The Coffee Lady

Making time

2012-01-27T14:19:00.000-08:00

Like many of you, I've been keeping an eye on Silverpebble and ThriftyHousehold's Making Winter bloghop. It's full of busy-ness: mitten-knitting, muffin-making, beeswax-melting, putting stuff in jars. Over here, though, there has been little making - unless we count the very basic job of feeding everyone (lately it has been VERY basic), and an incredibly rudimentary Rapunzel costume.

What I have been trying to make, however, is time. The last few weeks have taken a lot of energy, and the present is still very fraught. What we need around here is calm: but you can't make that on a stove or a sewing machine.

For me, the answer is usually to go back to yoga. A few years ago, when I had ME, I relied very heavily on the very approachable Elizabeth Irvine's meditation podcasts for mothers (she no longer updates, but all the archives are there to download for free) and the slightly less down-to-earth Jean and Jesse Stern. There are a lot of meditation podcasts out there, but some of them were a bit too New Age for me to handle - I can't honestly keep a straight face if someone starts calling me 'pilgrim'.


Picture of a candle that I didn't take

The thing about making time for yourself is being realistic about how much time you actually have. I'd love to go to a yoga class once or twice a week. Maybe I could go for a swim! And have an hour or three, lazing in a cafe, reading a book... I'm sure I'd be much calmer then. In the real world, I'm promising myself five to ten minutes of candle gazing a day, and a short yoga practice every other day.

If you've done yoga before, I'd really recommend these seasonal yoga podcasts, recorded by Sonia Welch, a very lovely yoga teacher whose classes are among my favourites when I have the time to actually get to them. The podcasts aren't really for beginners - you have to have an idea what you're doing - but they come with comprehensive notes on the postures as well as advice on the best food for the season (I never manage to eat the right food for the season). The winter podcast is lovely and gentle, and after making a habit of it for a short while I can feel the benefits. A bargain, I think, for £6.50.

I doubt that calm will ever fully be felt in The Coffee House. But I'm making an effort, at least.

Two final things:

1 If you do know someone with ME who is looking for a way forward, my best advice would be to direct them to the yoga teacher Fiona Agombar, whose book, CD and weekend retreat were among my lifesavers.

2 On a more trivial note, have you seen Blogger's new threaded comments (below)? This is the most exciting thing that has happened so far in my blogging year. Luckily it is only January.

The new Normal

2012-01-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

This morning, Eldest went back to school for the first time since early November. Just for the morning; so as not to tire her out. It's a gradual getting-back-to-normal process.

Things are settling down: now Eldest is no longer confined to bed, we are eating at the table instead of perching around her with dinner-trays on our laps. The other day I went to Dunelm Mill and spent a gazillion pounds on cushions, in an attempt to pretend that the electric hospital bed in our tiny living room - still needed for daytime physio - is actually a perfectly acceptable day bed. The metal cot sides detract from the look, but you can't have everything.

The children are back in their own room. (Littlest refused to sleep in the bunk bed alone, and slept on the sofa next to her sister for six weeks. Any fears we might have that sleeping in the same room would wear off in a couple of weeks have been delightfully unfounded.)

A lot has changed due to Eldest's surgery, and though we can glimpse now what the benefits may well be, there's a lot of road to travel yet. But life is often topsy-turvy; it's time to start focusing on what's normal, not what's not.

And to thank you all for your patience and your kind words during this particular Winter of Weird. Receiving comments from people I have never met, showing such affection and hope for our family, has been incredible.

Take a deep breath

2011-12-31T14:20:00.000-08:00

I like the run-up to Epiphany far better than the days preceding Christmas. The presents are unwrapped, the hysterical BUYING is over. There's usually time to rest and relax, to read, to help the Lattes make pictures with tissue paper. Our tree stays up forever. Each year, I give thanks to the Magi for taking their time.

Not this year. This year it has been hard; a period of pain and tears and physiotherapy. (The tears have not all belonged to Eldest.)

It's not exactly the most reflective or inspirational environment in which to make New Year's Resolutions. But though we might be capable of changing our own destinies, we can't do a lot about the date.

Each year, we sit down in the Coffee House with a bit of fancy paper each and write our resolutions, which we keep in a little gift bag on the kitchen noticeboard. In 2010 we made little mini-books which, whilst beautiful, gave us rather too much space; we all felt obliged to come up with enough pledges to fill the things. Faced with the possibility of quite so much life-enhancing change, I began to make vague and sweeping statements which had no hope of being satisfactorily fulfilled.

By 2011 I thought I had it sussed - I was all about the SMART goal, with specifics. Do this once a week. Don't eat that. But by far the most disheartening part of resolutions is opening up the bag on New Year's Eve and being confronted with the unhappy truth that the resolutions we make every year, however we word them, boil down to more or less the same thing: a thing which we still have not achieved. And if we rely on a magical date to get us going, it's probably never going to happen.

I was just feeling rather maudlin about this when I came across Littlest's resolutions from last year, which Mr Coffee had transcribed for her. These are resolutions I hope we can all try to keep this year.

My resolution for 2012? The clue's in the title. I don't know if I'll manage it tomorrow; or even this week. Another week in hospital looms - for rehab this time. If you do ever think of us, think training montage. Let the soundtrack in your head be Eye of the Tiger.

It's like the Elves and the Shoemaker over here

2011-12-23T02:26:00.000-08:00

I don't mind anyone reading my blog. I don't. But if you happen to share the same father as me, please look away now - at least for a couple of days.

Normally, I get annoyed in the face of endless pretty tutorials to make cute things for babies. It's easy to make small things look cute. I'd like to see the same kind of attention lavished on the older, poutier, youngster.

But since I've collected a couple of very tiny new female relatives recently, it seemed a good idea to have a go at the couple of projects in December's Mollie Makes, bought for me by a friend while I was in hospital with Eldest. Some little boots - which will probably end up ripped off and lobbed from the pram, if they even fit on the feet to start with (in my humble experience).

I cut down on the ridiculous amount of embroidery suggested for the boots. Less is more, especially with my humble skillz.

Also a couple of teddy bears from the same issue. I hope their faces do not alarm the girls; especially since Eldest's visiting friend took one look at them and pronounced them to be 'weird'.

The last of the Christmas making - a Kindle cover for my mother from this tutorial - was finished last night. Nothing to make now but merry.

