Review: Duvet & Pillow Warehouse Mattress Topper

Oh... my... goodness.

I thought a mattress topper was... well, largely a waste of time. Maybe like putting a foam camping mat on top of your mattress. When Duvet & Pillow Warehouse asked me to review their "Ultimate Microfibre Mattress Topper" I thought, well, I'll give it a go...

And then it turned up:

I had to re-read the label; I thought they'd sent me a duvet to review instead!

Of course, I had to put it on the bed as soon as possible, so as to test it out:

I don't know about you, but this is way thicker than I expected any mattress topper to be! 

It fits over the mattress with an elastic strap over each corner, which is fairly easy to do. At first I thought it was a little too small for the mattress, but it just sits on the top, with nothing going over the sides.

Once I'd put a sheet over the top, S wanted to get involved in the product testing.

She was reasonably impressed, as you can tell.

I love this photo because it shows just how... squishy the mattress topper is! S was loving it, and I was looking forward to going to bed. I went to be early that night!

I slept so soundly on that mattress topper, I can't even tell you. It is really soft and squishy, so I suppose you do need a relatively hard mattress underneath of it, or you're just going to have no support under you at all. but it made my hard (old, haggard) mattress the perfect place to sleep. I fell in love with it.

We've had the mattress topper a little over a month now, and I have yet to find anything I don't like about it. It's comfortable, the elastic straps don't ping off whenever you roll over, and it doesn't get flattened out from being slept on. So far every night has been just as squishy as the first one!

I have a double mattress topper, which is currently £66.50 on their website. That does sound like quite a lot, but now that I have it I wouldn't want to be without it. My bed is so much more comfortable and feels all luxurious!

I would say the only down side of this product is that it's so thick, normal double sheets don't really fit on my bed any longer, and I have to use king size ones instead. A little inconvenient, but I'm willing to take the hit on that to be honest!

Disclaimer: I was provided with this mattress topper in exchange for writing a review, but that was not dependent on my writing a favourable review. All words and opinions are my own.

Ponderings on Self Employment & Career

I'm not officially self employed until 8th November. At the moment I'm on gardening leave from my old job. I have a few clients set up and ready to go though, and some I was already working with before I was made redundant. Despite the constant low-level panic about not being able to afford nursery bills come the end of November, it's going well.

I've been reading a lot of motivational, self-improvement based books and articles lately.

One of the books asks the question:

If you were starting completely fresh, in a world where anything was possible, what would you love to be doing?

The thing about being a free agent is that I'm free to do whatever I want. At the moment I'm doing social media marketing (and some accounts) but if I decide next week that I want to try doing some other type of work, I can give it a shot. The possibilities are endless!

When I sit and think about my "ideal job," what I would love to do, what would make me truly fulfilled and happy, it's writing.

But when I sit down and think, I shall write!! I usually come up with a big fat blank. I can update my blog easily enough, but I don't see this as something I could translate into a viable source of income. This is not content people would pay to read!

I love blogging. I love putting together a post and seeing how people respond to it. I love seeing the number of daily, weekly and monthly hits slowly creep up. I really love it when it becomes evident someone has actually read and maybe even enjoyed what I've written. Or when someone from the BBC calls me up and asks me if I'd like to be interviewed on their radio show - as if anything I have to say is of any importance or gravity! But none of this is going to pay my nursery bill!

I've thought about writing a book, but I'm not sure that's entirely viable either. These days, precious few people are able to actually make their living from books. Self-publishing on Amazon means that realistically you can only charge a couple of pounds per book and, only keep 70% of that charge.

Don't get me wrong; I'm enjoying the work I'm doing now, but mainly because of the freedom it gives me to fit my working hours around time with S, housework and the occasional bit of me time. The work itself is interesting because I'm learning about different clients' businesses... but it doesn't really set my heart on fire.

So my next big challenge is to figure out how to make a living from writing. A good enough living that I don't have to do too much of it!

Small Steps, Amazing Achievements: DUCK!

This is an old Disney plate someone gave us.

S usually eats her breakfast off it in the mornings.

Her first (and favourite) word is duck. Whenever she sees a duck, she shouts "duck!!" at the top of her voice. When she realised the rubber ducks in the bathroom were also ducks, she started saying it when she saw them. And then, when she realised there was a duck in the book "Yak, Yuck" she started pointing and shouting it whenever we read that book. It's known as that book.

All of those ducks are yellow (except the real ones, obviously)

We've watched Donald Duck cartoons on YouTube several times, but she's never really made the connection. He doesn't actually look very ducky, does he. He wears a blue coat, for goodness' sake.

Yesterday, when she was eating her breakfast, she started shouting "duck!... Duck!... Duck!"

I glanced at the plate, saw the yellow and said "yes, it's yellow like a duck but this is a doggie!" thinking she meant Pluto.

Then she moved a piece of toast to the side, pointed to Donald Duck, and started saying "Duck!" again.

Aside from the fact I felt fairly stupid, I was really chuffed with her! 

And yes, I really did write an entire blog post about a Disney plate and a duck. What of it?

Wordless Wednesday: Our Week in Instagram

Another Example of the Benefits System Being Stupid

My Housing Benefit is dependent on how much money I earn, and how much I pay out on nursery bills.

Each month, I go to the council office and wait in line to submit my payslip and my nursery bill. This usually takes at least half an hour, even when there is nobody waiting in front of me. Even first thing in the morning, they make you wait.

The council then look at my payslip and my nursery bill and do some terribly convoluted calculation before sending me a coded letter about how much Housing Benefit I am entitled to. This usually takes 2 weeks, so they backdate whatever amendment is made to the beginning of the month. So if they've been under-paying, they'll put a lump sum into my rent account, and if they've been over-paying they'll claw it back by cutting the amount I am entitled to for a few weeks until the difference is made up. When they send the letter, they usually send copies of every other letter they've sent during this financial year, so as the year goes on the envelopes get fatter and fatter. 

Make sense? No? Good. That's what they want. If you don't understand exactly what they're doing, you won't notice when they cock it up. Which they will.

At the beginning of August, I had the usual payslip (I was salaried, so my wages really didn't alter from month to month), but nursery was closed for two weeks, so my nursery bill basically halved. I took my paperwork into the office as usual, and as usual it took them two weeks to process it and come back to me.

