In search of inner peace and tranquility I’ve started to eke out some time in my hectic schedule to do some life affirming exercise. ‘How difficult can it be to get to the gym at 11am?’ I mused as I lay in bed until 10am. By 10.30am, it was time scramble out the door, pushing [...]

My one wish for 2011 is that I can spare some time to experience the rich and wonderful tapestry of London’s cultural life (and fit everything else in too!). It’s not so difficult to fit in a visit to an art gallery or museum, that’s why we live in London right? In this world of [...]

Is election fever winding you up? Has the last four weeks been a white knuckle ride or has your blood pressure risen on sight of certain politicians? I admit it, the whole thing has been for me and I’m glad I’ve voted. I grew up in a very political household. My very Conservative Mother believed [...]

So home and back to the grindstone it maybe but the simple pleasure of cooking an evening meal and having neighbours pop over to say hello is just the bees knees. I’ve always believed that travel broadens the mind, but it also emboldens the home loving heart much more than I imagined or remembered.

Thanks to all you lovely people who dropped by and left congratulations on my bloggy birthday. It has been quite a year and it was nice to make a fuss about it. And now it’s my turn to give some of you an early christmas pressie back. So without further ado, here are the recipients [...]

If you haven’t noticed by now, I’ve been reminiscing on my year in the mumosphere and I’m feeling incredibly sentimental – in fact, I’m feeling a tad bit generous and want to share some happiness with you all, but how? While I’d love to buy a drink for each and every single of the one [...]

I suppose this is a bit of a love letter to all the members of British Mummy Bloggers and also a curtsey and a bow to Susanna – you know who you are! The theme of these posts is what has really happened, and this little adventure was the one that made the blogosphere a [...]

Along came January – there was an adjustment period to this new situation. It lasted about a day or so. I was free! And so, so glad to escape the glass towers where I had worked. Once a bustling enterprise, it was haunted by glum, grey, despondent suits wailing over share prices and school fees. [...]

Why did I turn to blogging? Well, I’ve always loved to write and I’m a total chatterbox so it was pretty easy to find my conversational flow in blogland. And there were many great surprises and new experiences in store. Incredibly, this story I am writing is post number 149 which means over the last [...]

I can’t quite believe that it’s just short of two weeks until my blog is a year old. Simply put, it’s been an incredulous and fabulous year. November 29 2008 was the day I clicked ‘publish’ on my first wordpress post. I was amazed I’d even managed to work out how to set up a [...]

Thanks to the Royal Mail strike, my review samples from Simple Human are still sitting in a depot somewhere but the company has kindly sent me an extra 2 of their stackable recycling units. From the photos on their web site which I’ve used above, they looked like they would fit nicely in my Ikea [...]

I love this photo – Miniminx running wild in the desert in her pyjamas after a brief sleep. We spent the evening before watching the shooting stars in the amazing night sky. It was so magical and felt so free and peaceful. And of course, we were queens of the desert for just one day [...]

Ever have those bizarre conversations that verge on the complete abstract and sublime? I had one of those this morning with my daughter over the breakfast table. ‘Mummy?’ she said, one eyebrow raised to announce that she had a profound statement coming on. ‘Yeah’ I answered distractedly, somewhere between packing lunch, loading laundry, applying lippy. [...]

Trips to the doctor, dentist and getting my daughter to take medicine are a major event. I often feel like I’m entering the ring with an indefeatable opponent, with the willpower and strength of a Sumo and a banshee wail to match. I’m not one to admit defeat, so will investigate all options open to [...]

I’m a trifle bemused to see that all my friends on twitter are trending on the X Factor – I never watch the show in the later stages, I just catch the early ones, perhaps two at the most for the pure entertainment of the no hopers. Does that make me a bad person? I’m [...]

Yes, this week has been a mega one. So Wednesday night I was out again. Off to the Grovesnor House Hotel in the pouring rain and smuggled from taxi to the safety of the reception beneath umbrellas, we launched ourselves on the evening. Bumping into Tara Palmer Tompkinson, spotting Ginger Spice, and stars from Strictly [...]

It’s been quite a week. Next week will also be quite a week. And the week after. I can feel the walls closing in a bit – the routine is starting to bite hard – the Summer evenings are long gone, the mornings are dark and while Autumn brings it’s own sweet and ruddy colours, [...]

I received these latest chapters on Friday for my sneak preview of Corduroy Mansions. In this tranche, we travel across town with Caroline, who discovers that her would be lover James bears all the hallmarks of OCD – so kissing is off the cards. While they begin a journey into a the West End to [...]

