The Cambridge Mummy blog on: ways to spend your weekend

I was thinking today, that I’m actually a very lucky bird. This weekend and last I have taken the boys swimming in the morning, with a different family each time and then we’ve gone out for lunch. Whilst Lovely Bloke has been at home with either the ironing or the kitchen/dining room project for company. And next weekend, our boys will be with Grandma and Grumpy, whilst I do some filming for at The Baby Show for UKBabyShows.co.uk

Somewhere in the midst of all that, W has finally acquiesced a little, and allow us to start toilet training. This means that we’ve gone through so much chocolate that it’s a wonder he’s managing to sit still at all, there’s that much sugar carousing through his little body. I’m going to find it difficult to film at The Baby Show, because I get a) broody when I see the babies and b) miss my own boys. But I’ve got more of my head around this kind of thing – that by doing it, it’s going to allow me to be there in the first week when E starts school, at drop off and pick up – I know lots of women who won’t be able to do that so it’s something worth noting.I will also be there with W for extra cuddles and snuggles when he realises that E isn’t at pre school with him.

It’s another one of those days where I think we might be getting a bit more balance in our lives, aside from the chaos that’s happening in the parts of the house that are being carved up as I type…

Of course, I’ve now got renewed purpose for my weekend evenings – they are filled with the twilight films. I’m Team Edward, before you even ask, and anything else would be just plain wrong. Watching the films has taken me back to feeling like a teenager – that love can and does conquer everything else. That love can be something all consuming and that you don’t care – that you crave it like “your own personal brand of heroin”. That makes so much sense to me. I remember how I felt about Nick, my boyfriend from 15-19 years of age. He was my first true love and the loss of our relationship was like a bereavement. A proper bereavement, even though we both instigated its demise in different ways. Even now, I look back on it and remember the times fondly, and hope that our boys have those experiences themselves, because they are so special.

I was emailing with someone who isn’t into the whole romantic cliches thing the other night and she asked about my newfound love and why it was affecting me so much. I said it’s because “I have a hitherto previously undiscovered passion for handsome young male vampires who spout the love lines that I think we women should be on the receiving end of every single day without fail”.

Twilight is even making me make more of an effort to be lovely to Lovely Bloke, who is grafting away right now, acquiring another new skill, of plastering. I’m hoping that if I keep telling him how well he is doing, how proud I am of him doing this project, making him cups of tea and bringing him pizza, he’ll reciprocate with statements of love and worship and adoration that would be amiss from the lips of Edward Cullen himself. It’s a project, but then I like a challenge.

So that’s all sorts of different ways I’m spending my weekends at the moment. What are you doing?

The Cambridge Mummy blog on: our wedding anniversary – a review…

Ha ha, I love the idea of “reviewing” my wedding anniversary. That’s comedy in itself. But anyway, I’ve had some tweets about it, so I figured it would be good to write about it and, I’ve actually got lots to photos to document it, which is nice…

Day started at 7am, which is a result in itself. I scurried into the other room with the boys and we wrote special cards for daddy to tell him how much we love him. They were given to him, along with my present – the piece de resistance – a packet of Super Hero Top Trumps. This is a top present in my mind and Lovely Bloke does his best to look pleased with it, as he always does, god love him.

Then he tells me to look inside the wardrobe for my small present. I’m there quickly and searching, searching, searching – I can’t find anything. He’s telling me to keep looking and lo and behold I find a small Mappin and Webb box. Wooooo hooooo!!!! In some ways, it could have been an empty bag. But I suppose it’s what it signifies, what’s within it. So I open it, with the “help” of E.

And inside, are a gorgeous pair of diamond earrings. E is trying to help me wrestle them out of the box, when Lovely Bloke starts to flap a bit.
“Errrr, E shall we let Mummy do that?” So that’s when I realised they were a) real and b) would need to be insured on their own!!

Within an hour the boys had gone to Nanny and Grandad for bacon and eggs for breakfast, to be followed with a day at the sea side and Prezzo’s for lunch, as that’s Nanna’s favourite place to go for a meal out…

We are then on the road, planning to go IKEA, to sort out the kitchen and what we are going to do with it. En route, I do some more calculations and we realise that for an extra bit of money we could have the Howdens kitchen that’s on special offer, including the fitted kit, so we detour off to the outlet shopping place near Braintree. I think it’s called Littleport, but am not sure…

Here’s a photo of me having put make up on in the car, trying to look all “sultry”…

Me, trying to do a friendly, but not gurning face

And this is what I really look like:

This is what I really look like...

So then we get to Littleport or Freeport or Whatever It Is Called and we wander around the shops. Have to say, I’m not overly thrilled with it. But I did find a Wonder Bra outlet shop where in hindsight, I should have had the bra that was 15.00 instead of 25.00 but hey ho, I’ve lived and learnt from that one. And I found some of my jeans, not quite in the right colour in the Levi’s shop. They were 55 instead of 85, which is quite good but if they aren’t “my colour” isn’t that a bit of a false economy?

What I did find however, was something which my dear friend, Dr AKT told me I would find. Skinny jeggings. In stonewash denim. And behold. I did. She mentioned it several times, so I can only assume that she was secretly requesting a pair for her birthday. Who am I to not oblige the desires of one of my two best friends? [For the file, my other best friend, KR, would shoot me if I got her a pair of these, so it's good to note how we all have different kinds of friends who make our worlds go around...]

This is AKT's birthday present. Don't tell her though. It's a secret

And then it was on to Howdens, where we spent so much money that I had to phone the bank to tell them that a transaction of magnitude was going through! After a quick whip home for our swimmers, we visited a worktop place that does recycled glass. It’s gorgeous. And costs £3,000 for the worktop alone, not the MDF that goes under it!!! Here’s a photo for you. Does it look like a £3,000 worktop to you?

Can I justify this worktop? Please????

We didn’t get the price that day, so we skipped off to the Hotel Pool for a swim and sauna, thinking we should be able to afford it as it couldn’t be “that much” really, could it? After that it was Browns for dinner and here’s Lovely Bloke and I eating our puddings….

This is the face of someone eating chocolate cookie cheesecake even though they are too full to really squeeze it in...

Lovely Bloke with hamster cheeks from shovelling his pudding in

After that, we went to the cinema to see the inbetweeners movie. It was very busy and full of teenagers. We felt a bit old. But enjoyed it nonetheless. Then it was home, to bed and then a lie in together the next morning, before a couple of clients phoned me – and I told them I was “off” and managed to not work until my first client meeting at 1pm!

So all in all a good result all round really. Sorry this has been soooooo long, but I wanted do my couple time justice. It’s important to me that we got back to being a couple, even if only for 24 hours, only needing to check on what one other person wanted to do, not three and not having to reason in quite the same way with Lovely Bloke that I do with our tiddlers ;)

Will I do it again? Yes, without LittlePort, FreePort, whatever it is. And without the diamond earrings and the £3,000 worktop (did I mention the worktop???) Lovely Bloke, mooching about, swimming, dinner and movie is my idea of a good time. And I’m pleased to have worked that out. It’s a good feeling.

Now I’ve got to put my cape on and transform into Liz Weston, Baby PR, Marketing to Families and Social Media solutions provider for my day job. So I’ll see you later x