What is it about them? They make huge profits and still take every opportunity to fleece us.

The latest is that they have been watching peoples movements online to test a new marketing tool that will tailor advertising to the browser. Unfortunately they decided not to have the courtesy to ask or inform the public first, insisting the findings were anonymous. They insist they obtained legal advice and have not broken the law. That point is debatable but they have broken trust and breached the confidentiality and privacy of their customers. All this for profit?

They also insist on a minimum payment of 40p in a call box, and don’t give change, so if you haven’t any less than a pound in an emergency, they keep it all.

I hate, absolutely and utterly hate it when people moan loudly about something they want you to hear, but don’t have the courage to come out and tell you.

They have loud conversations about something that you’ve done that annoyed them but just mention ‘when people leave their gate banging…’ or whatever it is.

Why can’t they just come and say, ‘do you mind not…or I’m sorry but your banging gate really gets on my nerves?’ If they are doing it close enough so you hear it they obviously want to challenge you so are they expecting you to just listen and meekly scuttle away and correct your behaviour? Is it that they fear confrontation but want to let you know?

Either way it is so annoying, I think I’ll go and stand near them and tell someone else, loudly, how much people that do it annoy me.

Family photo albums, adverisements with rosy happy children and playground conversation with friends never touch on this reality – the grotty side of children.

Wiping saucy or snotty fingers on wallpapered walls.

Those mysterious stains are best avoided

Bottom scratching.

Often when nervous which explains why they always do it in front of special guests, work colleagues or in formal public places, like museums.

Chewing food and talking or just chomping with a wide open mouth.

How many times do I have to remind them….?

Nose picking.

Alone or in public. Worse when snotty.

Drinking straight from juice or milk bottles in the fridge.

So there is that slight feeling of unease when pouring milk for friends or guests unless the bottle is newly opened.

Picking their scabs.

…and eating them.

Dirty smelly underwear .

Hidden under the bed, the mattress or found by the dog.

Farting.

Silently with the most awful smell and loud arguments that it wasn’t them or loudly (equally smelly, )accompanied by fits of the giggles.

Burping.

On purpose, repeatedly after fizzy drinks, competing with each other for the loudest.

Wiping their mouths after a meal.

On the clean teatowel which you discover when drying glasses and finding them smeared with baked bean sauce.

Wandering around the stores the other day I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the amount of stuff, and choice of foods, beauty products, clothes, equipment, labour saving devices, jewellery and so on.

We really do have it all (even if we can’t buy it all this minute!) For instance there are umpteen products for every area of our homes and every appliance within every area of our homes, for our cars and each separate part on it, and our bodies and every bit thereof.

These are just the products I could use for one of my legs:-.

Razor, Delapitory cream, body lotion, moisturizer, cellulite cream, fake tan, real tan, henna tattoos, deep heat treatment, nail varnish, nail file, foot cooling lotion…. and a bucket load of corn plasters, athletes foot treatments etc.

I wonder how different my leg would feel if I tried a week using all of the above, and followed it with product free week, or vice versa.

Apart from momentary gratification and a hairy leg, I doubt there would be much difference!

.

One of the hardest things about being a single mother is the combination of being girlfriend to very single (no kids) partner and mother to 3 kids. I feel I have  a split personality when I make packed lunches and worry about children wearing their coats, and then act flirtatious and horny on a night out with Gary, all in the same day.

When I’m in mother mode, love and lust seem a million miles away but when I’m in passionate embrace mode, my mother genes don’t go, but they seem to hide, giving me the chance to be woman me as opposed to mother me.

Given a straight choice, obviously the mother me would be ‘it.’

Married people somehow combine the parenthood and sexual being thing which is very clever.

When you are single you come with kids, but they are your kids. You don’t necessarily want your man (not their father) to engage too much with them.

So you live life as a mother and a lover, almost separately.

No wonder you’re shattered.

Oh how I love books but they are taking over the house. They are in every room, the hallway and even the bathroom

Whenever we go out we vow not to buy more but somebody always gets another and we are drawn, as if by magnetic force, to old bookshops and book stalls at boot fairs or school fetes.

I’ve tried pruning, and encouraging the children to do likewise and once in a while we throw out…about three.

What’s the answer? A book about how to manage your books maybe?

Trying to control the amount of chocolate children eat during the Easter Period is impossible. I buy them an egg each, and so does their father and Gary (boyfriend.) Then so do my parents, and my ex in-laws, both brothers (though it’s their wives that actually do it,) a couple of my friends,an old family friend and then one or two of their school friends.

It all amounts to a bucket-load of Easter eggs for each of them. I ration them but the sheer amount means chocolate treats for about six weeks or letting them go mad and eat them all in a week, so that we can get back to a reasonably healthy eating regime.

I try to stop them eating their way through their chocolate mountain too quickly while they try to negotiate for more and more.

We’re all relieved when the chocolate season is finally over!

Schools used to have four days off leading up to Good Friday, then the Easter Bank Holiday weekend followed by the Tuesday to Friday afterwards.

Now the children have Good Friday and Easter Monday off and return to school, only to have a fortnights holiday a fortnight later.

This means that they get two days extra holiday – great for them and their teachers but not so great for those of us who have to worry about childcare.

It means that schools have to field some of the Easter expectation excitement and the chocolate hyperactivity as they return after Easter Monday.

But the Easter holidays had activities and days out built around the Easter treat theme.   Now Easter will be over and done with and children will then have two weeks off to fill with no particular holiday aim or purpose and in weather that isn’t that great.

It could work out, or it could be an absolute pain.  I’ll keep you posted.

I read the following in a press releast today.

‘A Survey from Born to Play states that 69% of UK Children want to stay at home this Easter. Children between the ages of three and nine who were questioned said that they would most like to play at home.’

When I asked my children, they did want to go out for the day. Ideas included a trip to EuroDisney, Bowling, Legoland,Thorpe Park, The Tower of London, Paintballing, or the London Eye. The only problem was that none of them could agree on a location.

My suggestion that they might be happier spending the holiday playing at home was met with rolling eyes and groans of dismay.

Thinking of friends children I think that they would have the same reaction. Children love trips.

I can only conclude that the survey was carried out on children that attend ballet, karate, piano, horse-riding, art, and other extra curricular activities and are taken on so many improving trips in their holidays that they are desperate for free time to play at home.

Can that really be the majority?

Why are children so desperate to ensure everything is absolutely fair, down to the amount of chips on a plate or five minutes extra bedtime?

Explanations about later bedtimes being more appropriate for older children, or that the youngest may need more help with homework are met with sulks and tantrums, or woeful looks which interpreted mean ‘you love them more than me.’

Yet when they want something, their differences are used to work in their favour.

‘But I am the youngest I shouldn’t have to tidy up as much as the others.’

‘I’m older so I should have more.’

‘I’m the oldest so I get to choose the film.’

‘I’m a girl so I shouldn’t have to carrry so much.’

‘I’m a boy, why should I learn to cook.’

Yes unfortunately despite my best efforts children themselves will use their sex to try to gain advantage! I comfort myself with the thought that they would use the colour of their hair or their shoe size if it would get them what they wanted at that moment.

Maybe all this is because deep down they know that life is not fair and while they are children they want to milk as much fairness as they can!