coincided with him turning into a teenager. We have a lot of sulking, strops, name calling, door slamming, ignoring, aggression and a colourful collage of other delightful behaviour. As a result, he and his bedroom have gotten to know each other better and the timer on my cooker has been working overtime as his time-outs almost run into each other.

Son 2's achievements are slightly less impressive. He has mastered potty talk and name calling. Everyone is an idiot. Or a poopy pants. Or Farty Pants. His preferred meal choice is poo sandwiches with a side order of wee to drink. He thinks this is all hilarious. I find it less so. I've now resorted to the threat of spicy mustard in the mouth if the language continues. I had this administered to me when I was a tweenager and never quite got over the humiliation of it. I don't see me actually doing it, but spicy mustard has now become the ultimate in punishments. If either boy does anything wrong, the other immediately pipes up: "Bring the spicy mustard mummy!" Sigh.

Son 2 has also decided that 5.30am is his preferred wake up time. Funnily, it's not mine. Despite having several deep and meaningful conversations on the subject of not waking mummy up, every morning I still have a small beastie scraping his toenails down my legs in a bid to get me up. This does little to start my day on a cheery note and destroys my remaining shreds of patience for the rest of the day.

So you can see, not much has changed despite me being missing in action for a month. Hopefully by the time I blog again, the potty language will have been flushed away, the strops will have transformed in a bubble of loveliness, I'll be getting to lie in till at least 6am and swimming prowess will be demonstrated in the summer sunshine. But I won't be holding my breath.

PS - this was written while two small boys have been arguing over whether they should watch Dora or Mr Men, who can hold a blue balloon and who owns the Ben-10 watch, all with lots of hitting, kicking, screaming and general carnage as a backdrop. It's been relaxing.

Damn your eyes Dino Cards!

2009-03-25T17:46:00.003Z

Sigh.

Why are children so fickle and mean? Here's my situation:

My five year old son is a sensitive soul. He gets easily upset, he doesn't have terrific social skills, it takes him a while to join in, yet once he's comfortable, he can turn quite bossy and aggressive. So not terrifically helpful in the making friends department. Yet underneath it all he can be a sweet little boy who just wants to fit in.

When he started school, his best friend was the little boy across the road. They'd only just gotten to know each other but they stuck to each other as they faced the newness of school together. They have very similar temperaments. Both sensitive, both clingy.

Over the past few months the arguments between them seem to have escalated. There've been plenty of 'Well I'm not your friend anymore' type moments, but they've been swiftly replaced with statements like 'I'm going to marry J when I'm older.' It's a love hate thing.

However, enter the ominous prescence of DINO KING TRADING CARDS. Last year, Go Gos were all the rage. The must have craze, without which my son might surely die. So we stocked up on sodding Go Gos. That was like sooo last year dude. Now Dino King Trading Cards are the MUST HAVE item for every cool kid in the school.

So friend across the road (J) and a boy in year 1 (I) both had some cards. My son didn't. Both he and I were blissfully unaware of the uber-coolness dino cards inferred on their bearers. However, within a day of these boys having the cards, the nagging started. I ignored it as I was still admiring my array of Go Gos yet to be doled out for good behaviour. But as the nagging escalated I began to see why.

Every morning in the playground I&J (which incidentally is a name of a frozen fish company in South Africa, but that's probably not relevant) would huddle together looking at each other's cards, physically blocking my son out. It was heartbreaking to see. What was more heartbreaking was having my son come home every day and cry that he had no friends because he didn't have any trading cards.

My heart strings were well and truly plucked so I ordered a batch off the internet and got a pack for immediate gratification while we waited for the internet order to arrive. The next day my son got to school, proudly carrying his cards and he rushed up to his friends so that he could at last fit in. But he still wasn't cool. Because they both had DINO CARD HOLDERS! Let me explain. These things are large, chunky pieces of plastic crap that cost £18. All they do is make a couple of sounds and can hold one card. Whoopdedoo.