Just because I blog, doesn’t mean I’m a trainspotter but perhaps it’s seeping into my existence. Only a month ago I took a steam train up to Corfe Castle and loved it. And then we got invited to see Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. We popped in to see at the Vue Leicester Square [...]

Pre dinner drinks last night and I was having a conversation with one of my dearest and most entertaining friends, over delicious Lapsang Souchong Martinis (how very now) at High Road House, about how the big fear of the information superhighway, commonly known as the internet, would lead to the atomisation of our culture. As [...]

A little trip down memory lane for me is always a jaunt around South Ken to see the museums. I love them dearly, and when we were kids, we went there all the time. My favourite was always the Natural History Museum. The Victorian architecture is, even now, quite scary but there are so many [...]

I’m surrounded by lovely flowers. It’s no special occasion but it does seem to mark a change of season. I bought these as a last ditch attempt at keeping the Summer spirit alive and these poor drooping sunflowers are really trying to hold their own aren’t they? What is it about them that’s so beautiful [...]

If you can’t quite get the slant on my little pun, well let me explain. I may be able to cook and sew, change a fuse and put up shelves but when it comes to day to day drudgery barefoot in the kitchen streamlined housekeeping I’m severely lacking. I think Nomestic is the new nom [...]

I got a text yesterday from a dear friend who I used to work with, we both share a love of theatre, men and good wine. This text was to tell me that he’d spotted ‘My Blog’ in the Tots 100. This is quite ironic. He looked at me quizzically when I first told him [...]

I love to spot a trend and I think the magazine industry may finally be finding a place for itself. My wall. I have for the most part given up on paper; I do most things online and I like to save trees. I don’t even use Post It notes or business cards anymore. But [...]

It seems we no longer want to hide behind our blogger handles I’m no longer just a gravatar – since April, I’ve become less reticent about hiding behind my nixdminx name. Yes, I am actually a real person, so why hide from it? So when the lovely Tara asked me for a photo for her [...]

Can it really be a week ago that I started writing this post???? Mid Summer Madness is truly upon me us isn’t it? You will not believe what the last week or so have involved – it’s been AMAZING! YesterdayLast SundayThe Sunday before last Sunday morning I woke up early and had a wardrobe crisis. [...]

I don’t know about you but I’m off to the British Mummy Bloggers meet up next Sunday. I’ve just checked the RSVP list and I nearly squealed – I’m going to meet my fellow Mummy bloggers – yihaa, I can’t wait! I just got an email from Susanna asking me to email some lovely lady who is organising the event and she’s going to send me a menu so I can preorder lunch for me and Miniminx. Even better, it’s at The Rainforest Cafe which Miniminx adores…wow – as my favourite neighbour says in her American drawl – that’s a class act!

..and I’ve kissed my fair share. Just look what I found in my butt (a grungy old water butt that is) Gnarly dudes aren’t they…

I’m really looking forward to this weekend.
I need some rest.
I’ve been working hard.
Here is my walk to the station from work…

My daughter does a great impression of me using twitter… She puts the laptop on her lap, wiggles her fingers over the keyboard, frowns, squints then makes a really evil honking/laughy noise (a bit like a donkey). Then she smugly hands me back my computer and looks at me like I’m a loony. She says [...]

I’m am so chuffed – in fact gobsmacked to be a new entry in the Top of the Pops (well Moms and Pops) – it’s brought back memories of me and my brothers and sisters (six of us, a veritable bratpack) dragging out the dressing up box on a Sunday night, sticking polystyrene cups wrapped in foil on the end of bamboo sticks and dressing up to sing the Top 40 to an audience of two parents helpless with laughter for two hours on the sofa.

I can’t find this story on the News of the World web site. So I wonder if there was some edict that this Swine Flu Cover Up story is barred from being online. I’m looking at it again and it just doesn’t feel right. Hidden away on page 13 is this big story, while Garry Glitter and Kate Winselt hog the front page (pardon the pun). But hang on a minute – 1,500 people exposed to an infected person – how far can this disease go? Very far apparently, it’s exponential – 1 person meets 10 people and then it spreads and those 10 people meet another 10 people, that’s how disease spreads.

Thanks to Violet Posy, I’m now part of the meme gang. It happens that Kate Morris has recently started blogging on Blogger and asked that people volunteer.

House rules of the meme. Respond and rework. Answer questions on your own blog. Replace one question. Add one question. Tag 8 people and so on.

Do you ever have those really smug mornings? When you think you can take on any challenge and pull it off with panache and aplomb? In my household they mean one thing – something is definitely not quite right – in fact, it’s usually just the eye of the hurricane.

