A Humdrum Mum

My friend A, pictured  below, treated me for my birthday to a day at Champneys Town Spa for a fishy pedicure, and lunch at Cafe Rouge, followed by a spot of window shopping, or even shopping depending on how much wine we'd consumed. Here was our day... Started off with a late breakfast, after first class train travel Lovely fruity bread thing Two headless females brave the fishy pedicure Oh my god, it was the weirdest thing ever! A went first, as I was having my newly applied nail varnish removed. She seemed to be OK, just giggling a bit. We hadn't been drinking by this point, I should add! I dipped my feet in. I felt the little fishies swarm around my feet, in fact they favoured my left foot (I didn't think it wasn't a bad film either). I cried, not in a bad way, but just in a tickly way, I knew I couldn't take out my feet, but it was so hard to keep them in. I clutched A's hand the whole time, and squeezed her knee. Like the way that Elf squeezes m...

No one likes a smug mum. Or a smug parent. I haven't been blogging regularly for a while, and I suppose I should conservatively blog to regain my loyal (if any?) followers!  But to hell with that. I'm going to be smug ok? Just for once. OK maybe twice.  Today we cycled to the local library to "find out about bears" for Elf's homework.  Using our own transport - tick Using local amenities - tick Not just googling "Where do bears come from?" - tick Looking in BOOKS - tick When we came home, we ate soup that ticks many boxes. home made - tick using home grown (or almost) ingredients - watercress from Mr M's garden, and potatoes harvested by Elf from last week's gardening club at school - tick I then made some buns as we had visitors and the leftovers were to be frozen for Elf's lunchbox. home made - tick controlled chocolate intake for lunch box - tick Then we read The Guardian. Tick?

My birthday cake (a day early) from The Tenth Hole Friday Breakfast Club Girls - Thanks x

Yep I celebrated my 40th last weekend. I'm not quite 40 yet, the big day is this Saturday. But Mr Humdrum is three weeks older than me, so we decided to celebrate together with a big house party. Now we used to hold parties every year for my birthday, but after Elf arrived, it just didn't seem to have the same appeal. We had 38 guests, groups of friends, school mums, NCT mums, uni friends, nursery parents, work friends ... Everyone there had a reason for being invited, whether it was for curing my headaches with their acupuncture, being the first mum in the playground to talk to me, or just ... well being a friend!  The debris of a party always amazes me, so I thought that instead of posting pictures of loads of drunken idiots dancing to I Eat Cannibal by Toto Coehlo, I'd post pictures of the day after.    Some notes on the party:- One person had a tactical barf in the alleyway (Mr Humdrum) One person barfed upstairs and passed out One husband dis...

A while ago I was either tidying up and chucking out, or getting ready to move, I can't remember and I had to make up my mind what to do with the toddler books. All the Thomas the Tank Engine ones, Dear Zoo, Hungry Caterpillar etc. Board books that survived the sucking and chewing, dearly beloved by Elf and his parents alike. Of course I wouldn't chuck it, I would store  it. But then something happened, oh yes life, and I didn't get around to the rest of my tidying.I had in my head that I would keep these books for Elf to read himself. And now he does read them. We take turns to read pages of his Thomas board books. It helps because he knows the stories, and the engines' names, but not well enough to cheat!  He read Dear Zoo all by himself the other day, we hadn't read it for absolutely ages. A bit of role reversal really, because I found myself doing the flaps! He was most pleased with himself too, giving his confidence a boost. I am glad I kept those books.

The last six months at work have been terrible, the darkest days of my career. Why? I don’t want to say I was bullied, but I was abused at work. An abuse of power. A colleague was promoted to be my manager, and that’s when the difficulties started. Cue months of anger, frustration, stress, headaches… I went to HR and got some good advice. I went to the doctor to put it on record. I got put on a plan, not quite a disciplinary but a coaching plan. Approaching 40 and being put on a coaching plan? I felt it was undeserved. But then so was the appraisal that, had it gone through, I would have been on a disciplinary! I’ve been doing this job for 11 years, so what’s changed? The management… My plan would last 60 days, with weekly meetings, and consisted of not embracing the company not communicating effectively (with no evidence provided at all) not finding quick positive solutions to problems This is what I was always told: Don’t stir things up, you don’t know what they will do They a...