And the Moral of The Story is....Separate Handbags

Yes, I've seen those handbag organisers that compartmentalise your essentials. Yes, I've seen articles suggesting separate handbags for work life and for mummy life. Yes, I've ignored them all blindly because I know best. And yes, I've learnt my lesson the hard way and will follow wiser mums' advice going forward....

It's 9am and Working Mum is in professional mode, suit, lipstick, the works. The reason? Power meeting in the office with Mega-important but Misogynistic Client. Full checks were performed before leaving the nest: no Weetabix in hair, no breadsticks in pocket, no crayon 'decorations' on tights. Meeting is going well, Mega-important but Misogynistic Client has forgotten I'm female and is actually listening and nodding. Progress is being made and we start talking numbers. I reach into my handbag for my trusty calculator whilst maintaining eye contact as recommended in all Body Language for Business books, then cast my eyes down to commence calculations. Oh no. Oh please no. Not today. Not this meeting. Blood rushes to my cheeks, Mega-important but Misogynistic Client squints across the table, and there swinging jauntily from the corner of my not-so trusty calculator case is a pair of pants. What? No of course they're not mine! No, with cartoon characters grinning wildly it's a pair belonging to Toddler-Not-So-Tiny-Temper. I kid you not. Keep calm, think, think. Well, there's nothing else for it.  I pick them up, give my nose a resounding blow on them and mutter complaints about hayfever, the curse of the summer, never grown out of it etc etc....

Separate handbags, separate handbags, separate handbags.

Please learn from this.

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Writing off the Whites

Well it may be Wimbledon but this mum is most certainly not wearing white. No way. Now don't get me wrong, I love white clothes and had many a trusty summer favourite in the good old days. Then Toddler-Not-So-Tiny-Temper landed with sticky fingers, chocolatey kisses, sandy hands and avocado hair (yes really; a toddler health kick that went very wrong!). I risked a white skirt at the weekend having been lured into it by the fabulous claims of so many stain removers that get everything out 'first time'. Hmmm. Try telling that to my ketchup and raspberry-adorned skirt. And, to add to the irritation of a ruined skirt, imagine the scene as Working Mum emerges from the kitchen with a Global knife and red-spattered skirt. All panic broke out as first aid was administered, pressure and elevate, randy neighbour studying my thigh for damage.....

No, it's good old, trusty, dark colours from now on.

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Singing Songs of Praise for Semi-freddo

Picture the scene.....
You've invited friends over for a midweek supper and have realised, the day before, that in between putting the hours in at the office, keeping Toddler-Not-So-Tiny-Temper fed watered and relatively happy and ensuring you don't miss Eastenders or The Apprentice you have zero time to prepare. Now normally you'd whip down to handy premium supermarket for a ready made wonder dish but sadly the friends in question live off the very same supermarket's very same wonder dishes so effort is required. Well panic not dear friends, I am going to let you into my very best kept pudding secret: Semi-freddo. Essentially it's a posh-looking and very easy home-made ice cream sort of thing. Serve it up and grateful guests assume you've spent hours slaving away just for their gastronomic delight. Seasonal favourite flavour has to be raspberry and limoncello (yes, that dodgy yellow liqueur that you glugged out of novelty bottles on teen holidays abroad). http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1100/limoncello-and-raspberry-semifreddo
Good luck and consume with caution - several hearty slugs of limoncello are hidden amongst the creamy raspberry innocence so toddlers, stick to yoghurt please! Oh and mums, no secret swigging - it's stronger than it tastes!

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Time to Blog? No, But Let's Squeeze it in Anyway.

Full time job? Tick.
Testing toddler in residence? Tick.
Pile of laundry to rival the leaning tower of Pisa? Tick.
Time to blog? Don't be silly, of course not!!
But then, as Kipling says "If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run, yours is the Earth and everything that's in it". So here we are; this is my sixty seconds' worth of distance run. Please can I have the Earth and everything that's in it now?

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