Moving house...

Well, not actually. Just moving blog-sites.

I'm now http://maidinyorkshire.wordpress.com

I was seduced away by the attractive fonts. Not that I am shallow!

See you over there...

J'accuse ... Peppa Pig

Yes, that’s right. Peppa Pesky Pig.

For the first four years of my children’s lives, I was the perfect mother. In one respect, anyway. My children did not watch television. No: who needed it? We had books, board games, a huge craft box, more books, wooden bricks, more books and ... yes, more books. 

When other parents talked about CBeebies at toddler group, I felt marvellously smug. What was CBeebies? Ohhhh, I see. It’s a television channel. Ah, we had only just got Channel 5, never mind a new-fangled black box thing with extra channels.


Yes, I was such a fabulous mother that I had no need of an electronic babysitter (and, of course, I had the two most articulate children in the universe to prove it). The fact that the only thing I watched myself was Location, Location, Location might possibly have helped, but I wasn’t going to mention that to anyone, lest my smug credentials be dented.

But then along came Peppa Pig.

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I found myself with the television on one afternoon. By accident, obviously. On the screen was a cartoon pig about to jump off a diving board to retrieve a lost dinosaur (or something). Well, Cash in the Attic wouldn’t have gripped me - but Daddy Pig did. And when they all fell over on their backs, laughing, I was hooked. 

So I set the video recorder (yes, video recorder) to record at the same time the following day, and I played it to the children. And we did the same the next day, and the day after that. And so Peppa Pig and her family came to share our lives. Just five minutes of pigginess a day. Where was the harm in that?

And then came the day that I wasn’t organised enough to set the video to record, so I taped a whole bundle of Stuff that turned out to be m-m-m-m-me-me-me-me-more-Milk-shake. And yes, you guessed it: the children were mesmerised.

After that, there was no turning back. Come Outside, Thomas the Tank Engine, Fifi and the Flowertots, Numberjacks ... all of them were in our playroom. 

Well, the Numberjacks were educational. And Fifi was full of circle-time type messages about being kind and helpful to wasps. And Auntie Mabel taught the children what to do if a chip pan caught fire. And Thomas the Tank Engine ... um, Ringo Starr narrated it well.

But it is of course only a very short hop from Auntie Mabel showing us round a bread factory (bread, bread, bread, made of wheat or rye...) to Horrible Histories and Tracy Beaker. And from there, you are heading straight to hell in a handcart driven by Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May. Thanks to that trio, my nine-year-old son’s ultimate ambition is to blow up a caravan.

While it’s tempting to put that frightful trio (and the entire Brainiac crew, while we’re at it) in a caravan and blow it up myself, I have to remember that it’s not their fault that my children are now would-be television addicts. Nor it is my fault for having had a moment of weakness four years ago. No: it is all the fault of one cute little piggy and her diving champion dad. Peppa Pig: J’accuse!

Stir-up Sunday

Yes, this is 'Stir-up Sunday', the day on which we are traditionally supposed to stir up our Christmas puddings. I know this thanks to York Minster, not because John Lewis has suddenly decided that it's cool to make Christmas puddings (I say this because I am no longer speaking to JL on account of crimes against advertising).

Well, there has been plenty of stirring in our house today. However, it hasn't involved Christmas puddings. It has involved the children kicking one another. Grr.

Will I be arrested?

Our local Sainsbury's corner shop has been shut for the past nine days for a 'fundamental makeover' (well, that makes two of us who could do with one). So you can imagine my joy when it re-opened this morning, thus saving me from the horrors of the Co-op.

Well, the floor is shiny, they have new plastic baskets for fruit 'n' veg, and they have a gluten-free section. All of which are very exciting. But what really caught my eye was something quite different.

It was a notice in the cereal aisle.

IF YOU CANT FIND WHAT YOUR LOOKING FOR, PLEASE ASK.

Oh no, I thought. But being a nice, polite middle-class shopping type, I really couldn't deface a Sainsbury's notice. Could I?

Unfortunately there was a pen in my pocket.

The notice is now grammatical. But if you see grainy CCTV footage on Crimewatch of a mad-looking woman brandishing a fountain pen ... then it must have been my double.

Revealed: My Guilty Secret

A dreadful thing happened yesterday. My guilty secret was almost discovered.

My husband was idly opening a letter - having failed to notice that it was addressed to me. Why on earth had I left it lying on the kitchen table?

Eek! I said, hastily whipping it out of his fingers. I think that’s mine!

Husband looked puzzled. All the more so as he had already seen the tell-tale headed notepaper: Halifax Building Society.

