I rarely eat breakfast. I could blame it on being too busy as the single mother of a toddler, but the truth is I've never been very good at actually sitting down and eating in the mornings. Historically, I've tended to skip breakfast and opt instead for scavenging about the kitchen around 10am, looking for something tasty to eat, and end up eating crap on top of junk, on top of rubbish.

So quite what I thought I was doing signing up for the #RealMymsAllBran 5-Day Challenge, I don't know!

I was sent three boxes of All-Bran to try: Chocolate Wheats, Golden Crunch and Red Berry. The challenge is to have All-Bran for breakfast 5 days in a row, and see how you feel. So I thought I'd give it a go. It was hard to remember to actually make breakfast for myself to be honest, but once I got into it, it was nice to sit down with S and eat breakfast myself. Normally I just sit at the table with her and chat while she eats. It was nice to join in, and she even tried some of my breakfast too, which was fun.

The new All-Bran varieties don't look like normal All-Bran...

Top: All Bran Red Berry
Left: All Bran Golden Crunch
Right: All Bran Chocolate Wheats

It took a bit of getting used to, to actually sit and eat breakfast in the mornings. More than once I came in and sat with S at the table before realising I hadn't made any breakfast for myself! It was nice to sit and eat though, and did make me less likely to snack over the course of the morning. In fact, often once I'd dropped S at nursery I would sit at my desk to work, and not get up until lunch time - and I am normally the worst for picking and snacking almost continuously!

I have had IBS for most of my adult life, and my digestive health is a fine balance. Apparently 90-95% of the body's serotonin is made in the gut. Considering my history of depression, I do think I should look after my belly a little better. When I was at uni, my IBS was so bad they thought I might have something a lot more serious. It's calmed down a lot now, but does still flare up from time to time. When I'm nervous or worried, I feel it in my stomach first. When I'm stressed, I definitely feel that in my stomach first! I found that eating All Bran in the mornings upset my usual rhythm - probably because my body is just not used to it. Once the five days was up, I have to say I stopped eating it every day - though I do still eat it from time to time (for a mid-morning snack too sometimes). If I had stuck at it for more than the five days, my body probably would have adjusted... perhaps I'll take another stab at it when my life is a little less hectic.

Of the three varieties, I think the Golden Crunch was the tastiest. I think S preferred the Chocolate Wheats though! The Red Berry was nice too, but I didn't enjoy the taste of the "berry" part and found I needed to put some real red berries with it to make it taste less synthetic.

Although the All-Bran did not immediately agree with me, the habit of sitting down to eat breakfast is something I want to stick with. I find that on the mornings where I am eating with S, rather than just sitting with her, she eats more breakfast herself.

This post is an entry for the Real Mums of All-Bran Linky Challenge, sponsored by Kelloggs.

Wordless Wednesday 2014-07-30

This is me aged 18 months. 

Christmas 1982

Domestic Abuse Law in the News

Yesterday Labour announced that it is their intention, should they gain power in the next election, to bring in a new law that would prevent abusive partners from avoiding prosecution.

Under current laws, offenders can apparently avoid prosecution by using a "community resolution" whereby they apologise to their victim, pay for any damages and so on, and walk away without so much as a police caution.

According to data compiled by Labour, in 2013 there were 3,305 uses of community resolutions for domestic violence - an increase of more than 250% since 2009.

The police argue that community resolution is only used for first time offenders, where they have admitted guilt and the victim's feelings have been considered. Also it's important to remember that the definition of "domestic violence" encompasses anything violent that happens in or around the home. An example I heard used on the radio was a situation where a couple split up, and the man is upset and angry and breaks the wing mirror off the woman's car. It's classed as domestic violence under the law, but he has never been violent before, and so an agreement is made that rather than prosecute him, he will just pay for the wing mirror to be replaced.

Sounds reasonable, right? 

Except, how many of these are cases where it was a first offence were just cases where it was the first reported offence?

How many of these 3,305 cases were incidents where the victim was still partly under the abuser's spell, not really sure what was going on, had been made to feel guilty for getting the police involved in the first place? 

I could lose my job over this, my children will go into care, you'll be responsible for having my children taken away from me; you know how much I love my children; how could you do this to me? How could you do this to my children?  Don't worry though, we can fix this; just tell the police you'll accept an apology and we'll go right back to how things were.

I can tell you from my own experience that it took me a long while to realise, and admit to myself, that what I had gone through was abuse. An abusive person is very good at getting right inside of your head, to the point that a single look or gesture can change what you say or think. They can make you believe that you are in the wrong, even as you're standing there with bruises, scared to move for fear of what they will do next. They can make you believe this is just how life is, and that you're just being prissy and stuck up for acting as if it's out of the ordinary.

I am very concerned about a system that allows, or even encourages, an abuser to have any further contact with their victim at all. 

The police had a representative on Radio 4 yesterday. Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan  from Greater Manchester Police said that using community resolutions is "specifically attuned to low level domestic abuse particularly where victims want that course of action."

Hang on... low level domestic abuse? LOW LEVEL? 

Can someone please explain to me exactly what is classed as low level domestic abuse? 

And while we're at it, assuming low level domestic abuse exists, do we assume that taking the perpetrator home and having them apologise to their victim is an end to the entire situation? 

Do we not think that even with supposed low level domestic abuse, there might be some sort of punishment for having called the police? 

For me, the problem is not so much with the police as with society as a whole. 

When we see domestic abuse, there is a lot of victim blaming. People say things like "she gives as good as she gets" or "she deliberately aggravates him." "She wound him up until he blew" or "he's such a gentle person, they must just have incompatible personalities."

