My Phonics Kit contains three workbooks (Kipper’s Phonics Workbook, Chip’s Phonics Workbook and Biff’s Phonics Workbook), instructions and guidance for parents, a reward chart, stickers and a CD-ROM with eBooks and related activities. The pack costs £10, though it’s currently available on Amazon for £6.

My Phonics Kit is based on the, almost certainly very familiar, Oxford Reading Tree, that most schools use and so contains familiar characters and artwork. Each of the workbook has some words for your child to read to see if they’re at the right level for the workbook. (The kit is aimed at children reading at or above Level 5 of the Oxford Reading Tree.) There’s then a page with some tips and guidance for learning together with your child. There are then nine pages, each looking at a specific sound, and the different graphemes that can make that sound. (For example, in Biff’s Phonics Workbook there’s a page on the sound ‘k’ and it covers ‘c’, ‘k’, ‘ck’ and ‘ch’.) There’s a section of words to read and then one or more ‘alien words’ to read (the alien words are indicated by a little picture of an alien and are clearly differentiated from the actual words by being in a different coloured and styled box, as well) that use some of the graphemes introduced on that page. And then there’s an activity for the child to do using the graphemes from that page. For example, there might be an activity to match sentences to pictures, to fill in gaps in sentences, to find sounds within sentences, and so on. Interspersed throughout these pages are whole-page activities, such as larger gap fills, colouring activities (find the words in the picture and then colour the picture) and matching captions to pictures. Each of the workbooks ends with a ‘Silly Ditty’ using lots of words and sounds from that workbook and then a final activity (a wordsearch in one, pairing words together in another and putting words together to make other words in the other workbook).

Throughout the workbooks, children can earn stickers to put in the workbooks and stickers for Floppy to go on the reward chart. The reward chart also has indications of where to read the eBooks on the CD-ROM, though you can actually use the kit in any order you want, including going through the workbooks in whatever order you want. There are six eBooks on the CD-ROM with activities to go with each. There’s also a section for grown-ups, where you can hear the different sounds and find out about the screening test and also read some tips and guidance about helping your children learn to read.

RoRo has tested out My Phonics Kit and really liked it. She enjoyed reading the book on the computer and the way the pages turned. She read the words at the start of the book with no problem (in fact, I was surprised how quickly and easily she read them). She enjoyed doing the activities and wanted to keep going, despite it being late and time to go to bed. She enjoyed finding the stickers and sticking them in the right places. She read the alien words fine, though she definitely struggled more with them than the real words (because, as I mentioned in last week’s post, she doesn’t just decode any more, but uses context and her knowledge of vocabulary to work out a word that she doesn’t already know – neither of which can be used for alien/nonsense words).

I was pleased, as well, that working through some of the pages in the workbook together, had RoRo talking to me about what they’d learnt at school in phonics and spelling – she does talk about school a lot more than she used to, but it’s still always nice to have something that prompts her to talk more about what she’s doing there.

I thought My Phonics Kit was excellent. Oxford University Press have integrated the alien words in an unobtrusive way that should introduce children to the idea of needing to read nonsense words without too much confusion and help them become familiar with the idea. It covers the sounds they should be familiar with at that age and will help them with reading words in isolation in addition to within stories and other texts. I think that My Phonics Kit would be a useful pack to use, regardless of the test, and will be very helpful in providing additional reading-related activities for children to familiarise them with the different graphemes – both for reading and writing. I think there’s a strong chance I would have bought a copy of this and would certainly recommend it to others. The price is very good for what you get – we often buy workbooks from Wilkinsons or the Works which cost a couple of pounds each. They usually have a stickers and definitely more pages than these workbooks, but they don’t come with eBooks and activities on CD-ROM and I don’t think the activities themselves are as targeted as these ones. The familiarity that theOxford Reading Tree brings to the children as well, is an added bonus. I might be tempted to buy it in Reception, rather than Year 1, though, depending on the progress of the individual child. I’m sure LaLa will, at the very least, be reading the eBooks on the computer, as she loves Kipper and Floppy!

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of My Phonics Kit to review by Oxford University Press, but the opinions expressed are my own (and RoRo’s).

