NS June 12th, 2009

Disclaimer: I know that this post will inadvertently get the backs up of some of my readers because it will come across as criticising something they are doing, or thinking of doing. For that, I apologise. My intention is not to offend and I will try to be as tactful as possible in explaining my thoughts on this sensitive subject. If you disagree that’s fine, let me know why in comments. I want this to be a discussion, not a one-sided rant.

I am not a mummy blogger. Not in the ‘traditional’ sense of the word anyway. I am a mother who blogs, certainly, but I don’t write solely about my children (in fact, they make up a relatively small percentage of my subject matter), nor do I try to monetize my site by putting ads up, writing product reviews and doing giveaways in the hopes of boosting my profile and bringing in a bit of revenue. Mummy blogging has become synonymous with both of these, even if it’s a bit of a myth that blogging mothers do either to the exclusion of other topics.

Let me be clear: I absolutely support a woman’s right to make some money from her blog and can completely understand the impulse to do so. Who doesn’t want to get paid for writing? The problem, though, is that we’re not. Companies who want to shower us with free gifts or, on the odd occasion, a trip, are not paying us for our content. They don’t give a toss how well we write or about the important topics we discuss or the communities we build. Well, they do, but only when it comes to reviews of their products or services. A free sample is not ‘getting paid.’ Would you take a job in which you wouldn’t receive any money but only the promise of a free massage, hoover or weekend at Butlins every now and again? Would you find it abhorrent if you opened the newspaper, read a great article, and then at the bottom a plea from the journalist to buy some of the stuff in the ads alongside, because otherwise she won’t get paid? What is it about mummy blogging that is so desirable to companies but at the same time so hard to make a proper income from?

Susanna at A Modern Mother put her finger on what’s been bothering me about this phenomenon and it is this: mothers don’t get paid for the work they do if it relates, in any way, to mothering. She says:

What really annoys me is that this perpetuates the stereotype that a mother’s job does not hold value. So you blog in your spare time. That’s nice. I’m executing a £5 million campaign for a new product and would like you to plaster my brand all over your blog and write about it. For free. OK?

This is precisely how it feels to me. Like a patronising pat on the head, as if blogging was just a housewife’s “hobby” and that she will be only too happy and flattered to hawk products for huge companies, without pay. She already does so much work for free (keeping house and raising children) that surely one more charitable act won’t hurt, right? Doing a review is essentially a strategically placed press release, written and distributed via social networking and new media, with only a free sample of the product as payment. People who do this for a living, in an office and on staff for these companies, make a comfortable salary doing exactly the same thing, and they usually get to keep the samples, too. So of course companies are falling over themselves to get to mummy bloggers — it’s practically free labour!

Now, I can understand that to many mummy bloggers, their blog *is* their hobby and they figure “Hey, if I can get a few free dvds, an all-expenses paid trip for my kids or some lovely new body scrub, why not? It’s not hurting anyone and I work hard, I shouldn’t feel bad about that.” And I agree, they shouldn’t feel bad. All I ask if that we exercise caution, prudence and a healthy dose of skepticism when performing a cost-benefit analysis of whether doing a review is actually worth our precious time. As I commented on Susanna’s post: “Is the amount of time it takes to send the email confirming your interest, receiving said product, using it and writing up the review really worth the value of the free sample? Does it enhance your life, blog or career prospects in some significant way? If not, don’t do it!”

Also, and this will be the unpopular bit of my post, I just get a sort of icky feeling when I see a bunch of reviews or product mentions on someone’s otherwise lovely and entertaining blog. It just turns me off. I wish it didn’t, but it does. The odd one here or there, fair enough. I like learning about great books, movies, products or places to go like anyone else. But when it becomes blog fodder for an entire week, or when they are ocurring on a regular basis, it does make me wonder if the blogger’s content is being affected by what they’re hawking. I’m sure most reviewers have given this considered thought and try their utmost to ensure that doesn’t happen but I can’t help but think that it must seep into the subconscious of their writing in some small way. And some giveaways leave me with an even worse taste in my mouth. Requiring others to write about the product in question in order to enter the draw is essentially snowballing the free PR and is yet another way in which our time and words are devalued. That combined with ads lurking around every corner of the site is enough to make me click away before I’ve even read the post. It doesn’t mean they will lose me as a reader or that I think less of them personally, only that I don’t want to be part of the consumerism they are promoting.