“Why are the Halifax writing to you?” he wondered. I shrugged oh-so-carelessly. “Oh, they’re probably just trying to sell me a credit card,” I mumbled, stuffing the evidence into my mountain of vital papers. Husband gave me a suspicious look, then ambled off.

Horrors! I thought. For my husband had been about to discover that I have a stash of secret savings. So far as he is aware, all our money has been joint money for almost 20 years now. For both of us, shared money has always been symbolic: shared money means shared lives. We are in this together.

But that hasn’t stopped me from keeping a little nest egg. And the only thing that makes me feel slightly less guilty about it is that I’m not the only one. According to a poll by insurance firm Prudential, fifteen per cent of couples over 40 have a secret savings pot worth £1,037 on average. Women are more likely than men to be secret money-hoarders, with 18 per cent admitting to hiding savings averaging £1,002.

Hannah Close, a barrister friend of mine, is another member of the secret savers’ club. She has a proportion of her monthly earnings paid into a separate bank account so that she can buy things that her husband considers frivolous. “He is the type who actually checks bank statements. If he sees I’ve spent £200 on a pair of shoes, he’ll grump about it. It’s easier just to buy things behind his back. If he actually notices I’m wearing new shoes, he’s so clueless that he’ll believe that they only cost £19.99.”

This logic makes good sense to me. I would dearly love a ludicrously expensive waterproof coat and a cello. Not that I can play the cello.

More worryingly, though, 23 per cent of secret savers are keeping their own stash of cash in case they split up from their partner (which must mean that women are either less optimistic or more realistic than men when it comes to relationships). Another friend, Sian, has adopted precisely this approach. “My parents split up, and my mother was left virtually penniless. I have no intention of leaving my partner, but I think it’s sensible to plan for all possible scenarios.”

Oh dear. Is that what I’m secretly planning?

In that case, my husband will be relieved to know that my secret stash amounts to ... £67.29. Which might just about pay for a day trip to Huddersfield and back.

Five crimes against children that I was never going to commit

Ah, principles. It's so easy to have them. And even easier to ditch them once children come along. Here are the top five things I was never, ever going to do when my children were born.

1. Use environment-busting disposable nappies. I have the bill for the reusuable ones to prove it. What nobody told me was that they make your baby look like a pear, and that he will be the only newborn needing clothes for age 3-4 to accommodate the nappy bulk. They do make very good - if somewhat pricey - dusters, though.

2. Go to Macdonalds. We all know that the route to hell is paved with chicken nuggets and thick shakes. Hence my dear little organically-grown infants were never going to darken its doors. Until, stuck on a long motorway journey with two tired and hungry children, it suddenly seemed like the best invention since the epidural. It still does, at times.

3. Use a dummy. They stop your child from learning to talk (and, like all middle class parents, I was keen for mine to be talking in full sentences at six weeks. Until, that is, they learnt to talk and never stopped again). They also give them sticky-outy teeth and are generally used only by people who put Coke in baby bottles. But, confronted by a newborn who was determined to suck fruitlessly at me for at least 25 hours a day, I found salvation in a multi-pack.

4. Use reins. Having a toddler on reins is like having a dog on a lead, said Mrs Smugaroo (i.e. me). What about his independence and freedom?

Then I found myself living on a main road with a bolter. I was such a keen user of reins that I did at one point wonder whether my son would be going off to university wearing them. Yet another principle down the pan.

5. Use the TV as a babysitter. Actually, I did quite well with this one until I was defeated by Peppa Pig. One watch and I was hooked. Which meant that I had to let the children watch too. And then it's just a short leap from Milkshake to Brainiac. Sob.

Ever the optimist, though, there are still many things that I am definitely, absolutely, decidedly never going to let my children do. Under any circumstances. Ever.

1. Open a Facebook account.

2. Have any kind of screen in their bedrooms.

3. Shop at Jack Wills (because they might emerge anorexic and with flicky hair extensions).

4. Get in a car with anyone who hasn't been driving for over, ooh, 40 years.

5. Wear crop tops. Boys included.

I am already polishing my maternal halo in anticipation ...

In a pickle

'Cheese and pickle sandwich eaters are most intelligent'. Allegedly.

People who are fond of cheese and pickle sandwiches are more likely to be intelligent, according to a survey. Believe it or not, researchers - headed by a doctor, no less - have interviewed 2,000 people in order to identify eight 'key sandwich personalities'.

As I was eating my sandwich while reading about this, I was very keen to find out what my sandwich personality might be.

Sadly, soya and linseed bread filled with spinach and chickpeas wasn't on the list, so I will never know whether I am officially an impulsive high-flyer or a sensitive homebody (actually, that combination probably means I'm a lentil-weaving hippy).

However, I do have definitive proof that the research must be deeply flawed. My husband's favourite sandwich is cheese and pickle.