Letter from Santa to the Coffee House

2011-12-17T00:50:00.000-08:00

Santa Claus International

North Pole

Dear Coffee Lady

I acknowledge receipt of your child's letter dated December 12. Though Santa Claus International makes every attempt to fulfil its 500-year-old gift remit, there may be occasions when we have to manage the expectations of our clients to avoid any disappointment. Some of the items on your child's list have given us some cause for concern and for this reason the presents delivered may vary from those ordered.

'Perles and perle cases'
We are unable to fulfil this request, due to the child in question being six years old. This is not a time for pearls.
'Magic flying fairy dust'. We have had quite a few requests for this in recent times, probably prompted by the misrepresentation of its use in the film Tinkerbell Fairy Rescue. We would like to categorically state that magic fairy dust is unavailable to humans. You will no doubt be aware of the need for magical creatures to hold onto their Unique Selling Point in an increasingly competitive economic climate; in addition to this there are insurmountable Health and Safety implications in

© Disney Enterprises

children being allowed to float around at cloud level. We are currently involved in a legal battle with the Disney Fairies on this very issue. (Between me and you, the Disney Fairies are the worst kind of magical creature. A couple of our elves have had the misfortune of becoming involved with them, and their fairy ethics have a lot to be desired. They give it up for anyone; I'm not just talking about fairy dust.)
'Magic hair clips'. It is unclear exactly what magic your child expects these clips to perform.
'Spell book'. The elves have searched our catalogue but have only been able to come up with this. Having studied your family*, I can find no evidence that you plan to educate your six-year-old child into Wiccan philosophy. Would this book suffice?
'Remote control flying fairy'. Based on the information in our database, I am taking the liberty of substituting a doll based on the Rapunzel-based film, Tangled, which I am sure will delight your child. (Be aware that the doll has 'poseable arms', which give the impression of having suffered a bad fall.)

It has come to my attention that this year you have decided to entrust some of your Christmas wishes to a different supplier, who has given your delivery date as 'on or before December 24'. Santa Claus International is disappointed in your choice and would appreciate any feedback about its service. Though your chosen supplier does offer the possibility of a slightly earlier delivery date, I would warn that such companies are subject to the vagaries of the postal system whereas in its many years of operation, Santa Claus International has never missed the December 24 deadline.

I hope that you are confident in your chosen supplier's ability to deliver on time and that you can sleep at night confident that your children's presents will not still be in a warehouse on Christmas Day.

I hope that you can continue to trust Santa Claus International and we look forward to enjoying our sherry and mince pie in the pitch dark in your living room in a few days time.

Yours sincerely

Santa Claus International

*Please be reminded that Santa Claus International's surveillance of households is entirely confidential, compliant with the Data Protection Act and solely for the purpose of ascertaining whether our clients have been bad or good.

A cheery tale of murder for your Advent

2011-12-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

Eldest wanted to make a Christmas decoration; I already had my eye on Monica's pin of a felt mistletoe ball.

But with the child off school and both of us overdosing on television, it seemed lax to just make a ball and leave it at that. Surely we should be learning something about mistletoe, and why we kiss under it at Christmas? A quick Google later, and we were up to our ears in Norse myths. And there's nothing I like more than a good myth.

So. Balder - son of Odin and Frigg - is loved by everyone. The god of light and beauty, his face glows; he is handsome, gentle and wise. But he's troubled by dreams of his death - so Odin sets out on his eight-legged horse (as you do) and meets with a seeress. The news is not good - there is no avoiding Balder's fate.

Balder. What's not to like?

So Frigg stomps off (there is no evidence in the books we have looked in to suggest she's a heavy-footed woman, but we went so far as to assume a degree of Purposeful Striding) and asks every harmful thing - fire, rocks, plants, birds, diseases, etc - to promise not to hurt Balder in the hope that the nightmares won't come true. The only plant she doesn't bother asking is the mistletoe. What harm can the mistletoe do?

And now Balder is fantastic fun for everyone. The gods come up with an hilarious new game of chucking stuff at him and watching it bounce off, because they know he can't be harmed.

Loki - a bit of an unstable character - finds out about the mistletoe. He makes an arrow out of it and seeks out Balder's blind brother, Hod, to see if he wants to join in the game of Throw Stuff at The Invincible God. Loki guides Hod's arm, and Balder dies. A last, desperate attempt to bring Balder back from death fails because the condition given - that every living thing weeps for him - is not fulfilled because of Loki, now pretending to be a giantess living in a forest and refusing to cry a single tear. (I found suggestions on the internet that Frigga wept big fat tears which turned into the white berries of the mistletoe and thus brought Balder back, but the books say Nordic texts make no mention of a resurrection. Faced with a choice between trusting the web and the printed word, I will always come down on the side of the books.)

It doesn't end well for Loki, who ends up tied to some rocks in a cave with a snake dripping venom on his head. Balder's death, meanwhile, means the coming of the end of the world,when the Earth will sink into the sea and men will kill their own fathers and brothers. (You're probably feeling a bit resentful now. You did, after all, join us for a blog post about felt decorations and kissing.)

You may also be complaining to yourself that none of this stuff goes any way towards answering the question of why we kiss under the mistletoe at Christmas. I seem to remember there was something about Pagans and Druids, but the thing is, we were far too interested in the Norse myths to get distracted by the small matter of the reason we were looking at them in the first place. Look, you're all pretty internet-savvy. You know where Google is.

Also, we made a felt ball.

Things I learned in hospital

2011-12-02T04:02:00.000-08:00

Peter Andre publishes his own Christmas magazine, which is so popular (or unpopular; I don't know how these things work) as to be displayed in a special pop-out display stand in the WHSmiths in Alder Hey Hospital. (I admit to having a touch of the Jens (she maintains a soft spot for the unlikely Charlie Sheen) for Peter Andre, despite how ridiculous he continues to be. In that, you know, I hope he's eating well, and that his business ideas do not all go belly up. Still, it did not move me to buy his Christmas magazine.)
When you spend two weeks sleeping on a Wiskaway, three things are very helpful.

An eye mask.
An MP3 player with relaxing stuff on it, to block out the sounds of the ward. I listened to the opening of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle roughly 49 times (based on going back to bed three/ four times each night for 14 nights) and still can't tell you what happened beyond the first five minutes with the hat.
Your own blanket and pillow. There's something very special in a sterile environment about having your own textiles, even if they were bought from Matalan and would never be featured on a style blog.