I started reading blogs because they were honest and real and in no way indebted to advertisers, like traditional media outlets too often are. The propensity now towards writing about what will draw the most readers and therefore increasing profile and revenue saddens me because it takes some of the lovely rose-coloured sheen off of blogging for me. Search engine optimization and keyword-planting reduces the power blogging had to feel like real voices from the real people, about the real issues. I’m not so cynical as to think that every review has been done with consumerist, self-promoting intentions. I know that these are people just doing the best they can with what they have and trying to get a bit of recognition for what they do.

Besides, I knew that it would happen eventually. I knew the companies wouldn’t be able to leave blogging alone in its safe little haven of social awareness and person-to-person networking and would turn it into a business opportunity. I just didn’t think that when it happened we would be doing it for free.

• Bloggy love , Career , I Bitch Therefore I Am , Miscellaneous Missives
• Comments(14)

NS June 9th, 2009

Smile, baby!

Why the long face, sugar pie?

It can’t be that bad, can it?

Let’s see a nice smile, love — go on!

You’d be so much prettier if you smiled.

Ooh, stay out of HER way, she looks mad!

If you’re a woman and have ever walked down the street deep in thought, in a foul mood or with worry creasing your brow, you will most likely have heard at least one of the above, if not all of them, from strange men passing by.

I don’t get it as much now that I always have children in tow (maybe because they think mothers don’t have much to smile about, or perhaps because until you’ve had a man’s children you are anyone’s to be had?) but before they came along I would get it on a regular basis. It irritated me — no, infuriated me — long before I even called myself a feminist with any enthusiasm. From the time I was old enough to be considered a sexual object (pretty much from adolescence), I’d been getting comments about my body, my face, my clothes, mood, emotions, mannerisms…you name it; if I was doing or speaking or wearing it, it would be remarked upon by men I didn’t know. I used to just find it slighly irritating and accepted that it was just “how men are.” But as I grew older and more weary of this phenomenon, so my anger grew alongside. What gave them the right to tell ME to smile, or that they liked my top (while leering at my chest) or that I’d be more pleasing to their eye and expectations if I just did x, y or z?

It all came to a head one day several years ago when I was walking back to my downtown apartment from the grocery store. I was a full time student and working 25-30 hours a week at a bar and restaurant. I was stressed out and pissed off about something and doing the 20 minute walk home, laden with bags of food in the oppressive summer heat, wasn’t doing me any favours. On my way there I’d been told to smile no less than two times, by different men — one in a suit and with a briefcase, the other a scrawny teenage redneck type. Already on the verge of exploding in anger, I knew that one more comment would be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

Sure enough, on my way home another man passed by in the opposite direction — all swagger and trailing the telltale scent of midday boozing — imploring me to smile while giving me the once over. I didn’t manage a tight, thin smile or just ignoring him, as I usually do. This time I hardened my scowl and shot him a look that said I was going to do no such thing. Looking bemused, he turned and followed me, again calling out, “C’mon baby, it can’t be that bad. Whatsa matter? Smile for me and you’ll feel better.” I glanced over my shoulder and took in his cocky stance and patronising words. I turned to look him in the eye and said in an even, clear voice: “Fuck off.” I saw his expression turn from one of amusement to shock and anger. I walked away quickly, my heart pounding in my chest. I’d finally stood up to one of the bullies and it felt great!

My pride in myself was short-lived because suddenly, as I stood at the intersection waiting for the lights to change so I could cross, a voice like gravel growled into my ear, “Bitch!” and a pair of hands pushed me from behind, square in the back. I fell forward onto my knees, letting go of my grocery bags to break the fall. A car swerved to avoid hitting me and I watched as the tires whizzed by, inches from my face. My canned goods rolled out of the brown paper bags and onto the glittering asphalt, heat rising from it in visible waves that appeared to melt into the objects surrounding it. My rage bubbled to the surface and before I even had time to make a considered, conscious decision, I grabbed a tin of pastry dough that had landed beside me (those Pillsbury cinnamon rolls — American readers will know what I mean), stood up and spun around with it held aloft. I brought it down on the side of his forehead and the tin burst open with a satisfying THWACK! before the dough popped out and landed on the pavement between us. A comic moment, looking back, but not funny at all at the time.

A small gash opened up on his forehead and blood trickled out. Nothing life-threatening, for sure, but enough to daze him and knock him back a few steps. At that point a valet across the street came running to assist and my attacker turned and fled. I must’ve looked a sight: teeth bared, flashing eyes, mangled tin in my clenched fist as I let loose a string of expletives after him. I was terrified, exhilirated, vindicated and embarrassed all at once. I wasn’t proud that I’d reacted violently to the situation but reminded myself that he could’ve gotten me killed by pushing me into traffic.

