Giveaway - a great day out with Kung Fu Panda

Visitors to the Althorp Estate in Northampton need to be ready for action - as Pandamonium is coming, to celebrate the launch of the new film Kung Fu Panda 2.

The day - on Saturday 9th of July - promises a whole host of Chinese themed activity - including Kite Flying, Chinese performance artists and Kung Fu demonstrations. The star of the movie, Po, will be there, and there'll be a concert performance by the film’s composers Hans Zimmer and John Powell. There's more information about the day here.

Why am I telling you this? Because my Cybermummy sponsor, Kellogg's, has free tickets to give away. Sixteen of them, to be exact, and bearing in mind that an adult ticket will normally set you back £15, this is quite a prize.

(Before you ask what this has got to do with Kellogg’s, they will be on-hand to help entertain the crowds with our Rice Krispies tent where you can make some delicious Rice Krispies Cakes. (Remember how well my Rice Krispie cakes went? Here's a chance to take tips from the pros).

Just leave a comment telling me how many tickets you hope to win by midnight on July 3 (you'll have to live in the UK) and I'll start up the random number generator and do all the complicated maths stuff. Tell your friends! your grandparents! your neighbours! Get commenting, and good luck!

Let me sleep on it

Last night, at midnight, I staggered in through the front door and threw my luggage on the floor. I had a heavy overnight bag (I always overestimate how much I'll read on a train); a handbag; and two or three bags of swag from sponsors' stalls at the parent blogging conference Cybermummy, all of which I had dragged across London until my shoulders shrieked.

I'd had an exhausting day. A fun day - a day full of speeches and workshops and cupcakes and tight schedules and buzz and friendly faces. A day when I barely got chance to catch my breath. But also a very odd day, when I found myself right at the centre of something as well as right on the edge of it.

At one point all of the blogger delegates - 400 of us - sat in the main auditorium and were told to get our phones out, right now, and tweet about our day. Most already had their phones or iPads out anyway, and were beavering away. I don't have a smartphone. I was very aware that what I did have in my handbag were two battered paperbacks from a second-hand bookshop. The night before I had arrived late to my  hotel because I had stopped off at the BFI to watch a black and white film. It is a quite a strange experience, being told you are one of the driving forces of a cyber revolution when you're actually a bit of a Luddite.

This morning I got up and sat at the big old desktop computer and cranked up Twitter. Posts about Cybermummy were already popping up online, but I was in no way ready to write one. A couple of people said very nice things about me, and the post (I can show you which it is, now) I was chosen to read out during the crowdsourced keynote. On Twitter, people were having coffee, getting on trains, greeting each other. I realised that I could spend all morning there, and still be no further towards a coherent thought.

I turned the computer off. It was time to step back, and get swallowed up in something a bit more low-tech.

I bought this sarong from the Cancer Research shop a few weeks ago with the idea of turning it into something for the Lattes. The pattern was an easy choice - though I love sewing when I get started, my impetus to start usually comes from frugality rather than desire - so I went for the free oliver + s downloadable pattern for a popover sundress.

The fabric itself said 'there's no need to get too stressed about this'. Not only did it have that hippy-chic thing going on, it even got me out of making a hem.

The instructions suggested I dress the yoke with ribbon. I muttered about having no ribbon, and fruitlessly searched some boxes. Littlest turned up, and suggested that I use the ribbon she was wearing - ribbon from a giftbox that she inexplicably had tied around her waist. Well, it was her dress - who was I to decide what shade of ribbon?

This was the easiest dress in the world to make. Due to the casual weirdness of the original item, the bottom edge is a whole range of different lengths, and that makes it all the better. I even have half the sarong left to make a skirt for Eldest - with another obvious choice of pattern lined up.

And Twitter? No idea. I haven't even checked my emails for hours. Some days are better without constant updates - and it's strange that it should take a cyber conference to remind me of that.

With thanks to Kelloggs, for making my trip possible.

The comfort of (angry) strangers

When you were so angry at 8am that you were sure you could see the inside of your own eyeballs (a child's tantrum; a mother's broken necklace; no time for breakfast) it is comforting to see just how many people around you are losing their rag.

On close inspection, many of the population seem close to a meltdown. Or perhaps we look at the world with selective eyes -  hoping others will provide confirmation that we're not alone.

