August 2011

Archive | August, 2011

A Song A Day Keeps The Doctor Away.

By Mum's the Word on August 25, 2011 in Meme

Husband, Sausage and I listen to a lot of music, lots of different types of music too. One of our favourite things to do of an evening is get Sausage in her pyjamas and sit together while Husband flicks from song to song on Spotify. Sausage will eventually doze off and we’ll go from Matt Monro to Damien Marley to The Prodigy and back round again. Tonight, Husband and I were discussing a song for each day of the week, and I thought I’d share mine here, in case you all wanted to have a listen.

Blue Monday – Bob Seger

Tuesday’s Gone – Lynyrd Skynyrd

Wednesday Evening Blues – John Lee Hooker

Sweet Thursday – Pizzicato Five

Friday I’m In Love – The Cure

Saturday Sun – Nick Drake

Sunday Morning – No Doubt

I’ve added a little linky below in case anyone wants to go ahead and make their own list, I’d be very curious to see what you can come up with. There’s no rules, just a song for each day of the week.

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

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Mammy’s Music Meme – VERY NSFW!

By Mum's the Word on August 23, 2011 in Anger, Meme

This is my first entry in the the lovely O Mammy’s music meme, and I really don’t need to explain this one. It just sums everything up. Not for the faint-hearted.

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Meet Dink

By Mum's the Word on August 22, 2011 in Parenting

Sausage has a new friend. Meet Dink:

Dink was formerly known as Jinx, but Sausage decided to rechristen him. Oh, and I’ve just been informed that he is now a she. Dink is a Zhu Zhu Pet, and despite Sausage talking about them since just before christmas last year, we still managed to forget to get her one for either Christmas OR her birthday, so when this little dude turned up on the doorstep, we were both overwhelmed. Sausage, because she thinks our postwoman is a secret millionaire who brings her a regular slew of books, games and toys, and me because the high-pitched squeal that emitted from my daughter almost made my ears bleed.

But no, in all seriousness, Dink (Jinx) is a gorgeous little thing, roughly the same size as a normal hamster, and she (he) zooms about making all sorts of cute little squeaks and noises. He has a button on him nose, one on his back and one on his butt, and eat button press elicits a different response from him. Sausage is well and truly in love, he’s already accompanied us on all sorts of outings and only just stopped short of accompanying her to bed, on account of the fact the she might roll on him in her sleep and press the buttons, thus waking us all in a rodent-fuelled, squeaky terror!

The Zhu Zhu Pets also have a fantastic website where you can sign up for an account, allowing you to watch clips, create wish lists, earn points and explore the Zhu-niverse, creating a multimedia experience for those who want to take their Zhu Zhu Pets experience to the next stage.

Sausage is thrilled with her new toy, and I’ve no doubt that we’ll be adding to our Zhu Zhu family with another little critter in the future!

(Sausage was sent one Zhu Zhu Pet to play with and keep, by the lovely folk at UKMums.TV. No payment was received for this post and all views within are the honest opinions of myself and my family)

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The Ultimate Betrayal

By Mum's the Word on August 21, 2011 in Anger, Opinion, Personal, Rant

I never thought that it would end the way it did, with me finding out that you’d been cheating behind my back. I honestly never thought you’d do it to me, I thought you were honest and true, a real family man. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. You’d been flirting and courting the Russian for some time, or so it seems. I think that’s the bit that hurt the most, the fact that you were saying all the right things to my face, making an effort and going out of your way to pledge your devotion to me, and then playing away. I feel so stupid.

And more than feeling stupid, I feel so bitter. You made me believe in you and then took it all away with an ease that I never expected from you, an ease which almost took my breath away. I HATE feeling this way, I’m almost as angry with you for turning me into this cynical, untrusting person as I am for the betrayal that you found so easy

So now I know what it is you’re really after, you want more than I can offer, more money, more glamour, a trophy. And I just cannot make those promises. Honesty, hard work and integrity. That’s what I have.

But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, is it? Far from being the prize you thought you were, you’re langushing. Oh yes, I’ve heard about your performance problems, your inability to fulfill needs. And I can’t say I’m surprised. I was willing to love you in spite of all of that. But you threw it in my face.

Sure, you were good for me at the beginning, but at the end of our time together your heart clearly wasn’t in it, you were no longer interested, your eye already wandering. I should have known. I should have known.

Does it kill you to see me doing so well without you? I’ve had my ups and downs, but I think I’m on the right track now, headed towards happiness and success. And I did it without you. Better off without you. It’s taken me a while to realise it, I still catch my breath when I see the odd glimpse of you, here and there, and although you’ve put on a good front, I can see you aren’t entirely comfortable, being touted about town like a cheap trinket.

So fuck you, Fernando Torres. I hope you’re happy. But just know, you’ll never find another club like Liverpool Football Club or fans like ours. And I reckon you’re still kicking yourself, even now.

I’ve been wantng to write this for a while, but in the deafening cacophony that was the aftermath, I had trouble finding my voice. So here it is, dedicated to each and every Liverpool fan. YNWA.