As you are probably aware, the government has introduced a new Phonics Screening Test which comes into play this June for all children in Year 1, after a one-year pilot. Children will have to read 40 words with their teacher, which will be a mix of real words and nonsense words that are made up of letters and sounds that are part of the phonics route of teaching reading. It is not compulsory to teach reading using synthetic phonics, though a lot of schools do.

I am not a teacher, but I do have a daughter in Year 1 and have seen the range of reading skills that her classmates show. They used phonics to teach reading in Reception and they still use phonics, along with other methods, to teach reading in Year 1. RoRo is reading books at Stage 5 in the Oxford Reading Tree (and the equivalent in other schemes). The vast majority of her reading is now recognising whole words that she knows already, in addition to this, she uses context to work out what words she doesn’t know say – sometimes she still decodes, but for the most part, she’ll do something like look at the first few letters of a word and the last few, look at the length of the word and look at the picture and the words around it, to work out what the word is – from meaning. Decoding now forms a miniscule part of her reading process. And, from what I’ve seen, this is the same for a lot of her classmates. There are, of course, still some who are using decoding the bulk of the time, but not very many. And there are others who are further ahead and almost never use decoding – recognising the majority of words, and working others out from context.

Phonics worked wonderfully as a teaching tool for most of RoRo’s classmates, but the teachers have always shown adaptability and have helped the children to use different methods. One of the most important things has been the use of story books and non-fiction books that engage the children and help them pick up words and reading in general because they want to know what is happening, or find out more about something. We love phonics and I have already started introducing some letters and sounds to Eleanor – very gently, of course, and with no pressure (I’m not a Tiger Mum!) But I would never, ever, ever, try to get them to read nonsense words to practise the letters and sounds. The point of phonics is to help children learn to read. The point of phonics is not to teach them to excel at reading a large number of letters and sounds but never be able to translate that into actual reading.

The government claims that the point of the Phonics Screening Test is to “identify the children who need extra help so they are given support by their school to improve their reading skills”. But… do you know what? That’s what teachers do already. Year 1 teachers and teaching assistants work with children according to their ability and needs in learning to read. They will do things like guided reading in groups, individual reading with teachers, teaching assistants and parent volunteers. And they will help those children who are struggling, using the most appropriate methods for them. They don’t need a 40-word check to tell them who needs help. What they could probably do with is some extra money to give those children who do need extra help a bit more one-to-one help.

What they definitely don’t need is a bunch of children getting stressed out about taking a test at the age of five or six. They don’t need a bunch of children getting thoroughly confused about having to read nonsense words when what they really want to do is read about Floppy and Kipper’s latest adventures with the magic key. They don’t need a week off timetable to fit in testing all their children themselves. And they don’t need the extra stress themselves of administering a test.

If we lived in Spain, then the Phonics Screening Test could well make sense, because Spanish is spelt phonetically. English is not spelt phonetically. Some of it is, yes, but most of it isn’t. There are plenty of letter groups that have different sounds in different words, there are plenty of sounds that are spelt in a huge variety of ways. You learn to read ‘bough’, you’d expect to then be able to read ‘tough’, but no that has a different sound and then again you have ‘through’. To, too and two sound the same but look very different.

In the one year pilot, only 32% of six-year-olds who took the test reached the expected level. Is this because they couldn’t read? No, it’s because most of them could read well and taking a step back to decoding nonsense words and reading a list of words instead of a story, is not at all helpful or indicative of actual reading levels. The government’s explanation was that “pilot schools were only given details of the content and structure of the screening check shortly before the check took place”. Which essentially translates as “they were actually testing they could read the words, when they should have been testing that they could do a test in a specific way and specific format”. If they’d had a whole year to teach these children how to decode nonsense words and read a list of words instead of a book, they’d have passed the test. They might not actually be able to read books to the level they would if they’d been learning to read, of course, but that’s OK, because the government will be able to tick a box, which is what matters, isn’t it?

Hopefully, the test (or ‘check’ as it’s been called) can be administered without too much disruption. Hopefully, it won’t give children a knock-back in their progress at learning to read (whether through insisting on testing recognition of phonics letter groups rather than actual words, or through making confident readers feel like failures because they can’t decode a nonsense word. And hopefully this test, which is as nonsensical as some of the ‘words’ it tests, will be scrapped very soon.