Later that day, I saw:

• two people who clearly didn't know one another at all having a stand-up row involving a live owl in the middle of a shopping street. (Really. An owl. Perched on the bloke's arm.)
  
  
• a fuming woman at a bus stop lifting her three children up by their shoulders and plonking them into a straight line like tiny bemused soldiers
  
  
• another woman cycling erratically along a busy road, one of her hands holding the mobile phone into which she was shrieking, a huge handbag dangling off the handlebars.

One thing's for sure, laughing at other people's bizarre outbursts makes your own a little easier to deal with.

And for whatever laughter can't touch, there's always love. Love, and wine, and a bit of superglue.

The mysteries of the missing

On most days for the past couple of years, we have passed below these shoes. Who knows whose they were. Who knows how they arrived.

One day this week, Littlest looked up at the shoes. She turned to her father. "Did God put those there?" she asked.

Missing shoes (more often than not, one missing shoe on its own) in the middle of a road or on a wall are just one of life's little mysteries. Socks, too. Somehow, someone makes it home with just one shoe or sock. It amazes me. A control freak like myself finds it difficult to believe that it's possible.

Which brings me to this video of two Scotsmen in a snow-covered bus-shelter. It's bonkers, and has naughty words. And though it makes me feel compelled to protest that my comedy of choice is usually intelligent stand-up or clever satire, I giggled my way through this like a lunatic.


(Note to those of you who subscribe - Blogger has steadfastly refused to upload any photos for me this morning. So I made a bit of a pig's ear of doing it via Flickr, and have accidentally posted this shoe picture several times. Scroll past it, and you'll get to my post about going to Cybermummy and losing lots (ahem) of weight.)

Counting down

I've only three days to go before I end up in London for Cybermummy, the parent blogging conference. As I mentioned before, I was lucky enough to get sponsorship from the lovely people at Kelloggs, who made me this handy little badge to show off:

I'm very excited. (Not least about a trip to London without children; a chance to wander round a sight or two, have coffee with a friend, and sleep in a bedroom I don't have to vacuum.) It's not a trip entirely without stress, though - I have to read one of my posts during the crowdsourced keynote, and public speaking is not my strong point. But that's right at the end of the day, so I only have the whole time I'm there to dither about that one. Great.

When Kelloggs offered me sponsorship I offered to blog about the Special K diet website. I liked what Kelloggs said about nutrition during the blogging event they held in January, so I felt confident that the diet plan would be worth a try. I'm not the kind of person who diets for a special occasion - but every so long, the pounds creep on and I need outside help to remind me just what kind of things I should be eating.

The website claims: "All the personal meal plans on MySPK have been developed in conjunction with our expert nutritionists, dietitians and behaviour change experts to harness the latest in scientific thinking and bring you cutting edge advice about managing your weight."

That sounds a little bit too edgy for me, but in fact what you get is just really well-balanced, well-planned meals.  You go to the website, you put in your details - including whether you want to cook from scratch or make things a bit easier, and how much alcohol you plan on drinking.

(I like wine. This is part of the reason I could stand to lose a few pounds. That, and chocolate. I may be undisciplined, but at least I'm self-aware.)

And then the system spins and whirrs and there it is - a meal plan. A really healthy one, too, with all your five a day and your fibre and your protein and then some fun things like pots of custard and scones. There are lots of snacks (I need snacks) and some lovely recipes, like asparagus risotto and cod with couscous, herbs and vegetables (below). No low-carb, low-GI, this-food-goes-with-that-food nonsense that I can't understand.

A few years ago I remember there was a diet advertised where you ate cereal for breakfast and lunch. Rest assured, this isn't it. I didn't even eat any Special K during the two weeks I did the diet - any low-fat cereal was okay, and some mornings I got porridge, or poached eggs or even a bacon buttie. Two weeks on, and I was 5lbs lighter, but most importantly I felt like I'd been eating really well.

And that was the thing I liked most about the diet, quite aside from the 5lbs. I even went back on the diet with no intention of losing weight a couple of weeks ago, when a bout of tiredness left me peeved with meal planning and at risk of throwing constant bowlfuls of very slight variants of pasta with pesto onto the table. After a week of extra sleep, regular healthy portions of food and the odd slice of cake (like I said, I had no good intentions) I felt a lot better than I would have done if left to my own devices.

