Category: Stuff that just happens

(Don’t) Take Me Out!

You’ve booked the babysitter! You and hubby decided to go on your first night out in two and a half years, after you both got a bit tipsy on wine, the evening the baby slept through. Since then and since booking the babysitter, the baby has screamed incessantly from 7-9 every night. You are understandably nervous. You broach the subject tentatively with your husband. You know what he is going to say.

“But this is exactly why we need to go out” he says, predictably.

You remonstrate with him, cautiously. He already has jealousy issues with baby two and you know that you are walking a tightrope.

“I know, hun, but I just don’t think I’ll we’ll enjoy ourselves, if we know the baby isn’t settled.”

Hubby is pulling that angry/disgruntled face. It reminds you of the face the baby pulls when he’s constipated. But you know that he’s got a point. You also know that you really don’t want to go, because in some weird way, it is easier not to. You aren’t that same couple any more: the carefree ones who got to parties late, having fucked like crazy on the kitchen table. The ones who rolled into bed at 4am and had drunken sex that you couldn’t remember the next morning. The ones who lay in until 2 in the afternoon, just because you could. You are the ones who scrape Weetabix off the table and who get up at 4am in a sleep deprived haze.

You give yourself the mental dressing down that your mother or best friend would give you: you mustn’t neglect yourselves. Besides, you chose the babysitter because she is another mum, experienced. You chose her because she’s like you.

She arrives and the baby is screaming. The toddler feels warm. You fuss, hoping for a last minute get out clause. Your skinny jeans feel uncomfortable with your heels. You feel like a traitor to the children.

“Where you going mummy?” toddler asks.

You shoot a look at husband, he’s already gone and the car’s engine is already revving. You shoot a look at the babysitter; she is cradling the baby, who is sleeping.

Beep! Beep! Kisses and cuddles administered, you totter out to your first love.

You talk about the baby and his tears. You talk about how the toddler has been under the weather. You laugh with each other about the time that the toddler…and the time that the baby…

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                       From, ‘How it works’ The Mum A (very funny) Ladybird Book

You return home a little early (an hour), to silence. You smile at your husband and you both know that it will be a while until you do this again.

 

 

 

The Refer-conundrum-humdrum

Eeny Meeny

Ah, the referendum. The conundrum and the humdrum. For all the banter and the debating and the guff. For all the newspaper headlines, columns of print and rhetoric, I am still sitting on the fence and this fence post is digging right up my arse. The one thing I am goddamn sure about, is that there shouldn’t be a referendum for such a HUGE decision. Next they’ll be asking us whether we should invade North Korea, or hire a hitman to get Prince Andrew. I mean, I’m fairly intelligent – I’ve got a degree for god’s sake. Ok, I know that means fuck all. I’m a trained teacher… well, yes we know what respect teachers get in this country. I’M A HUMAN BEING and therein lies the problem. We should be leaving this whole debacle to the non-human beings among us: the politicians. We’re being fed what they want to feed us anyway (cow’s shit tastes better). Then we wouldn’t have had to spend weeks answering the hairdresser/Tesco checkout assistant/Facebook friend: are you voting in or out? and listening to aforementioned person spewing a whole load of bollocks back at you that they’ve just read in the Mail. Or worse, reading those Facebook posts where Joe Blogs is suddenly an expert on EU politics, immigration, foreign exchange rates and how many millions (or is it billions?) the national health service is set to gain/lose.

But you know what the worst bit for me is? The thing that is really pissing me off, is that not only have we got to suffer Donald Trump’s face splashed everywhere at the moment, we’ve got Boris Johnson’s bonce everywhere at the same time! Whose fucking great idea was it to juxtapose those two twats in the news?

Who do we believe? The twat with the hair, the toffee nosed twat, the twat that has a mouth like a muppet, the twat who doesn’t even live in this country and who leads a country where you buy a gun with your pint of milk….oh, so many twats to choose from.

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo
I don’t know which way to go
If I vote ‘in’ will it be right?
If I vote ‘out’ can I sleep at night?

It’s a worry. I’m floating like a fibrous turd. Yes folks: apparently it’s turds like me who are going to decide the future of our country.

ALL TOGETHER NOW:

Woah, the Hokey Votey,
Woah, the Hokey Votey,
Woah, the Hokey Votey,
Ref-er-en-dum, blah, blah, blah!