Edited to add: There’s an interesting response to the Phonics Test consultation from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (PDF).

If you’re worried about the test at all and would like to help your child prepare for it without adversely affecting their actual progress in learning to read, Oxford University Press has brought out My Phonics Kit, which is based on the Oxford Reading Tree and treats the nonsense words as ‘alien words’. We’ve received a copy to review, and we’ll be giving our verdict next Sunday, but on a first quick flick through, it looks like they’ve done an excellent job at providing a comfortable introduction and practise for this test.

What do you think about the new Phonics Screening Test? Are your children going to be taking it this year? Do you think it will confuse them? Are you going to help prepare them for it at home, or let the school prepare them as they want to?

The time has come. I thought I would keep going until she chose to stop, as I did with RoRo*. RoRo stopped of her own accord at the same time as she dropped her nap, but she’d already cut it down to one feed a day – to get herself to sleep for the nap. LaLa has a bunch of ways to go to sleep – including the occasional dot dot (breastfeed) – and she still has a fair bit of dot dot. She has some in the morning – but usually two or three feeds. If I’m around, she’ll have some in the afternoon just before her nap and will often, but not always, fall asleep at the same time. She’ll have some in the afternoon, when she gets home. And she’ll ask for some whenever she’s upset. She tends to have more if she’s feeling unwell.

And, honestly, I can’t see her letting up of her own accord for a good long time. As she says “Dot dot is my favourite and my best.” She asks very nicely: “Please may I have some dot dot? Just a tiny bit? Please?” If I say no, for whatever reason, she’ll cry, but very briefly and it’s the same cry she’ll give if refused sweets or TV or other such stuff. So, yes, not about to drop it voluntarily.

Last night, I was up half the night with her. She woke up at just gone midnight and pretty much decided it was morning. She was asking for dot dot most of the time. She’s not allowed dot dot in the middle of the night – because it just leads to her waking up with the purpose of having dot dot, rather than sleeping through happily like she usually does. So I spent most of the night saying no and plying her with cow’s milk and juice and water and books and toys and TV on the netbook. The rest of the night was spent with her saying she wanted to go to bed and could I carry her upside down (one of her latest ‘things’) and put her in her bed, whence she would climb approximately one minute later declaring that she was ‘not tired’ and it was ‘time to get up’.

In the end I gave in – yes, I know, giving in is my downfall and I repeat it time after time, because I do not have the patience to deal with screaming and crying when I know I can avert it with the judicious (or not so judicious) application of dot dot, sweets or TV – and gave her dot dot, and she fell asleep – at four in the morning. But before I did we had a little chat about dot dot and I said that tomorrow (i.e. today) we would be stopping dot dot.

And she hasn’t had any since four in the morning. In the morning, I went back to bed and Chris took over, so it didn’t crop up. When she came home RoRo had a friend round and there were Friday treats to eat, so she didn’t immediately ask for dot dot. When it occurred to her to ask, I reminded her that we had said we’d been stopping and offered milk or juice instead and also reminded her of her sweets and the existence of people to play with. She was distracted for a while and then asked again, this time with a bit more vehemence. She was allayed by pink milk. Further into the afternoon/evening, she was fobbed off or distracted by the DS, some TV, the rest of her sweets, some pudding, a bath, bouncing on our bed… and then I disappeared to watch Pirates of the Caribbean with RoRo while Chris put LaLa to bed, so the issue was removed again.

We shall see how things go tomorrow. The mornings will be the most challenging, but I think if I work on the distractions and my high-pitched exaggeratedly cheerful voice we’ll be fine. Most reports of stopping at this point say it only takes two or three days. So, hopefully we’ll be done by the end of the weekend.

Wish us luck!

* In case you missed it, at my eldest daughter’s request the girls are now referred to by nicknames on the blog (RoRo = the eldest; LaLa = the youngest).