When we're not blaming the victim for being abused, we're blaming them for exaggerating the abuse. Personally I have been told such gems as "he's just  bit moody sometimes, you have to learn to live with it" and "men are just like that, that's what a relationship is."  Something else that is mentioned a lot with emotional and mental abuse is "it's not like he hits you." As if it's perfectly fine to call you names, convince you you're worthless, convince you every problem they've ever had is your fault, use children against you, tell you lies, manipulate you. Because as long as you don't have a bruise, it's all fair game. That's just relationships.

That is most definitely NOT just relationships.

How can an abused woman pick up that phone to call the police, when everyone around her is telling her it's no big deal?

How can she make the decision that no, this is not acceptable behaviour and I do not have to put up with it, when the world around her is obsessing over the new 50 Shades movie where a man basically stalks a woman, stops her seeing her friends and forces her into situations she doesn't want to be in? When women all over the world are lusting after an abusive and controlling character in a book, how does the person who is living it stand up and say NO?

How can we as a society pass laws about domestic abuse, when we're not showing your average person on the street what it is? What is the point in that?

One in five 999 calls is for a domestic abuse situation.

I can tell you now, in the majority of abuse cases the police are never called. People suffer in silence, either because they don't realise it's not acceptable, or because they do realise, but they feel there's nothing they can do about it; it is just their lot in life. There is no help to be found. With funding for over-subscribed shelters being cut, no legal aid, no support, what is the point in changing any law, in any way? 

Every week, two women die at the hands of their partners.

I remain unconvinced that Yvette Cooper's headline grabbing, though it comes from the right place and means well, will do anything significant to change that disgusting statistic.

Let's start with educating people. Not just with TV ads, but in schools. Show teenagers, this is not okay. Show police and healthcare professionals and teachers and politicians: this is not acceptable. Make it so that society as a whole does not allow abuse to happen. Otherwise, any law this or any other government passes will fare about as well as Prohibition in the USA: people will just carry on doing it, because they don't see anything wrong.

Review: Jas Hairdressers, Salisbury

BEFORE: In this photo you can see my rather dodgy roots & split ends

I don’t usually go to the hairdresser. My daughter is two years old, and you don’t even need the fingers of one hand to count how many times I’ve had my hair cut since she was born! There are always more important things to be doing in my child-free time. I hate the forced conversation, the mirrors where it feels like the whole room is watching  you… while you watch them! I hate ending up with a hair-cut that looks great, but only when they’ve spent twenty minutes styling it, and two weeks later it looks awful and you have to book in for another cut!

Last week though, I went to Jas Hair on New Street in Salisbury. Fed up with my DIY blonde hair, grown-out layers and general mop of a hair do, I decided enough was enough.

My stylist was called Pippa, and she started by asking what colour I would like in my hair. I suggested one colour, and Pippa politely pointed out that since I’m rubbish at having my hair done with anything approaching regularity, it might be wise to have two colours: one lighter, and one my natural colour, so that I don’t end up with horrendous roots as it starts to grow out. I liked her thinking! I have very thick, long hair and it took around 90 minutes to put foils through my whole head of hair. During this time, I quizzed Pippa on the best way to ensure my hair doesn’t begin to resemble a bale of straw again any time soon. Pippa’s top tips included:

• Always wear a sun hat when it’s bright out - the sun doesn’t only damage your skin, and a hat can help prevent coloured hair from becoming too dry and brittle.
• Use a treatment mask once a week. If you don’t have time (or you’re lazy!) you can put a little in the ends of your hair before you go to bed, and it won’t add any more time to your usual routine in the morning.
• Use hair products that are relevant to your hair type: silverising shampoo for blonde hair to avoid brassiness; treatments for coloured hair; oils and serums to protect the hair.
• One very interesting point Pippa made was that I should buy a “time restore” treatment mask for “older” hair - not because I am old, but because once your hair gets to a certain length, the hair itself is old. This is not something I had considered before, but it made sense!
• If you’re going on holiday, use a protective conditioning spray before and after going in the sea or pool

The most important point I took away from my appointment was that it’s better to protect your hair from damage, than to try and repair it once the damage has happened!

When it was time to have my foils removed, the dye was washed out and a treatment put on - all while I had my feet up! I was offered a massage while the treatment worked its magic - and happily accepted! I had a lovely scalp, neck and shoulder massage which was lovely and really relaxing. Suddenly my trip to the hairdresser was becoming a pampering experience! The treatment smelled amazing too, which helped.

Before cutting my hair, Pippa smoothed some hair oil along the lengths and ends, something I’ve never bothered with before. She explained that because my hair has just been coloured, it’s important to really look after it and ensure it is protected against the heat of a hair dryer, sunshine and any other products we put on it. She also used some volumising spray. We discussed possibilities for growing out my layers, and what I could do in the meantime. Unsurprisingly, I probably need to have my hair cut more regularly, if I want it to look better!

Once the cut was finished and my hair dry, Pippa used more oil on my hair before spraying it. The finished result was amazing, and I’m really pleased.

AFTER: No roots!