In shock, I waved away the valet who offered to call the police, saying I just wanted to get out of there and forget about it. I went home and got ready for work, still running on adrenaline, but when I arrived late and my manager admonished me, I found my hands shaking and my eyes welling up with tears as I explained the reason for my tardiness. To this day I regret not going to the police but I figured they’d never catch the guy and was afraid that because I’d relatiated, I could get into trouble.

The reason I’m telling you all of this is to give you some background on why I feel so strongly about being told to smile. I knew that it was a jerkface thing for men to do but I hadn’t really put my finger on why it bothered me so much and what was sinister about it until today. This post on the community boards at Feministing put another spin on the whole being told to smile thing. An excerpt below:

(Note: I’m a customer and overhear this exchange while waiting in line.)

Barista: “Here’s your change… have a nice day.”

Customer: “You know, you haven’t smiled once.”

Barista: “Sorry.”

Customer: “I’m so sick of the attitude of people in the service industry! Is it so hard to give your customers a smile as you’re pouring water through beans? You all are so arrogant, it makes me sick!”

Barista: *eyes begin to well up*

Customer: “Why aren’t you smiling?!”

Barista: “…because my father died last night.”

How utterly horrid.

Upon reading this and remembering my own negative associations with being told to smile, I realised that the reason some people (and not just men) feel entitled to issue this order (usually to women) is because our moods and emotions have always been open for public scrutiny. I mean, we’re the “feeling” sex, right? We wear our hearts on our sleeves and what you see is what you get, no more. So if we don’t look happy, or friendly, or eager to please, we must be miserable bitches plotting someone’s death or the snatching, seasoning and eating of small children. Ahem.

The real issue though is that, to some assclowns, seeing an unhappy woman or one who isn’t laying herself at their feet in service and devotion is an affront to their sense of power, be it through gender privilege or class privilege or just plain obnoxiousness. We’re people pleasers, remember, or didn’t you get that memo? It’s a generalisation that is centuries old, certainly, one that hasn’t really abated even as we’ve progressed.

The scene in the coffee shop really ticks me off, and not just because it was a grieving woman being admonished for not dancing when someone said dance. In this instance, the customer obviously had ‘service’ and ‘subservience’ confused because her attitude towards the person making her coffee was nothing short of proprietal. With her asinine words, the customer displayed a sense of entitlement to “service with a smile” from the underlings catering to her whims and desires by providing goods and services. She’s one of those people who thinks that if she walks into a restaurant or a clothing store, the assistants and servers should come running, smiles plastered on, when she snaps her fingers, falling over themselves to please her. Her idea of good service is undoubtedly where the ‘servant’ is bending over backward in order to kiss her superior ass more thoroughly and reverently.

As we all know, service industries are often those with the least pay, status and rights. The working poor, part-timers with few rights or benefits and students fill the majority of those roles. This doesn’t include just retail and restaurant work though; even professional female-dominated fields that we might not typically count as services fall under this umbrella. Nursing, teaching, administration/clerical work, care in the community, PR, non-profit…all of these are services and all are full of women. What do they have in common, besides their propensity to be chockablock with the female of the species? They’re all areas in which the people (particularly women) are expected to cater to the customer or patient or boss, with — you guessed it — a smile.

No one wants a nurse who does her job thoroughly but doesn’t smile, do they? We expect her to be more caring, more sympathetic, more willing to deal with the shit (literally). But do we expect the same of a male doctor when he walks into the room? Sometimes we do, but often not. If they are brusque and impersonable we may be disappointed or put off but we aren’t usually angered or shocked by it. We’ve been conditioned to be used to the idea that if men are rude or unapproachable in the professional realm, it’s usually because they are too busy, too important, too cool or merely lacking in “people skills” to have the inclination to perform niceties. If you think about it, the only areas in which we don’t use niceness and customer ass-kissing as a prerequisite for measuring success and customer satisfaction are areas which are historically male-dominated: the upper echelons of business and finance, consultant/specialist medicine, law, science, engineering and professional sports, amongst others. In these areas, we just want someone knowledgable and skiled who can get shit done. We certainly don’t criticise them harshly if they aren’t bubbly and full of smiles. Efficiency, not affability, is the key to their success.

In the meantime, mirthless female baristas get told off for being arrogant, non-flirty and no-nonsense admin assistants don’t get promoted and women who tell strange men to leave them alone get pushed into traffic.