We’re mostly about the Duplo still in this house, though we do have a couple of Lego games (Creationary and Shave a Sheep, both brilliant games) and a small Harry Potter set. (The shop in town that sells Lego and Duplo has the Hogwarts and Hogwarts Express sets and I just stand and stare at them for ten minutes whenever I’m stocking up on Duplo – one day… one day… I will have the Harry Potter Lego!)

For ages, we just had a basic Duplo set, which was fine, though fairly limited in scope. LaLa was getting really in to building very tall towers with it, so we and others gave her Duplo sets for Christmas – the Zoo and the Alphabet sets – and suddenly, both LaLa and RoRo exploded into little Lego construction engineers.

They’ve built zoos, houses, jails, parks, castles, schools, hospitals, space rockets and trees, with the range expanding considerably once we invested some of their Christmas money in some bases. (I have to say that you cannot fully appreciate the versatility of the stuff without some bases to keep your constructions together.) LaLa especially enjoys playing with the three Lego people we have (‘man’, ‘man’ and ‘lady’ as she has imaginatively christened them), while RoRo is getting the most out of coming up with new things to build and working out how to do so. She’ll do things like build walls with striped patterns, or make sure a tree has a yellow and brown trunk and green leaves and the sea has a blue and green base. And she’ll work out how to connect walls together and build stairs and roofs and turrets for castles.

So… why in the name of all that is holy, do we need pink and purple Lego with girly girly sets and interchangeable hair and fashion accessories for the characters? Why? Some of the sets in the Lego Friends range, actually look quite good – a tree house , a vet , an invention workshop , for example – but why do they have to be steeped in this whole Moxie-girlesque 21st century post-feminist girly backlash? Why not just have these sets as generic sets and throw some different coloured blocks into all sets? Differentiating between Lego sets for boys and Lego sets for girls is sad. It is taking away from a toy that has always been reassuring gender-neutral and bowing to the purveyors of pink peer pressure.

Girls have been playing with Lego for many years and have happily been able to build whatever they wanted – be it shops and castles and ironing boards, or rockets and dinosaurs and cannons. Are there really girls out there who refuse to build with Lego because it’s ‘for boys’ or ‘not pink enough’? If so, that’s surely a very worrying thing? A worrying attitude to be bringing up our girls (and our boys) with?

By all means, Lego, throw in some pink and purple blocks to the sets and introduce some new sets that are more wide-ranging in appeal, but please, please, please, leave the sexualisation and gender stereotyping to Barbie.

Other people have already written about this – Sally Whittle wrote about Why she used to love Lego, there’s a Huffington Post piece about the uproar this new range has been creating worldwide and Mum’s the Boss wrote about her anger at the new range as well – and there are plenty more out there (yes, I’m a bit late to the row, sorry).

I read a few articles and blog posts about Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother when it was causing so much controversy in the US. And I admit to feeling outrage at many of the incidents and attitudes described. But, like many of the authors of these pieces, I had not actually read the book. I recall Chris suggesting I blog about it at the time, but I never got around to it and also felt wrong about ranting about a book I hadn’t read.

So, when Bloomsbury asked if I’d like a copy of the new edition (due out in paperback and ebook on 9 February 2012), I jumped at the chance. Let’s see what all the fuss is about, I thought, and I also warned the publicist that I might not be positive in my reaction to the book.

Well, I’m very glad to have had this opportunity, particularly as I think it’s quite unlikely I would have gone out and actively bought a copy myself.

I loved this book. It was a fascinating read and while, yes, there were some incidents and attitudes described that did make me feel uncomfortable, the overall read overshadowed these. I enjoyed the writing, I enjoyed the glimpses into another culture (I love getting inside another culture and having my world view challenged – I usually do it through fiction, but it was equally appealing to do so through a memoir) and I also enjoyed, somehow, a little element of relief that I’m not doing awfully as a mum.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is not a parenting guide. Amy Chua never set out to write an instruction manual on how to bring up a musical prodigy or how to get your children to receive constant A grades. This is a memoir, an engagingly and sometimes comically written one, that centres on the author’s attempts to bring her children up in the traditional Chinese way. It looks at her successes and her failures – both in terms of her children’s achievements and in terms of their happiness, the importance of which the book shows her growing to appreciate over time.