It is, however, a month or two since this happened, and one of the 5lbs has gone back on. Only one though - and that's hardly Kelloggs' fault. At no point during the diet did the website say: "After completing the diet, buy multipacks of Galaxy bars from the discount shop in an attempt to save money by buying in bulk, then munch stoically through them. Also drink additional wine, especially if it is the school holidays or you are in a tent or at the in-laws or just a bit bored."

As I said, undisciplined. Self-aware. And if I see you at Cybermummy, don't expect me to look like the kind of woman who regularly diets.

A Million Moments of Closeness

Sponsored Post



I'm a tired person. I'm often a lazy person. Sometimes, after I've struggled to feed the Lattes and get them (finally) into bed, the thought of phoning a friend for a chat sounds exhausting. All those things to say. All that listening to do. I love my friends, but there are times when we're all just too tired to even try.



An email, though, is another matter – or a quick text pointing out something ridiculous that just made me giggle. It takes a few seconds, but starts a conversation that can continue sporadically for several days. Ten years ago, I would not have been speechless with laughter over a text whilst shopping. I would have just been a lonely, stressed woman trying to buy some cheese.

NIVEA mark their 100^th birthday with a celebration of closeness in modern Britain, and have commissioned psychologist Professor Geoff Beattie to carry out research about the subject.



He found that far from encouraging shallow relationships, we form good new friendships faster online than we would in real life, and existing relationships deepen. The range of communication methods available to us allows us to stay in more regular contact - and psychologists agree frequency of communication is a key component of intimacy.

Scientists have identified that 'self-disclosure' - the sharing of personal information - is vital for feeling connected. We share photographs, snippets of our lives, and photographs on social networking sites – so new technology provides us with some of the important elements we need for true closeness.



And so for their million moments of closeness campaign, Nivea are asking you to help celebrate 21^st century closeness by uploading photos of you sharing a cosy moment with a friend, colleague, sibling, partner, parent or child at facebook.com/niveauk . Or you can look out for their road shows, throughout the UK, where the two of you can jump into a photo booth and have your picture instantly uploaded. Whether you share your photos on Facebook or at the roadshow, you’re in with the chance to win - every day, a picture of the day will be selected by psychologist Professor Geoff Beattie. The winner will receive one of 100 prizes worth £100.

What do you think? Is the internet a handy way of staying in touch, or does it give us an excuse not to see people face to face?


Viral video by ebuzzing

Hello? Is anybody there?

Sorry about that! I disappeared. Disappeared under a mountain of phone calls and Stuff To Do and clipping hedges and carting stuff to the charity shop and keeping children alive through an entire half term and then ironing.

I haven't read any blogs for weeks. Did anything happen I should know about?

All I have to offer you is Random. So here we go.

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Eldest independently requested The Very Best of Dolly Parton from the library. I love Eldest.

I also love Dolly Parton. There's nothing more satisfying than belting out "IN MY TENNESSEE MOUNTAIN HOME, LIFE IS AS PEACEFUL AS A BABY'S SIGH" at 7.30am when your kids are having a screaming row about their toast.

Littlest says that my voice best suits Islands in the Stream. How she became such an impresario I don't know. Neither do I know how I - the progeny of a music teacher and a highly talented former choirboy - was born with so little musical ability.

It's possible that Littlest thinks I sound like Kenny Rogers.

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There is just So. Much. To. Do. Those days when you feel like you're wading through treacle? Lots of those. In advance of some surgery coming up in the autumn, Eldest's physiotherapy takes up every second waking thought. (Please don't assume that I'm just talking about daytime waking). Exercises. Stretches. Standing frames. Splints. Night splints. Gaiters. Yoga. Nowhere is safe. For example, here is a picture of my child's feet in the cinema:

Not a spacesuit. Though, in the distant past, she has worn something spookily like one.

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I don't know yet if I'm going to watch Camelot. I probably will. But everyone seems far too incredibly pretty. I would have appreciated at least one wart.

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I went on the Special K diet plan, lost 5lbs in a couple of weeks and forgot to even blog about it! And it's Cybermummy this month, and Kelloggs are sponsoring me to go there. I'll do it this weekend. But just to make it quite clear right now - I didn't eat a single bowl of Special K the whole time. People kept asking me about the Special K. Not compulsory, oddly.