What part of this ridiculous double standard is there to smile about, exactly?

• Feminist Fury , Human Oddities , I Bitch Therefore I Am
• Comments(14)

NS June 7th, 2009

I’ve been staring at this screen for half an hour, my fingers poised above the keyboard, but nothing comes. I’ve got a list of things to blog about but lack the willpower to muster up the energy and thought that they would require.

All is quiet. The Noble Husband is out, the children are asleep. I’ve turned off the radio and the tv. The white clock is tick-tick-ticking on the mantle. I should be reading, or working on my book, or cleaning. But all I can think about is Chicago and our arrival there in 11 days. My thoughts are consumed by the planning of our trip, the details and nuances of international travel. What will we take on the flight to keep the kids entertained? Where are our suitcases and will we be able to fit everything? When should I go get the traveler’s cheques? I’m a professional listmaker and consummate organiser who has traveled aplenty. I’ve done this a thousand times but for some reason it feels different, more important this time. My heartstrings are pulling me back to my homeland and at the moment the string feels so tight that I could snap in two from the pressure.

It’s been more than two years since I’ve been back. That’s the longest I’ve ever been gone. There are so many things I’m looking forward to while there, including the usual (spending time with family and friends, going to favourite places, enjoying the weather and eating favourite foods) and the special (introducing my son to my father for the first time; a family reunion at a lakeside cabin; my 30th birthday). But as the trip draws closer and I get more dizzyingly excited about the wonderful time I’m going to have, an impending sense of gloom descends as I consider this unfortunate truth: every day that brings me closer to seeing my family is another day closer to having to say goodbye again. I know that’s a horribly pessimistic way to look at it but enough trips and enough heartache have taught me to prepare myself for the flip side of “going home.”

I imagine the contentment and joy I will feel as I look at my entire family assembled together in one place, interacting in the flesh instead of over telephone lines and via webcams on computer screens, and know that the sorrow I will feel upon leaving it behind again will crush me like the weight of a thousand stones. I will carry those stones of sadness all the way back across the ocean where they will sit in my heart until the next trip is made. I’m afraid that when it comes times to board the plane that I will not have the strength to see my mother’s tears or my father’s jaw clench as he folds me into a hug. I will want to cling to them like I was a child again myself, ask them to protect me and love me and carry me home because I’m too tired to put one foot in front of the other.

My children will wave and look over their shoulders at their grandparents, who they communicate with mainly through wires and gadgets, and not know when they’ll see them again. My heart will break when The Noble Child wakes up the first morning back here in London and asks where her Nana and Boppy are. She will sit with me on the bed while I unpack and be puzzled when I turn my back and begin to shake in silent convulsions.

Later, I will sob into my husband’s chest and pound my fist into a pillow, mourning our return like a loss. I will resent him a little bit, be frustrated by the nature of our citizenry. I will find the food tastes horrible, nothing works as it should and the weather miserable, no matter the temperature. I will say I’m moving back, that I can’t stand this country anymore, and I will talk about making plans to do just that. The stones will get heavier as my sorrow deepens and I struggle with the reality of living on another continent.

And then things will get back to normal. Our tans will fade, the photos will be stored into albums on the computer and we won’t talk about what we did and who we saw all the time anymore. We’ll return to school and work and life (the others a little easier than I will find it) and start figuring out when we can see them again. I will heal my heart from the bruising it endured under the weight of those stones and then I will start casting them off, one by one, to make room for the love and joy that my little family here, my nucleus, instill in me daily. I will choose to forget the goodbye and focus on the hello, the happiness of being together.

Life goes on because it always does, but it’s a life with a piece of me missing.

• Expat Life , Home and Hearth , Squish Squish , Travel
• Comments(14)

NS June 4th, 2009

Hey, look everybody, Catfight!

Okay, so there’s not an actual fight going on in this photograph, featured in the New York Post, but the message is that these two ladies (Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie) are engaged in a war, alright — a war of how smokin’ HOT they are, or are perceived to be; of how old or young they are; and, of course, how much of a “bad girl” each is. Below the picture of them squaring off in this Battle of the Babes, we are treated to bullet-pointed analysis of their tattoos, significant others, age, best quotes, ancestry and professional accolades, searching for ways in which the two are different from and alike one another, and using those differences or sameness to create an illusion of friction, competition, judgment and controversy.