My Housing Benefit was usually around £45 a week, but for August, because of this difference in my nursery bill, the benefit went down to around £3 a week. That's fine; I don't expect to be given benefit if I have the money to pay my rent. (I have no idea how the hell this will work next time though, when I'm self employed and don't get paid holiday but also don't have any childcare for 2 weeks)

What happened next though, is a bit of a farce.

At the beginning of September, I got another payslip (same as the others) and another nursery bill (almost identical to every month except August). I submitted them to the council office, and waited for my letter amending my benefit.

At the beginning of October, I'd still had no letter. I called the council and they told me it was probably just caught in a backlog, and that I should go ahead and submit my next lot of paperwork - which I dutifully did.

By last week, I'd still had no letter, and had been unable to get through to anyone regarding how much rent I should be paying - so I was just paying what I'd always paid, and figured it would all even out in the end. Wrong!

On Wednesday afternoon I had a phone call from someone who was clearly a little power crazed and perhaps not having the best day. She told me she was calling about my overdue rent account, at which point I said "oh good, perhaps you can help me sort out what's going on." She then proceeded to tell me there would be court proceedings against me, and they would be seeking to repossess my property due to unpaid rent. The backlog of what I'd assumed was being covered by my housing benefit had built up to an unacceptable level. She was cross with me because she'd had to call after I'd ignored the three letters she'd sent me. The fact not one letter had arrived at my property was neither here nor there.

After I'd picked myself up off the floor, I explained I'd been waiting to hear about changes to my Housing Benefit after my nursery bill had increased. Little Miss Diplomat looked at my benefit account and told me, in no uncertain terms that no, the account was all up to date, and I was only entitled to £3 a week in benefit and I  had been sent a letter about it. There was no paperwork outstanding, and now I needed to pay what was owed.

We agreed that going forward I would pay extra rent to clear the backlog. She told me I would still get a letter telling me I was being taken to court, but to ignore it; so long as I paid the agreed amount each week she would take no further action. I asked her to put that part in writing!

I've had a fairly worrying weekend, wondering how the hell I would afford to basically pay double rent, and wondering why my whopping great nursery bill no longer entitled me to assistance with my rent when it had up until August.

The punchline landed on my door mat at lunch time yesterday: a benefit letter from the council. My Housing Benefit is now £45 a week, and they've made a payment this morning of £400+ into my rent account to catch up on their backlog. On the bottom of the letter, in bold type: "YOU MUST TELL US IMMEDIATELY IF YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE." ... so that we can wait 2 months before doing anything about it, and then scare the living shit out of you.

They also sent a separate letter, in a separate envelope, asking me to please bring in my October payslip and nursery bill.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is where your council tax goes. This is what you pay for. Useless bureaucracy, red tape, council department who work in the same building but do not communicate, power crazed PMT monsters and several pointless letters going to the same address in separate envelopes.

I am now very worried about what will happen when I am fully self employed. Nobody I have spoken to at the council has been able to tell me definitively what I need to do, how I submit my earnings etc. My income is likely to fluctuate more than it did when I was salaried.

And then there's the issue of the nursery closing for another two weeks in December, which means another smaller invoice, another cut in housing benefit, another two months to get it increased again, another horrifying call threatening to kick me and my daughter out on the street.

Here are some other posts I've written about benefits.

Sleeping: Time for a Change?

I think it might be time to put S into her own bedroom.

She's coming up on 19 months old.

For a brief period when she was first born, she slept in a moses basket for a few weeks before I just gave up on it, and decided to just have her sleep in my bed. It was just easier for night feeds to have her right next to me,  and so much easier to get us both back to sleep afterwards too. I ended up feeding her to sleep most of the time, which everyone said was a bad thing, but it was the best choice for us at the time.

When S started being able to roll, I took me bed off its frame and we began sleeping on a mattress on the floor. For a brief period we experimented with me sleeping on my mattress and S sleeping on a single mattress right next to it, but I felt she was too far away from me, and so that idea did not last!

When S was around 11 months old, she went through a particularly difficult patch of teething. She cried all night in pain, and didn't want to be cuddled or held in any way. Many nights, I ended up putting a Baby Jake dvd on and rocking her to sleep in a long-outgrown bouncy chair (never underestimate the worth of a Fisher Price Calming Vibrations chair!) I'm fairly sure, hellish though those nights were for both of us, they helped S to get used to going to sleep without being fed.

When S got a little older, and had gone well past the point of no return where the bouncy chair was concerned, I moved the cot into our bedroom . I continued to feed her to sleep in my bed, but on the nights where she just couldn't sleep and didn't want a cuddle or a story or seemingly anything, I would put her in the cot to watch Baby Jake while I got a little rest.

After a while, I started feeding her to sleep in my bed and then carefully putting her down in the cot. Then when she woke in the night I would bring her into bed with me. Eventually, once she was 13 months old, she just slept straight through the night.

Since then, things have gone up and down. She's had trouble with teething, we've had nights where she's been rocked to sleep in a pushchair while watching Despicable Me on repeat. But on the whole, she sleeps in her cot. My bed is now back on its frame.

I have been thinking recently though, that perhaps she needs to be in her own bedroom. Not because I need my space - I've only just managed to tear myself away from sleeping head-to-head with her on a mattress on the floor - but because I think perhaps I disturb her when I go to bed.

Magic Moments: Play Time With Auntie A

My sister is a bit awesome. She spent most of the weekend with us, and most of Sunday taking care of S so that I could work and write an essay that was due in.

On Sunday morning I went and hid upstairs while S stayed downstairs with A. 

As I sat on my bed, trying to concentrate on a ridiculous assignment in which I had no interest, I could hear whoops of laughter, screaming, running, giggling. 

S climbed on things, jumped, ran around, played peekaboo, clambered over bean bags, sloshed water bottles, pulled faces, practised her new words. At one point I could hear her making "wibbly" noises as if she were being jigged on someone's knee, but when I looked she was sitting on the trolley her building blocks live in... with a big blanket wrapped around her, with my sister quickly wobbling her back and forth while they both grinned from ear to ear!

At one point my other sister Z came to visit with her partner and their son, E, who is only 9 weeks old. I think S enjoyed showing off, prancing about in her vest and wellies saying "oh dear... oh no!"