What I loved about visiting Jas was the attention to detail: a massage while you’re waiting for a treatment to work; magazines with hard plastic covers so they don’t flop over while you’re reading them. Foot rests that don’t wobble; air conditioning on a hot day; equipment stored in drawers next to work stations, rather than displayed on shelves. A mirror as you go down the stairs after your cut. The music is not whatever the person in charge is in the mood for that day, but clearly something chosen specifically to create a relaxing mood. When they bring you a glass of water, it comes with a small glass of grapes. Staff who engage you in a genuine conversation instead of the standard script of questions you often get in a salon. Also I think this was the first time I’ve been to a hair stylist who has worked practically with me and my aversion to getting my hair done properly, to ensure I have a cut and colour that will last without my needing to go back before I’m ready/can be bothered. Ironically, this very detail makes me want to make a note in my diary to return in six weeks for a trim!

Book Review: Macavity

Last week we were house sitting for a friend on the other side of town. Realising I couldn't possibly bring all of S's toys across town with us for a week, I decided instead to stop at a book shop on our way and treat S to a new book.

We love our local book shop; they have a fish tank and it's a very comfortable place for a toddler to hang out and browse through the books. In the end, we chose Macavity because we were off to look after a cat for the week.

I won't insult your intelligence by telling you that Macavity the mystery cat is known as The Hidden Paw and the Napoleon of Crime; TS Eliot's poem was first published in 1939 so it's a safe bet he is not new to most people.

Macavity the Mystery Cat was one of several poems about cats published in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, Eliot's only book for a younger audience. The book was the basis for the musical Cats, and I remember learning the song of this poem at school in the 1980s (I know, I can't believe I'm that old either)

The cat himself was modelled on Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories; a perfect criminal mastermind whom the police are unable to catch. 

I loved the poem as a child, and enjoyed imagining all the dastardly deeds Macavity might have committed. This book is a 75th anniversary edition, with illustrations by Arthur Robins, whose work you may be familiar with from numerous other children's books (and cartoons etc).

I have enjoyed reading this with S; each time Macavity's not there she loved to point out where there was a trace of him on the page:

Although obviously a two year old is not likely to understand what lines like his powers of levitation would make a fakir stare mean in the slightest, she understands the general gist of the book and enjoys the illustrations and the rhythm of the poem. It's also a book that will (hopefully) still be fun to read as she gets older, and Eliot's original book is apparently considered suitable reading for 11-year-olds.

I love the idea of introducing her to such old literature by such a great poet. I also love introducing her to the same poem that I enjoyed as a youngster. Plus, with Cats the stage show being such a success, it will be lovely for her to see a familiar poem in a show (even if by then it's finally finished its stint in the West End - it's still a film and a massive part of our culture).

I think considering this is a 75-year-old poem by a man who only produced one book for younger readers, it is still just as much fun for children as it was when first published. S has enjoyed having it read to her, and I even caught her reading it to herself the other night, when she should have been asleep!

My Sunday Photo: 2014-07-27

We enjoyed our week looking after Bailey the cat!

Do You Lie to Your Children?

The other day, S and I were talking to a lady and her little girl, who was the same age as S. The mother whispered to me, it's her birthday today. Just as I was about to start making a big fuss of the child, her mother quickly added, she doesn't know! We're having it on Saturday, with a party.

Part of me thought, what a clever idea - a two year old has no idea which day is which, so why not orchestrate it so that their birthday falls on a day when you have time to celebrate, right?

Another part of me thought it was a bit mean and manipulative to change your child's birthday to suit your other commitments. In the same sort of way that you wouldn't pull faces at a blind person just because they couldn't see you, you shouldn't lie to children just because they've no way of knowing any differently.

I'm still undecided on this point, but it did make me think about the lies adults tell to children. Here are some:

• It's bad luck to cry on your birthday
• It's magic and only works if you are good
• If you pick your nose, your brains will fall out
• The wind will change, and your face will stay like that
• The dog went to live on a farm
• Maybe tomorrow...
• If you swallow apple seeds, a tree will grow in your tummy
• No, you just ate the last one.
• We can't go in there; that shop is closed today

I am also reminded of my nan, who was the queen of the ridiculous lie. She told me if I put my fingers near the electric sockets, they would bite me. She told me she was a witch and could do magic. She told me if I played with my navel, my insides would fall out (and I still have a phobia of belly buttons).

And of course, then you have the big, universal lies like Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

I'm inclined to avoid telling lies to S, however white they may be. I still remember the day I found out Father Christmas wasn't real: my sister told me in whispers that our parents had been lying to us the whole time; she'd seen our father sneaking into our rooms on Christmas Eve. I have this feeling that if you indulge in these things, then at some point you have to reveal the lie, or have it revealed for you. I'd rather it was never there in the first place. 

Then again... what's the harm in indulging a child's belief in magic and mystery, in fairies and pixies and the fantastic?

I'm interested to know what my lovely readers think about this sort of thing. Do you resolutely tell your children the absolute truth about everything, or do you tell little white lies from time to time?

Weekend Blog Hop: 2014-07-26

Hello #WeekendBlogHop -pers!

I hope you have all had a good first week of the Summer Holidays!

We're doing an Instagram Link-up again this week. Do please ensure you follow both of your hosts.

My Instagram profile is here

Laura's Instagram profile is here

This week, it was Laura's turn to choose the Blog Showcase. It gets harder each week, so many lovely posts to choose from! 

She chose this post from Lindsey at 101 Things To Do With Kids

Laura says:

This post really took me back to my childhood. I used to love making Plastic Cup Telephones when I was younger and it's something I want to make with Cameron as I know he would love it. 

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Note: The above badge is for the Bloggers' Showcase only. If you would like the Weekend Blog Hop Badge, you can find it at the bottom of this post.

