I have been cleaning and sorting mostly today. I haven’t got very far yet. Hardly made a dent. My house has been in utter chaos for two weeks. Many people staying, Xmas, my son’s birthday, New Year, a new kitten, TONS of teenagers hanging out all the time – all the usual stuff, but it has amounted to my house looking like this:-

The stairs:-

My washing pile (and that is just the white wash!!). Thinking I might just burn all the clothes and make them wear wash down plastic sheeting at all times instead:-

My teenage son’s room which I haven’t ventured into all holiday until today. HOW REVOLTING. Will have to spend the next two days searching for the floor and possibly several sleeping teenagers:-

Here is our recycling bag with added kitten (no longer allowed to leave the building – we’ve all become a little too attached and almost even agreed on a name):-

Here he is “helping” me take the Xmas tree down today. First time he’s dared climbed up that far and then he inevitably got stuck:-

Here he is exhausted from all that exertion. Is this the most laid back cat ever? Look at his little feet! (but not at what appears to be my Christmas stomach – I don’t remember stuffing a cushion under my jumper prior to the photo, but I might have:-

Peace and quiet tomorrow….

I bet I hate it.

Kids haven’t stopped wearing them all holiday and sorry to add the post again, but I keep getting the title wrong – yes they’re Onesies, but these ones are called OnePieces now.

Here is the one my son chose http://onepiece.com/gb/shop/product/view:TR10001 –

he looks great in it:-

Here is my daughter snoozing in hers:-

and here are the three of my children posing together:-

Zipped:-

or unzipped:-

Here is their new shop in London:-

Dizzee:-

and cool picture of OnePiece’s taking over London. This one is my favourite design but they’ve sold out at the moment:-

Dear all,

In haste, this is just a quick note to wish you all a Happy Christmas – or as the Archbishop Of Canterbury recently said, “I wish you all a Messy Christmas”.

Which in my case is what it will be. It is early Christmas morning and it is only my mother and I in the house. I have to go and pick up my children from their father’s house later (because I can’t bear the thought of my teenage son driving his two siblings back to me on fast roads and that was the only other option given to me). My mother and I were meant to go to Midnight Mass last night but after a little too much champagne my mother decided she didn’t want to at the last minute. So that was that then.

Once my children are back we will have our traditional lunch – but there will only be 5 of us, which is the smallest Christmas day meal I have ever done. Then we’re off to friends for silly party games and much drinking Baileys and eating Quality Streets in the evening and at some point we will have to watch the Queen I suppose.

THEN tomorrow we have our big family day with the rest of my family arriving so we will then have a big meal for 11.

Although technically it will only be 10 to eat, because the 11th family member doesn’t have any teeth yet. In fact she will only be three weeks old.

Her first Christmas. My brother and his wife’s first baby. How lovely. This is what Christmas is all about – family and friends. Young and Old. Such a shame my father won’t be there at the table with us – he’d have been so proud – but hey, that’s life I guess and she will bring us much joy and we will make a toast to absent friends and hope my mother won’t cry. She’s put out the Christmas tablecloth – the one we’ve had every year for about 30 years. Everyone who has ever eaten with us has signed the cloth where they sat and then she embroiders it. I’ll take a photo. It’s pretty amazing actually. A good way to remember friends and what we were doing. My father’s name is all over the place. Every year for 30 years he’s signed it. So. I guess he’ll be with us in spirit.

ENJOY.

EAT, DRINK AND BE MESSY.

Honestly, my kids live in them anyway – they’re not cheap but they are spectacularly good quality and super comfortable. They’ve even opened a shop now in Shoreditch which looks very cool. I’ll show you some pictures at the bottom of celebrities attending the launch party.

Anyway, the new Christmas onesie was my son’s choice of attire for his birthday present opening session yesterday It is a OnePiece that you can see here http://onepiece.com/gb/shop/product/view:TR10001 – he looks great in it:-

Here is my daughter snoozing in hers:-

and here are the three of my children posing together:-

Zipped:-

or unzipped:-

Here is their new shop:-

Dizzee:-

and cool picture of OnePiece’s taking over London. This one is my favourite design but they’ve sold out at the moment:-

It’s easy. Tastes delicious. Not sure it’s cooked enough. Might have needed a teeny bit longer to set properly. But here it is. I think he might have to roll the squares up into balls and wrap them individually – what happened to those toffee sweets we used to have like that? In a red packet with each one wrapped in greaseproof white paper? Where have they gone?

His brother and sister obviously like it – look what a mess they’ve made. He’s going to kill them:-

Check out the recipe here on Are We Nearly There Yet mummy’s blog. Yummy.

Anyway. I’m going to do a brief update. For future reference you understand. Archives.

18 YEAR OLD

He is doing well. Managing unexpected vast swathes of time relatively well. It’s all new to him, this space and of course it is very tempting to waste the whole day in bed – but he isn’t doing that. Mostly. Occasionally I have to text him from the bottom of the house “GET UP!!”. “I AM” is the usual response. He has got a job in a bar which he’s loving and he’s doing his revision, rewriting his personal statement, reviewing his options and courses and plans for his travel, spending time with his girlfriend and even getting to the gym.