Before going into hospital, it is important to make the right sort of friends. This process can start - both online and in real life - up to 11 years before the actual event. The kind of people you are looking for include:

Friends who will source magazines from home which do not involve Peter Andre.
Ones who will wittily answer idiotic texts about nothing at 10pm at night. These friends make up for the fact that the only adult conversation you have had all day was a discussion about bed pan positioning.
Friends who will sneak miniature bottles of booze into the hospital under the guise of 'gifts for the patient'.
Ones who send parcels of home-sewn goodies so thoughtful and immediately relevant that you could swear they can see your every move on some kind of karmic CCTV.
People who send emails, blog comments, cards and texts expressing their love and care. Most of them have been left unanswered in the chaos and stress of the last few weeks. If you are one of these people, please know that every single one has been appreciated, and has made us feel incredibly supported and loved.

It is possible to learn to love salad, especially if that is the only thing that you have bought to eat.

Just to add: Eldest is doing well, and pressing on with her physio despite the pain she is in. She is a little star.

In preparation

2011-11-15T01:44:00.000-08:00

I'm struggling to find words to adequately describe the last week. Nerve-wracking. Ominous. Some verb conjugation of tenterhooks.

There have been quite a few 'lasts' - not lasts forever, but lasts for now. Last drama class; last swimming lesson; last school dinner. (It's possible that Eldest was being a bit over-dramatic about that one.) I left a job: a lovely job that I've had for eight years, in a beautiful building, with smart, funny colleagues who felt like friends. It would be easy to be maudlin and woeful about approaching a surgery that's aimed at giving Eldest - and by extension, all of us - a better future.

Still. Without a tendency to over-think, how would I ever have become a blogger?

Today, I'm packing a hospital bag. I have a suitcase full of children's library audio books, and a stack of Henning Mankel paper backs borrowed from my mother-in-law (don't judge me. This is not the time for Improving Literature). Douwe Egberts just sent me six full packs of ground coffee (including decaff, whatever they expect me to do with that.) I have a shopping list, courtesy of Sue, of ideas for meals to prepare in hospital, this wonderful yoga podcast, and bottles of lavender and camomile oil. I have tickets for Lloyd Cole to distract me and Eldest. Virgin Mobile just kindly gave me a bunch of free mobile phone minutes, even though I rang up specifically to ask to pay for some.

In order to increase the mounting pressure on myself, I have interpreted the hospital's letter suggesting Eldest bring 100% cotton nightwear as an instruction to set about making a nightdress. Somehow it feels, when entering the unknown, that by sorting out nightwear and shopping lists and the proximity of crime fiction, I can hammer down some veneer of control over the whole business.

So for now, leave me here with my psychedelic fabric and my self delusion. They will do me just fine while I wait for my order of optimism and inner strength to arrive.

Which it will. Probably it will drop, reassuringly, on the doormat with the rest of this morning's post.

This is nothing you couldn't have learned from Fred and Ginger*

2011-11-11T02:42:00.000-08:00

The Internet is a wonderful thing (does it still have a capital 'I'? I don't know. When change happens in any area of society, how can I be sure that anyone will tell me?). For example, when I liked a dress pattern, a few years ago there would have been no Jorth with a blog showing me umpteen different versions. There would have been no Flickr to search. It would have been like throwing my money into a deep, dark cave.

But no! The evidence was solid - Vogue 8511 was infallible. New levels of sophistication would be reached! Grown men would faint at the sight of my elegant box pleats!

(Sorry. I just had to break off there due to a fit of hysterical sobbing. No, no, I'll be fine. I'll just wipe my eyes on this piece of bitterly scrunched-up lining fabric. Oh God. I'd even lined it.)

I'm not going to show you the fabric. I could Google it; I could even go upstairs and photograph the scraps, but the truth is - it's just too painful. My dress was hideous. I've spent a lot of time trying to think of hilariously witty ways to describe my dress, but 'hideous' is the only one that covers it.

That, and 'like a big brown sack'.

I tried everything to save it. I cut the sleeves off. I tried a belt. Whatever I tried, it just looked more and more like a costume I had bought to re-enact something historical. It cried out for accessories: a muddy field, some kind of head-covering, a few wicker baskets full of cabbage.

I cut the top off and made it into a skirt. I cut the hem off to make it into a shorter skirt. Apart from cutting it into tiny tiny bits and using it to mulch the flowerbeds, there was nothing I could cut off which would make it any better.

I flew into a rage, which lasted all the way to the fabric shop where I saw this pattern. I mean, look at the state of it. Who would buy that without a single piece of research? That jacket! What is this, 1985?

I'd show them. I'd show these people with their patterns, ruining women's lives like that. I set about it in a complete frenzy, first checking the pattern for bits that I could miss out. Stay-stitching? Pah! Pressing the darts flat as I went along? Yeah, right. This wasn't sewing. This was running away from failure. I even tried it on with all the pins still in the sides and nearly had to take myself to Accident and Emergency.

And so, with a very muted fanfare which celebrates success whilst containing subtle echoes of past tragedies of which we cannot easily speak, I give you New Look 6013, in Liberty cord.

Let's get this out in the open right now: the facing at the top was too big and it stuck out and threatened to hit me in the ears. I sewed dirty great chunks out of it on completion and chopped the rest off with my scissors. I have shown it to enough people now to be assured that no-one will ever notice, and I am happy enough. We carry little imperfections on our shoulders all our lives; why should dress-making be any different?

*Fred and Ginger. Of course.

Where we go out in the fresh air a lot (which is quite an event in itself)

2011-11-07T02:34:00.000-08:00

Firstly, this would not be a proper British blog if there were no blurry photographs of fireworks. There are traditions to be upheld (even if I am a couple of days late. Look. I've had a busy weekend, okay?)

If you're still in a bonfire mood, I have TV and radio suggestions. (I am always in a Bonfire mood. Halloween can go and get lost, as far as I'm concerned. I am much more in favour of celebrating half-baked treason, which seems a particularly British thing to go for.)

The Lattes and I very much enjoyed watching Richard Hammond's Exploding the Legend (available in 10-minute instalments on Youtube, starting here), where the old Parliament buildings were recreated, filled with crash test dummies, and blown up in an experiment to see if the plot would actually have worked. The blowing-up bits were interspersed by a kind of docu-drama with lots of fascinating stuff about the plotters.

There's also this radio comedy, available till November 13, where Guy Fawkes eats deep-fried birds for bar snacks and is late to a plotting meeting after being presented with an irresistable opportunity to tip a vicar into a well. In recommending this programme, I must admit that I haven't heard the end, because I always listen to the iPlayer when I'm going to sleep. But it's got Archie from Balamory in it, which must count for something with you people.