A often looks after S for me. Whenever she does, I remind her that I want it to be a treat for S to spend time with her auntie. She should look forward to it, and not feel that she's been dumped on someone so that I can go out or something. This weekend was the first time I've left A looking after S, but not left the house. The noise that came from downstairs while I was messing about with my stupid assignment made me smile. I wanted to sneak down here to see what was causing so much merriment! 

Later, while I cooked our tea, S spent half an hour running up and down the hall way, shrieking with delight as A opened and closed the living room door. I have no idea what was so funny, but it was positively hysterical.

I still feel very guilty that I barely spent any time with S this weekend... but I know she had a fantastic time!

Silent Sunday 2013-10-27

Review: Baby Leg Warmers

Anyone who knows us, knows that we love our leg warmers.

When I started putting S in washable nappies, her bum instantly became too big for a lot of her trousers so I bought a couple of pairs of leg warmers. And there began our obsession. 

So when Nappy Kind Boutique offered us a discount in exchange for a review, I jumped at the change!

Look at the lovely leg warmers we bought:

I love these because they're great quality and wash really well, which is important with a messy toddler in the house! The bright colours are perfect for keeping warm and staying stylishly cool!

Here's a list of reasons I love leg warmers:

• They come in loads of different and cool designs 
• If your child is wearing washable nappies, or potty training, or doing EC, they keep legs warm without having to pull trousers up and down.
• They're not affected by baby's growth - legs are still legs, and leg warmers will usually still fit just fine. They might just become a little shorter.
• You can get them to suit any outfit
• If you're carrying baby in a sling you can put them at the bottom of trousers to ensure ankles stay warm
• If baby sleeps in a gro bag, and it's cold, you can put them over their arms to keep them toasty!
• Nappy Kind Boutique usually have several on sale, special offers, promotions etc.

AND this weekend there is a special promotion on their website: enter "feelingchilly" at the checkout for a discount!

What are you waiting for??

Disclaimer: I was given a discount on my purchases in return for writing this post, but that was not dependent on a favourable review. All words and opinions are my own.

Saturday is Peekaboo Caption Day!

Comment with your caption!

My Sister Crashed Her Motorbike...

This is my sister, A. I've written about her before. 

She is our chief baby sitter. S loves her.

A couple of Fridays ago, I had an exam for my OU work. We had planned, at great length, how A would pick S up from nursery, take her home, give her tea, put her to bed.

On the morning in question, I woke up to find a text from A: "please call me as soon as you get this, don't worry what the time is; I'll be awake all night."

My first reaction was oh FFS, she's gone out and got drunk and now she doesn't want to babysit for me and how the hell am I going to take this stupid exam now!

When I eventually got hold of her, she told me she had fallen off her bike on the way home from work last night, but not to worry because she was fine. She was in hospital for the moment, but just waiting for the doctors to come round first thing and check whether she'd broken her jaw. But she was sure her jaw wasn't broken, so I wasn't to worry; she should be out in plenty of time to pick S up from nursery later.

I told her she was a dick, and that I was fairly sure nobody wanted the Elephant Man rocking up at nursery on a Friday afternoon. I called my other sister, Z, and we went up to see her. This is what we found:

See how her jaw is all over to one side? Yeah. That'll be where it's broken.

From the look of her helmet, and the distinct lack of injury elsewhere on her body, it would seem that she came off her bike, flew through the air and landed on her chin. In the middle of a country road in the arse end of nowhere, in the middle of the night. Only my sister could manage such a feat.

We waited in the hospital with her while the doctors ummed and ahh-ed over what to do. After a couple of hours someone came to take her to get some impressions done of her teeth. You know when you go to the dentist, and they put those moulds in your mouth, with all the gooey stuff that oozes out all around your mouth? They did that. To a girl with a tiny mouth and a broken jaw. She was off her head on liquid morphine at this point, but you could still tell it was agony. The doctor went out of the room several times to see if she was able to get smaller plates for the goo because they couldn't get her mouth to open wide enough.

I'm fairly sure I helped the situation by commenting once it was all over, that with the bright yellow moulding putty around her mouth, she looked like she'd just eaten a minion.

We went back to the ward, and they told us she would need an operation to fix bars to her upper and lower jaw; they would then be wired together, and she would be given vitamin drinks to suck through a straw for sustenance "for a good few weeks." They said the operation would be later that day, and stopped giving her the oral pain relief in case she was taken to surgery.

I had to leave to pick S up from nursery, and my sister Z had to get her baby home so we left. Poor old A had about ten minutes' peace before my mum turned up.

After my mum left, she managed to get a little sleep; then, around 9pm, they told her that actually, she couldn't have her operation today and could go home. They gave her some pasta (which she couldn't really eat on account of the fact she had a broken jaw) and some jelly and ice cream, and sent her on her merry way.

The following day, she rocked up at the hospital at 8am to wait for an emergency surgery slot. She sat in a waiting room, "Nil by Mouth" for hours. To start with, the surgeon they were waiting on was not in the hospital; he was operating somewhere else. They moved her to the burns unit because... well, they never quite explained that part. She finally went in for surgery at 8pm. By the time they came to put a drip in her arm, she was so dehydrated from 12 hours with no water, they couldn't find a vein and played a little game of "stabby stabby" on her before they managed to get a cannula in.

When she woke up, there was a metal bar above her top teeth, an another below the bottom ones. She still is not quite sure how they are attached, because when the doctors asked if she wanted them to explain, she refused; she thought it would probably freak her out a bit.

The next morning, "a really nice lady" who may or may not have been a doctor (liquid morphine is a great thing) came and put some very small elastic bands on the bars, thus basically clamping her mouth shut. She couldn't even fit a straw between the gap, so everything she drank had to be swooshed past her front teeth. The elastic bands came with spares, in case those ones broke, and emergency scissors, in case of a vomit situation.

On the Sunday evening they packed her off home with a bag of Fortisips and some bottles of Calpol and liquid Nurofen. The Fortisip is a flavoured meal replacement drink that's not very yummy. The Calpol and Nurofen were to be taken every four hours - 20ml of each, which is 4 syringes full. 8 in total. It's very sugary and made her feel sick. For some reason she thought drinking tomato soup through a straw in between syringes full of sickly sweet medicine would make it taste better. She was wrong. After two days of going through a bottle of each a day, we called the doctor and got some soluble paracetamol and ibuprofen, and that worked a bit better. Incidentally, it's quite amusing to watch someone try to eat/drink anything even vaguely messy, when their tongue is trapped inside of their mouth. Especially yogurt. That one's a real favourite.