Now for the #WeekendBlogHop

The rules are simple:

• Link up your BLOG. Do not link up individual posts; these will be removed. 
• Comment on the most recent post of the two blogs ahead of you in the linky. If you have already commented on that post, pick the post published before that. 
• You can comment on more if you like!
• If you tweet your blog using #WeekendBlogHop and tag @mylifeasamummyx and @singlemahoy we will RT as many as possible.
• Please follow at least the two people ahead of you in the Instagram linky.

Link up your BLOG here:

Link up your INSTAGRAM here:

Thanks for linking up, have a great weekend!

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Small Steps, Amazing Achievements

We live in a flat, and don't have a garden. Therefore, S doesn't get to play with water very much except in the shower or at nursery.

This week though, we are house sitting for someone who has a garden, and bought us a paddling pool before she went on holiday. S has spent every available minute either in the pool, or playing with the water from it. She absolutely loves it.

This Small Steps Amazing Achievements is a bit of an odd one because it's something very simple. I gave S a watering can that has a spray attachment on the top. I've spent the last few days trying to teach her that she can fill it up by holding it under the water of the pool, until the bubbles stop. 

What invariably happens though, is that she puts it in the water to "scoop" some up, gets a tiny bit, pours it out, and gets fed up. I kept trying to show her how to do it, but thought perhaps she was just too young to grasp this particular aspect of physics!

This morning though, as I sat at the patio table catching up on my emails and doing other boring chores, I heard a funny noise...

glug glug glug glug

It's the sound of the watering can being held under the water until it is full! 

It's so easy with children, to expect that they should just understand basic ideas like "if you tip your ice pop upside down, it will fall on the floor" and "if you pour water on your shoes, your toes will get wet" - but really, how do they know until they learn? And they don't learn without experiencing it. 

Strictly Dating: #SummerLoving

Regular readers of this blog will know I don't have the best track record with men. Since having S, I've had a go at dating but never really got too far with it. I go through stages where I want to meet someone, and then I go through stages where I think "how can I possibly have a partner before my child is in secondary school?"

When Strictly Dating asked me to take part in their #SummerLoving campaign, I thought it couldn't hurt to give it a go. I signed up to their website to see what would happen...

The site is fairly easy to use; you answer some questions about yourself, write a little blurb (how does anyone know what to write for those?!) and upload a photo. Then you have a look through the profiles and see if anyone takes your fancy!

I've decided to approach this a little less seriously than my last foray into the dating world, and instead see it as a little bit of fun. It would be nice to meet some new people, go on a couple of dates and see what happens. Even if it just means I have a few more friends/acquaintances, at least I might get a couple of evenings' decent conversation out of it!

At the moment I'm chatting to a couple of people. It's a weird feeling because unlike meeting someone in a bar or out somewhere, you both know what you're there for. So you do the whole "hi how are you" thing and then one of you usually mentions a date fairly soon - which probably wouldn't happen if you were chatting to someone in the queue in Tesco!

I would be lying if I said I wasn't at all nervous at the prospect of re-entering the dating world; my last foray didn't amount to much in the end, and it is a bit nerve-wracking  to put yourself out there. But it's also a little exciting - and really, if I never did anything that scared me, I may never leave the house again!

Watch this space to see what happens next!

Wordless Wednesday: 2014-07-23

Things we are enjoying this week:

Having a garden

Sunshine

Water spray bottles

Smiles

Talking About TalkTalk

I am excited to be a TalkTalk ambassador, and for the next few months will be posting about my experience of using TalkTalk.

TalkTalk provides TV, phone and broadband packages; it was set up as part of Carphone Warehouse in 2003, but de-merged to become a standalone company in 2010. When speaking to friends and relatives about them, I heard mixed reviews. Some people thought they were fantastic, the best service they'd ever had, never any problems, and so on. Others seemed to have had a less positive experience. I was interested to find out for myself...

As part of the ambassador program, I was provided with the standard set-up of a phone line, router and You View box for receiving TV. 

Phone Line

There's not a great deal I can say about the phone; it rings, I answer it. I don't use my landline very often, but I've never known the service to go down, be patchy/intermittent or anything untoward. It was handy in fact, to change my phone number - since the number I had with my previous supplier (mentioning no names) seems to have been recycled ad infinitum and of the 4 or so calls I received each day, none were ever for me! This has not happened with my TalkTalk line, which is handy - and peaceful!

Broadband

The router works in the same way as I should imagine all other routers work: it's plugged into the phone line, and allows a wireless connection to anyone with the password. The signal doesn't seem quite as far-reaching as my old router, which means I sometimes have connectivity issues if I'm being lazy and trying to Tweet from bed in the mornings. 

On the other hand though, my old provider went through a stage where the broadband seemed to go down on a regular basis. In the couple of months I've had TalkTalk, this hasn't happened yet. Although it does sometimes seem to cut out for a couple of seconds, it has always come straight back up without delay - and without shouty phone call, which I hate having to make!

TV

The TV comes mostly through the TV aerial, with some channels and additional features coming via the Internet. This means you need to have the You View box plugged into both the aerial socket and the router, which can be a bit of a nuisance if you don't want your TV and router in the same place. My phone socket and aerial sockets are on opposite sides of the room, so I had a slight delay in setting everything up, while I sourced a super long ethernet cable. It's up and running now though, and I love it.

The You View box has loads of additional features, including recording, pausing and rewinding TV. This was a real novelty for me when I first got it, and I went a bit bonkers recording stuff I'd little intention of watching! You can also get "catch up" TV through BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD, 5 On Demand and UKTV On Demand (I think that's all of them) - and there are lots of movies you can pay to view also.