Amy Chua is self-critical – she is emphasising the extremes of the ‘Chinese parenting’ that she was adhering to. She admits to its failure for her younger daughter and father. She shows how she had to adapt her ideas and principles, because no two children are identical (something most of us with more than one child discover soon enough).

One of the things Amy Chua talks about in the postscript to this new edition of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and her eldest daughter talks about in the letter she wrote to the New York Post (which is reprinted at the end of the book) is that the book cannot possibly convey the whole story of their family dynamic. Of course, it can’t. As someone who blogs about her children I can testify to this. There are a million incidents in our family life that never reach this blog – both positive and negative (and, of course, plain boring). There are things I don’t write about because my children or husband (or other family members) don’t want me to. There are things that I choose not to share because they would paint me in a bad light and, in a rather British way, things that I don’t write about because they would sound too braggy.

Amy Chua’s book conveys mostly one element of their life – a very big element, admittedly, but not the entirety – her efforts to raise her children to excel in academics and music. It shares some parenting methods and strategies that will make many people (myself included) cringe. But, as she mentions in her new postscript, it doesn’t show the laughter and hugs that they share and the fun that they do have together.

Amy Chua’s parenting methods (or the Chinese parenting method, as she calls it) are definitely not ones that I want to adopt. However, that doesn’t mean I didn’t get some interesting and useful insights out of reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. One thing in particular that struck me, is something I’ve talked about in a post a few weeks ago – how we sometimes need to adjust our expectations of our children. I talked about expecting both RoRo and LaLa to be more mature than the actually are, but I also mentioned the problem of having too low expectations of a child and therefore preventing them from pushing themselves. I do think that we (or more I, really) am often too quick to let RoRo (and LaLa, actually) give up on something. With reading and spellings, if she’s not enthusiastic I tend not to force the issue, even a tiny bit. Because I know she does fantastically well when she is enthusiastic. But sometimes a little bit of a push is all it takes and putting that extra effort in can make all the difference.

But, no, I’m not going to give up on playdates (actually, we only have time for one playdate a week as it is, with all the overscheduling we already fit in) and have the girls drill times tables and Latin conjugations or spend lots of money on tutors. But I might expect them to a bit more now and then and reassure them that they can do something, rather than letting them accept defeat.

I would definitely recommend reading this book, whether you see yourself as an authoritarian parent, a laissez-faire woolly liberal or a progressive something-or-other. You might scream and shout at Amy Chua, you might gasp in astonishment, you might put your head to one side and wonder, but you might just enjoy a good read, without having to take any particular learning or message away from it.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of the book by the publisher, but this review is my own honest opinion.

We love Oliver Jeffers here. My dad bought RoRo How to Catch a Star when we were on a day trip to Weston-super-Mare a few years ago. Reading it always brings tears to my eyes. Because it’s such a lovely story, but also because it has the added effect of reminding me of my dad.

Lost and Found brings tears to my eyes, too (yes, OK, it’s not a major accomplishment as it doesn’t take much to get my tear ducts streaming). The fairly simple tale of friendship and misunderstanding is made more evocative by Jeffers’ beautiful (and, again, seemingly simple) illustrations.

The Lost and Found Pop-up book has all the magic and emotion of the story and illustrations, with the addition of houses popping up, tabs to push and pull and flaps to open up. Both RoRo and LaLa are enchanted by the book – in particular the house that pops up at the start. Corina Fletcher has been stunning with the paper engineering.

The Lost and Found Pop-up book doesn’t feel especially robust, which has lead me to admonish ‘Be careful!’ or ‘Gently!’ to the girls as they look through it and also to keep it out of reach and only allow supervised reading. Which is a shame. It might well stand up to a good pulling and pushing read and, even if it doesn’t, I should probably let them explore it at their leisure.

But I’m not going to. It’s too nice to risk spoiling it!

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of the book by the publisher, but this review is my honest opinion.

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Carol at Make It, Bake It has set up a new monthly In Season Challenge to make something from an in-season ingredient.

And I have to say, what a brilliant idea! We started trying to cook more with in-season ingredients a few years ago. This was brought on by a need to cut down on our outgoings, however, we soon discovered that fresh, local, in-season produce tastes a lot better than the stuff that’s travelled hundreds of miles on a boat or a plane, artificially chilled and so on.

