Thames Valley Mums Blog

The Little Book of Goodness

The School Food Trust have created "The Little Book of Goodness" which is full of advice and helpful tips on what kids should eat at school. Check it out!

SchoolFoodTrust : 'Little Book of Goodness'

There's also a competition to win a year's worth of free school lunches.

This post was written by Susanna, a Thames Valley Mums Blog founding contributor. You can read more at her blog, A Modern Mother.

Are you a coffee shop mummy?

I used to be a Starbucks chick, but I am now a Cafe Nero Mum. The reason for that was convenience to begin with. My local Starbucks is probably the only one in the whole of the UK so baby UNfriendly. It has very limited space on the ground floor and no lift, no wonder it alienates half of their most loyal customers: us, mummies and buggies! So I had to shift to Cafe Nero and its large comfortable sofas, wide space and chocolate panetones, I soon became addicted to this place.

My love for coffee goes way back to when I was a child. In my family like in most French households, coffee is the way to start the day, end lunch and dinner, share when friends come to visit and have any other time in between. In France when people turn up at your house, you switch on the cafetiere, not the kettle. I love nothing more than being greeted by the smell of fresh coffee in the morning.

Mrs Osmond's "Opulent Chicken"

I always flick through the newspaper supplements and look for human interest stories and recipes.  Flicking through  the Sunday Telegraph (01.03.09) seven supplement I caught an article about Donny Osmond.  Actually, it wasn't Donny Osmond.  I thought it was Donny, but then I looked again and it was Jimmy.  Never mind.  I probably would have read it anyway. The article was about Donny's, no Jimmy's perfect Sunday. 

Church ranked pretty high....obviously, but then it went on about no video games, children, long walks and family dinners and specifically Mrs Osmond's "opulent chicken" dish.

Bad tempers at dawn

Last night I went to bed determined to have a more positive day with my children today. Yesterday son 1 was rude, aggressive, back chatty and basically obnoxious. Son 2 was whingey, whiney and full to the brim of complaints. I had a long hard chat with myself last night and vowed to start today with a fresh new nag free start.

Ha ha bloody ha.

That goal flew out of the window at roughly 1am in the morning when son 2 lay crying for me in his bed. So I went to him, he wouldn't settle down so I wearily lugged him back to my bed given husband is out of town. Immediately son 1 followed suit. So I had both in bed with me.