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Showing posts from September, 2010

working, WORKING, MOTHERING, EXPLODING !

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When going back to work hits home... My problem/difficulty, like many working mothers, is finding a balance between work, home, "home"-work... Yes, all 3 because we working mums have 3 different status types during the week. Professional status,  home -in - fluffy - slippers relaxed status  and finally, our role as home executive and care-giver, keeping the home running status. It is not a simple task to balance the three, and, in fact, I am beginning to wonder whether it is a science. I am not scientific! I am trying desperately to have a sense of humour about the quandry I find myself in, walking in circles between the three. DesperateAngloHousewife I AM! This affliction we call "modern woman" seems to be an endless, open throated scream that few of us can surmount. Is this equality ? Even my cleaning lady expects great things of me..for example, to clean the house before she arrives! Last week she growled at me for not having sewn my husband's butt

EVERYTHING'S GONE RETRO

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You know that you are a "certain" age when you see the full cycle of fashion. When that style comes around again, you are definitely going into your fourth or fifth decade. In the 80's we thought it was rather cool to do the 60's retro thing -  Ray Bans were huge and then there were the B 52s. Ah, Rock Lobster ... The retro 60's are back, again. My 11 year old daughter has new glasses which would make Georgie Girl spin and my son watches Mad Men as if it's education! This DesperateAngloHousewife also watches Mad Men, but that's simply because she is perving at Don Draper! He really is the ultimate 60's retro hunk...where was he in the 80's during the last "60s re-visit?" Food also goes round in fashion. The cup cake, in all its pastel coloured glory, has received a huge welcome back and now, in France, the 60s Tropezienne cake is starting to edge itself back into our palate's favour with new modern flavours, etc. Flicking through

BODY BALANCE and other extremes

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Last week I snuck into the gym, trying to avoid my personal trainer. He's a great guy and has worked miracles on my squishy bits, but I was feeling a little pmt-ish and not in the mood for a near tear-inducing session with him. I managed to get to the step machines, hiding behind poles, hanging in shadows without him seeing me. Just about to jump onto a machine when another coach insisted that I join her new class called Body Balance...trying to explain that I don't do  collective classes, "I am like Mrs Bean ," I argued, "I fall over myself, others, off the edge of equipment etc.. Am in fact a danger to the public, you don't want me in that room with you and other humans." ...but nonetheless got roped into to something which she described as "Tai Chi to modern music." 2 of us, one very healthy/strapping teacher, pulsing music..we enter into a world of sped-up yoga, moving from the "salutation to the sun" to a "min

Disdain and More Summer Pudding #3

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Now that this DespAngloHousewife has been publically deleted from a " certain French cooking programme" she is going to rebirth her culinery-inner-goddess with, you guessed it, MORE PUDDING. How is that we women sometimes lose total confidence in ourselves and everything we do or touch? I have been barely able to touch a cooking pot in the last few months such was my disdain for myself. I was utterly convinced that I was the dunce of cooking, culinery reject and idiot for having once believed otherwise. When I sit and listen to my friends chat, I am amazed how we women put ourselves down so easily and yet build each other up so frequently. This is perhaps another feminine contradiction, but I am sure that any woman reading this will understand. What is it about our inner circle of "girl friends" that is so cherishing and rich?  You arrive late for a girls' lunch feeling that summer-muffin blousing over the top of your trousers, SAD lifeless hair stuck