We don’t manage to cook entirely with local, in-season produce, but we definitely try to use it as much as possible. And it tends to fit with the weather, too. Root vegetables feel better in the autumn and the winter; salads feel better in the spring and summer.

The ingredient for this month is Savoy Cabbage, which is a great vegetable. It has a lovely colour, texture and of course taste. It’s great in soups and stews, but can also be used to wrap other food, as a side dish in itself, as vegetable lasagne and probably a whole bunch of other things, too. Head over to Make It, Bake It on 6 February to read others’ Savoy Cabbage posts.

Three Cabbage and Chick Pea Soup

Warming, tasty soup, which can be served puréed or ‘au naturel’. You can vary the cabbage types as you like, but keep the Savoy as the dominant one.

Ingredients

• 2 onions
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• ½ Savoy cabbage
• ¼ Sweetheart cabbage
• ¼ red cabbage
• 1½ litres vegetable stock (I use 4 Kallo stock cubes, rather than recommended 3)
• 1 (400g) tin chick peas
• 2 tsp ground coriander (or handful fresh coriander for a different flavour)
• 2 tsp paprika

Method

1. Peel and chop the onions into rough 1-cm cubes.
2. Heat the onion in the olive oil until translucent.
3. Meanwhile, chop all the cabbage into 1–2-cm chunks.
4. Add the cabbage and stir.
5. Cook on a low heat for 10 minutes.
6. Add the stock and simmer for half an hour.
7. Add the chick peas, coriander and paprika and simmer for a further 30 minutes.
8. (Optional) Purée the soup.

Serving

Serve with buttery chunks of crusty granary bread. Small bowls as a starter, big bowls as a substantial and nutritious main course.

I was sent this a couple of months ago now and used it for probably around six weeks before taking a yet-to-be-curtailed break for Christmas (and ‘stuff’!). I loved it and I know that once I’ve done a couple of sessions I will be fully back into the Zumba rhythm, with all the enthusiasm I had at the end of last year. … … I just have to take that first step.

Contents of the Zumba Fitness DVD Exercise Kit

The kit comprises two toning sticks, four DVDs and a workout guide. The workouts on the DVDs are Basics, Express, Sculpt and Tone, Cardio Party, Flat Abs and Zumba Live.

The Basics workout is 60 minutes long and takes you through the steps and moves. As a very unco-ordinated person, I spent three hours replaying each bit trying to get the steps right, before I realised that an approximation would be OK and I’d probably improve over time. Now I can do most of the steps pretty well, but there are a couple that I just can’t do fully – mostly these are Salsa steps and I’ve always found Salsa steps hard. However, I do them well enough to get benefit from it, so that’s fine by me. So, I would say don’t worry about trying to get your steps perfect before you move on from the Basics workout – just do it once or twice and then jump in.

The Express workout is 20 minutes long and is ideal for doing daily (not completely daily, of course, as it’s important to take a couple of days off for recovery in any exercise programme). You can fit it in without too much hassle – in the evening after the children have gone to bed, in the morning, while they’re eating breakfast… – but it’s long enough to make a difference to your fitness.

The Cardio Party workout is hard work, but very exhilarating. You can definitely feel that it’s working and I would make sure you did a week or two of just the Express workout before jumping into this if your fitness level is pretty low to start with.

The Sculpt and Tone workout uses the toning sticks and if you’re anything like me your arms will ache at the end.

I haven’t tried the Flat Abs or Zumba Live, but I’m sure they’re as effective as the rest.

My ideal programme would be to do three Express, 1 Cardio Party and 1 Sculpt and Tone each week, with two days off for recovery. Usually, though, I’ve tended to end up doing two Express workouts and 1 Cardio Party or Sculpt and Tone.

How I found the Zumba Fitness DVD Exercise Kit

This is by far the most fun exercise DVD I’ve ever tried. Every other one, I’ve done two or three times and then given up. With this one, when I finish a workout, I’m already looking forward to doing another one the next day. I tend to still be dancing a bit in the shower afterwards. I remember a lot of the steps and sometimes put on some Merengue and do some steps while cooking or dancing with the girls. The music is great, the steps are fun and, while the presenters can sometimes come across a little irritating, they’re actually very motivational and positive.