If I'm honest, it's taken me a bit of work to find my way around the way my You View box works. I had been using my old supplier for several years, and was used to how their system worked. I'm sure there are lots of aspects of this new box that I'm not using to its full capability yet - but so far it has exceeded expectation. 

All in all, I am very pleased with the service I have been receiving. Whenever one changes suppliers for anything, there is always a chorus of "my mum's friend's dog had that and it was rubbish!" But in reality, every supplier has tripped over at some point, and it's possible to find someone who has had a bad experience with every mobile supplier, every landline supplier, every TV supplier, every broadband supplier. One friend did point out to me that TalkTalk are a relatively new company who have acquired a lot of business very quickly, and had a couple of teething problems along the way - in the same way that when "super fast shiny new speedy broadband" is rolled out in a new area, it's usually not so fast or shiny for the first month or so, while they iron out all the kinks they didn't know where there until it went live!

My personal experience has been that this is a good service and definitely worth a look if you're thinking of changing suppliers.

Stay tuned (see what I did there) for more posts about the service and what you can expect from it!

Book Review: A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

I'm sure most of you will remember a vague outline of the story of Jaycee Dugard. She was kidnapped one morning aged eleven on her way to school, and nothing was ever heard of her... until 18 years later, when she reappeared, the mother of two daughters. She had been held captive by a man and his wife, raped and abused. 

I remember seeing a documentary about her disappearance, where they showed the road she was taken from. For a while, the police thought perhaps her step father - who claimed to have seen her being forced into a car, and to have chased on a bicycle until he lost them - had abducted her. Then they thought her real father had abducted her - but both passed a series of lie detector tests and were ruled out. Then they didn't really know what to think, and stopped looking after a while. Her mother never gave up, though - as you wouldn't, if your child was abducted, I am sure.

I also remember the news stories when she was found in 2009. Not much was said about what had gone on, just that she'd re-emerged with two children, that her mother was over the moon, that a convicted sex offender and his wife had been arrested.

The bare facts of the story are enough to make you a little queasy, but I have always been attracted to stories like this. I read Colleen Stan's book several years ago and became completely engrossed in it. When I saw this book at the library I instantly recognised the face and name on the cover, and really wanted to read it. 

Jaycee Dugard (obviously) was not educated past the age of 11. She says in her introduction that the book may be a little confusing in places and hard to follow but actually I found it engaging and hard to put down. A lot of books by people in Dugard's situation are ghost written by professionals, or there is at least some guidance. Colleen Stan's book was written by her with the prosecution lawyer who eventually convicted her kidnapper. For me, though, either there was no ghost writer for this book, or they were so good they managed to go undetected. You can tell Dugard has been writing this herself. It's not perfectly laid out, it mentions things she has yet to explain, and there are frequent "reflections" where she tells you things from her present day perspective. At one point she says she's been trying to write this chapter but was distracted by a smudge on her screen that she suddenly felt the need to clean despite its having been there for a while - a clear sign that she was procrastinating because it was difficult to write. I should imagine the whole book was difficult to write. 

The story jumps from writing in the present tense to past tense, sometimes from one sentence to the next. It is not written in perfect English, and there are few long words. Still, it is utterly captivating and engaging - and not just because of the subject matter. Despite not writing in the tradition, accepted way, Dugard still manages to engage and captivate entirely. The way she describes her situation is horrifying, and I cried more than once. The moment of her release saw me in floods of tears, trying desperately not to wake S as she slept next to me.

The abuse is described from her 11-year-old point of view - she has not really learned what sex is, doesn't know why this man wants to do this, to put these clothes on her, to make her do this or sit in this way. It is utterly heartbreaking - especially when you realise she lived like this for 18 years. Her first experience of sex was with a paedophile who fathered two children by her, then had the children call his wife "mom" (Dugard was known as their sister, and not allowed to say or write her own name throughout the ordeal). He was clearly bonkers, believing angels were making people do things, and telling Dugard he had taken her to help him with his "sex problem" so that he didn't have to hurt anyone else. She talks of knowing better than to disagree with a lot of what he said, of his sulking and moods, the way he would just "explain" away any questions she asked, baffling her with his crazy logic until she just gave in. 

When Dugard was released, there was a lot of speculation; lots of questions were asked. She had internet access where she was kept; after the children were born she was regularly allowed out on shopping trips with her captor's wife; why didn't she say anything? Why didn't she shout for help? This book explains why, and in a way that (hopefully) people who have not been in this sort of situation can understand. 

From a technical point of view, you could say this book is "badly written" - it doesn't follow grammatical rules, jumps between tenses and jumbles up explanations of things (half way through she book she talks about her captor freaking people out with "his Can You Hear Me" and you wonder what she's on about - but it's explained a few chapters later). It was a best seller because everyone wanted to know what had happened to her during her 18 year captivity. To me though, I still think it's a good book. I still think Dugard is a good writer, and would like to see more from her in the future - not necessarily about her reintegration to society; just books. I like the way she words things, and her enthusiasm. 

The subject matter of this book is nothing short of terrifying. There are so many occasions where she makes it abundantly clear just how trapped she is - handcuffed and laid on her side so that even sitting up or standing is a struggle, no toilet, no food, no drink. Not only is she unable to raise the alarm, she doesn't even have control over her basic human needs. The ability to articulate this is not something to be sniffed at.