A week later she went back to the hospital, and they put some slightly larger elastic bands on the bars. Now she can fit small, soft pieces of food into her mouth - but she can't really chew, and still can't stick her tongue out to lick her lips.

She goes back to the hospital in a couple of weeks to check on her progress.

Meanwhile, she's already back on the bike - which was as luck as she was, in terms of damage. She does have a new crash helmet though; the old one is being used in her A Level Art coursework.

Blog Your Heart Out

I was nominated for this by Kerrie at Wife Mum Student Bum (don't you just love that name!).

From what I can tell this is one of those things were you give recognition to blogs you enjoy reading... so I'm a bit gutted Kerrie nominated me  as I can't then nominate her. And I do so love to read her blog.

Rules of nomination are that I answer a few questions and then I nominate 5 other blogs. I think this is a lovely idea because it might help you to find a blog you would enjoy and may otherwise not have found. Plus it's always nice to pat each other on the back from time to time isn't it!

I must confess, since the whole redundancy/self-employed thing I've not kept up with my blog reading at all. I've been completely hopeless at it, as I've been spending most of my spare reading time reading about my new work in the hope of gaining more clients.

Any way, here goes with the questions.

Who/what encouraged you to start blogging?
When S was first born I felt incredibly lonely and unsure of myself. I'd always had a blog before, back in the days of Live Journal when blogging was more of an exercise in angst competition, but I'd not thought of it since. Any way, I wrote something about being strong, just some thoughts that had come to me while I was thinking one day, and posted it as a note on Facebook. My friend Liv, who is @omniphonik on Twitter, commented asking if I'd thought about blogging before. I thought she was being ridiculous, but then decided I might give it a go. That was about 13 months ago, and I've found that actually, I love blogging. I've met so many amazing people (some even in person!), I've had great opportunities, and even been paid to write some posts. In fact, I'd say the blogging has now led to my becoming self employed which I am loving so far. so I probably owe Liv a fair bit.

How did you choose what topics to blog about?
At first, I just wrote about what was going on in my life, and the struggles I was facing. As my confidence has grown I've written about events in my past that have led me to this point: the abusive relationship I left when S was born, the breakdown, various other things. These days I tend to just come up with ideas all the time, about all sorts of different things. Which is nice.

Tell us something people don't know about you
Hmm. I usually use the nape piercings for this sort of thing, but since I posted a photo the other day I can't very well can
I!  Ok, I have a birth mark on the top of my left foot. It's right on the top, where the bone has a knobbly bit and goes down to your big toe. When I was little, I thought the red mark was caused by my shoes not fitting properly, and would tell my parents we needed to go to the shop to get new shoes. Looking back, I'm amazed they never told me to just shut up, and did take me to the shop to have my feet measured. They never told me I just had a birth mark on my foot, and I don't think I put two and two together until I was about 20 or something.

What three words describe your style?
conversational, irreverent, haphazard.

What do you like to do when you're not blogging?
I spend a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter - either working, or dicking about. Or dicking about and calling it work, which is my favourite. I bake a lot of brownies and spend a lot of time making a mess with my daughter.

My Nominations:

Laura from My Life as a Mummy - she has a little boy and another on the way. Pending cute baby/big brother photos alert!! 

Cas from Mummy Never Sleeps - she is quite funny, you know. Sometimes she doesn't mean to be, but mostly I think she does.

"T" from Mummy Barrow - I don't know her real name, but she hosts Ranty Friday which  is a fabulous idea for a linky.

Jane from Ethan's Escapades - because I love her blog, her little boy is cute enough to eat - and she looks a lot like my health visitor (who I love). Incidentally, Ethan is autistic, and I know I have a fair few readers with autistic children who might really enjoy this blog.

Katie at Hurrah for Gin - because who could fail to love a blog with that name? Also her Twitter blurb says "nothing you do is evil - unless you are evil" which I think is an important thing to remember in parenting.

Have You Ever...

I was tagged in this by Laura at My Life As A Mummy.
Here are 70 things... Have you ever...?

1. Taken a picture naked? Yes
2. Painted your room? Yes
3. Kissed a member of the same sex? No
4. Driven a car? Yes
5. Danced in front of your mirror? Yes
6. Had a crush? Yes
7. Been dumped? Yes
8. Stolen money from a friend? No
9. Gotten in a car with people you've just met? No
10. Been in a fist fight? Not unless you count my brother.
11. Snuck out of your house? Never needed to!
12. Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back? All the time.
13. Been arrested? No, they said it would be too much paperwork.
14. Made out with a stranger? Yes a long time ago
15. Met up with a member of the opposite sex somewhere? Er, isn't this a date? Yes!
16. Left your house without telling your parents? Yes
17. Had a crush on your neighbour? No
18. Ditched school to do something more fun? No
19. Slept in a bed with a member of the same sex? Yes
20. Seen someone die? No
21. Been on a plane? Yes
22. Kissed a picture? Yes
24. Love someone or miss someone right now? Yes
25. Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by? Yes
26. Made a snow angel? Yes
27. Played dress up? Yes
28. Cheated while playing a game? Probably when I was a kid
29. Been lonely? Yes, right now!
30. Fallen asleep at school/work? Yes, lots. When I was pregnant my boss threw pens to keep me awake
31. Been to a club? Yes
32. Felt an earthquake? No
33. Touched a snake? Yes
34. Ran a red light? No
35. Been suspended from school? No
36. Had detention? Yes, but just the one.
37. Been in a car accident? No
38. Hated the way you look? Yes
39. Witnessed a crime? Yes
40. Pole danced? No
41. Been lost? All my life!
42. Been to the opposite side of the country? Opposite end, yes
43. Felt like dying? Yes
44. Cried yourself to sleep? Yes
45. There was no 45 on Laura's list! The horror!
46. Sang karaoke? Yes, once.
47. Done something you told yourself you wouldn't? Yes
48. Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? All the time.
49. Caught a snowflake on your tongue? Yes
50. Kissed in the rain? Yes
51. Sang in the shower? Yes
52. Made out in a park? Yes
53. Dream that you married someone? No
54. Glued your hand to something? No
55. Got your tongue stuck to a flagpole? WTF?
56. Gone to school partially naked? see previous response
57. Been a cheerleader? No
58. Sat on a roof top? No but I stood on the roof of the college before I abseiled off it
59. Brush your teeth? No, no I never brush my teeth. Who wrote these?!
60. Been too scared to watch scary movies alone? Always
61. Played chicken? No
62. Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? No
63. Been told you're hot by a complete stranger? Not that I recall
64. Broken a bone? Yes. Collar bone. Don't recommend it.
65. Been easily amused? As often as possible
66. Laughed so hard you cried? See above
67. Mooned/flashed someone? Yes, lots
68. Cheated on a test? No
69. Forgotten someone's name? Embarrassingly often
70. Slept naked? Yes