And now to the seizing of the day. Eldest woke up on Sunday with a desire to revisit a forest she had been to on a school trip. Usually this kind of request would have been denied, if I'm honest, since Sunday was already full of plans for church and confirmation classes and a wish to sit under a duvet and watch a DVD.

Then we remembered that in less than two weeks, Eldest will have had her surgery. Who knows how long it will be before she can enjoy a forest? Who knows how long it will be before she can even leave the house?

On an ordinary weekend, would we have wasted a beautiful Autumn day? We would. Will we learn a lesson from this? Probably not.

Thanks to the Random Number Generator, the winner of my Kelloggs school breakfast giveaway is DeZeal - thanks to everyone who entered.

Show me a pumpkin, and I'll show you where to shove it.

2011-10-31T02:45:00.000-07:00

We used templates from the internet. Did I bookmark them for reference?

No. Sorry about that.

We live a fairly frugal life in the Coffee House. I mean, you won't find us reusing our teabags five times, or crotcheting panscrubbers out of plastic bags; but if you do meet me in the supermarket it will be in one of those discount ones with huge piles of gardening equipment or children's ski suits stacked down the middle. And even a £5 overspend on my budget at the checkout will send me into a very dark mood.

So when it came the time to spend £2 on two pumpkins, I wasn't going to pick the two smallest pumpkins, was I? Admittedly, I left the ones that I could only carry with two arms wrapped around them, but I chose the raw materials for our Halloween lanterns with the knowledge that at £1 for each pumpkin, some pumpkins were better value than others.

At home, we scooped and scooped. We scooped with an ice-cream scoop and a variety of spoons. The pile of pumpkin flesh grew; my family receded into the background as I worked my way down it. By six o'clock I had a loaf of pumpkin and ginger teabread*, the weighed amount of pumpkin for two further pumpkin and ginger teabreads because I had run out of honey, a pumpkin curry, three bags of roasted pumpkin puree, a bag of roasted salted pumpkin seeds, and a thumping headache.

What was I trying to achieve? I have barely any room in the freezer for the bags of puree or any more teabread, since the freezer is so packed with emergency post-surgery meals. If I force my family to eat extra piles of teabread made with specially-bought honey, what money am I saving?

The internet, I found, is full of smug people showing off their reinventions of the pumpkin. I did fancy these muffins, but didn't fancy traipsing off in search of fresh rosemary. In the time it took me to get to the nearest supermarket and back, my pumpkin puree might have burnt to a crisp. And who on earth has the disposable income to risk a bottle of vodka in this way? What if pumpkin vodka tastes as unappetising as it sounds? And what if, when you've found the perfect-sounding meal with which to use up chunks of pumpkin, you've already whizzed it up into a useful-sounding puree that in truth you have no idea what to do with?

Mr Coffee, soothing my pumpkin-induced irritation with a glass of wine at 8.30pm, admitted that he would have just enjoyed the lanterns and flung the leftover flesh in the compost bin. I'm beginning to think he's the genius of the household.

*This teabread is utterly delicious. And it works with custard as a hot pudding, if you have opened the oven door during the cooking time to insert yet another tray of pumpkin flesh to roast and made the teabread go soggy in the middle. Just, you know, hypothetically speaking.

I'm taking bimbo back

2011-10-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

"Everyone deserves some good old bimbo time," wrote Paola in my commentbox last week. She's right. And as the lucky recipient of a parcel of free make-up from Boots to review, I'm taking my bimbo time right now.

A few weeks before I had been sent this by email.

These are the A/W looks from the Boots 17 range. A/W, I'll have you know, stands for Autumn/ Winter, even though for bimbos like me it looks as if it might be something written on the back of an electrical appliance. At the time I thought that whatever the colours, 'Enraged and Fury' was a look I might be able to pull off, since I spend a good deal of my time being furious anyway without even owning the designated eyeshadow.

As it was, it was 'Broken hearted and Sulk' and 'Vengeance and Revenge' that arrived. I am here to tell you that these eyeshadows make me look neither vengeful nor emotionally tormented.

The green one, particularly, is fab. I wear green eyeshadow a lot - alarmingly this first took place when I was 18, but more recently a lady at the Clinique counter covered me in the stuff and I loved it; at least until they discontinued the one that she sold me. It was a lovely emerald, and came in a little compact with a glittery highlighter shade. I have lost count of the eyeshadows I have tried in order to replace it.

However. The search is over. The green eyeshadow trio above is perfect - two shades of green and a silver with a bit of sparkle. And it stays on, which considering the time I spend during the day with my face in my hands in despair is amazing. Very tired people do not wear make-up well, I have found; but this trio has the right balance of bold colour and sparkliness to prevent me looking like a woman who really needs to crawl into a hole and sleep for the winter. I love it.

The purpley trio is very good, too. Recently a make-up demonstrator woman in a shop gave me what she called the Classic Smoky Eye, which I'm sure I could have recreated with this if one of the three colours had been a little bit lighter. They look more contrasting in the packaging; but even the lightest colour is still quite dark, so I've had to work a bit harder at not looking like I've been punched in the face. But now I've learned to avoid its pitfalls, I wouldn't be without it; it's really very subtle and flattering. And used sparingly it creates a plum-coloured effect - certainly not as frighteningly purple as the vengeful woman above would suggest.

Two matching nail varnishes were also sent. I often paint my nails during the Lattes' swimming lessons; it's a race against time that, so far, No7 nail varnishes have won hands down. The big test - getting Eldest in and out of the shower and back into her shoes and foot splints - has defeated many lesser nail varnishes, including the two in my parcel, even though they did claim to be Fast Finish. I loved the purple colour, though, which is just the right amount of shimmery for regular wear. I model it above; be aware that all my nails broke off last week when I was struggling to get into the wheelchair store, so only two nails are visible: the rest are ruined stumps.

The final item from Boots was 17 Blemish Balm. I have to admit I read the information several times and was still no wiser. Was it foundation? What was it for, exactly?

A quick google revealed that Blemish Balms are a combination of anti-blemish skincare, primer, foundation, concealer, moisturiser, and SPF. Well, why didn't you say that? It has SPF25, which is always something that attracts me to a product since I'm freckled and sun-ravaged even though I've spent most of my life in the shade.