What I like most about Dugard is that she is not a public face. She did a photo shoot for People Magazine when she was first released, to satisfy the media. She has written this book. But she does not court public attention, and has vowed to remain in hiding until her daughters can fully understand what has happened, and who she is. Throughout the book, her children are known by first initials only. There are no photos of them. This discretion is commendable when she was faced with what must have been very tempting offers for someone who left captivity at the age of 29 with nothing but a vivarium of hermit crabs and the clothes on her back. It's not like she could just go and get a job at her local supermarket, after all - imagine sitting on a checkout with that name badge!

My Sunday Photo 2014-07-20

We love to jump!


By the way, this is my 700th post!

Weekend Blog Hop 2014-07-19

Hello blog hoppers!

I hope you have all had a fab week!

We're doing an Instagram Link-up again this week. Do please ensure you follow both of your hosts.

My Instagram profile is here

Laura's Instagram profile is here

This week I chose the Bloggers' Showcase...

I chose "What Next?" by Laura M George. That feeling of "what next" is something I still get now at the grand old age of 33. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, and this post really struck a chord with me.

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Note: The above badge is for the Bloggers' Showcase only. If you would like the Weekend Blog Hop Badge, you can find it at the bottom of this post.

Now for the #WeekendBlogHop

The rules are simple:

• Link up your BLOG. Do not link up individual posts; these will be removed. 
• Comment on the most recent post of the two blogs ahead of you in the linky. If you have already commented on that post, pick the post published before that. 
• You can comment on more if you like!
• If you tweet your blog using #WeekendBlogHop and tag @mylifeasamummyx and @singlemahoy we will RT as many as possible.
• Please follow at least the two people ahead of you in the Instagram linky.

Link up your BLOG here:


Link up your INSTAGRAM here:

Thanks for linking up, have a great weekend!

Are You Thinking Slimmer? (Review)

Anyone who follows this blog will know I have pretty much always had a problem with my weight. Even in skinnier times, my brain has always had a problem with the way I looked.

I have tried weird and wonderful diets, all manner of supplements and pills, caffeine, shakes, you name it. I did in fact once try a "diet" whereby one drank hot water with sugar dissolved in it and (euch) spoonfuls of olive oil in an attempt to "reset" one's metabolic rate and therefore become skinny without any effort (this worked for me, largely because once you've downed that much olive oil, you can't bear the thought of food).

I can stick to any "diet" for a week or so. I can give up drinking coffee and Coke and eating chocolate and cake. I can even cook vegetables and lean protein. What I can't do, is make it last longer than about a week. Usually around day 6 or 7, I will start to think "I've done really well; it wouldn't hurt to just have one teeny tiny can of Coke..." and then all hell breaks loose as I have "one teeny tiny" everything I've avoided eating for the last week. I'm not even sure you could count this as "yo yo dieting" since I rarely lost any weight in that first week before I went back to my old ways.

I used to exercise lots, which kept my weight at a reasonable level. Not so, since I had S; my weight has slowly crept up, so that I'm now at the heaviest I have ever been. And fed up.

When I heard about Thinking Slimmer then, I was intrigued. The front page of the website has the usual before and after photos, and lots of smiling people in nice dresses, talking about how much weight they've lost... but there's no outlandish claim of losing 100 pounds in a month. Thinking Slimmer is not only approved by the NHS; it's also an official partner of Change4Life. 

Thinking Slimmer sent me a "Slim Pod" to try out.. a Slim Pod is a 6-minute MP3 that you listen to at bed time. It doesn't matter if you fall asleep, or don't concentrate on what the voice is saying; in fact, it's better if you do because the voice is speaking to your subconscious. Before you start, you have a guide book to read with some bits to fill out. You set out what you want to achieve from the program before you start, with the idea that you set that intent in your mind, and the Slim Pod helps you to work towards those goals.

I also signed up for the Helping Hands 12-week online mentoring programme. Once a week a lady called Jackie sends me a Google Form to fill out, asking me a set of standard questions - not weight and measurements, but asking me how I feel about things, whether I've noticed anything different. Jackie will then reply to my answers with personal responses - she is a real person, not one of those awful automatic emailers. So she says "isn't it great that you're feeling so good on this" or "sorry to hear you've had a bit of a blip; could it be hormonal? I find that happens with me..."

I've been doing this for four weeks now... I say "doing this" - really, all I've done is listen to my Slim Pod every night as I go to sleep. There has been no effort involved on my part at all. 

So how am I getting on?

I have this thing about chocolate. If I pass the last shop on my way home, and haven't bought any chocolate, I get a bit panicky. Is there any chocolate at home? Is there some cake or something I can have instead of chocolate? Can I sneak back out to the shop later, or should I turn around now?

A few days into using the Slim Pod, I realised I was just walking home from the shops like a normal person. There was no chocolate in the house. I wasn't sitting here in the evenings, wishing I'd been to the shop and bought some chocolate. I wasn't eating chocolate. 

Don't get me wrong; I still enjoy chocolate, and I still eat it; but I don't obsess over it for hours at a time. I don't panic if there's none in the house, and it's not the first thing I think about as soon as S is in bed in the evenings.

I can't tell you if I've lost any weight. I weighed myself before I started on this, but I don't want to weigh myself yet, in case I've not lost any weight and it makes me feel disappointed. Right now, my clothes do feel a little more loose, and someone did tell me yesterday that I looked like I had lost weight.

I have a pedometer that I used to sometimes carry around with me, if I had a pocket and thought I might be doing some walking that day, perhaps, maybe, if I could be bothered. I often lost the thing for weeks at a time, and couldn't be bothered a lot of the time. When I started this program, I decided that I wanted to take a minimum of 10,000 steps each day. I unearthed the pedometer, and put it in my pocket. It has been there almost every day since. Without really thinking about it, without thinking "oh, I need to do more steps today" I have somehow managed to hit my target most days.

