The Zapp was brought to market as the smallest folded pushchair available. It’s what made me buy one. I liked the idea that you could put it in a bag and get on a plane with it. (In actual fact I’ve never been allowed to just walk it on the plane: I suspect I needed to be holding a First Class ticket to do that.) I much preferred it in terms of design to the cheaper Petit Star Zia, though an obvious shortfall was the inability of the Zapp to … [Read more...]
Tefal Actifry: Perfect chips without the frying
Did you know that you could cook Spaghetti Bolognese in a fat-fryer? Or Pork Satay? I didn't either. In my head at least, fat fryer are things that burn down houses, featuring in the Public Safety films of the early 1980's and living on in my nightmares. They create a cooking fug that it takes two buckets of bleach and days' work with a metal scraper to get off the ceiling before you can repaint it. They smell greasy and unpleasant and make you … [Read more...]
Christmas Countdown: Rudolph please stop here
The Pocket Dictator went to meet 'The Man' this weekend. I refer of course to the man in the red suit. It's all she's talked about for days, and she gabbled excitedly as we patiently waited our turn at the Church Fair Santa's Grotto. So I shouldn't have been surprised that, as soon as we entered the semi-darkness of the Choir Room, every inch of which had been covered with fairy lights, that she became all shy and hid behind my legs. Dimples on … [Read more...]
The Good Wife Guide #1
Picture creditThe last time I wrote about a Wife-guide, I got into the kind of trouble you never expect, but that has the potential to divide a family until the end of time. In making a point, I didn't choose my words carefully enough and almost had to stop blogging altogether. So I have been reticent about this post.DH bought me this book for Christmas. Not, I hasten to add, as an insult or a pointer, but more because he thought it would be good … [Read more...]
Thought for a Thursday
This was my original thought, though not very original at the moment (I'll have you know I was ahead of the trend on owning this poster and have it in my downstairs loo.) It's appropriate after a week of awful commuting experiences and poonami incidents from both PD and WH. The WH very thoughtfully rolled in fox poo then rolled all over my *gasp* cream sofa this morning whilst I was bathing PD and putting her in her third outfit of the day. And … [Read more...]
Mercy
I have always loved reading, have always been encouraged by my parents to read. I never really thought that there was a right and wrong thing to read until I was thirteen and had my books confiscated by Matron. She deemed Danielle Steel to be inappropriate (yet she left Judy Blume's Forever, which to my mind was much racier....) reading material, despite the fact that I had been dispatched back to school with a job lot of said fiction by my … [Read more...]
Hopscotch and Handbags- Lucy Mangan
By the way, for those of you still to go on your summer holiday, you can buy a copy of 'Handbags and Hopscotch: the Essential Guide to Being a Girl' here, written by my wonderfully talented friend, Lucy Mangan. It's out in a couple of weeks. I've been invited to the Launch Party, though have no idea what one wears to that sort of thing. Don't want to go all Bridget Jones, in an inappropriate dress and babbling incomprehensively about Salman … [Read more...]