The Blemish Balm has a bit of colour - though not the choice you'd get on the foundation counters. With it on, I don't really look like I'm wearing make-up, but neither do I look like the walking dead, which is a bit of a miracle. And though all the talk of 'wonder cream' and 'imperfections' dances around the issues, it is certainly very good over spots.

Without a doubt, Blemish Balm is the stuff I will definitely be putting in my bag for the two weeks Eldest and I will stay in hospital after her surgery. Two weeks on a ward. I will probably be tired, wan-looking and sporting the 'imperfections' which inevitably arrive with stress and fatigue. I'll likely be thankful for "magical 'no make-up make-up".

Also I'm taking whisky. You think I'm kidding.

I wasn't paid for this article, but products were were provided free for review by Boots.

Popping by

2011-10-19T14:40:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post tonight; this is one of the busiest work weeks of the year in the Coffee House, so getting around to blogs has been one of those luxuries that you dream of whilst trying to do a multitude of other things. But I just wanted to thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post - what a set of fabulous, glittering star-like people you are. It's unbelievable, sometimes, how precious this blogging can be.

But for now, bear with me. I shall be back soon with some eyeshadow that Boots sent me to review, and some heartbreaking tales of dressmaking failure. Make-up and dresses. It's all going to go a bit bimbo over here.

Reasons to be stressful, part three

2011-10-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

Littlest has insisted on a goldfish. Long-term readers of this blog will know how that always goes. 'Rosie' - the most antagonistic goldfish I have ever seen - commenced her inevitable swim toward death in our home at the weekend. I have yet to understand why people claim to find fish so stress-relieving. To my mind, Rosie moves in a manner that suggests a good deal of suppressed anger.
Night-times - and their accompanying wakenings in order to replace Eldest's orthotic foot and leg splints - have begun to take on a hallucinatory quality. (The child is a miniature Houdini, who can undo 18 straps of heavy-duty velcro in the dark without a sound, and without even opening her eyes.) Mr Coffee and I take it in turns to set our alarms at roughly 2-hour intervals, but the mind works in strange ways at 3am. Last night I heard the alarm, woke up, dutifully put it back on for two hours later and then went back to sleep, fully convinced that I had set myself an alarm in the middle of the night solely as a reminder to set myself an alarm in the middle of the night.
The garden is turning into something worthy of its own strange dream. The thick spiky hedge rivals the thicket from Sleeping Beauty; the gardener who spoke with such promise of his chainsaw never arrived. The courgette plants that my mother's friend coddled into life for us whilst we were on holiday have actually shrunk since July. We have not harvested a single red tomato from about 15 plants. The peppers gave up growing several months ago, having proudly reached two inches high. It rains. It rains. The strawberry plants are sending runners out into the cracks in the patio.
In November, Eldest goes into hospital to have a large amount of surgery on her hips, legs and feet. Yes, I did just throw that in amongst a load of stuff about fish and strawberry plants. We will spend two weeks in hospital before returning home for a period of rehab which could last up to a year. The decision to go ahead with the surgery - which is intended to stave off the loss of mobility that children with increased spasticity experience as they grow - has not been easy, but nor has it been a decision we have made alone. Eldest wants to keep walking. Her bravery makes us proud. And it makes getting up at all times of the night a price worth paying.

Win breakfast for a year for your child's school

2011-10-08T05:29:00.000-07:00

So, the other week Kellogg's took me and a handful of other bloggers to a spa in Manchester and painted our nails. I'm not kidding - see?

The point of the day - besides making my nails look sparkly - was to talk about breakfast clubs. Government budget cuts have led to a squeeze on school breakfast clubs - with 50% of clubs considering closing because of money troubles. But with one in seven UK children skipping breakfast - and 25% of kids buying crisps, chocolate and burgers on the way to school - it's a worrying trend. Without food, children perform worse at school; breakfast-skippers are also more likely to be obese.

Every day, 325,000 children go until lunchtime without eating. That can't be good.

Since 1998, Kellogg's has helped set up 500 breakfast clubs in schools, investing £1.5million so far to help schools give children a healthy start to their day. And now a donation to the Kellogg's Breakfast Club Trust will be made for every packet of Cornflakes sold - with the aim of raising money for 1 million school breakfasts. Grants are available to schools wanting to set up clubs - there's more information about the scheme here.

Kellogg's has offered readers of this blog the chance to win a year's supply of breakfast cereal (that's about 100 boxes) for their school. Just leave me a comment saying you want to enter - the competition closes at midnight GMT on October 22. I'll choose the winner with the random number generator after then and announce it during the week beginning October 24 (so don't forget to check back!). Entrants must be in the UK.

So - enter away! And don't just enter yourself - tell all your friends at your child's school to come over too, and boost your school's chances!

I wasn't paid for this article - but I did get a rather yummy lunch and a manicure.

The sun has got his hat on

2011-09-28T01:29:00.000-07:00

I made a summer dress. In the north of England, as October approaches, this was not the wisest of moves.

However. I'd had my eye on Simplicity 2444, and wanted to know if it would fit me, if it would suit me, and if I could make it without weeping. The recognised thing to do in this situation is to make a muslin, and the close proximity of one of the best factory shops in the world resulted in a muslin made of a Liberty cotton lawn.

£2.50 a metre. Am I trying to make you jealous? You know I am.

They say this week will be an Indian summer. I'm not holding out much hope. At least, not as much as I am for Simplicity 2444, which is my new Best Friend Forever. It goes in where I go in and out where I go out - a Very Good Thing - and though I could have done with an extra half inch at the bottom so I had more choice with the length, I'm very happy with it. I may make it a friendship bracelet from Littlest's big bag of ribbons. I may skip down the street with it, admiring the Autumn leaves. As long as I'm wearing thick tights and a woolly cardi.

I bring my own sunshine wherever I go.

(Anyone who knows me will be snorting

with derision right now.)

Doing a bunk

2011-09-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

It's a well-documented fact that my children spend a lot of time fighting. Craft activities are a battle; gardening is a nightmare; watching television usually ends up with someone bearing physical scars and wailing. Though deep down the Lattes love each other, they do little on a daily basis to show it. Stuffing them into their respective rooms at the end of the day has been a relief.

And then, out of nowhere, they started to share a room.

It started with a few sleepovers in summer; occasional nights where Eldest's mattress would move onto Littlest's floor. And then the mattress never moved back. Late night chats were had; the children fidgeting in their room when the lights were meant to be out. There were even cuddles. Then Eldest came back from a school residential trip with a revelation - bunk beds.