My diet is still a bit dodgy: I often skip breakfast; I drink too much Coke; I eat a lot of rubbish. But I eat less rubbish than I was before. Sometimes I look up in the evening and think, not just "oh, I've not spent my entire evening eating" but also "oh, I've eaten three square meals today!" Things are slowly improving.

What I absolutely love about this, is that although there is no dramatic inch-loss and no magic cure, I am making no discernible effort. I am not employing my (distinctly lacking) willpower or denying myself anything I want. I'm just genuinely finding that a lot of the time, I really fancy a piece of fruit or some vegetables. Or that I don't fancy anything to eat at all!

Note: I was provided with a Slim Pod and access to Helping Hands for free, in exchange for blogging about my experience. This was not dependent on my writing a favourable review though, and all words and opinions are my own.

Wordless Wednesday 2014-07-16

S is going through a phase where everything is either “S’’s” or “mummy’s!” Each morning before we leave the house, we put on “S’s glasses” and then “mummy’s glasses.”

We’re both enjoying S’s new words!

Negligent Solicitors?

Finding a solicitor can be a scary business. They seem to deal in areas of which we have no knowledge, talk in language we don't quite understand. They quote this statute and that section, and we tend to feel a little confused by it all. Well, I do any way. Like with accountants or doctors, your average person just has to trust that their solicitor knows what he or she is doing. Since a solicitor has had to pass all sorts of tests and exams to get to this nice posh office with a big desk, it's reasonable to assume they are experts, and will do what is best for you.

What happens, then, if you find that actually your solicitor has given you some bad advice? What if they handle your affairs incorrectly, and you end up out of pocket? Or worse?

Solicitors' negligence can be very hard to cope with. Not being an expert in the law yourself, it can be really difficult to even know if there has been any negligence. Mistakes most commonly happen in property, personal injury, employment, or divorce cases.

So what do you do if you think your solicitor has been negligent?

Redress Law have a team of solicitors with extensive experience in all types of negligence claims. They are members of the Professional Negligence Lawyers Association, and understand the impact poor legal advice can have on you and your life. They will fight your corner and work closely and transparently with you so as to put your mind at ease and put the situation right.

Note: this post is in collaboration with Redress Law and I received some compensation for it.

Disposable Dads?

If you're a regular reader of the Daily Mail, you will have read yesterday that more boys aged 15 have a smartphone than live with their father.

This is the latest report from the Centre for Social Justice, an independent think tank set up in 2004 by Iain Duncan Smith and Tim Montgomerie. It's safe to say they're right-leaning. 

Yesterday's report bemoaned a "growing culture of disposable dads" To me, this suggests a certain amount of prejudice, suggesting that women have gone out, found a man and got pregnant, and then disposed of the father. This bothers me for oh, so many reasons.

The report predicts that by 2015, there will be two million single parent families. Gingerbread quote that already one in four families is headed by a single parent - and that this figure has remained constant since the mid-1990s.

But where Gingerbread are all about supporting single parent families in whatever situation they find themselves, the CSJ seem to be all about "oh my gosh, what a terrible thought, let's do everything we can to avoid there being any more single parent families, ever." As if we are some blight to be eradicated, removed, stamped out of society.

The CSJ thinks the government should do things like scrapping fees for weddings in a registry office, replacing Sure Start Children's Centres with "Family Hubs" that provide "family support" and doubling the Transferable Tax Allowance. 

I agree with the CSJ that when parents go their separate ways, or have never been properly together, this can cause trauma for all concerned. An insecure family life can cause insecurities that carry on long into adulthood, and often then repeat themselves across generations. But an insecure family life can be just as traumatic if warring parents stay together "for the kids."

She seems pretty happy to me!

I disagree with the CSJ that single parent families are a terrible thing that should be prevented at all costs. For S and I, being a single parent family remains the only viable option. I am 100% sure that my child is happy, secure and developing well. I am also 100% sure that she would be none of these things, were her father on the scene.

Whilst it may well be true that half of the poorest children start school from "broken homes," as the report so delightfully put it, I see no benefit in separating single parent families from two-parent families when discussing poverty or anything else. We should be aiming to assist all parents, everyone struggling with poverty. Every child deserves the best possible start in life, regardless of whether they live with one parent or two, whether they live with a same-sex couple or in a foster home or with extended family or next door's dog. Every single child deserves the best start. That is what we should be focusing on. I see nothing to be gained from segregating children by how many parents there are at home. 

Yes, it is sad that one million children lose contact with their grandparents as a result of separation or divorce. What the CSJ fails to mention is that a lot of the time, this is down to the estranged grandparents not making an effort to maintain relations - or because the estranged parent doesn't bring the child to visit grandparents.

To me, the scandal is not that more children are being raised by single parents; it's that single parents are still being stigmatised and treated as second class citizens. It's that reports like this are still coming out, denigrating the effort that goes into being a single parent, talking about "disposable dads" as if single parents are a) all women, and b) using men only to get us pregnant and therefore secure us benefits and a council house.

The sad fact is that although more 15-year-olds have a smartphone than a father at home, for a lot of those kids, the smartphone is probably a lot more use to them than their father has been. This report makes it sound as if the estranged fathers of the world are all sitting there quietly, excluded from their children's lives by evil harridan women who put their own desire to be rid of their ex ahead of their child's need for a father. The fact is many men get a woman pregnant and run. Many men disappear from their children's lives, and make little or no effort to remain a father figure once the relationship with the mother has dissolved. I would put more money on there being more of these, than the quiet, hard-done-by man who has done nothing wrong but is kept away from his child. Let's not forget, after all, this is the line S's father is still peddling.