Parenting From My Hammock

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Driving whilst under the influence of parenting, I’ve decided that I’ve passed my test. I’ve got 6 kids: 4 poor sods are completely genetically mine and 2 escaped with just having me as their step mum – a whole different ball game. I’ve dealt with 5 teenagers and gone through the tweenie stage with 4. None of this experience makes me anywhere near an expert, but I feel like I’ve earned my P plates.

I still fuck up, a lot. I still feel guilty a lot of the time. I still feel like there are many roads I am yet to travel with my kids and some will be full of pot holes, some will just be a little bit bumpy and others will be smooth and we’ll fly along those roads with the wind in our hair. But whatever road I travel, those P plates are staying on. We are always learning. There isn’t always a right or a wrong answer to a problem or a question, I’ve learned that it can depend on the child and the situation. I’ve learned that it is good to be honest with our children, especially if we feel that we have failed them in some way and I’ve also learned that they are capable of an awful lot more than as parents, we often give them credit for.

I bought myself a hammock today: £29.99 from Lidl. Ever since I can remember I have wanted a hammock. Its swaying and lulling represents relaxation and holidays. It’s raining today, so we set it up in our kitchen and for me it is symbolising something far more than sunny days. It gave me the thought that I’m beginning to parent from my hammock. It’s partly because of the girls’ ages: daughter 1 will quite often cook the family meal and daughter’s 2 and 3 are both very capable and willing cooks too, time permitting. So I let them. I don’t hover over them, I get on with something else. If they need ingredients that we haven’t got, they go to the shop to get them. I leave them to it.

Daughter 4 went off on a camping trip with the school this morning. Last weekend daughter 3 had a football tour to Holland and two weekends before this both daughters 2 and 3 had Duke of Edinburgh trips. When daughter 1 went on her D of E weekend last year, I sat on her bed – she asked me to – clutching the kit list and methodically going through it with her. It felt wrong. I kept saying to her: do you really need me here? and then promptly felt guilty for asking.

Now, armed with my P plates, I parented the others from my hammock for their trips, metaphorically speaking. They did all the packing themselves, everything. I didn’t get involved at all. They even talked to me about needing new walking boots and head torches and I just brushed off their requests with comments like: ‘use your sister’s’ and, ‘you don’t need a head torch, use any torch’. Some of you reading this may think this is unkind, because they think that they need these things and they won’t want to feel uncomfortable not having exactly what is on the list. And yes, my hammock parenting did cause them to fuck up: a groundsheet was forgotten and the night before daughter 2’s trip she discovered that the tent had neither poles, nor pegs. However, they sorted out these problems themselves. I didn’t rescue them, because if we always rescue our children, how will they ever learn to spread their wings and fly?

Many times when I’ve taken daughter 3 to her football training, I have sat in my car and watched parents arriving, struggling to get their reluctant daughter out of the car and then promptly carrying their bag to the training ground for them. I hate seeing this. It represents for me the parent carrying their child through life, when the child needs to use their own legs to walk. I saw the same this morning when we dropped daughter 4 at camp. Parents carrying rucksacks and sleeping bags for their children, while the child trots along, happily bag free at their side. Then parents standing and watching at the fence, while their child is in a field, with 60 of their friends, playing a game with their young and fun team leaders, but the parent is finding it hard to let go. Desperate for their child to turn and make eye contact; to seek them out from among all the desperate parents standing at the fence, who should all just be walking away and letting go.

I read a post by the blogger: Absolutely Prabulous last night. It is raw, honest and beautiful:

To M on Your 12th Birthday. It’s Not You, It’s Me. Sorry

It is a letter written to her daughter on her 12th birthday. In it she blames herself for many of her daughter’s foibles and behaviour. It got me thinking about how as parents we can feel that we are being harsh on our children, possibly even cruel and that when we compare ourselves to other parents, we feel even more guilty at the way we treat our own. But often, I feel, we need to step back from judging ourselves so harshly. Because so often, it is when we are being harsh on our children that we are being the kindest. When we are being what they and others may call, ‘cruel’ we are doing the best possible thing that we can for them and when we are letting them go, we are allowing them to spread their wings and fly.

I have this quote on my toilet door and for me, it sums it all up:

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As parents we give our children direction to make strong roots. We do our best. We guide them, teach them right from wrong, instill in them courtesy and respect for others. However, ultimately we must let go a little: test their independence and resilience, which in the future they are going to need, and give them the confidence, from our hammocks, to fly.

Transgender – how much do we understand?