We waited for them to go off the idea, but they didn't. Littlest - so proud of her room as a smaller child - relished the idea of giving it up. She would miss the curtains, but that was all. In a world where everyone talks about needing their own space, my children were categorically rejecting theirs.

It makes sense - a chance to collude behind your parents' backs, a chance to play 'house' with a sister. Eldest likes company, and Littlest isn't keen on going to sleep - the story CD must be left on at all times, and no mistakes must be made in the ritual switching on of landing lights and leaving doors ajar.

Even as adults, few of us want to be left alone in the dark.

So this week we are decorating; covering the pink paint that was applied to Eldest's room when she was three. (I can still remember her using the roller for all of, ooh, six seconds.) A lilac and neutral palette has been chosen, a clever loft bed has been ordered to go over Eldest's single bed. Last night, we heard scuffling and went upstairs to find a groggy Littlest clambering onto her sister's mattress. It used to be our bed she staggered into in the night.

Growing up takes funny twists and turns.

A woman possessed

2011-09-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

Hello. Are you still there? I have been in the cellar, where the sewing machine lives. I come up sporadically for cups of tea and to check that The Killing hasn't started a new series yet.

That dress I made? It kickstarted an obsession. I have spent the last couple of weeks sneaking off to the fabric shop to plunder their pattern sale. (I have to buy now! Before the sale ends! Must! Buy! More!)

My plans at the moment involve:

A summery dress in a pattern which looks so lovely on this lady.(Why am I making a summer dress in the tail end of a hurricane? There are complex reasons for this, none of which bear close scrutiny at all.)
A Vogue pattern which this lady makes again and again, so it must be good (we are ignoring for the moment the fact that both these women are substantially a) taller b) thinner and c) younger than I am. I will look just the same as they do. La la la. I can't hear you.)
A full-length off-road wheelchair cosy based on this pattern for my miserable whining ten-year-old, who spends her entire time in the outdoors moaning about being cold. (I know. This is just one big rectangle with a hole in. I could have made this up myself. But a pattern for £1.70! And I do so love the little envelopes!)
A school pinafore dress for Littlest.

You people who always had several craft projects on the go at once, who constantly talked about your UFOs and your stash and your plans and your schemes? I never understood it. I read those posts, frowning, wondering why you weren't just drinking wine or reading a book or something. I'm sorry. So sorry. Please welcome me into your fold.

Here I am, with my armfuls of fabric, just waiting for your approval.

Our summer, rubber-stamped

2011-09-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not here to reflect about summer. School may start tomorrow, but it's also just another day. I don't want to go all End of An Era on you.

I do think it's important, though, for the Lattes to remember that summer brought something different; that experiences were had. I usually buy scrapbooks in the summer and, though the scrapbooks will probably never get looked at again, I like the process of sticking down memories, of marking the fact that something special has taken place.

Also, it gives me something to do with the masses of flyers and brochures for castles and gardens and other attractions that we always pick up and end up bringing home.

It's not, to be perfectly honest, a pretty process. The Lattes are not careful scrapbookers. Stickers are slapped on. Jaggedy lines are cut. Writing is minimal and rarely legible; the scrapbook usually stops abruptly after several pages.

Still. It's all about the process, isn't it?

Many of you will remember the legendary blogger known as Eurolush. Every day without her online is another day of mourning - for her stunning nature photographs, her sewing expertise, and her own particular brand of bonkers. When the time came for her to pack up and leave Germany, the Lattes received the most enormous and spectacular parcel - craft materials outgrown by Eurolush's daughter. There were alphabet stickers of all different colours; gorgeous picture stickers in little plastic packets. There were hundreds of pipe cleaners, and a whole boxful of rubber stamps, including a set of alphabet stamps with the 'e' missing. (To be fair, we were quite hysterical opening the parcel. We probably lost the 'e'.) Cutting and sticking in the Coffee House moved up a good few notches that day, let me tell you. But there were times that we really wanted to say something with an 'e' in it.

So when the Wooden Toy Shop emailed to ask if I fancied trying some of their toys, it wasn't hard to make a choice.

Alphabet stamp set, £14.95 and the Butterfly and Heart set, £5.79.

Now and then I'm offered toys to blog about, but more often than not I turn them down. This website struck a chord because some of their other stock brought back memories. The peg puzzle - the puzzle of choice for the disabled toddler with fine motor difficulties, to whom jigsaws are a ridiculous impossibility. The easy-access doll's house, which stood temptingly in the Child Development Centre through early physiotherapy sessions. This poppy-uppy thing. I'd searched far and wide for toys like these when Eldest was small, and here they all were in one place.

Even now, the wooden toy doesn't disappoint. Eldest might have long outgrown her peg puzzles, but now she wants to get her art things out and make posters. (Often these posters say: "No Entry! and "Go Away!" and are stuck to her bedroom door. You know. Whatever.) These stamp sets are great, and though they come with water-based ink it's easy to upgrade them with ink pads from the art shop, some embossing powder and a heat gun to help her achieve a more glimmery effect (which I have completely failed to capture, below).

(I was also sent a chalkboard eraser, just for me. A few years ago I thought it would be a great idea to paint a wall with blackboard paint. I was thinking along the lines of something like this when I did it, but what I actually got was a constant smudgy, scribbly mess. Beware the dreams that Blogland sells you, boys and girls.)

Anyway - back to the scrapbook. After the leaflets were snipped to pieces, we tried mind-mapping our holiday after getting Mind Maps for Kids - Max Your Concentration and Memory out of the library. I loved this process - of remembering things we had started to forget, of getting out the colouring crayons and talking over our summer. It made the thought of what was coming - the school uniforms, the packing of lunches, the loss of time - just that little bit more bearable.

The housekeeping just goes on and on

2011-09-03T01:58:00.000-07:00

If someone emails you to offer you a free lunch, an art workshop for your children, an afternoon at the theatre AND a free vacuum cleaner, I'd challenge any of you to turn them down. Dirt Devil did just that this summer. And I'm not made of stone.

So. We drove to Manchester, and then the children disappeared - poof! and I got to eat sandwiches in peace and watch the vacuum company men fiddle with their equipment.

I did fall a little bit in love - as much as you can with a vacuum - with the Reach, and its 13m cleaning radious and its superlong hose. It claims to be able to reach across two tennis courts, and it was really, really light. We live in a house full of stairs; my vacuum is a good deal heavier than the Reach. The Reach has all sorts of useful gubbins for picking up pet hair, but as we don't have a pet I didn't really listen. I just sat there, full of longing.