Small Steps, Amazing Achievements - Bed!

After a year of my bed being a mattress on the floor so that S wasn't in danger of injury when sharing my bed, I finally put the frame back together last week.

I'm loving having a proper bed again - but I was worried about S mastering the art of climbing down from it, rather than face-planting, as she seems to do from the sofa or anywhere else she manages to climb to.

I spent a bit of time showing her how to roll onto her belly and always go feet first. That was more than a little nerve racking, since my daughter seems to have no concept of height being a problem, and would happily launch herself towards the very edge of the bed with no concern as to whether she might fall off.

Surprisingly though, after the first couple of aided demonstrations, she seems to have picked it up pretty well. So far we've only had one falling-off incident, and that was when she let herself down too quickly, rather than an actual face-plant.

I took these photos yesterday morning and as you can tell, she's climbing down from the bed like a seasoned pro now... even if I do spend most of the time in a panic saying "remember how we get down! Feet first! Feet first!!"

Wordless Wednesday: Our Week in Instagram

Review: Green Coffee Extract

I was sent some Green Coffee Extract capsules to try out, which was nice.

Apparently, green coffee extract has been all over the news in recent months. I've no idea though, I'm generally oblivious to this sort of thing. I did have a bit of a Google before I started taking them though and found about as much positive as negative information.

The general gist of it seemed to be, if you take more than the recommended dose, or you have a pre-existing medical condition then it's possible you'll get some bad side effects.

I would just like to point out here, before I get all sorts of comments, I did not test these pills while I was breastfeeding.

So here's the science bit, concentrate!

Apparently scientists have found that coffee can help with mental and physical performance, liver disease, heart health and weight loss. 
There is an antioxidant in green (unroasted) coffee beans  which is apparently thought to affect how the body handles blood sugar and metabolism. Research points to a 10% reduction in body weight over 22 weeks following daily supplementation with green coffee extract.

I'm not hideously overweight, but I do have a few pounds to shift so I was happy to give these a go. You take one capsule three times a day with meals, which is fairly easy to remember - I just carry the pack around in my bag.

I've been taking them for a couple of weeks now. I have to say I'm rubbish at remembering to eat lunch so seem to have been missing that one a fair bit. I'm not sure if I've lost any weight, but I do feel slimmer. Just less bloated really, and my clothes fit me a little more comfortably. I have also not noticed any side effects - but that is just me, and if you are sensitive to caffeine or prone to any of the illnesses mentioned, it's probably best to steer clear.

These are not some miracle diet pill; they're not going to make you lose shedloads of weight and wake up looking like <insert skinny celeb of your choice here>, but when combined with sensible eating and exercise, they do seem to help with the old fat burning. That said, watch this space to see if I turn into a swimwear model.

The Green Coffee Extract I tried is by HealthSpark and available from Holland & Barrett for £19.99 for 90 capsules.

Disclaimer: I received some Green Coffee Extract capsules in exchange for writing this review, but that was not dependent on my writing a favourable review. All words and opinions are my own.

Magic Moments - Lazy Weekend In

S has been a bit poorly the last couple of weeks. Her nose has been running constantly since August, and just as I think it's starting to clear up, it gets ten times worse again. We've been back and forth to the doctor a couple of times because I'm paranoid about her chest (family is prone to eczema/asthma) and ears (father half-deaf from untreated ear infection). Last weekend they gave her antibiotics, but they don't seem to have helped her much.

So this weekend, what with the weather being rubbish and us not having any pressing engagements anywhere, I decided we'd just have a lazy weekend in.

We did have a brief trip to "big Tesco" with my mum, which S absolutely loved because it involved her three favourite things: a car trip, a ride in a trolley and getting to run around a great big shop looking at fun things. Other than that, we've stayed in.

We didn't do anything special; there wasn't even any messy play involved. We just spent our time together, playing with toys and watching Shrek and chilling out.

It was nice just to chill out together, and to remember that you don't need anything special to have a special time. I'm hoping that a nice chilled weekend, with a super-long nap on Saturday and an early night on Sunday will help S to finally shake off her illness and start to feel a bit better.

Silent Sunday 2013-10-20

Saturday is Brush-Chatting Caption Day

I keep a dustpan and brush in the bedroom, in case of cracker-related emergency. More often than not though, it is used for general toddler-related play.

Imagine if This Were Your Life...

A child cries in the night, but I'm not allowed to go to her; she is four years old and can fend for herself. In the morning, she has wet her bed and is in trouble. "You fucking little..." she will be hit for it, if she doesn't move fast enough. Her older sister is ordered to change the bed sheets. She doesn't want to though, and resents having to. When I look later, she has changed the duvet cover but nothing else. She's called her sister a fair few names also.

His beer belly hangs over his ten-year-old, moth-eaten pants. He hasn't washed for a week, but he tells me I smell bad. My skin is spotty because I don't wash properly; not to worry, he will do it for me next time. He is so good to me. I'm lucky to have him; he puts up with my horrible moods, the way I treat him. He jabs at me with knives, bites me and throws things at me but only in jest. I just can't take a joke; I'm too serious and bruise easily. 

I do need to lose a little weight though; I'm looking a little porky. I should have pride in myself, like he does, and always suck my belly in. If I put on any more weight, he will have to get rid of me. Can't stand laziness, you see. It's my own fault he's slept with other women; I don't look after him properly, am not there when he needs me. I torture him by leaving his side and allowing dark thoughts to creep into his brain. He is convinced I have slept with others too. I must try harder to convince him of my love.

