The Gift of Self

November 14, 2012 By in Guest Posts Tags: , , , , , 24 Comments

Today’s post is from one of my biggest blog crushes, Christine Mosler. Chris’s blog is packed full of her beautiful photography, stories about her family, and posts about some of the charities she is passionate about. It recently made it onto Woman and Home’s list of the Top 100 Food Blogs. I am over the moon that she found time to write something for me.

I’m so pleased to be guest posting for Ruth today, the DorkyMum blog is one of my ‘Must Read’s and always has me coming back for more. You can normally find me blogging at Thinly Spread, Climbing Rainbows and Life is Delicious. In a former life I was a Key Stage 2 teacher, now I am Mum to four children aged from 6 to 16 and a freelance writer specialising in education, health and nutrition.

I’m a big advocate of the relaxed approach to parenting and, while mine do go to clubs and attend music lessons, I have consciously tried to leave plenty of time in the week for them to be bored. Learning to be bored is an important life lesson as is learning to appreciate the simple things in life; the things which come without a price tag attached but which are themselves priceless. Things like lying on your back watching leaves flutter in an apple tree.

Chris Mosler Thinly Spread photography Continue reading →

A Broken Clock

November 13, 2012 By in Blogging Tags: , , , , 35 Comments

Two promises. Firstly, that after this I really am off on my holidays. And secondly, this is the last time you’ll see Liz Jones mentioned on my blog. Two posts in two days is more than enough, but I was already half way through writing this when I got Motherventing’s brilliant guest post through. Hers was farking hilarious. Mine is just a bit ranty. Sorry.

Liz Jones Mumsnet Blogfest

Even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day. Even a stab in the dark sometimes finds its target. And even a batty old bint like Liz Jones occasionally writes something that we shouldn’t write off entirely just because it was her wot wrote it.

Attendees of Mumsnet Blogfest (and indeed many non-attending parent bloggers) spent most of Sunday raging about a post that lovely Liz had written in the Mail. Some of them – like Cambridge Mummy and Ageing Matron– wrote extremely good blog posts about it.

But was the post really worthy of our outrage and ire? I’m not convinced.

Continue reading →

High Five, Liz Jones

November 12, 2012 By in Guest Posts Tags: , , , , , , 32 Comments

For the next couple of weeks I’m handing over my blog to a brilliant collection of guest posters while we enjoy our Thanksgiving holiday. To kick us off in truly superb style, it’s the inimitable Motherventing. Her blog is currently lying dormant (although if you didn’t follow it when she was posting regularly, you should set aside a morning to sit and read through her archives), but she is still spouting hilarity and filth over on Twitter. She will be delighted by the fact that I’ve chosen an image of pink cupcakes to illustrate this post.

Liz Jones Mumsnet Blogfest

I recently got accused of being a ‘drama llama’ by a person.

I KNOW. Shocking, isn’t it? Basically, this person thinks I’m an attention-seeking hussy and that I PURPOSEFULLY CREATE DRAMA so that I can fill the otherwise empty void that is my life with dramatic situations that revolve, almost inevitably, around ME.

Gosh! Really? How do I manage to do anything ever? I took the bins out this afternoon. Of course, I only did that because otherwise the bin bags would rot in my back garden and then there would be a DRAMA OF MY OWN MAKING. Unless maybe, this person was referring to the actual drama that I do, within an amateur dramatics company, in which case, erm, I’m supposed to be dramatic?

Who knows. I shrug, with studied nonchalance, at the moniker ‘drama llama’, thrown so pointedly in my direction. It’s silly to accuse me thus. It really totally is. I mean, I am attention-seeking  – uh, hello, I used to write a blog, on which I once posted naked photos of myself, and divulged intimate details about sex toy purchases. And I do amdram, obvs – I just don’t care if people think I am or not.

Guess who else is attention-seeking, and VERY VERY GOOD at it too? Yes! It’s our favourite punch bag, Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones, the sperm-stealing, divisive journalist with no friends, especially not within the parent blogging community, after an ill-starred recent appearance at the Mumsnet BlogFest shindig, where, erm, she talked about having no friends because of the divisive and personal things she writes about. Blimey, Liz. Steady on. Tell us something we don’t know. Continue reading →

Happy Anniversary!

November 12, 2012 By in Family, Harpenden Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 24 Comments

The Hoxton Hotel London

I’ve just realised that I never got round to writing about our wedding anniversary, which was at the end of September. DorkyDad did say at the time that he was going to write me a guest post about it, but to be quite honest I think he has been working hard to forget it…

It was our fifth anniversary. We haven’t had many any nights out together since we moved house, so when we chatted over the summer about celebrating such a big occasion, we thought we’d do something quite special. But as the date came closer and other commitments were scribbled in both our diaries, we had to scale down our ambitions. Dreams of a long weekend by ourselves in Paris turned into dreams of a weekend somewhere on the Kent coast, and then, eventually to a night in London, chaperoned by DorkySon.

Our anniversary was a Saturday. Friday night was the Mad Blog Awards. Before I left on Friday afternoon, DorkyDad and DorkySon followed a treasure hunt that I had created around the house, at the end of which was an envelope containing a restaurant menu, a hotel booking and a bag of jellybeans. That set the romantic tone of the weekend right there. Continue reading →