As I’m not a very co-ordinated person and have a very changeable schedule, I really appreciate the ability to do this at home in my own time, rather than in a class. I am very self-conscious and really hate exercising with anyone – even Chris or my sister! I’d also recommend it to get to grips with the steps first if you’re just a bit unco-ordinated, or to do extra sessions at home on top of your weekly Zumba class.

As with all exercise DVDs (or routines or programmes), though, you have to keep it up for it to have an effect. While I kept it up for longer than any other exercise DVD in the past, I did stop when it wasn’t really necessary. My schedule had been to do my workouts while Chris took the girls to school three days a week, so it fell by the wayside over Christmas. However, there really was no reason not to just change the schedule around – do it in the evening after the girls were in bed, for example, or do it when they were around and let them join in or watch.

You can buy the kit on Amazon for (at the time of writing) £29.99 or from the Zumba people themselves for £59.98 at www.zumbafitness.co.uk.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of the DVD Exercise Kit to review and keep, but the content of the review is my own and based on using the kit.

An old school friend of mine writes a blog about what she sees and thinks about when walking her dog. If you’re not a dog person, you might not understand the whole dog-walking thought train, but if you are and regularly walk a dog, you’ll probably recognise the feeling.

I’ve taken to walking Wesley every evening after Eleanor’s gone to sleep and while Chris reads to Rosemary. It’s usually a half hour walk, or round-about – to the edge of town and back. It’s a half hour to think about whatever I want to, which is weird, scary, empowering and all kinds of words like that.

Sometimes I use it to run over things that have happened during the day. If I’ve shouted at the girls, I might be thinking about what I could have done differently to prevent that. If some work has gone badly, I might be thinking about how to fix it the next day. I quite often have arguments with people – Chris, clients, the girls, random shopkeepers or car drivers – who have wound me up during the day and tell them what I wish I’d said then. And every now and again I congratulate myself on what went well – getting out the door in the morning on time and with no shouting from anyone, meeting a deadline – or three – spending quality time with Chris, making a nice meal, booking in a new job, getting lots of hits on a blog post…

But mostly what I do is dream. I make up scenarios, usually about our life and future. I don’t think there’s anything especially new or different about these fantasies or dreams. They frequently centre on winning some money on the lottery (just a £500,000 Thunderball win, nothing outrageous like a Euromillions rollover, mind), or getting a huge advance for that novel I still haven’t finished writing. But sometimes they’re slightly smaller scale, like working out a blog redesign, imagining how to move the furniture around in the bedroom, picturing myself sewing up all those clothes that need fixing. OK, so they may well be as unlikely as the lottery win.

And then I picture us living in one of the houses I pass on my walk. One of the big houses that would probably require a lottery win, and quite possibly one bigger than that Thunderball. There are a few contenders, but there’s one in particular, right at the edge of town. It’s quite big, though not outrageously so. It looks like it would comfortably house a big family – in fact, I have a feeling the Bennets would have been quite at home there. It has arched sash windows and a big arched door. A walled garden. An annexe that would make a perfect office, or studio, There’s a driveway and quite possibly a paddock, though that’s just a guess.

I have no idea what it looks like inside, but I have a very clear picture in my head. The large kitchen, with the huge scratched wooden table, double range, scruffy but cosy sofa, dresser full of tea pots and large mugs, hanging rack draped in copper pans. The utility room with the muddy boots cluttering the corner and coats hanging by the door. The lounge with the roaring wood fire, flanked by walls of books, and the large mirror reflecting the dark red walls and floral wallpaper. The playroom strewn with wooden toys and Lego and train sets and kitchens and garages and blackboards – walls papered with bright and colourful pictures…

I’ve even gone knocking on the door to ask if it’s for sale – in my head, of course – and had the fortuitous conversation with the woman who’s splitting up with her husband and so has to sell the beautiful house they’ve lived in for eight years. I’ve gone and sat in her kitchen and drunk tea and sympathised and chatted about the coincidence that we’re both children’s book illustrators (in addition to my thriller-writing career, of course, which has provided the funds to enable me to come knocking on her door). I’ve moved in with all the family and had parents from school come round for tea and even drinks. I’ve seen Wesley running around in the walled garden, finally happy to wander without having to bark at passing dogs.