But without a Dino Card Holder, my son might as well have dyed his hair ginger, worn thick specs and covered his face with spots - such was his uncoolness. After much arguing and lamenting and ranting and raging we agreed that he could use his birthday money to buy a dino card holder, even though I strongly advised against it. This ended in an almighty meltdown when he realised that he was going to actually have to part with his own money, but he got over it.

So equipped with cards (including the pack off the internet by this stage) and the dino card holder, he headed off to school, at long last worthy enough to be spoken to by his friends. The joy lasted for a few days.

But for the last week, he has come home and cried saying that both I&J refused to trade cards with him. They tell him his cards are rubbish and not 'strong enough' (which I assume means something in dino-ease but I'm not sure what) and just won't let him into the inner circle of two. I can see it at the school gate in the morning, where J speaks to my son until I arrives, and then he's frozen out.

Now part of me makes me want to ram their little sodding heads together and say: STOP BEING SO MEAN! But part of me also wonders whether my son has done something to prompt this behaviour from them. As I explained at the beginning, he can get bossy and aggressive, so maybe he's been that way with the cards. Who knows. I'm not in the school. I can't see what goes on.

I'd laugh it all off but it is so heartbreaking to hear my son saying: "I&J are having a sleepover this weekend. I is J's new best friend. I don't really have any friends anymore."

I'd like to blame it all on the dino cards, but I fear if it wasn't that, it would be something else. The only advice I can give my son is to treat people the way you want to be treated and hopefully they'll be nice back to you. But somehow I don't think five year olds operate that way.

Mother's Day?

2009-03-23T06:54:00.005Z

I've come to the realisation that Mother's Day is the day on which you do what you do every other day, only you begrudge it more.

I got to spend my mother's day visiting my mother in law. I like my mother in law. She deserves a visit on Mother's Day.

However, it does mean that I got to spend 3 hours on Saturday and another 3 on Sunday trying to entertain small boys who were unwillingly strapped into the carseats as we hurtled up and down British motorways. I got to break up fights about whose hands were on the wrong side of the invisible dividing line on the back seat. I got to provide an endless supply of snacks and rummage in my bag for something suitable to catch carsick with (which luckily ended up not being needed but the continual 'I feel sick' whinge from the back seat had me on tenterhooks for most of the journey). I got to play 'eye spy' and 'guess the animal' on repeat cycle. And I got to answer the question 'Are we there yet?' more times than I care to remember.

Once there, things didn't improve. My mum-in-law is of the WW2 generation so the use of central heating is strictly for days when polar bears actually stroll through your garden. At all other times, the wearing of several jumpers (and coats) is the way to stay warm. She lives in a part of the north that could be a poster child for reasons why old mining towns should have been shut down when the mines were. It has no redeeming features. You don't want to venture outside. But sitting inside doesn't provide a myriad of exciting things to do, unless you count telling your children not to juggle granny's china.

Upon arrival, my husband sat in front of the TV and watched two six nations rugby matches back to back, leaving me to entertain the children. Again. By the time bedtime came, I felt thoroughly deserving of some Mother's Day R&R.

Despite getting up twice in the night to deal with crying children, I did actually get a lie in. Till 7.10am. At which point the boys came in and thrust cards at me. This was the highlight on the day. They were sweet and gave me cuddles. And one of the cards included a voucher for a day spa. Hooray!

However, the rest of the morning was spent with me trying to reclaim some time to myself, while being well aware that my husband was sighing a lot. I know how he feels. When it's father's day I'm just as happy with life. Why the hell should he get to sit and be lord of the house while I do everything, again? So he was no doubt feeling the same way. But tough. It was Mother's Day and I'd already forgone doing what I wanted to do, so an hour to read my book alone shouldn't be too much to ask for right? Apparently it was.

We spent another morning passing the time waiting for lunch, which was very kind of my mother in law to lay on given she's a mother too. But I still would have preferred to go to a restaurant, instead of feeling that I had to help with the washing up.

And then we left. Had a repeat journey. Upon arriving home, I got stuck into tidying up the house in preparation for the week ahead. Dinner was a bowl of cereal. And that folks, was it. Woohoo!