If travel doesn’t broaden the mind, it certainly widens the eyes. This has been a great and adventurous Easter holiday. We went to visit friends in Brighton for a couple of days and then, after deciding it was time to make a longheld dream of mine come true, we went to Florence. Arriving at Pisa [...]

So I believe that Britain has a huge wealth of creative talent. Who cares where we find it, how it embodies itself and why we love it. It’s just a people thing, we don’t need to explain ourselves. So critics, savants, moguls, svengalis; save the bitching for backstage and get the performance right and we may, once more, appear on the world stage, if not just the UK.

Ladies and gents, if your Easter Sunday gets too much don’t worry. When everyone hits the chocolate high from too many eggs, you may start to feel the exasperation of being chained to the kitchen and that irksome feeling when the champagne runs dry. Fear not, just remember this clip from Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown.

‘Wasdrobe’ is my new name for what was my work wardrobe. It came to me as I opened up the white doors to find something to wear for my child-free bout of weekend socialising. I rifled through the rails marvelling at all this smart stuff I haven’t worn for months and had a small but perfectly formed revelation. A very obvious and great divide had evolved….

I love this brave new world of all things webby. Not least because it provides a coherent link from the past to the present and, I hope, the future… A few months back, I posted a recipe which I love to use, Grandma’s Groovy Flapjack. It has proved very popular, not least because it’s simple, [...]

You know me, I’m always at a loose end these days but I do manage to keep myself pretty busy. So today’s ‘job’ was to get back to basic communication and create a flyer and publicise my ‘Lost’ notice to my neighbours and use some good old fashioned door to door leafleting.

Still among the ranks for the unemployed, I’ve been waiting to hear on ‘news’. The ‘news’ being the result of my interview. Waiting is just the worst thing and especially when your future is a stake, it becomes the kind of wait that makes you clean your house inside out, iron and fold things, generally [...]

Hello you thrifters and penny pinchers, welcome to the Credit Crunchista Carnival.

This surely is frugaletarianism at it’s absolute best, happy reading.

Thank heavens I took off my Amy Winehouse wig before I answered the door…actually, hang on a minute, maybe I should have just kept it on and screamed ‘Blaaaaaaaaaaaake Incaaaaaa-arse-errated’ …that would have stopped her in her tracks.

Alas, this story of my job hunt has less twists and turns than the M1. I’ve become more of a caravan on the hard shoulder than the Porsche in the fast lane. And not for the want of trying, as you can see from my older posts, I’ve been trying to get a foot in the door at lots of places. But still, it’s hard not to think ‘Why me?’.

Sometimes I think there is a greater power. Take this; we have started to get so sick of the hideous morning news full of carnage and mayhem. So, I know I shouldn’t have, but when the news came on the radio about a plane crash, I looked at Miniminx and she was about to start [...]

It’s a sign of the times, I’ve given up the ghost and I’ve had enough of shopping!!! There are two things I still need in my credit crunch arsenal; a good le Creuset set and a giant pasta saucepan (hopefully for cooking and not pan handling). Otherwise, I’m in the market for nothing; nada, nil, [...]

Being out of work is any oxymoron – I’m am actually working very hard to get a job even though the KPIs below amount to failure. Maybe I should just do nothing…and wait A year ago this would have been an adventure and I would have had  five or so face to face interviews by [...]

So Lesson 1 in Sexducation has been a source of much amusement in our household this week. I know, I know, sex shouldn’t be a laughing matter but if you put 30 eight your olds in a class room and give them pictures of a naked male and female and ask them to label parts of the body, it’s going to be a recipe for hilarity.

All in all, it’s been a pretty good week so far – I’m over the moon to be listed on Alpha Mummy – and I’m really looking forward to a fantastic weekend which won’t really end until Tuesday. Three birthday parties and my own belated birthday present – a trip to see a show. One [...]

Miniminx and I have both got cricked necks from too much Wii Fit and sleeping at funny angles – oh ha ha not. I’ve learned the true meaning of a pain in the neck. Oh yes, kids do say the funniest things don’t they. My reputation is in tatters thanks to Miniminx and her salacious gossip…

When I apply for jobs on corporate web sites, I feel like I’m aiming a pea shooter at the moon. My CV disappears into the ether, I get an acknowledgement and then nothing.

After the Terminal 5 catastrophic launch last year, this news can only lead to more disaster. I predict that Heathrow, with all it’s shopping malls and restaurants, hotels and car parks, will become a city in it’s own right.

For anyone that works, lives or travels in the area, you’ll know how bad things are getting. The filthy air, the low flying planes, the noise and disruption to daily lives is just too much. I don’t know if I want to live around here much longer.

Is anyone else blogging about being unemployed? I seem to be unable to find anyone out there…am I missing something??