EDIT

I’d love it if you could sign this petition, demanding full disclosure of all documents relatng to the Hillsborough Disaster, which will hopefully lead to justice for the 96 people who were tragically killed on that fateful day. You don’t need to be a Liverpool fan to sign, just a human being with a heart and a desire for the truth. We need 100,000 signatures in total and we’re just under 10,000 shy of that, so every name counts. Thanks.

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To Dye For…A Blow-by-Blow!

By Mum's the Word on August 20, 2011 in All About ME!

I’ve been dying my hair dark since just before Christmas, mainly due to the fact that I had roots down to my ears and no time to get to a hairdressers to get my previously adored peroxide blonde hair reinstated. I loved being blonde, I mean REALLY loved it. But it was WAY too high maintenance, and for the price of one cut and colour as a blondie, I can buy pretty much a whole years worth of DIY dying kits. I used to be a massive spendaholic, but these days I think of everything in terms of Sausage and our family budget, like one cut and blow dry could pay for a whole term of swimming lessons for Sausage, or a For Luna swimsuit (that I’ve been coveting for a LONG time) is about half of our weekly shopping budget.

I’ve tried various different brands so far, opting at first for L’Oreal Preference in Dark Auburn, which I liked, but it seem a lot dearer than the other brands. So next I went for the new John Frieda Precision Foam Colour and was astonished by how easily it went on. Being a being of a home dye nOOb, I’d previously had to ask the long-suffering Husband to help me each time, but the John Frieda one went on SO easily, I could do it myself. I loved the freedom it gave me but (isn’t there always a but?) the colour faded quite quickly. Frustrating, as the colour was lovely and rich at first, but just seemed to lose its lustre in a trice.

Today, I’m typing this with a brand new dye on my head. I’m using Avon Advance Techniques Professional Hair colour in Light Copper. This is a bit of a gamble, as it’s a different brand and a different colour to what I’ve used before, but I’m giving it a go. It’s just £6 at the moment with a free lock-in colour treatment, and I can’t resist a bargain, even if it does leave me looking like a belisha beacon. But it’s due to be rinsed off in 17 minutes, so we’ll see, won’t we?!

Here’s a bit of trivia for you, while we’re waiting…see that t-shirt I’m wearing? It’s my dying t-shirt now, but it used to belong to Husband. The slogan on the front reads ‘Pull my ring and suck my plums’…nice, huh?! It was a promotional t-shirt given to him when he was in the bar management game by a company called Choya Plum Shots who had a brief foray into novelty plum flavoured shots. He once got asked to leave a very posh hotel whilst wearing it to work on their air conditioning and had to spend the rest of the day working with it inside out.

But, I digress.

11 minutes and counting…

5 minutes…

Just for the record, this is in no way a sponsored post or a review for anyone, I just thought it would be SUPER nice and helpful of me to share my results with you lot. You could save a fortune and your local Avon lady will be about 60p richer!

3 minutes…

Right, I’m going to go and get the shower fired up, in readiness for the rinsing..please god let this have turned out okay, Sausage and I are due at a party in about two and a half hours, and I don’t have time for a rescue mission to the local chemist!

*************************************************************************************************

Well. I haven’t taken the towel off of my head yet, but I’m about 96.7% certain that I’ve got bright ginger roots and the rest of my hair looks exactly the same. Just waiting for Hubs to get out of the bathroom so I can assess it properly…

Okay, so the roots are a touch lighter that the rest of my hair, but considering I went from one brand to another, it’s not gone too badly. The conditioner they give you to use after you’ve rinsed the dye off has left my hair feeling super soft and smooth and it smells good too, which is good as the dye itself had a really odd smell, which was half chemical, half josstick…really bizarre! I think I’d use the Avon one again, given the fact that I just have to fill in a form and have it brought straight to my door, and it was pretty easy to apply. Some of the home dyes are a bit runny and end up going everywhere, but this one was quite thick, so it didn’t drip or feel like it was melting off of my head!

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A Step Towards ‘The System’.

By Mum's the Word on August 18, 2011 in Family, Parenting, Personal

Something terrible and terrifying is happening tomorrow. Something that I’ve spent the last three years trying to forget about. It’s never happened before and I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.

Yes. We’re taking Sausage to nursery.

We’ve ummed and ahhed for the last couple of years about whether we were going to send her to nursery, seeing as Husband and I both work from home and we came to the conclusion that no-one could look after Sausage as well as we can, so we’d keep her at home. And then the doubts set in. Are we holding her back? Depriving her of a chance to make friends and have fun?

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Race Relations

By Mum's the Word on August 15, 2011 in Anger, Personal, Rant

I’d like to start by saying that although in the past I’ve written about some controversial subjects, I tend to stay away from the biggies because blogs can so often be taken out of context and come back to bite us on the arse. Subjects like sexism, homophobia or racism are always going to be emotive and I don’t expect to unite the world with one little blog post. However, I’ve become more aware of, and more shocked by, the levels of racism that seems to have become acceptable in so-called civilised society, amongst well-educated and usually moderate people.

