Dry January

I'm taking part in dry January this year. For those not au fait with what this entails, dry January is sadly not a guarantee of a rain free month but a chance for people that normally imbibe to ...erm...not.

So for 31 long days I shall be shunning alcohol, no sneaky beer after work, no bottle of cava (and subsequent drunken blog post) on a Sunday after noon, no downing shots until I puke during The Musketeers (well not until February anyway).

What is the point? Well may you ask, it's not long enough to really rest the liver or help my liver function in any way (though I am going to take some milk thistle to see what that might achieve!) and I'm not doing it to raise money for charity (do not get me started on sponsored stuff - that's a whole other post).

I'm doing it because it will be good for me, for me, I'm not saying it would be good for you or you should do it. I hope it will help me sleep better (actually I barely need help there, but maybe I'll be more refreshed from the sleep I do get), I know it will help me save money, at around £5 for a bottle of wine or case of beer I should be £10....£20 .....£30 .... quite a bit better off for not buying it. I also hope it will break the habit of an alcoholic drink each night after work, maybe letting me get back to 'not on a school night'. I'm not a saint or a martyr or better than you, I'm just choosing to not drink alcohol during January.

Why tell us all about it them? Another good question. I think it will be easier and dare I suggest, more fun, to do this as a group with other friends in real life and on social media, also a promise is somehow easier to stick to when you tell everyone about it.

Do you think it's really such a big deal? Well no, not really, I gave up booze no problem for 9 months when I was pregnant and only drank small amounts for the ten months after that as I was breastfeeding, so no I don't think it will be anything other than a minor annoyance.

I'm spending some money on drinks though, just non alccoholic ones. I will be stocking up on Ginger Beer, J2O, sparkling water and various fruit juices, not becasue I think they are healthy but I know I'll get bored of tap water.

Are you taking part? If so what are your reasons? And what will you be drinking instead? I'd love to know.

They're Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace...

They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
Alice is marrying one of the guard.
"A soldier's life is terrible hard,"
                                                                    Says Alice.

We went to London on Saturday, as we live on the coast it's up for us, not down, and we are neither called Christopher, nor Alice..I'm not sure where this is going except I recited this poem to DD when we were at Buckingham Palace, I feel if when you see this

and don't recite that perfect poem by A.A. Milne you are wasting everyone's time.

We were not in London to visit the Queen though, nor a little mouse under her chair. We were there to meet up with the simply marvelous totally barking authors that I met up with back in January but this time DD was coming along too.

First I went to John Lewis with £200 worth of vouchers that I'd won online burning the proverbial hole in my pocket. After an hour of um-ing and ahhh-ing and with help from DD I settled on a lovely chiffon dress in black, with a butterfly motif (£105 !! *faints*) and a White Stuff reversible cotton skirt with a bird patterm (£45) I also stocked up on 'my smell' (as DD calls it) Clarins Dynamisante (£32)

Then it was a rush to the pub, to meet for Lunch. We were late of course. We met at the Mayflower, the pub was charming, and after a brief confusion where I was upstairs and alone with Dd and a bottle of wine while everone one else was downstairs, we settled down to chatting about all sorts of odd things, books, food, women, sex, cats, watches...sometimes several from that list at once.

The food was delicious. The waitress put up with our happy mildly tipsy behaviour. No one danced on the table, or got naked, though Andy and Tony downed shots of Tabasco sauce to impress us. We were suitably impressed...and a little bit worried!

All in all the meet up was lovely (well I enjoyed it - I do hope the others did!) DD has declared all authors (but especially Andy Stanton and Anthony McGowan) 'barking' ... after the Tabasco affair I fear she has a point.

Emily, Tony, TM, DD

Sally, Andy and Jane

Later we walked back from the tube via Green Park and Buckingham Palace.

What a super day!

Scream Time

sorry no, not scream, screen...or maybe I was right the first time.

We (not the royal we, I do have a husband) have settled on what we consider appropriate screen time for our soon to be teen daughter.

We are not a family that watches much TV, we have never watched before 4pm and as adults we tend not to sit down to watch until about 9pm and we go to bed at 10pm so we are not square eyed. We also try to be discerning in what we watch, sticking to a few dramas (no soaps, no reality tv) and some nature, or history or art and culture stuff.

We have a child though and she is less discerning, loving many comedies, kids shows, reality stuff, whatever and while we try and restrict times and ensure the TV is not actually unsuitable we let her get on with it. For a while we even tried total derestriction (during the summer holiday) hoping she'd get bored and it would lose the attraction, this didn't work, she pretty much watched every waking hour and moaned if we asked her to leave the house with us at any time!

So now we have a fairly strict regime of timings, less TV in the week and never more than 2 hours a day. (screen time is not just TV it includes computer/wii time too but often computer time is actually youtube or iplayer time!) and for a while that seemed to go well but lately the times for TV are seen as a right, an entitlement, with arguments that TV comes first, before chores, before homework. Behaviour is getting worse too and while I know teens do have the whole struggle with hormones ... it all seems so TV orientated.

I guess what I wonder is what you do? How can we cope? Are we unfair? What is normal? Do we seem too strict or not strict enough? Is there ever an excuse for rudeness?

I totally adore DD but some days I can see why some animals eat their young!

Help!