 

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Eighty state schools, including 40 primary schools in England are now allowing boys to wear skirts and girls to wear trousers. Crikey, this is going to be interesting. I’m all for equality and ‘transgender’ certainly seems to be a buzz word at the moment, but I wonder how the reality will pan out.

Daughter 3 never wore a skirt to primary school. She even refused to go to the same school as her sisters because they didn’t allow girls to wear trousers. She was, what people might call a ‘tomboy’. I too was a tomboy. Until the age of 13 I never wore a skirt or dress outside school. In fact, I was always being told by women in the ladies toilet that, ‘the men’s is next door’. Neither my daughter, nor I are transgender, we just preferred wearing trousers. So for us, the new ‘gender neutral’ uniform policy would be welcome and neither of us ever encountered an adverse reaction from others.
I am just wondering how welcoming people are going to be to boys in skirts. On paper, it all makes perfect sense. Pupils as young as five can dress in the uniform which they feel most comfortable in. In reality, I can’t help but feel that other children will not know how to react and this could result in bullying. Let’s face it, it doesn’t take much to set a bully off. That’s certainly not to say that we should all conform to the bully’s view on the world, but I think that if a school introduces a transgender uniform policy then all the issues surrounding the topic are going to have to be explored at length with children from as young as five.
I feel that this is a huge step in a new direction for all of us: parents, teachers, schools. As parents we have quite a struggle with the dreaded question: where do babies come from? Cue mumbling about seeds and belly buttons. Now I feel we are going to be faced with questions from children that I as a parent, don’t necessarily feel equipped to answer. I did see a documentary on transgender children a while back and have listened to a couple of programmes on the radio. All of which I found really interesting and they made me understand the difficulties parents of transgender children face and of course, the huge turmoil the children themselves are having to deal with. However, I certainly don’t feel in any way equipped by my minutiae of knowledge on the subject, to deal with questions that may come my way, when a five year old comes home from school saying: David is wearing a skirt to school mummy, why?
But this is now a question that as parents we must be prepared to answer and to talk about. I think that in the current climate of change, where transgender is being more widely recognised and accommodated, with unisex toilets being introduced in some schools, for example, we need to think about and explore our own feelings on the subject. I’ll be honest with you, I feel very uncomfortable about unisex toilets in schools.
In the articles I have read, they talk about: things you should not say to a transgender child. It is a relatively new subject to most of us and our children and we must all be informed, so as not to offend. In order to prevent transphobia, as a nation we need to be educated.
Any change will take a while to assimilate. The first boys who wear skirts to school may have to contend with an adverse reaction, in a way that neither I, nor my daughter had to face when we wore trousers. However, if the other children, teachers and parents are given sufficient information and support about why that child is wearing a skirt, one would hope that in time, it will be as acceptable for a boy to wear a skirt as it is for girls to wear trousers. I am really interested to see how tolerant, accommodating and sensitive we can all be.

Baby Sitting

Those of you with babies, either your own or those you care for from time to time, hands up who would like to go to the theatre. I’ll babysit for you. Take your other half, make an evening of it. Pre-theatre drinkies then off to take in a show. The show is called: Come Look at the Baby. So while I’m babysitting, you will be watching a baby…who is erm, sitting.

imageObviously my babies would be cute to watch…

This is one of the shows on offer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year. Apparently, rehearsals are going well and the six month old is, “chilled” and “calm”. They’ve drugged him/her (we don’t know which yet – oooh the suspense). They must have given that baby drugs, because if you put a sprog on a stage, there is no way on god’s earth that it is going to just sit there. Besides – you’ve paid your money * you want a show and a baby has a limited repertoire. Perhaps a complete meltdown would liven things up a bit, because I shouldn’t think it’ll get up and twerk.

I admit that babies can be gorgeous, but as we all know, (but may not admit), the cutest, funniest most beautiful babies are our own. All other babies get a cursory glance and a coo and move on. We also know that babies are smelly, noisy, unpredictable little monkeys, who have the ability to wind parents up to the point where they are screaming at each other: I JUST WANT A NIGHT OFF FROM THIS SHIT!

So, I’m guessing that you won’t be taking me up on my offer of babysitting to see this show? I mean, why would you? In fact, I’m really intrigued to know who WILL be going to see it. Actually, the show that I really would like to see is: The Book of Mormon. Apparently it’s full of great music and sex. A critic called it, ‘slick and smutty’. NOW you’re talking! My friend has seen it three times. Book the babysitter, I’m off!