This is my new vacuum - a lovely new handheld model. £59.99 to you.

It cleans things! It recharges! It has fancy brushes which mean you can actually use it as a back-up vacuum, not just something you use to do the car with. In fact, the only thing I don't like about this vacuum is the press release, which reads "now Dad can do his bit and keep the car fresh". Shame on you, Dirt Devil. This isn't the 1950s. Dad can vacuum the house.

My old handheld vacuum sucks. I mean, you know, that it doesn't suck too hard at all. I did have a much better one, but I gave it to my mother and replaced it with a cheaper one. Wisdom about contentment and happiness suggests that giving gifts and sharing what you have makes you happier. All it left me with this time was a crappy vacuum and a dirty car. I'm a much happier lady now, with my little rechargeable Dirt Devil. I've even seen Littlest using it.

The day took place at The Lowry in Manchester. It's ages since I went to the Lowry - last time I went there I saw Forkbeard Fantasy, and I'm not entirely sure if I only had one child at the time.

The theatre show - Mr Stink, by David Walliams - came with a scratch and sniff booklet. The action centered around a really smelly tramp, so nearly every scent inside was utterly hideous. The children waved them in delight.

So. May I humbly direct you to the Dirt Devil website, where they have a blog. It has celebrity gossip (I don't know) and tips about cleaning, including this great tip for pre-Christmas cleaning: "Before pulling the decorations down from the loft, de-clutter the entire house."

Sorry. I just snorted so hard that my head fell off.

Time for a little bit of housekeeping

2011-09-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

There are a whole list of things I've failed to blog about this summer, and a whole list of reasons for not doing so. I haven't blogged out of idleness (ooh look, the wine is open, and a film is on); I haven't blogged because the USB port on the computer isn't working so the photos have to be loaded onto the laptop which is kept upstairs, and the stairs are tiring and the laptop runs much slower than the PC and my life is so hard; and I haven't blogged because my children have spent the whole summer beating one another to a pulp. I can't turn my back. I'm telling you.

So. I've done a few star jumps. I've found Eye of the Tiger on Youtube. Let's do this thing.

(For example, back in June (JUNE!) a woman from Douwe Egberts sent me some chocolates in a jar to mark the fact that the company had now started selling refill packs to cut down on packaging. I was supposed to eat the chocolates, fill the jar with something interesting and take a picture of it to share with you. I ate the chocolates. I had great plans for what I would put in the jar, but I ended up forgetting all about them and just putting coffee in it. Anyway. Douwe Egberts make coffee which goes in nice refillable jars. I think that was the gist of it. (There was a competition, but I've told you about it far too late for you to enter. What can I tell you. I'm only human.))

Many, many moons ago - and this is even before the Douwe Egberts Fail - we went to the Lakeland Wildlife Oasis for a very fine day out to see their new snow leopard. (Mr Coffee and I believe that 'snow leopard' is a worthy alternative to the term 'silver fox', by the way.)

I failed to take any decent pictures of the snow leopard, but here is a very attractive-looking, erm, birdish thing.

It is utterly fine to blog about this even though it was months ago, because the children revisited with The Grandmother this week. This makes it a Current Event, I'm sure you'll agree. If you're in the area, go visit! There's a snow leopard! For heaven's sake!

There's more to come. I haven't even told you about my new vacuum cleaner yet. Really. I need to tell you.

I'll finish off for today with a picture of the Portfolio dress, because so many of you asked to see it. (I'd like to throw my weight behind Duyvken's Operation Pinterest project - this is my contribution.) I like the dress; I don't like the dress. It's a very beautiful item - right up until the moment that I try to put my boobs into it, and then it begins to look slightly as if I have tried to dress myself in a large blue bag.

It has to be said, the full-length picture isn't the best photograph. I tried to take self-timed ones out in the garden, but you don't even want to know what they looked like.

I made it in a cotton dobby fabric, with a flat check from the exact same range as the contrast. Though I did look at picking up one of the bold colours in the fabric itself, it could have easily looked very alarming - I liked the slight contrast much better.

Mostly I like the pockets.

More housekeeping to come. Stay tuned.

Nature is free, but drawing it'll cost you

2011-08-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

In an unusual fit of decisiveness and organisation, we actually left the house before 10am to drive to the Lakeland Pencil Museum in Keswick. Once we had stopped to buy a cardigan for the chilly Littlest (perhaps not so organised, after all) we were there, in a museum, before it was even time for anyone to start moaning about lunch.

This is unheard of.

Lakeland has long been the centre of the country's pencil-making industry, with cottage industries in the area resulting in the creation of the UK's first pencil factory in 1832.

We saw the special top secret pencils made for airmen in WWII. These were assembled after dark when the factory had closed, and had a tiny map of Germany and a miniscule compass inserted into their hollowed-out centres. We saw pencil-making machines, and pencil innards in various stages of refinement.

Pencil engineering history is all very well, but it was the vintage packaging that took my eye. I took this photograph for Lynn. I know she'd want it. It was a in glass case, though, so I couldn't shove it in my rucksack and run.

These tins, below, Mr Coffee and I recognised from our childhood - they were the standard-issue pencil tins in both our schools. I wished I could have bought one as a souvenir - maybe the tiny tins with six pencils in that would have been perfect to carry in a handbag for those bored-in-the-waiting-room moments.

It was vintage I was looking for in the shop, but in the shop it was all Serious Pencils. We managed to nearly bankrupt ourselves by buying fancy watercolour painting pencils so expensive that from now on, colouring in the Coffee House will be undertaken with a hushed reverence befitting the creation of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Incense may well be burned.

We went on one of the walks from our new book.

Please note how Littlest's brand new cardigan blends in with the landscape.

The rest of the Bank Holiday weekend passed ridiculously calmly. There was the Unveiling of the New Pencils. There was a trip to Matalan for bits of uniform and socks. (Seriously, how is it possible to spend £83 in Matalan? Everything is only £2.50.)

And on the Monday, the children played together with the Polly Pockets for over two hours. Do you know how strange this is? It is a year last October since the children played happily together for over two hours.

I made a dress. I MADE A DRESS.

I had a post. And then I lost it.

2011-08-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

Oh, I had lots to say about our latest trip. Lots and lots.

Things to say about taking time, about losing and finding perspective.

Lots to say about the comfort of wonderful people, and the amazing lengths to which they are willing to go.