I mean, isn’t that the trash media’s job summed up, right there? The Post epitomizes it, obviously, as does the Daily Mail here in the UK. I wouldn’t line my cat’s litter tray with either, personally, not least because I once read that misogyny can be contracted through direct physical contact with it, especially when soaked in urine.

The Boston Herald, not wanting to be left out of the Catfight! stakes decided it would be fun to pit the “Octomom” (Nadya Suleman) against Kate Gosseling of “Jon and Kate Plus Eight” fame (a popular US tv show about a couple with 8 kids, for those who haen’t a clue who I’m talking about) and stir up some trouble between the two.

And so and on and so on, ad nauseum. Examples of woman versus woman Catfights! can be found every day, in multiple media outlets (not just the tabloids) across the world. I’ve asked myself why this is and while many people’s first instinct is to say (or at least think) that women are just petty and bitchy like that, I know better. I know that Catfights! are our culture’s way of keeping women otherwise occupied while the men behind the curtain pull all the strings and make all the laws that will keep us at each other’s throats for another century.

I’ve often heard a sentiment expressed that women are each other’s worst enemies, not men. When we fuss and stress out about how we look before going out on the town, our fellas roll their eyes and say we’re being silly, that no one will care what we wear or how we look. They love us for who we are, as individuals. We are told that the only reason we care is that other women care — that they will be judging our clothes, our hair and makeup, our topics of conversation, the way we laugh, what we order from the bar. In a way, they’re right. We do try to please other women and care what they think, as much as we might not like to admit it. But competition and shallow judgment among us is not some biological norm, it’s not the way we were “wired.”

The only reason we care so much what other females think is because we know that they will have read the same magazines full of ads for diet pills and stories on the latest fashions, heard the same sexist jokes, seen the same beer commercials, worked with the same chauvinists and interalized all of the ways, both large and small, that our society marginalizes, belittles and objectifies women. And we know that if we’ve been suckered into worrying about how we look and how we behave every time we leave the house, other women will have too.

Because we’ve been conditioned to base our sense of identity on our public image, what other choice do we have? It’s a rare, extremely self-assured woman who doesn’t mold herself into what others think she should be and instead into what she was destined to become. Take, for example, the “Mommy Wars.” It is a myth that they were created by, run for the benefit of or perpetuated by mothers who revel in judging other women for their differing choices, to make themselves feel better about theirs. Make no mistake — we did not create this war, oh no. Why would we strike the match that burns us? There is nothing for us to gain by wasting time and energy on tearing each other down. We’re all busy enough as it is, right? So if I don’t have a vested interest in making you feel bad about yourself and you don’t have a vested interest in making me feel bad about myself, what the hell are we doing on this faux battleground? It’s like invading a country and then finding it had no weapons of mass destruction after all.

But as we know, even when weapons are not found, one or both sides will feel they’ve come too far to quit outright. And so we press on, heaping more misguided bullshit on top of the pile threatening to break us. We can’t see the forest for the trees now and it’s easier to blame something else instead: each other, politics, religion, idealism, feminism…

We avoid talking about the ways in which our choices have empowered us as mothers or what has worked for our families fear of being accused of harboring a superiority complex or inflicting guilt upon those who made different choices or had different circumstances. We draw lines in the sand between those of us who have had children and those of us who haven’t. Even amongst feminists, we have been put into neat little boxes (or, more accurately, waves) to keep us separate, divided and anything but united. Because the powers that be know that if we were to ever break out of our boxes, tear down the walls dividing us, burn the straw man fallacies and advance as one unwavering, unmoldable mass, it would be like King Kong crashing through New York. Thousands would flee their homes, running in fear from the hairy-legged fembots seeking to destroy mankind by putting a W-O in front of it. Or, at least that’s what some people and organizations would like everyone to think.

When the claws have been retracted and the fur has stopped flying, I think we’ll all see exactly who or what was behind the Catfight! concept…and it won’t be wearing a skirt.

• Feminist Fury , Human Oddities , I Bitch Therefore I Am , In The News
• Comments(9)

NS June 1st, 2009

The weather in London has been rather glorious for the past few days, explaining my bloglessness as of late. I tried to get the laptop out into the garden for some sneaky posting in between gardening, setting up and sitting at the new patio furniture, grilling various meats and vegetables, drinking beer and playing with the Noble clan, but the glare on the screen was too great, making my eyes and back very sore from all the squinting and hunching. I gave up after five minutes and declared the weekend a mini break from t’internet. But not to fear, dear readers, for we are like the two cowboys in Brokeback Mountain and no matter how much I sometimes despise our love, find it lonely and inconvenient and shameful, deep down I know I can never quit you. So come here and give me a big wet one. Mmwah!

