When I had my first child, he is 25 now so that’s going back a fair bit, the stroller and pram to have was a MacLaren. Without a doubt. And if you had money to burn you shelled out several hundred on what was called a Peg Peregro – strange name and they were even stranger looking strollers. But back then strollers were understated things, designed to fold easily for the bus and glide easily over the grass or pavement. A little basket underneath and away you went.

Seen strollers these days though…? things called a bob revolution or strollers that resemble 4X4′s – huge three-wheeler things, bulky, wide and only room for ONE baby in them! the rest is all storage space and fancy design. I reckon a steering wheel is all these things lack. Mums today – why do they choose them and spend so much money on them? they are a hassle in the supermarket aisle, impossible on public transport (just watch the bus driver’s face when he sees a mum with one of them…) and, I suggest, anti-social. Few young mums know how to handle them in public and shave half your ankles away as they pass you.

Nope – lets see a return to basic strollers, leave the fashion statements to the men and their fancy cars.

Popularity: 2% [?]

As we are coming up to Mothers Day as well I thought I would write about those women who feel that somewhere along the way they have lost track of who they are and what they are all about. This, by the way, mostly relates to mothers – in fact I would say it is almost a ‘mother-thing’ to become so caught up in everyone else’s life that you forget who YOU are. Women who go out to work don’t wear odd socks under their trousers unless it’s a new trend, we mothers live in odd socks because we have accepted that washing machines never return a matching pair…ever. But back to that identity thing, have you checked yours lately…?

It happens so slowly that you don’t even notice anything different; gradually – day by day, week by week, etc – your habits change until one day you realise it has been at least 5 days since you touched the bottle of shampoo and the elastic band has become your stock fashion accessory. As you comb the your child’s hair before school one morning, making sure every hair is in place, you recall somewhere at sometime that you too once did something with a can of mousse and spray and the result was wonderful…but that was a long time ago and who uses mousse foam these days anyway? and that stupid lipstick in your bag that keeps lurking at the bottom where your loose change is…how long ago did you buy that, or even wear it?, because the price tag shows a currency no longer in use…and I’m sure that those CD’s you used to love driving along to on your way to work (remember having your own car?) still exist somewhere…or were they cassettes? no matter, Marvin Gaye would only stir up memories of that guy your husband will have hoped you had forgotten. As yet another brochure for the opening of the latest candle-lit-incense-fuelled Day Spa drops through your mail box you think for a brief moment how nice it would be to be smoothed with orange scented oil and covered with warm pebbles as whale-mating music plays gently in the background, but who has 2 hours and £95 to spare for such folly? the one day, all of a sudden, you stand thinking in the middle of it all – the lost moments for putting on lipstick, for looking for that darned matching sock, for blowing £95 on a 2 hour back rub – and you wonder where the hell you went…where YOU went!

Well you know, she’s there. She’s combing other people’s hair, matching other people’s socks, picking out nice outfits for kids to wear for ‘no uniform day’, admiring other women’s hairstyles and outfits. All you have to do is get a shovel and start digging because she is not too far below the surface, she just needs a little help escaping. Identity is something we all have but in order to keep it alive you need to nurture it, and doing that requires time – everyday – and you have to be the one to do it because nobody else can or will. But it is there, in the back of your mind and inside your heart, as crowded as those places have become in the past few years, ‘she’ is still inside you. Give her some attention now and then and she will stay right there, even if you are the only one who still recognises her.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Like all families we love the festive season and come the start of December out comes the Christmas tree and all the fancy trimmings to put up in the living room. It is a family tradition that we all have a hand in putting it up – and funny enough I seem to be the one who gets stuck with taking it all down and packing it all away in January…oh well.

I have always wanted a ‘real’ Christmas tree but my youngest son has severe allergies to all manner of plants and pine trees are among his worst enemies, so we have always opted for the good old artificial christmas tree. Nothing wrong with that though because ours has special optic fibre lights on it which looks just fabulous when we turn off the room lights. The kids love it – and in a few short weeks we will be putting it up!

Popularity: 9% [?]