∗ I should just mention that all profits from the show are going to Unicef and Save the Children. So even if when it’s boring as hell, it’s still going to a good cause.

I’ve got no Klout (unless you want advice on toothbrushes)

*in case you are reading this out loud with a small child, or you are my mum – this contains some swearing*

I had to laugh today, when I received (yet another) e mail from Klout. Please can I take a quick moment to ask my non-blogger buddies: have you EVER heard of Klout? Until two days ago, I hadn’t and for a blogger, I think that’s bad. I’d read a few blogs that had been mentioning Klout and I felt very strongly that this was something that I should know about. It sounded important. So I googled it and found out that: “Klout is a website that uses social media analytics to rank its users according to online social influence via the Klout Score.” I ventured slightly further and suddenly found that I had not only signed up, but I had my very own Klout Score. It’s measured between 1 and 100, with 100 being Zoella (I actually have no idea what score Zoella has, nor do I give a shit). Think of a number between 10 and 11 and you’ve got my score 2 days ago. Today that number has gone up to 53 – it’s a fickle business this blogging lark. Perhaps it’s reflecting the blood, sweat and partner’s tears that I’m putting into Twitter…or perhaps I’ve read the stats wrong.

Anyway, back to that e mail I received from Klout today.

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I’M A FUCKING EXPERT!!! And not only in one or two areas…IN 9!!! It said, ‘congratulations’, so I thought it meant something. I thought that maybe it had detected an expertise in parenting, or picking wet towels up from floors, but no. I’M A FUCKING EXPERT IN TOOTHBRUSHES!!!

In addition to this bombshell, being an expert in Gordan Ramsay didn’t exactly excite me, as I know sod all about the bloke, except that he swears a helluva lot more than me. I will give Klout some respect, however, on picking up on my expertise in ‘Martial Arts’ and ‘Divorce’. Both of which I do know quite a lot about.

Blogging is so much more than just, well…blogging. It’s SEO, RSS, MOZ (careful – it bites). It’s complicated shit for a technophobe like me. I belong to a different age: 3 TV channels and then OMG along came that weird and arty channel 4 and everyone went ooohhh! There’s lots of debate now about parents being under the influence of a mobile phone, whilst in charge of a child. NO SUCH LUCK FOR ME. I was stuck with the bloody kids all day, with no respite and 4 of them. 4 kids under the age of 5 and no mobile phone to keep me company and get me through the crap. No Facebook or Twitter to break up the monotony of days on end with only snot and poo for company. I know – if you are just a few years younger, you can’t imagine it, can you?

Just like I can’t imagine ever getting my head around all those analytical tools. I think that I’ll just stick to what I’m good at. So if you want to know whether to go for a medium or soft bristle, you’ve come to the right place.

 

Driving Whilst Under the Influence of Parenting

Driving

Sitting on the loo this morning (sorry for the image, euuggh), I realised that I had my pants on back to front. Now, before you worry for my mental health – I can reassure you that it wasn’t a thong. It was fairly easily done with this particular pair of pants. So much so in fact, that as I was in a hurry, I didn’t even rectify the situation. Yes, I am writing this blog in back to front pants.

You see, the thing is, us parents are a busy bunch. Just the fact that I even noticed my pants whilst grabbing a quick piss, is a bloomin’ miracle and the truth is, we’re all doing crazy things whilst under the influence of parenting. Most of the time we’re all happy to admit that we’re parenting whilst over the limit – over the limit of what we can actually handle and it makes us do things that we would never normally do. As a friend of mine discovered yesterday.

She’s just got a new car. She’d had a manic day. She’s a teacher and also has two young kids. After the school pick up and probably having squeezed a few things in between, she deposited each child at different clubs. Hurrying off to max out the time before pick up again, she jumped in her car and was reaching for her seat belt, when an angry voice said: excuse me! She turned around, only to find a lady strapping her child into the car seat. My friend exclaimed: what are you doing in my car?! To which the woman replied: it’s MY car! Awful realisation then hit. She leaped out (she was in a huge hurry), jumped into her car (parked next to it and very similar) and reversed out of the space at speed safely, shouting out the window as she drove off: at least I’m not a big, burly man! (I’m still trying to imagine the aftermath of this from the woman’s view point…laughter? Terror? Anger? Certainly a story to retell in the school playground the following day.)

So you see, when you are having one of those days, even if it’s every day, just think of me in my back to front pants and my friend in the wrong car and repeat to yourself: thank f@€k I’m not the only one! We’re all guilty as charged.