We sit in the kitchen while a ten year old makes us breakfast. She makes the best eggs in the world, but I can't help feeling this should be the other way around. The children are banished to the living room, where they fight over which dvd to watch; they are not allowed to watch actual TV. The oldest child wins, and something wholly inappropriate for the younger ones is put on. Not to worry though; if they don't like it they will just go and play in their bedroom. It's not a problem. One of them comes into the kitchen to ask me a question; she brushes past her father and is shouted at. "don't fucking touch me! Get off me! Get out of the kitchen!"

Other children come to visit; I lose count of how many are running around the house and garden screaming. The ones who live here are not allowed out until they have done their chores and so children whose names I do not know wrestle each other on the sofa and in the garden until they are tears... and then the victor moves on to the next opponent. 

He slouches over the table, periodically demanding mugs of tea and chocolate hob nobs from children. If the tea is spilled, they are in trouble. If one of them is burned, it is their own fault; shouldn't have been messing around when they were meant to be doing their chores.

I am sent to have a bath. He sits in the bathroom, with his back against the door. The children run riot outside the door, but are sent away in a flurry of cursing. I am to stay in the bath for as long as possible. Over an hour. Relax, he tells me. When I can lay in the water no more, he sits and watches me wash. I am doing it wrong, though. I stand in the bath and he scrubs at my skin until it is sore, then instructs me how to rinse myself. 

When we finally come out of the bathroom, some of the children have taken the chance to escape. They have gone to the park or friends' houses. There are no pens or paper in the house, so they could not have left a note even if they'd wanted. He exclaims, If Social Services knocked my door now, I'd be in the shit. I've no idea where any of them is." He doesn't seem concerned for their safety. When one of them is still out long after dark, there is no concern to be seen. Only anger when he does come through the door: what do you mean by going to other people's houses begging for food? Now they'll think I don't feed you, you little fucking shit, making me look bad! The boy is sent to the kitchen to clean up after everyone else's dinner.

There is no bed time in this house. On weekends, in the hope the children will wake later in the mornings, they are kept up as late as possible. There is little as pitiful as a 4 year old standing in a living room door way at 10 pm, begging to be allowed to go to bed. I sneak her upstairs and tuck her into her piss-stained bed, and come downstairs to be called a fucking stupid bitch. Again.

The Thing About Blogging

I love this blog. I love having a place to record everything that happens with S, a place to have a voice for single parents, survivors of domestic abuse, benefits claimants. I like to be able to write about the things I am thinking about.

And I keep a close eye on my stats. I keep a daily record of how many views the blog has had. I pay attention to where those visitors are coming from. I advertise my posts shamelessly across several social networks. My business card has a link to my blog on the back of it; my email signature includes a link here.

Why then, am I so surprised when people appear to have read something I've written here?

A few months ago a lovely lady in my local shop asked me, "are you Single Mother Ahoy?" and I almost fell over!

More recently, people have commented in person on something I've written, or complimented me on my writing style.

I think the only way to write a blog, and write it honestly and seriously, is to do the whole "dance like nobody's watching" thing, and just assume nobody will read it. If I sat here thinking, "right, here I go, writing a post about being a parent/being on benefis/surviving domestic abuse for all those hundreds of people out there who might well read it" I would fret so much over whether people would like what I was writing, I'd never get to the point of publishing anything!

Also, there is the confidence aspect of it. I've never considered the tripe I blather on about to be really worth anyone else's extended attention. When I started this blog a year ago, the only people were reading it were loyal friends and nosey locals; the friends wanted to support me, and the nosey locals just wanted some gossip. I suppose (despite increased views etc) I'd just assumed that over time both those groups of people had lost interest, and that now they were perhaps skim-reading the first paragraph at most, and then carrying on with their days.

So I tend to just plod along obliviously - and then get a shock when someone tells me they've read something I've written. Or they remember something I've written about, and carry on the discussion with me in person. My mind is literally blown every time it happens.

Do you find this with your blog? Do you forget that anyone reads what you post... or are you constantly aware of your readers?

All About Me

Jane from Ethan's Escapades tagged me to take part in this "All About Me MEME" which I thought might be fun. I believe the original idea came from Gina at Cold Tea and Smelly Nappies.

So here we go:

1. First off tell us your name and what you do (nice easy one there)…
My name is Vicky. Technically I am still employed as an inbound call centre operative for a pension company. But I'm redundant and on gardening leave, pending a move into self employment.

2. I live at home with…
My beautiful little girl S. Nobody else, just the two of us.

3. My favourite thing to do is…
Anything that involves cuddles with S to be honest!

4. My favourite thing to eat is…
Ha this changes practically daily! At the moment I really would like... I don't even know! I think half my problem is that I don't know precisely what I want to eat, so I eat a load of rubbish, trying to find that one thing that really tastes good. This is something that could feasibly be transferred to other areas of my life, also. I've not really answered that question, sorry.

5. When I get cross I…
Cry. And it's really annoying. When I'm really angry about something, I end up crying and then the person I am angry with doesn't take me seriously. It doesn't happen too often nowadays though, since I cut all ties with the main culprit. 

6. Sometimes I worry because…
S only has me. And because of the people I feel are just waiting for their opportunity to take her from me. I never let go of her hand; I never take my eyes off her. I would never lose track of her at soft play or a children's party; I can't afford to. I can't afford to be ill, to get run over, to have appendicitis. I must be in good health from now until she is old enough to understand the danger, and to take care of herself.

7. My favourite book is…
At the moment, I'm loving The F Factor by Damsels in Success, which I would recommend to any woman running her own business. I'm one of those people whose favourite anything changes on a weekly basis, so do feel free to ask me this question again next week!

8. My favourite toy is (easy now)…
Does a Kindle count as a toy? I bought mine 3 years ago, and I love it! I read so much more since I bought it. It's so easy to carry around in your handbag, but also since you can use it one-handed and turn the page with your thumb. Perfect for breastfeeding... or for long evenings rocking your child back and forth in a buggy, as I have been doing lately.

