Is it the most wonderful time of the year..?

“The one good thing about this whole #ruleof6 thing is that Christmas will be less of a nightmare for me.” So said one woman in a rather loud voice when I was in a café the other day. I was sat waiting for my Mum to arrive, so thought I’d sit and listen – there wasn’t much choice not to! “Well, I think you make a rod for your own back. You don’t need to have them all over – there are so many with all their kids too, but every year you cave and round they come. You should let them do it one year,” answered this woman’s friend. The Christmas host then proceeded to say that her house is neutral ground and if one of her kids hosts the day, there’s usually a falling out and she doesn’t like that at Christmas. “How can I say no? They expect me to do it. Besides, I like making everyone happy, it’s my job as their Mum.” she said. Thank goodness my Mum...

Couch not Coach

I signed up for the Joe Wicks 90 Day Plan a month ago. My personal plan was sent to me, I got it printed, chose the recipes that I liked (to be honest, it’s a whole new taste sensation for me!) and I joined the Facebook Group. I read about lots of people’s achievements and was inspired. Not enough to actually get on with it though…

The reason for this? It’s not because I am lazy. I’m not fearing the workouts, I did enough in Lockdown to know what I’m letting myself in for. Nope. It’s the cooking. I don’t cook and I don’t like cooking and to be honest, I don’t know where to start. I know we are given the recipes but I want to do this whole thing right and if I  get the recipes wrong and consequently, don’t like what I have produced, then I’ll have to cook a makeshift meal that will be off-plan. I will have messed up my macronutrients (again, something new I’ve learnt about) and the...

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Your ‘why’

Sidney Rittenberg was an American journalist and scholar. He was sent to China during the Second World War as a Chinese linguist and when the war ended, he chose to stay in the country. As a committed Socialist, he was sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cause. He knew Chairman Mao personally, as well as many of the other high-ranking leaders but just as Mao was a friend, he was also Rittenberg’s jailor. At various points, over the coming years, as suspicions grew about foreigners, Sidney fell afoul of the CCP and was imprisoned in solitary confinement not just once but twice, for a total period of 16 years.

During Rittenberg’s first imprisonment, for the initial 12 months, he was kept in a completely dark room. His incarceration continued for a further five years before he was finally released. Through his understanding of human nature and empathy with the prison...

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The ripple effect

I read with regularity that we’re going to soon be facing a mental health crisis in the UK, due to the effects of the Coronavirus. The pandemic has no signs of abating, as cases increase, and more local Lockdowns are imposed. If you look around and see the effects it’s having, you can understand that the human psyche is taking quite a battering at the moment.

Whilst there are pockets of businesses managing, pivoting and diversifying, there are so many at breaking point. Only recently, I read about a travel agency owner who had successfully run her own firm for 20 years but is now struggling to keep things going. In her late 50’s, she’s needing to put a CV together, something she hasn’t done in decades, and she feels desperate about the whole situation. Unfortunately, her story is not unique.

The entertainment and hospitality sectors are fighting to hang on but every...

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Altering our course

Resilience. That’s something we need by the bucket load right now. We hear the words ‘challenging’, ‘uncertain’ and ‘unprecedented’ a lot because well, that’s the situation we find ourselves in right now. The fact that COVID-19 is not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, means that the majority, if not all facets of our lives are affected by the virus. Our job and how we carry it out, our home life – how we all feel mentally and emotionally and how we might allow this to affect our relationships; if we have children – how they’re feeling about school, college, university and their varied experiences and how we can help them to navigate all this; any pastimes we might have – whether they can still continue, or maybe a different version of; seeing friends – we need to be creative with who we can see and where -...

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The yin and the yang.

According to the people who apparently know about these things, it’s best not to write blogs and social media posts about the Coronavirus because everyone is fed up with it. Of course they are, we all are but this is life Jim, but not as we know it. It’s global and it affects everyone. The effects ripple out to every facet of our lives. And it’s not going away any time soon. Therefore, addressing our mindset is one of the key things we can do right now to enable us to have some semblance of normality. By keeping our mindset in check, we are able to weather the storm. If we work on our mindset daily, when life throws the crazy stuff at us, we have the tools and strategies to deal with it. Sometimes it takes time but we at least know it’s possible.

COVID-19 thing is having varying effects on business. Last week, I wrote about how some business leaders are able to see the...

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Time waits for no one

How can we be halfway through September? Where has the year gone to so far? Oh wait, that’s it, half of it we’ve been in the middle of a pandemic. Who’d have thought when this whole thing started six months ago, that we’d still be in it? In fact, tighter restrictions have just been introduced.

I confess, with the whole back-to-school milestone last week – having geared my girls up with varying degrees of enthusiasm from them, then one daughter home the second day because of a member of staff having a confirmed case of COVID-19, I was needing to manage my mindset A LOT.

Writing on the wall

The news that social gatherings will now be restricted from 30 to 6 in England was surprisingly surprising. I mean, let’s face it, the writing has been on the wall for a while now with cases of COVID-19 increasing. Other countries in the UK have had more severe restrictions...

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‘Ullo John, gotta new motor?

Selling and buying cars does not rank very highly on my ‘fun things to do’ list. I find it all very tedious and if I’m honest, stressful. I acknowledge this is not helpful self-talk. My car recently developed a fault. A big fault and because of its age and mileage, it wasn’t worth getting it fixed. Our options – sell it privately but I couldn’t face the tyre kickers, nor someone nice buying it and then something even worse happening to the car. Part-ex with a car dealer isn’t always the best plan either because they just do that thing when they walk round the car appraising it, when they rub their chin, point out the defects and then give with one hand and take with another when you get down to talking turkey.

So, we went to that place where they always buy your car. Having done some research, we think we did quite well as it goes, so that...

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Sweet child o’ mine

Now, I love my children. Never let that be in any doubt. But don’t we as parents/grandparents/godparents etc have those moments when we wonder where this screaming, tantrum yelling, or at the very least – moody person came from…

I have three girls aged 10, 12 and 14, so it’s an interesting time in my house, not to mention my propensity to be a bit of a diva sometimes. Honestly, my husband doesn’t just need a man cave, he needs a veritable bat cave – full of all the superhero armour required to get him through his next mission – surviving another day with his sanity intact!

Tweens and teenagers are mainly concerned with their own issues and whilst I am very lucky to have three very thoughtful daughters who to be fair, after the event, are very self-aware, life is not without it’s moments where things get a bit fraught, stroppy, moody and so...

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Kitten heels vs tractor wheels

Ten years ago, my husband and I decided to up sticks and leave London for the crunchyside. This is what our four-year-old called it. So, with a 4 and 2-year-old, and a 2-week old baby, we moved from South East London to the county where we’d both grown up. The reason for the decision being that we didn’t want our daughters growing up in the Big Smoke, but to instead live a less hectic pace of life, and the big draw were the four sets of grandparents ( I know, greedy right?!) who lived there. When young, we’d both spent a lot of time with grandparents, so we wanted our children to build those memories too.

It was a huge culture shock. Although brought up here, I moved away in my late teens, and so it was a big adjustment moving back. I’d left my sister and best friends behind and that was a huge wrench. Then there were the silly little things that you don’t...