Some people set the world to rights while walking the dog – solving the economy problems, ending war and famine… some people meditate… some people watch the skies and the trees and nature… and some people spend huge amounts of money furnishing houses that are far too big for their family.

Hmm… that does make it sound bad. But there we go, that’s what I do. When I’m not writing a chapter of my novel or a blog post, that is.

Vegetarian Christmas Pie

Serves 6–8

This makes an attractive centrepiece, especially when cut into. You can adapt it quite easily for different tastes and diets, too.

Ingredients

• 8 eggs·        
• 2 large carrots·        
• 1 tbsp honey·        
• 2 tsp mustard·        
• 2 tbsp water·        
• 500g spinach·        
• 75g ricotta·        
• Salt·        
• Pepper·        
• Nutmeg (optional)·        
• 8 red peppers·        
• 50g butter·        
• 250g mushrooms·        
• 5 gloves garlic·        
• 50g butter·        
• sweetcorn·        
• puff pastry (thawed)·        
• 1 egg yolk for brushing (or milk)

Method

1. Hard boil the eggs and allow to cool.
2. Peel the carrots, then slice them lengthwise into about 0.5cm thick slices.
3. Heat them in a pan with the honey mustard and water on a low heat for 10–15 minutes. Set aside.
4. Wash the spinach then wilt it in a covered pan.
5. Mix the spinach in and season with some salt and pepper and ground nutmeg (if desired).
6. Deseed the peppers and cut into thirds (roughly).
7. Place skin up on a baking tray and put under a high grill for about 10 minutes.
8. Allow to cool slightly, then peel the skin off.
9. Melt the butter in a saucepan or frying pan and then heat the peppers for about 5 minutes.
10. Chop the mushrooms into slices (about 1cm wide).
11. Melt the butter in a frying pan.
12. Finely chop (or mince) the garlic and add it to the pan.
13. Add the mushrooms and cook on a low to medium heat until they are softened. Set aside.
14. Make sure all the vegetables elements and eggs have cooled.
15. Roll out the puff pastry – I normally roll out two pieces to make two large sheets that are a bit bigger than my baking sheet.
16. Grease the baking sheet and place one puff pastry piece on the baking sheet.
17. Layer on the vegetables, leaving 2–3 inches of pastry around the edge. You can layer them in any order you want, really, though its best to put the egg layers in the middle not at the edges.
18. Place the other puff pastry sheet on top then join the edges together, fold them over and crimp them (kind of folding at an angle).
19. When you’re ready to put it in the oven, brush with egg yolk (or milk).
20. Bake in the oven (on a medium to high heat) for around 40 minutes or until the pastry is brown (not burnt!). You can cook the vegetables at the same time.

Adaptations

To make it vegan, leave out the ricotta and egg and brush with soya milk instead of egg or milk. You can change the vegetable layers considerably – go for bright colours for the best effect, but you can also go for strongly contrasting flavours or complementary ones. You could make it into a particularly Christmassy pie, by putting Brussels sprouts and parsnips layers in. You can pretty much change it entirely to your liking – or have a layer to suit all your different tastes – a cheesy pasta layer for the children, a nutty mushroom layer for Granny… and so on…

Accompaniments

Well, it’s Christmas dinner so you’ll be wanting all the trimmings, won’t you? Roast potatoes, roast parsnips, Brussels sprouts, carrots and some lovely gravy (I use 2 tbsp marmite, 1 tbsp tomato puree and one Kallo stock cube with 1 litre boiling water, then thicken up a bit with 2 tsp cornflour and 2 tbsp cold water mixed into the stock). And don’t forget the Christmas crackers! It’s also delicious cold on Boxing Day with a light salad.

Drinking suggestions

Red wine or dark ale. Orange juice and sparkling water. Or the Co-op’s sparkling raspberry juice is also very nice with it.