9. I dislike…
Wow, I really had to think about this one. I dislike a lot of little things - like toast crumbs in my bed, or getting into the shower before I realise I've run out of shampoo. But I suppose really I should think of something a little more worthy here. 
At the moment, I hate the media furore surrounding benefits claimants. Sixty per cent of UK families claim benefits, but certain news papers and several TV "documentaries" lately have vilified us all as being feckless scroungers. It sickens me to the core.
Oh, and Coldplay, of course. I fucking hate Coldplay.

10. When I grow up I want to be…
I still have no clue about this. I do know that I don't want to be working in pensions, and that I'm enjoying what I'm doing at the moment - so perhaps, at 32 years of age, I'm finally heading in the right direction.


Ok, I think now I need to "tag" five more bloggers to answer the same question... Apologies if you've already done this; I'm terribly bad for keeping up with my reading so I never know where people are with these things... 

Craig from A Day In This Dad's Life
Amy from In Bloom
Laura from My Life as a Mummy
Emma at Bubba Blue and Me
Lauren at Woman With Baby

Wordless Wednesday: Our Week in Instagram

Recipe: Fruity Breakfast Muffins

A while back, I posted a recipe for oaty pancakes. I love making them, and they're easy to make in a batch and freeze, so we had them every day for about four hundred years. And then S got sick of them, and I had a problem on my hands: what else could we have for breakfast that would be relatively healthy, easy to make, quick to eat and minimally messy...

Step up, breakfast muffins! I got this recipe from... I don't know, some website or other. But I've adapted it a bit because I don't like to follow instructions.

Ingredients

125g plain flour

75g wholemeal flour

200g porridge oats

75g brown sugar

3tsp baking powder

1tsp cinnamon

1tsp salt - original recipe has this; I don't use it because I don't like to add salt to food

2 bananas, mashed - you can substitute one banana for a pear or other squishy fruit, if you have it hanging about the kitchen to use up. It needs to be squishy fruit though.

2 large eggs, separated

3tbsp sunflower oil

250ml milk

125g blueberries  - great in Summer, expensive and impractical in Winter. I tend to just use some other dried fruit instead. I like to soak the fruit in juice over night, so that it is nice and plump

50g dried fruit of choice

Method

In a large bowl, mix the flours, oats, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt if you're using it. I also add some nutmeg at this stage, and maybe some mixed spice. Because I'm feeling Christmassy.

Make a well in the centre and add your wet ingredients (except egg whites): bananas, egg yolks, oil, milk. Gently mix together until it's just about combined - don't over mix it or bad things will happen.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites into soft peaks then gently fold them into the cake mixture and add your dried fruit.

This is how my mix looks, before it goes in the cake cases.

Now, the recipe says you put the mixture into 12 cake cases - but in my experience it makes closer to 18, even using large cases. So allow for that when you're preparing your baking trays.

Bake for 25 minutes at 200 C.

They keep for a couple of days, and then get gradually more stale, and the last lot I made were mouldy within about 5 days. So it's probably a good idea to either feed them to friends and family, or freeze them (and remember to defrost one or two the night before!).

The last batch I made had glace cherries, raisins soaked in orange juice and currants in them

They seemed to go down well.

Magic Moments: Shower Time!

When we first had a shower fitted, I would use it to rinse shampoo out of S's hair when she had a bath. She was wary of it to start with, but then would cautiously walk towards it to stand under the flow of water.

One evening S was particularly mucky after tea, and it was a bit late to be messing about running a bath so I thought I'd give her a shower... and it was a massive hit! She's not had a bath since!

Over the last month or so, we've  settled into a nice little routine: S has her tea and makes as much mess as is humanly possible. Then I carefully lift her from her high chair and try to get her up the stairs without getting too much food on me or the floor, and she runs to the bathroom, clinging to the edge of the bath while I try to get her clothes and nappy off her, while she tries to lift her leg over the side of the bath. I'm concerned it'll only be a couple of months before she's able to jump on in before I'm able to get her clothes off!

So any way, we take her clothes off, and then make a big kerfuffle of jumping into the bath ("one... two... three!") and she runs under the stream of water... and my work is done.

S has suffered with a sort of low-grade eczema for about a year now. Nothing bad enough to cause distress, just random patches of dry skin. We tried creams from the doctor and emollient bath oil that just made the bath dangerous. We had some success with putting porridge and coconut oil into the bath, but it was messy to clean up and just a general pain in the arse. Since S has been having a shower instead of a bath, and I've stopped washing her hair because the water washes all the food out of it so there's no need for shampoo, there has been (touch wood) no eczema. Her skin is as soft and squishable as it ever was. 

S will spend as long as she's allowed running up and down the bath, standing under the water and then wandering off to the other end, then coming back to put her face under the water. Back and forth, back and forth. My bath takes forever to drain, so once I switch the water off, she then has another 10 minutes or so of splashing about before getting out. 

It doesn't matter if S is feeling rubbish, teething a bit, has had a bad day, is over-tired. She absolutely loves to have a shower. We no longer fight to make sure she's washed all the food off her face, or fight to get her hair washed, or fight to make sure there's no more "washable" pen on her hands/arms/legs/face/belly. I just let her stand under the shower and it's all taken care of. With endless giggling and shrieking. Perfection.

Silent Sunday 2013-10-13

Saturday is Caption Day!

If there's one thing S loves, it's a shower.

Mental Health Care and Abusive Relationships

When I was pregnant, I came off the medication I had been on since my breakdown.

My GP wanted me to go back onto it once I'd reached 12 weeks, but I refused. (I still refuse). As a compromise, she suggested I see a counsellor instead.

I had been through the self-referral system with CMHT before; I hadn't really rated it when I had been floundering in the abyss of my mental health. I knew they couldn't help me; they knew I was beyond their help, and referred me to the next level of mental health care (which also didn't really help).

Any way, I agreed to go. The way this works is, you call a number which goes through to the overworked secretary of what seems to be several different departments. The phone often rings through to voicemail several times before you reach a real person, and if you leave a voicemail it is often lost in the ether. When you eventually get hold of said overworked secretary, you're about ready to admit defeat and open a vein. She takes her time locating the relevant diary, and then makes you an appointment in about 4 weeks' time to see someone at your doctor's surgery.

The idea is that you speak to the counsellor for 45 minutes or so, they give you some "homework" or something, you go on your merry way and make an appointment to see them again in two weeks. Except the system doesn't work, because once you leave the appointment, you have to go back through the rigmarole mentioned above, and usually end up waiting at least a month between appointments.