On Saturday, The Noble Husband’s football team was in the FA Cup final and so he’d invited a few guys round to watch it with him. I was supposed to disappear with the children for a few hours to leave them to their male bonding (or something like that) but in the end I managed to beg off dragging them round the shops and various playgrounds and finangled a place on the sofa to watch the match and drink some brewskies with the boys. TNH’s team lost, sadly, but his mates cheered him up by challenging him to a game of poker and then taking all his money (and mine!) and leaving our house looking like a tip. That’s the mark of true friendship for men, apparently. It sounds so much easier and more relaxed than female friendship, don’t you think? We have to listen and nurture and empathize and be diplomatic. They just engage in some lighthearted banter, drink some beer and play cards until the game is over or the last train is ready to depart, whichever comes first.

Sunday. Oh, Sunday was brilliant. It was one of those days that seems to go on forever, but in a good way. I got to sleep in until 9am, which is fan-bloody-tastic, and then came downstairs to coffee and pastries while perusing the news online. Shortly afterward I had my shower and headed out to the garden to play with the children and utlitise the aforementioned new patio furniture. That I can now sit outside in the shade (shade being very important for my pale-as-paper complexion) while I enjoy various beverages makes me immeasurably happy. Insanely, suburbanly happy. Next think you know I’ll be throwing dinner parties and serving prawn cocktails as a starter, with a pineapple-and-cheese-on-toothpicks for canapes. And Chicken Kiev served with boiled-to-death vegetables as the main. And Blackforest Gateau for dessert.

Oh wait, that would be a variety of suburbanity (is that a word?) from the 1970s, not today. But still, not far off. It’s a slipperly slope out here in Dullsville and if I don’t stop grinning inanely at weather-resistant chairs and the free seat cushions that came with them, I may as well get one of those yellow ‘Baby On Board’ stickers for my car, start coordinating my gardening clogs with my baking apron (I have neither) and take to mocking the great unwashed queuing up for their dinner at KFC to make myself feel better. Ah, to be middle class.

Carrying on with the Good Suburbanite theme, I then cleaned out and hoovered the inside of the car before driving it over to the hand carwash being offered by several tanned men with heavy Mediterranean accents. Watching immigrant men with bulging biceps lean over my windscreen to scrub my car on a hot day while I sat inside singing along to the radio and basking in the air conditioning must’ve been enough to strip me of several feminist badges if the internet’s eyes had been upon me. Good thing we were on a break! As I had cut off outside communications, I allowed myself the guilty pleasure of hiring someone to do what I could easily do myself if I wasn’t so damn lazy, and somewhat enjoying the scenery to boot. Oh, the shame!

A little later in the afternoon I got both children to sleep and then nipped off to the cafe for some more coffee and a spot of writing; a much needed reprieve. When I returned it was time for TNC’s dinner and a webcam with my parents. Halfway through our Skype chat and TNH announces that we’ve been invited to come have a quick drink and a run-around by the river with a couple friends, one of whom has a 4-year-old girl. Seeing as TNC utterly adores girls anywhere from one to five years older than her, we knew she’d love it. Plus, one can never be sure when a warm spell will end so we thought “Sod bedtime, it’s down the river we go!” We set off just after 6pm and didn’t arrive home until half eight but it was a magnificent way to end the day – sipping a cool drink on a blanket by the River Thames, llistening to some chilled out music and chatting away while watching two children run and squeal and play. I could’ve lived on that blanket forever. But alas, it was Sunday night and we had to get back to get the nippers into bed and have a late dinner.

Afterwards, we finished watching a WWII-based film we’d started a few days before and then sat up chatting about world conflicts and alliances, military aggression, battle strategy and other things important to a game of Risk. Can I just say how much I love that my husband and I talk about things like this? We love learning from each other and discussing ideas and history when we get a chance or a reason. The occurences may be fewer and farther between now that we have small children to look after, but the pleasure we take in it remains the same.

And today, another beautiful day spent mostly outdoors or out-and-about, hence my late post. If this good weather continues you can expect more late-night musings as I enjoy the sunshine hours with my family. Though I did see that there are glare-reducing screen covers that you can get for your monitor….

• Friends , Funny Ha-Ha , Home and Hearth , Londonista , Miscellaneous Missives , Til Death Do Us Part
• Comments(6)