Twit-err?

I’m finally getting to grips with Twitter. I still understand feck all about it, but I can send a tweet. The etiquette still sounds complicated and my fear is that people take things very personally on Twitter, so if I f##k up, I’m doomed…struck off people’s radar, never to be retweeted again. It’s all really scary stuff for a Twitter virgin. Twit-err? I do feel like a complete twit. Potty training was more straightforward than this. Even the owner of Twitter admitted this week that it is too complicated. Bring out a simplified version, I say. You’d make a mint…well even more of a mint. If I wasn’t such a technophobe, I’d be having a go myself and retirement would be all sewn up.

One thing that I’m realising about Twitter, is that there is no shame. People will tweet the hell out of a blog or a photo, just in case it wasn’t seen the first time, or the second, or the third…and if you did see it all three times, you just want to scream at it: Ok, enough already! Heightened paranoia set in with me, as I leaped on the bandwagon and posted a blog for the second time in 8 hours. I nervously pressed: tweet…and waited for the tweets of wrath to come flooding back at me in a tsunami of rage. Except they didn’t, because the reality is, that no one really cared about it the first time and it just came and went on people’s news feed the second, #werenotbothered (can’t use an apostrophe – goes against everything I have been taught). I like to think that this is because I am yet to build a following and therefore my audience is currently limited. Now is the time to cock up on Twitter, while no-one is there to notice.
In the process of trying to get my head around with Twitter this week, I do feel that I have sold my soul to it – my children have fed themselves and partner would have divorced me, had we been married. I can sum up my Twitter journey this far by hijacking a Madonna classic. Sing along guys (please humour me.)
Like a #virgin
I made it through the Worldwide Web
Somehow I made it #through
Didn’t know what a hashtag was
Until I found you
I must tweet
#incomplete
Only on Facebook and Instagram, I was sad and blue
But Twitter made me feel
Yeah, it made me feel
Shiny and new
Hoo, Like a #virgin
Retweeted for the very first time
Like a #virgin
Makes my heart beat
When I go on line
It’s gonna take up loads of time, but
My fear is fading fast
Been sharing and liking for you
‘Cause Twitter love must be passed
Hoo, Like a #virgin
Retweeted for the very first time
Like a #virgin
Makes my heart beat
When I go on line

The Truth About Everything

I had a cuppa with my mum today. I didn’t like your blog about thongs, she told me. Get the negative over and done with, mum, I thought. Everyone else did, I said defensively, it went down really well. Anyway, it was based on scientific facts. I know, she replied, it was the extra bits you put in that I didn’t like. Omg, I thought to myself, she liked all the bits about yeast and bacteria, but balked at my humour – I’ll never win her vote.

Last weekend when we met up, it was all about the Guardian: the Guardian says this and the Guardian says that. She got it as a freebie. You seem to like the Guardian, mum, I commented. Well, I won’t be getting it again, she said. Do you know how much it is? Apparently, it is a lot more than the Times, but I wouldn’t have known. I get the Times, but of course I am of the opinion that all papers are full of shit and loaded with their own message. Did you see that programme last night? mum asked. ‘The Truth About Healthy Eating’. Apparently, wine, tea and coffee counts towards your daily water intake, eggs and bacon beat cereal and fruit for breakfast and frying isn’t so bad after all. But hang on a minute! What about all those reports that say that bacon causes Cancer, too much wine will kill you and just the mere mention of the word, ‘fry’, puts nutritionists in to a flat spin? I didn’t see the programme, but I could sense that mum was not in the mood to be crossed.

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                   Fiona Phillips with Dr Gordon McDougall toasting the mantra:                                    oh fuck it, consume what you want moderation and balance

I really have come to the conclusion, that we should all just eat and drink what the hell we want – in moderation. I know damn well that I can lose weight by cutting right down on carbs, because I have had to do it many times before to compete in Taekwon-do. But it’s hard bloody work. It literally takes over your life. It makes you hugely unsociable, as you take your own food to a BBQ or when catching up with a friend for lunch. Yes, I have been there and I had a goal to reach, which gave me the motivation to do it. However, that is unsustainable. Life isn’t simply about the short term and we need to find a way of eating and drinking that is sustainable long term. This is why we like hearing programmes that tell us that eating bacon is ok and drinking wine counts towards your water intake. Because we think: yes, I can sustain this and when someone tells you that a kale smoothie is what you should be having for breakfast, you think: shit, that’s going to bloody kill me every fecking morning.