Impressive.

16 YEAR OLD

Such a shock for her to lose her best friend (our cat) this week. She went into TOP mourning position but is emerging now from her misery and hopefully she will be fine now. A brilliant distraction for her is that she’s managed to get herself a job in Gilly Hicks and she couldn’t be happier – they basically sell underwear so I’m not so sure, but, as a subsidiary of Abercrombie and Fitch at least it will be too dark in there for anyone to see her and too loud for anyone to speak to her. She can’t wait to fold clothes and use the scanner. I get that. I always wanted to work in a shop full of lovely clothes. Good for her. Christmas money sorted.

11 YEAR OLD

Funny as ever although he too was deeply affected by our cat’s death. Working hard to get fitter and lose some weight. We managed to service an old bike of his and now he’s cycling to school everyday which is good for him but fills me with horror. It’s so dangerous and they hate wearing their helmets. I bet he takes it off en route.

He was telling yesterday that his friend has a “kidney bean infection”.

CAT

Dead

OTHER CAT

Pining

ME

Not dead.

FISH

May or may not be dead (don’t really care tbh which I know is a really bad thing to say, but they’re just so unloveable aren’t they).

Here we go then:-

Pass it on x

Yes, of course I’m missing Builder Bloke and I’m having to come to terms with being single again, but there are upsides to not being with him. Most importantly, because of the complicated “wife swap” scenario we were in, it is good to have less stress between my ex husband and me. Conversations and arguments aren’t swooping round and round in four different directions like Chinese Whispers and he has been sympathetic to the situation I have found myself in. So much so that when I had to go and collect my daughter’s art book from his house the other evening his new wife – my children’s stepmother invited me in! It was the first time that I’d stepped over the threshold of the house where my children spend every other weekend and I was very nervous about it. Then she asked me if I wanted a drink. After a slight pause in which I am quite sure she could see me thinking “shit, f*ck, yes, no, HELP!!” I said “yes, why not” and so I sat with her and my ex husband in their kitchen, drinking wine and talking. The situation was strange but surprisingly fine. In fact it was more than fine it was a good thing to do and a major step forward in developing our grown up working relationship on behalf of the six children we have between us. It is obvious that our common bond means that we both want the best for our children and will do all that we can to make sure that happens. We all know that the kids (especially the younger ones) would find it a lot easier if we had a better relationship and certainly down the line there will be events – significant birthdays, graduations, maybe even weddings that we will all need to be at. How much better it will be for all concerned if everyone can be in the same room together being civil. We both know how much stress it will alleviate for our children in the years to come.

I am feeling very grown up and think we all deserve a gold star (presented to us by our children). Although tomorrow’s post will probably be called “It’s All About Me”…

We didn’t really do very much in the end, although my youngest son and I did spend a lot of time together doing bits and pieces which was fun. I didn’t find anywhere to go fishing (phew) and so we just pottered about being vague. He didn’t want to do lots of the things I suggested but one successful trip, weirdly was to go and check out the pet shop in Harrods. Hilarious. I have never seen so much bling for pets and there is a whole cake stall for pets!

Look at these cute little Daschund puppies – only about £3K each:-

Here in the pet spa she was actually cutting with a pair of nail scissors around his bottom. Yuk.

Hmmm. Say no more.

THEN my son suddenly announced he wanted to buy a Syrian Hamster – OMG panic stations with me refusing on lots of different levels – mainly that our cats would eat them….but a salesman adamant to help – took us around all the relevant paraphernalia required but in the process managed to successfully put him off “you can’t of course keep it in your room because they sleep all day and are very noisy at night – of course all they do is run on a wheel and they smell terrible – need a lot of cleaning out although we have some citron straw that might help and of course they bite – you have to be very calm and know how to hold them and don’t show any signs of stress…..”.

Other highlight – Westfields. Not exactly the most cultural week ever.

My daughter was away all week and now that she’s back I’ve noticed something. My house is WAY more untidy and also I start getting a little paranoid about my possessions. I’ve had a week of not having to hide my mascara or shout at her for stealing my foundation. My hair elastics are where they should be and so are my tights. Yesterday it was back to hiding good pairs of tights under things so that she doesn’t find them AND what’s more we appear to be having a pillow war. She keeps taking one of my good ones and replacing it with some shitty thing I don’t want. So back it goes. To and fro. Incredibly unreasonable. My mother would never have stood for it. I’d have been beaten. Locked in a cupboard probably. For days. And then made to sleep on a rock. Outside. In the snow.

I had planned to take my youngest son fishing – or more precisely I had planned to pay somebody else to take my youngest son fishing because I hate fishing about as much as I hate cricket – but it can’t be done – health and safety reasons require that a parent or guardian sit on the bloody bank with above mentioned child and freeze to death and/or die of boredom.

SO. I have been suggesting to my son all week things to do – museums, art galleries, aquarium? Zoo? Chessington? Pottery? ANYTHING????? But no. He’s been there, done it all already or doesn’t want to do it. We are living in London and we can’t think of anything to do. HOW rubbish is that?

I need to compile a TOP 10 things to do in London that don’t involve all the usual tourist spots. HEEEELLLLPPPP.