Now had that been any other weekend, I would have thought - hard work, but visiting granny is important. But on Mother's Day weekend, as I said at the start, I just begrudged it a bit. I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone in feeling this way. This morning there are no doubt mothers up and down the country wondering what happened to their day off. Don't worry ladies, there's always next year!

~~~

On a less selfish note, please spare a thought for all the mothers out there who don't ever get to enjoy a mother's day as they very sadly die in childbirth. The White Ribbon Alliance and Mummo, have launched a Million Mums campaign to raise awareness of maternal mortality and are hoping to get a million mums to donate a pound to this worthwhile cause. Visit the website here and read a fab mag created by Mummo, written by mums for mums. Please spread the word about the Million Mums campaign and pass the magazine link on to whoever you can.

Call the fashion police

2009-03-19T07:17:00.003Z

There is one part of my life that isn't extraordinarily busy - thank god - and that's my social life. I don't really have one. Staying in is the new going out. Has been for a while actually. Except that last night I threw caution to the wind and actually left the village. Shock.

It was a friend's birthday and it happened to coincide with a special ladies shopping evening at the House of Fraser in Reading. It was an invitation only thing where you go along in the evening, have champagne and nibbles, listen to the Dior make up team tell you how you could look 20 years younger if you spend about £1 million on their products, followed by a talk on how to wear this year's fashions if you're a normal person with an oversized gut/butt/chest etc. You then get to browse the store after its normal closing hours.

Ordinarily I would have been very excited about this. I am clueless in the fashion department and need all the help I can get (although recently I have made some headway on the skin regime front given that my 36 years are making themselves quite prominently visible on my face. The saying shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted springs to mind...) However, right about now fashion isn't high on my list of priorities.

For a start, I have no money. Every last penny I have (which isn't many) is dedicated to the sailing fund. My clothing requirements have also changed. Last weekend, while in the Isle of Wight, instead of buying a maxi dress and strappy sandals in preparation for summer, I bought £60 worth of thermal underwear. As you do.

Normally I'd love nothing more than a couple of hours to browse clothes without small childen pulling things off hangers and opening dressing room doors to reveal my flab to passersby. But last night shopping had lost its gloss. There is absolutely no point looking when you can't buy. All it does is depress you. It makes you realise how utterly 'off trend' your existing wardrobe is and what's worse, how little you actually care.

When I got to the shoe department (most women's idea of heaven, my personal hell) I actually laughed out loud at some of the ludricous heels they expect people to walk in. Sure you'll look great while you're standing still holding onto something, but not so fab the minute you try to walk unaided.

So after a cursory look around, my friend and I left, without a single purchase. At least now I know that I can expect to see lots of lime green and orange this year and that for my colouring I should attempt to wear it. That you should never wear mid-calve length anything, that Oasis makes good jeans and Coast does good shrugs. Patterns are in. Fine. As are harem pants. Not fine.

Best of all though, one of the biggest trends for 2009 is the nautical look. So I reckon I'm going to be bang up to date with real nautical authenticity. Hooray! I am fashionable after all.

Tired woman returns. Briefly

2009-03-17T20:41:00.003Z

I know. I've been missing in action. I've explained why here. I am so, so, so tired. But I feel duty bound to pop in and say hello to you lovely blogging people and sorry that I've been negligent in my commenting efforts.

I know I have news. I'm sure I have much to tell you. I'm sure that it's hilarious and wonderful stuff. But it's currently having a nap in a dark corner of my brain.

The only thing I can remember with any clarity about the last few days is this delightful conversation with my 3 year old yesterday, in which we discussed the merits of healthy eating. I was trying to explain why being too fat (I was going to say overweight for sake of political correctness but he's three and understands thin and fat, big and small, round and square - i.e. words with a single syllable) isn't very good for your health.

And he pipes up: "You mean fat like you mummy?"

So that was nice. Kinda sums up how things have been.

Kiss kiss