And what does all this discussion of "good" and "bad" parents get us? Precisely nothing.

We can talk about all of the possible different scenarios until the cows come home, analysing all of the different ways a child might end up the product of a "broken home" (God, how I hate that term), and we would still have all of the same statistics at the end of it.

What we should be doing is ploughing all of the time, energy and money that goes into the CSJ's prejudiced reports, into helping all parents and all children to have better lives.

By all means, scrap registry office fees for marriage; but scrap fees for divorce too. And fees for family counselling. Let's make it so that cost is never going to be a factor in whether a couple stays together, and so that whether they remain a couple or split, the child is hurt as little as possible, and all are supported to the best possible outcome. 

What do you think? I would love to hear your opinion on this.

Depression: Should No Treatment Mean No Benefit?

In the news today, there is a worrying story. The government are apparently toying with the idea of telling those people receiving ESA (Employment Support Allowance) for mental health conditions that if they refuse to accept "treatment," their benefit will be stopped.

In theory, this sounds good, right? If you're not prepared to make an effort to go to therapy sessions in order to improve your mental health, why should society help you. Right? Why should we help someone who won't help themselves?

But what if the "treatment" people are being offered is woefully inadequate? What if the only treatment they are being offered is yet another antidepressant, after the three they've tried previously have only made matters worse, and this one has a list of side effects as long as your arm? What then?

Regular readers of this blog will know I had a massive breakdown in 2010. I was lucky enough to be signed off work with full pay for a month, and then took voluntary redundancy with garden leave for my notice period - so my recovery was not fraught with money worries.

But what if it had been? What if I hadn't worked for that particular company, whose sickness policy was very generous for someone who had been there for five years? What if I hadn't had the choice of taking voluntary redundancy? I think I would have had to leave my job; there was no way I could have continued as I was. That would have left me on benefits.

I took the drugs the doctor gave me. I took the Prozac, even when it made me even worse. Even when I stopped eating or sleeping or thinking sensible thoughts. Then I switched and took the Sertraline they gave me, even when I saw no point in it. Even when I was taking as many other pills as I could find in order to get me through the long, dark nights - I still took the bloody Sertraline like a good girl. I did as I was told. But I have refused to take any medication since I fell pregnant with S, and I'm not sure I would be so compliant, were I to get sick again. The Prozac very nearly killed me, and I don't believe the Sertraline did as much for me as taking fish oil capsules has.

I was sent to various "talking therapy" options, including a woefully ill-equipped lady who tried to get me to fill in work sheets for doing the washing up, and group therapy which was largely taken over by a particularly large personality with myriad problems. I went to group therapy for a few weeks, but stopped going when someone from the group saw me in town, and asked me loudly (and in front of mutual friends) whether I felt the group therapy at the mental home was helping me. At one point I was assessed for one-to-one therapy and told I would be put on the waiting list for it, but that it was a long list, the wait indefinite.

I was first referred to the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) in the Summer of 2010. When the therapy I needed finally became available, it was February 2011, and I was about to start a new job. I turned down the therapy, because I didn't want my first conversation at my new job to be about needing Thursday mornings off to go to therapy for the breakdown from which I am still recovering."

Toward the end of 2011, when I was pregnant with S, I was sent back to CMHT for counselling because the GP was worried about me coming off my medication. The system had changed slightly; now you had to call a number to book an appointment with someone who would be in your surgery one afternoon per week. The idea was that you had your appointment, got some homework, and then booked another appointment for two weeks' time. What actually happened was that you called the number to book an appointment, and got an engaged tone. Eventually after numerous tries, it would ring, at which point you would get a voicemail message saying the person manning the phone was on lunch and you could leave a message. Eventually, after several phone calls, you would be given an appointment in three week's time. After your appointment you would leave and attempt to book another appointment, which might not be for another four weeks because the department was so woefully over-subscribed and under-staffed.

This is the state of mental health care in this country. This is what happens when you don't have the money for private therapy. 

I simply cannot see how the government can even entertain the idea of imposing benefit sanctions on people claiming ESA for mental health issues, if there is no framework in place to cope with them. 

I was very lucky in that my GP had me come back to see her weekly while I was in the throes of my breakdown. She talked to me and made me feel like she actually cared how I was doing. Every Friday, I would go to my appointment with her, get a new sick note and a new prescription, take the sick note to my boss at work, and then go home. Some weeks, those were the only things I was sure to do. It was this routine, and the brief time I was attending group therapy three mornings a week, that gave me some form of routine in my life and allowed me to begin to pull myself out of my pit of despair. By the time my turn came to have the therapy for which I had been so desperate a switch had already flicked in my head and I had realised I had to do this on my own, or not at all; either get better, or get on and kill myself.

If you put a depressed person in the situation where they have to go to these ridiculous sessions or face losing their benefit, you may well find that you leave them nowhere to turn, except the one place all of this is apparently trying to avoid. 

When you are depressed, everything is pointless. There is no merit to doing anything, except perhaps killing yourself. At the very nadir of my depression, I could reel off numerous reasons, not only why I should kill myself, but why I believed people with depression should be able to opt for assisted suicide at a clinic in Zurich. 

If you stop a depressed person's benefit because they can't muster the strength or wherewithall to drag themselves to an ultimately pointless therapy session, what else is left for them? They may as well be dead, a thought that has probably been tormenting them for months or weeks any way.