Rosie Scribble

What is really in my bag?

Lovely blogging friend and secret post club postee Susan has tagged me in a 'What's in your bag meme' where I have to disclose the contents of my handbag to the world.

As my bag is a relatively non-descript black holdall from Next that looks slightly pathetic under the camera lens, for the purpose of this blog post I am pretending that this is my bag:

It contains my current reading material - Alexander McCall Smith,  and my ideas book in preparation for the day in which a burst of creative inspiration hits me. As yet, there has been very little.

There is also the usual boring stuff - purse (empty-ish), an umbrella, an empty tube of Smarties, ladybird magnets (not mine) and my front door keys with the 'Best Mum' keyring I bought for myself (slightly sad):

Then there are the less normal items (don't ask):

And this ransom note:

Not really. I made the last entry up just in case the contents of my bag were sounding too dull.

My bag also contains my new fabulous Samsung Netbook, but I'm not including a photo of that. You may want it.

So that's it, apart from a few empty sweet wrappers stuck to the bottom, a lollipop stick that must have been there since the summer and a sock that does not belong to anyone I know.

So what's in your bag? I'm tagging EnglishMum and SnafflesMummy to spill the beans, so to speak.

Check out Wives and Daughter's blog for even more bag madness!

Motherhood the Movie - review and competition

After a long, busy and exhausting day that started with a trip to the doctors with IJ who was complaining of ear-ache  and ended with a last minute dash to the supermarket to buy packed lunch supplies followed by a 45-minute wait at the post office to renew my passport, I sat down to relax with a free review copy of the film Motherhood starring Uma Thurman.

I then watched a stressed out, disorganised, slightly dishevelled  mother with a never-ending To-Do list struggling to juggle the demands of motherhood and, quite frankly, painting motherhood in a slightly bleak, although entertaining, light.

The film, out in cinemas on March 5th and on DVD on March 8th, is billed as a bittersweet comedy that distills the dilemmas of the maternal state (marriage, work, self, and not necessarily in that order) into the trials and tribulations of one pivotal day. The synopsis states that no other movie had dedicated itself in quite this way to probing exactly what it takes to be a motherhood, with both wry humour and an acute sense of authenticity.

I felt it was very watchable but slightly over the top. If the film was representative of every single day in the life of a mother, then motherhood would not be a particularly attractive life choice. I did not find the film particularly relaxing.

In its attempt to show exactly what it takes to be a mother, it showed almost every possible scenario a mother could face  - from preparing and throwing a 6th birthday party, navigating playground politics with overbearing mums, mending a rift with a friend, battling for a parking space, arguing with neighbours, running after her toddler child, attempting to write a blog post - and it crammed all that into one incredibly hectic day. Spread these events out over the course of a week and it would have been a lot more realistic.

I know several people who have no idea how demanding motherhood can be. Some seem to think it involves drinking  endless cups of coffee with other mums while discussing the pros and cons of various brands of washing powder. I would love them to watch this film!

It was good but not outstanding. It is certainly worth a watch, although perhaps not on a day when you feel the need to escape the world of motherhood for an hour or two.

I have five copies of Motherhood to give away. If you would like to to be in with a chance of winning a copy, just leave a comment including the word 'motherhood'. Five winners will be picked out of a hat by an impartial six-year-old child on Thursday 4th March . I will then contact you for your details and the film will be sent to you direct from Organic Marketing.

Update!

The competition winners have been announced here: Motherhood prize winners.

All trips to London are off

IJ came out of school yesterday looking extremely concerned and disappointed. As we plodded towards the bus stop it was some time before she was able to break the bad news to me,

"Mummy, we can never go to London again, ever." She announced in rather dramatic fashion.

Photo credit

"Oh, why not?" I asked. "Has something happened?"

"Yes." Her expression was very grave at this point. "There has been a fire, a big fire, a GREAT fire."

And the penny quickly drops,

"Do you mean the Great Fire of London?"

"Yes, London is on fire and it is still burning, so we can't visit again, EVER!"

"Darling, the fire was put out in 1666. It isn't burning now."

Okay, so I didn't know the exact year at that precise moment in time,  but with the aid of my ever reliable  information source  - Google, I was able to inform her of the specific details of the Great Fire of London later that evening and reassure her that there is nothing to worry about now.

Today I collected her from school and I once again greeted with a sad and disappointed face.

All trips to London are off, once again.

The reason this time?

The Plague.

So we are back to square one, and history lesson number two!

Mail order mummies

At six years old, IJ has little understanding of the concept of blogging. Although she has seen some of her own creations on my computer screen and the occasional photograph, but she has no real idea of what I'm doing when I'm typing away on-line.

So she refers to 'blogging' as  'typing on your computer'. That snippet of information may help the following conversation make more sense:

We are returning from a trip to the park and IJ is enjoying a much more relaxed mummy - a mummy who happily walked all the way to the park and then walked all the way home again when IJ decided she wanted to bring her scooter along -  and who did not complain  once. Normally I would have mumbled something under my breath and tutted for the duration of the journey.

At the end of our trip outdoors, as we make our journey home with IJ holding my hand while I struggle to drag along the scooter with the other (still not complaining), she suddenly says,

"Typing on your computer was making you cross wasn't it, mummy?"

"I was getting a bit too stressed about it all, yes." I tell her.

"You were typing on your computer with a cross face," she adds.

"It was getting me down a little," I try to explain, "I was taking it all a little bit too seriously and for a while it wasn't fun anymore. But I've had a break now and I'm feeling better."

"Are you still going to type on your computer?"

"Yes,  but I'll be typing less and I won't be worrying about it anymore or getting stressed."

"So you won't be typing on your computer with a cross face?"

"No. No more cross face, it's all fine now."

There's a long pause and I can sense that this is not the end of the conversation, that there is something more that IJ wants to say.

And then she does:

"That's good. I'm not going to sell you now."

What did she just say?

She was planning to sell me? Upgrade me to a newer more exciting less stressed model?

Was she planning an advertisement in the local newspaper? A Mary Poppins-style letter detailing the sort of person she wanted to look after her? Was she going to try and sell me on ebay like we tried to do with Granny without success? Or had she added me to some mummy mail order catalogue that she seems to think exists somewhere out there on the Internet? Maybe one does exist and I'm not aware of it. Perhaps she has already listed me.

I bombard her with questions about her planned methods of selling, but with a twinkle in her eye she simply reassures me that she isn't selling me so I don't have to worry.

However, she is six years old, she has little understanding of the concept of blogging. One day she will read this blog. I may then be sold to the highest bidder!

Photo credit

Escaping it all

Some unexpected good fortune has come our way, and after a hectic half-term week the timing could not be better.

Our very dear friend and confidant Mr F. Antasy has offered us both  a luxury pass allowing us to spend several days at the fabulous White Lies Health Spa in nearby Derbyshire.

Never one to turn an excellent opportunity down, we have accepted his invitation with huge excitement and will be heading off ... well as soon as I have finished this final blog post.

Already I am excited at the prospect of a well-earned break and a chance to escape it all.

So if I am not blogging or tweeting for some time, in fact I know I won't be, it's because I'm escaping it all in the luxurious surroundings of my slightly over-active imagination and enjoying some much needed time-out with my daughter.

But I will be thinking of you all and wishing you well.

Thanks for reading.

See ya ...  I'm off! xx