Have you heard of the term: orthorexia nervosa? I hadn’t, until I read it in the paper last week. Apparently, it entered our dictionaries a year ago and means: an obsession with healthy eating. A new eating disorder has descended. Yes, it is a DISORDER: avoidance diets can cause deficiencies in vitamins and irons. What was once considered to be confined to a Jesus sandal-wearing brigade, has now become mainstream. Instagram is awash with pictures of kale smoothies. Deliciously Ella is like marmite – you either love or hate the brand it has become. Lots of people love it: their website alone gets 5m hits a month. Healthy eating has, as the article I was reading points out, become a status symbol… but boy, can it judge…and crikey, can it lie: confessions of a food blogger, Besma Whayeb, on the pictures that she posts, for example:

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You know what I think: moderation and balance…oh how those two words have a beautiful ring to them. Mainly because they are not screaming at you: DON’T!!! they are shouting at you: DO!!!

 

 

 

 

Ps don’t be a slave to moderation…the occasional blow out is good for the soul. No-one should be judging you except you and don’t be too harsh.

Oh, and if you’re still not convinced, I’ll leave you with this:

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Elderly People Cross-ing ☹️

When I was younger and I mean much, much younger…say about 10 years old, one of my mum’s friends was driving me somewhere and we passed one of the, ‘Elderly people’ signs. She went off on a rant. Her beef with it seemed to be, as far as I could work out from a 10 year old’s perspective, that these signs were derogatory to old people and that they stereotyped all elderly people as being bent over.

According to an article in the Telegraph last year, ‘the sign was the winning entry in a children’s contest almost 35 years ago and has indeed been widely criticised for implying all elderly people need mobility aids or are disabled’.

‘Critics of the sign’, probably my mum’s friend included, ‘have argued that the signs are unnecessary, and that people who listen to music or text as they walk are greater hazards than elderly people… Dr Ros Altmann, the pensions expert and campaigner, said the signs were redunadant and called on them to be banned. “I think we do not need a sign to warn people of older people,” she said.’

Well, I’m not so sure. I mean, don’t we all get grumpy and more openly opinionated when we get older and think that we can get away with it? Please say yes, because this is the one bit of growing old that I am looking forward to. I remember my 90 year old Nanna telling the cleaner she was fat. I whispered to Nanna, you can’t say things like that, to which my Nanna loudly replied: yes I can because I’m old and she is fat!

Back to the signs and a company called: Spring Chicken, set up a campaign to readdress the issue: “We want to change the image of ageing and bring some wit and humour, and a more accurate reflection of older people, to these signs.” their spokesperson said.

So I thought I would share with you a few of the best entries and you can choose your favourite – but only if you are over 40. No young ‘uns are getting a say in our oldies’ thang…

I was reminded of my mum’s friend and her negative reaction to the original sign, by a couple of recent events. Firstly, I am now a part of the Post-40 Bloggers group, which presumably is a stage for a blogger. Perhaps one who started out blogging about nappies and sick in their 20’s or 30’s and then finds themselves with teenagers in a post 40’s club. For me, I am a few years past the entry age, although I still had to show my ID. I have no issue with being post 40 – happier in your own skin and all that – however, it was the second recent event that really made me think: I’ve joined Gransnet! So, you’ve heard of: Mumsnet, right? The forum for parents to argue converse about such diverse subjects as: penis beakers and fat balls (calm yourselves, ladies. I’ll save those for another blog). Anyway, Gransnet is the equivalent for Grannies (and grandads). You’re not a granny! I hear you cry and mutter, ‘fraud’ under your breath. Well, I kind of stumbled (bent over) in via wishing to enter a children’s book writing competition that they are running. Someone had retweeted a tweet about it and as I have just finished my first book for 2-5 year olds (don’t worry, I curbed the swearing), I thought that I would enter. It never occurred to me that it was GRANSnet, like MUMSnet (am I slow?) and was quite happy to join this website, in order to enter. I received my username and I was in. It was only when I browsed the site that it dawned on me that the, ‘Gran’ actually stood for, ‘granny’.

So within the space of a day, I have gained entry to a post 40 blogger’s group – which I am extremely honoured to be a part of, as there is some fantastic talent in there – AND joined a group for granny’s! Partner is having a field day teasing me, as he is 3 years older than me and I’m always banging on about his age, so now is his chance for revenge. I’ll let him have his few moments of fun, but I am safe in the knowledge that I will always be, ‘the younger woman’.