I’m by no means a naive person, I know racism exists in all walks of life and have written previously about idiots like the English Defence League. Before I go on, I’d like to say that I do believe that racism is subjective and because of certain liberal values, political correctness has gone a bit mental. I remember a few years ago my friends’ Mum, who is a social worker, came home and told us that they’d been given a new language directive at work and they were no longer allowed to use the expression ‘mixed race’, and that they must now say ‘dual-heritage’. This seems rather an excessive way to go around the issue of ‘what to call someone’ to me, but I don’t make the rules.

But I think i was first made aware of “middle-class racism” when the furore over Rastamouse started. I saw several people complain about the use of patois in a children’s programme, bloggers and tweeters up in arms that their children would turn into thieves and layabouts. Aside from being a massive, glaring generalisation of an entire culture of people, their short-sightedness floored me. Surely, learning other accents and cultures enriches the lives of our children?

Since the riots, I’ve seen a shocking amount of Facebook statuses and Tweets, talking about how immigrants and people of non-British ethnicity were “99% responsible for the riots” and was shocked when my best friend (who is of Nigerian heritage) went on Facebook to say just how disappointed she was that no less than seven of her online friends had been making racist comments about the riots and surrounding events. I don’t want to get into a row about the cause of the riots or the politics surrounding it, but I know this; I watched HOURS of live news footage of those riots and I saw just as many white faces, or mixed race faces (you know, those people who are still HALF WHITE) in those crowds as I did black, asian or a.n.other faces.

But it’s not about the perpetrators or what percentage was foreign or domestic. It’s about the way we choose to react. It’s about the fact that yes, some were black, some were young, some were old, some were women, some were men….the only pattern is that they were all PEOPLE. They all committed the same crimes, so what the hell does their ethnicity or economic standing have to do with it? Don’t bemoan the colour of their skin, bemoan the fact that they were violent, opportunistic tossers.

I know I’ll never get everyone to agree and I’m sure you all have a scathing response to write, stating immigration policy and crime statistics, but I don’t want to be part of a community where colour is more important to people than criminality. It’s not a race issue, it’s a ‘raising your kids the right way’ issue.

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Silent Sunday

By Mum's the Word on August 14, 2011 in Silent Sunday

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Ten Things You Don’t Know About ME…

By Mum's the Word on August 11, 2011 in All About ME!

I find memes like this bloody difficult, mainly because I’m a very ‘heart on my sleeve’ kind of gal and tend to spill my guts on here every day, but seeing as how I was tagged by The Boy and Me, who is one of my all-time favourite bloggers, I must oblige. The premise is simple, I tell you ten things about me, tag some other peeps and so on and so forth. So here goes…

My bent finger.

Yes, I wore these on both hands.

1. I have a bone deformity in my hands which means that my little fingers are permanently bent. When I was younger the doctors thought it was a tendon contracture and I spent a couple of years wearing painful contraptions designed to stretch the tendons (and which caused some bullying at school), only for the doctors to discover that they were completely ineffective.

2. A few weeks ago I made a point of learning some Jamaican dance hall dance moves. Not for any particular reason, I just wanted to. I’m now proficient in the bogle, the butterfly, down di flank and log on. And no, I will not be using them in public.

3. When I was a kid, I was an enormous fan of Guns ‘n’ Roses (oh alright, I still am…) and when my friend (I think it was Emma Christmas, for anyone reading this who may know us) went to America and brought me back a photo of Axl Rose, I attempted to snog the photo and scratched it with my front tooth.

4. I didn’t kiss a boy for the first time until I was 14. This may have been because of the traumatic tooth/photo incident.

5. My first ever boyfriend was gay. Still is gay, as far as I’m aware. He once told me, years later, that I’m the only woman he could ever be attracted to. I still don’t know how to take that….

6. Some of the names that were thrown around for Sausage were Homer, Linus, Harper, Maureen and Daisy. all of which were vetoed by either myself or Husband.

7. The majority of my ancestors are mongrels, harking from all over Europe, but my paternal grandad’s family lived within the same square mile of East London for about ten generations

8. I absolutely LOVE to sing, I sing all the time. SingStar is my favourite game and I would play it every day. One of my favourite ways to spend an evening is for me and Husband to get a takeaway, have a beer and play some SingStar.

9. I’m ridiculously competitive. When I first moved out of home, I had a copy of the Playstation game Buzz. My new flatmates refused to play it with me after a few sessions because of my aggressive baiting, heckling and celebration dances. Plus, I don’t think they liked it when I ‘WOOP’ed loudly in their faces after every time I answered a question correctly.

10. When I was a kid, I used to choose to spend my evenings sleeping at my grandparents house, and my greatest thrill was phoning Richard Spendlove on BBC Essex Radio to request songs like ‘Jive Bunny’ and ’24 Hours To Tulsa’. This went on until I was about 13.

And now for the tagging…

Away you go, my pretties!

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