I knew all of this, but I didn't want my GP to make me start taking medication again. So I made the call. The appointment they gave me was with a man, which was less than ideal, but it was the only one available so I took it.

At my first appointment I told the man my situation, which was this: my partner had kicked me out in the middle of the night, but when I found out I was pregnant, we got back together. The "fact" it was entirely my fault we had ever split up in the first place was brought up at least once a week; I was to take full responsibility. Eventually I got sick of this, and broke it off. He then went out and slept with someone else (probably more than one person). We got back together shortly after, but I was having a hard time dealing with the fact he'd slept with someone else and refused to share a bed with him until he'd been tested. It was at this point I had my first appointment with the counsellor.

Bear in mind here, that I was in an abusive relationship. This man had slept with someone else in order to punish me for finishing with him. He was still telling me it had all been my fault; I had caused him to kick me out the first time, I had so callously and heartlessly dumped him the second time we split, I had driven him to sleep with someone else by not taking his calls, and now I was deliberately causing drama and trouble by not just going back to normal.

I told the counsellor this. I told him I wasn't sure of my own mind, and wasn't sure if perhaps it was all me, and I was just painting a particularly bad picture of him to the friends and family who were telling me I should just stay away from him.

The counsellor told me he had previously been a relationship counsellor. He told me it wasn't usually allowed, but did I want to bring my partner with me to my next session, and he would try and help us work through this. I asked my partner, and - surprisingly - he accepted.

A few weeks later, we went to see the counsellor together. We sat in a room with him, and he agreed with everything the ex said. At times I felt they were ganging up on me: if we were going to be together, I needed to accept responsibility for what had happened, suck it up and get back to normal.

I remember leaving the appointment, and walking down the street, reeling. The ex was talking to me, but I wasn't hearing; I was walking along thinking, "oh no, I really am a terrible person; I really have been painting an awful, one-sided picture of this man to all of my friends, and now they hate him and it's all my fault!" I felt so guilty about the whole thing, I bought the ex dinner before we went home.

I really felt that since the counselling session was for me and not my partner, the counsellor should at least have tried to be on my "side" for some of it.

When I went to the next session, the counsellor asked me how things had been after the previous one. I told him I felt like they had ganged up on me, and that really it wasn't what I'd needed. The counsellor told me he had been aware of that at the time, but was also very aware that if he agreed with me too much, it might seem that we were ganging up on the ex, and that might make the situation worse for me once we left the session. I wasn't really sure that was a feasible excuse, to be honest.

I didn't go back after that session; I didn't see any point. By agreeing with everything the ex said, he had re-enforced his actions. He had made his behaviour acceptable in the eyes of "the authorities" and more importantly, he had contributed in a large way to the mind games the ex was playing with me. I really couldn't trust my own mind; a mental health professional had shown that to be the case, after all. More than once over the course of my pregnancy, the events of that day were brought back to me - "you counsellor told you about this... remember what your counsellor said..."

A few times since S was born, when I've been having a hard time with things, the GP has suggested I go back to counselling. She's handed me leaflets, and  I've smiled and put them in my handbag knowing I will never call that stupid number. I can't rely on that service to do anything to help me, and I feel that that man's actions were actually detrimental to my mental health and wellbeing. I have no idea if he still works there, and I don't want to find out.

A Post About My Dad

Today is 9 years since my dad died.

I've written and re-written this post several times. I didn't want the day to go unmarked, but I also don't want to drag it all up again. 

Me, my dad, and some truly wonderful wall paper.

The story surrounding his death is far too long and painful to go into here; it wouldn't be fair to my family, even the ones who have since insulted and disowned me, to recount it all. The short version is this:

He had a heart attack while he was on holiday in Spain in June 2004, and came back to the UK in a coma, with brain damage. They told us: "he's in a coma. He has brain damage. We don't know how much brain damage. We won't know until he wakes up. We can't guarantee he will wake up."

Once the local hospital had done what they could with regards his heart attack, he was moved to a specialist brain injury unit in Bath, where he appeared to be making a reasonable recovery. Then he was sick in the night, and inhaled it. He was too weak to cough the vomit back up.

I wasn't there when he died. I couldn't bear the thought of sitting about in that nasty hospital waiting for him to die, so I left and went to Southampton to hide at a friend's house. I stayed hidden there after he'd died too, and I spent Christmas there, hiding.

My dad was a lorry driver. As far as I know, apart from a brief spell working on roads, he drove lorries his whole life. He worked fucking hard. When I was small, he would often be away from Monday to Friday. If he did come home in the week, he would come through the door just as we were eating our tea, and be gone before we got up in the morning. When I was 9, my parents divorced and from then I only saw him on weekends.

My family is not close. We don't talk about feelings. There are ridiculous family secrets going back years that are then casually mentioned in conversation as if you had always known them. I have five brothers and sisters, but it's not unusual to go a week without hearing from any of them, or my mother. I am just as bad; I make little effort to keep in contact with my siblings. We have our own lives now and rarely socialise together. Two of my siblings don't even speak to me any more, and several don't speak to each other.

My dad's death did nothing to bring us any closer; if anything, it pushed us further apart. I hid in Southampton while my sister did what she did as his executor. I don't even know what happened to his things. I have some of his shirts upstairs, but they don't smell like him any more. 

Earlier this year, my older sister told me my dad was disappointed in me before he died. She said I only ever spoke to him when I wanted money, and it upset him. I've not spoken to her since, and I probably never will. 

Not long after S was born, a friend's mother, who knew my dad when they were teenagers, said to me, "I don't mean to  upset you, but if your dad was alive, he never would have allowed this to happen." She was right; I'd thought it often enough myself. 

I know my dad would have been disappointed that I allowed myself to get involved with a person whose family he knew (and not in a good way). He would be disappointed I allowed him to treat me that way; he would be disappointed I'd had a child out of wedlock. But he'd also be damn proud of me that I had the balls to do this alone. He'd be immensely proud of his granddaughter, and he would spoil her rotten. He would be the grandfather boring everyone else to death with photos and stories of his purported prodigy grandchild. 

And he probably would have been the only member of my family I would have seen regularly over the last 18 months.