Thoughts about the perils of being hemmed in by nothing other than one's own (unfounded) anxieties.

And thoughts about how on earth to escape them.

Big things, then. Complicated, largely inexpressible things. Ones that didn't fit into a blog post - at least not one that anyone would want to read.

Things that probably need a few nights' sleep to see more clearly.

I would do anything for blogs, but I won't do that*

2011-08-08T04:24:00.000-07:00

*with apologies to Meat Loaf

I thought I'd write a really tedious post about blogging. Are you okay with that? I had a conversation about blogs the other week with Driftwood, and this week I read Sue's post about online decluttering and a brilliant one by Eleanor, talking about how blogging has changed, and how money is increasingly involved. There's an increasing concentration in Blogland on how high your blog ranks, how influential you are. It seemed a good time to outline my own little blogging manifesto.

I know you don't really care. But as Ali has pointed out, no-one is around anyway, it being summer and you all having better things to do than sit in darkened rooms hunched over a screen. (Though it looks like I don't.) Anyway!

1) If you leave a comment, and Blogger gives me your email address, I'll email you back. Blogging wisdom says this is a big no-no. Blog popularity charts and PR people look for high engagement, which means everyone chatting animatedly in the comment box. Now I love comments - who doesn't? - and as you came over to my blog to find me, it seems only polite that I come and find you in return. (If Blogger gives me no email address I respond in the comment box, but I do wonder - does anyone ever come back to check?) A lot of my favourite bloggers do it this way, and I don't actually mind if that means my blog doesn't rank quite so highly. Some of my best blog friendships have been forged in my email account.

2) Being a popular person on Twitter also means A Great Deal to rankings. When I try to give out my email and blog url to people at blogging events, people look at me as if I've tried to hand them a Victorian calling card. "But who are you on Twitter?" they ask. Follow me by all means - the link is in the sidebar - but you won't find me constantly updating.

I read a very interesting thing online the other day, lamenting that people were throwing out all their best work in snippets on Twitter when really you wanted them to sit down and write a lovely blog post. I agreed so hard that I clicked away and read blogs and lost the link.

(I do find myself strangely drawn to Pinterest. The things linked to on Pinterest are fascinating, and you can make snarky comments. (This is my absolute favourite board.))

3) I don't mind the odd review on a blog if it's done well. We've established above that I do little to boost my attractiveness to PR people - I turn down most PR approaches. But I reserve my right to say yes to something I do fancy, and I'll always be honest about it. I've got the opportunity to sign up with an ad agency at the moment, but I'm letting it pass because I don't know if I'd be allowed to turn down ads with highly photoshopped women looking flawless on them. I've got a big bee in my bonnet about advertising images and their unrealistic portrayals of women. I'm bringing up daughters over here.

The important thing to me is choice - I choose very carefully, because this is something I do for enjoyment. And though it's my blog and I could just do as I like, it's also important to respect you.

What do you think? Feel free to chat animatedly in my comment box about this. Or you could go read Eleanor's post, which I linked to above, which is fantastic and probably a much better use of your time.

It's all over for the pale and interesting

2011-08-04T23:40:00.000-07:00

A while ago I got an email from Boots asking if I'd like review samples of their products for babies. I looked at the Littlest Latte, who was running around the house collecting bits of loose change in order 'to save up for a goldfish', and emailed back to say thank you, but the baby part of my life was over. If they ever had anything for older children, or for grown-ups, I'd be happy to hear about it.

And then a parcel came.

It contained two different bronzers, two lip-glosses, some nail varnish and suncream. It was much more exciting than anything they could have sent me for a baby.

I've never used bronzer, so to have two lots of it at once was a bit of a shift. I prefer a more peaky look - I know this, because once I asked a saleswoman at a make-up counter to help with me with some foundation I wanted to buy, and she looked at my choice and said 'Well, well, someone likes to look peaky." And I looked at the colour of her face in comparison to mine and thought "Yes, yes actually I do."

The internet is a lovely thing, though, and is full of videos showing idiots like me how to use bronzer. It turns out you can use it not only with a big brush, to add colour to your peaky self, but with a smaller brush as eye shadow and even on your lips. A plan began to form.

When I packed for my holiday last week, I decided to leave all my usual make-up behind. If bronzer was so damn versatile, I'd just use that instead. And the nude lipgloss. On its own, the nude lipgloss made my lips so pale it looked like I was close to death, which is never a good look for a woman over 40. But with the bronzer underneath it was lovely, and smelt absolutely gorgeous, and my hair didn't stick to it if I went out in a wind.

I was very happy with my minimal holiday make-up kit. I used the bronzer with the big brush and on my eyelids and under the lipgloss. Nobody saw me in the street and ran away, shouting 'beware the orange woman!' which I count as a win. The fact that the colours in the No7 Bronzer were separated out in the palette made it easier to use for different things, and I really liked it. Also, it has a little mirror and is pretty. I don't think it will ever leave my handbag. (The Miami Pop bronzer wasn't quite so versatile. It was very glimmery, and when used on my eyelids made me look vaguely like something from 1970s science fiction. As a basic bronzer it was fine, though. (To be honest, if I'd been choosing a bronzer for myself I would have chosen the Miami Pop one, purely on the basis that it was £4.99 instead of £13. (Being a skinflint is how I make most of my decisions.))

We all used the children's sun lotion constantly over the week, and I'm really glad they sent it because it was much better than the stuff I usually buy. It rubbed in really easily, it didn't irritate Littlest's occasional eczema, and it claimed to have insect and wasp deterrent in it. Now we didn't see any wasps actually fly up, sniff the air and turn away again, but this was the first holiday where we didn't spend all our picnic time watching wasps eyeing up our food. We've gone so far in the past as to make the wasps their own jam sandwich, placed at a slight remove, in the hope that they got the hint.

The pink lipgloss, frankly, I found terrifying. Littlest saw it and clasped it in her little hands, remarking on how similar the colour was to her Hello Kitty lip balm. This says all we need to know about the pink lipgloss.

The nail polish, though, was not terrifying at all. Look, how summery it is on my toes - still all pink and unchipped after a full week. (That's enough now. Stop looking at my feet.)

(I reviewed Boots No7 Lipgloss in Sultry Nude, No7 Sultry Glow Bronzer, Miami Pop bronzer,

Soltan Suncare Lotion SPF30 lotion, Miami Pop nail polish in Palm Beach, and

Limited Edition Miami Pop Lipgloss.)