The Magic Treat Bag

Little man's behaviour has always been fairly challenging.  Much as I love him he is, what can only be described as, a high maintenance child.  But the last few weeks has seen his behaviour escalate to almost out of control.  Spitting, kicking, being cheeky, hissing at me, Yep, Hissing! Whenever he's told off he curls his lip, bares his teeth and hisses at me like a lizard.  I was at the end of my tether with him and something had to be done!

I considered the obvious naughty step, sticker chart, etc etc but I have tried these in the past and they just don't work for me,  Probably of my own doing but I just cannot consistently stick to what is required to make these options work.

I then remembered a tried and tested technique. The Magic Bag.  It worked when my daughter went through a little naughty phase so we're trying it again.

Basically, I've filled a bag with various tacky and rubbish items.  He is Halloween mad at the moment so there are plenty of spiders, bugs, bats and various other nasty critters in there.  When he is well behaved he gets to put his hand in the bag and pull out a treat.

Hey Presto! Today, I have had one exceptionally well behaved little boy.  One or two little tiny incidents but no spitting, no kicking and thankfully there has been no hissing either.  I'm not hopeful that it will last but so far so good.

Dark Chocolate M & M's = Bliss

I have to confess that I a massive chocolate lover and my very biggest weaknesses are dark chocolate and peanut m & m's.  So, you can imagine how excited I was to find, whilst doing my asda shop, that there is now dark chocolate peanut m & m's. My perfect naughty combination.

Of course, I had to buy a big bag.  So, with the kids in bed, I'm sat here all alone, obviously these are not to be shared, I have made myself a lovely coffee, sat down and ripped open the bag. They taste amazing. No doubt, the bag will shortly be polished off in full.

The diet? what diet? oh yeah, the diet I started last week, again! Well, I'm having a day off of course.

Something always spoils it.

I have had a great weekend and I was feeling totally chilled and relaxed until it came to the Sunday night ritual of bathing the children.  Firstly the hot water tap decided to break and I was left trying to fill the bath with a mere trickle of hot water.  I decided I would try and speed matters along by turning on the shower only to find that that had died a death as well.  Therefore I was left filling up buckets of water up.  Nightmare.  The worst thing will be in the morning.  I don't know how I will  survive without my morning shower.  The most annoying thing is I only installed the shower just over a year ago.  Arghhhhhhhh!

Anyway, I have had a lovely weekend.  I got my party dress out a last night and hit the bars with my other half.  It was so nice to have  some adult time.  I had a chilled out afternoon pampering myself.  It was a total make-over afternoon with a new hair colour, manicure, pedicure, the works.  I'm not used to Saturday nights out drinking anymore and I forgot how busy some of the pubs could be.  You could barely move in some.  I was bumped into, pushed out the way, trod on and had countless drinks spilt on my new dress. To be honest by the end of the night I was ready to go home and slip into my comfy slippers.  I think it's a sign that just maybe I am now growing older.

This morning, thankfully hangover free although I'm not sure how I managed that, I had a lovely sleep in. There is nothing better then being brought a Sunday morning coffee in bed and just laying there watching rubbish Sunday morning TV with no reason to get up.  It's been a long time since I have enjoyed that.  We finally got up, showered and headed to a nearby cafe bar for a lovely long relaxing lunch

All to soon it. was time to head home and back to reality with the mountain of ironing to tackle and the imminent arrival home of my babies.  Despite the lovely weekend I missed them every second of it.  It wasn't long before the house was filled with the sound of cbeebies, arguing and fighting.   Roll on my next free weekend

National Railway Museum and Hull Fair

I have had such an unbelievably busy yet totally brilliant weekend.  It makes a change for me not to be having a whinge on here but I can honestly say at the moment I don't have much to complain about. 

It's been that dreaded week in October that everyone in Hull knows, mostly loves and dreads all the same time.  The age old tradition of Hull Fair.  We went twice and had a great time it was rides galore, candy floss, brandy snap and toffee apples.  We inevitably spent a fortune but what the hell! It's a good job it only comes once a year.  There is nothing like walking around the fairground soaking up the atmosphere.  The lights, sounds and smells of the fair mingled with the heavy autumnal evening air is something that simply cannot be recreated and can only be described as kind of magical. 

Unfortunately there are the crowds to contend with, the less then desirable idiots that choose to hang around and try to spoil things, the undercurrent of cigarette smoke and the horrendous amount of rubbish discarded on the floor and we won't even describe the state of the public toilets.  Still non of these things spoilt our evening and the four of us had a great night.

Today, we had a day at the National Railway Museum in York.  Charlie is a miniature train spotter and is obsessed with engines so it was the perfect place to take him.  All I can say is what a brilliant place to visit  I have had one of the most interesting days and after five hours in the place I can honestly say I could have easily stayed longer. The best thing was it was totally free.  A donation was requested which we did leave but we could have entered without paying a penny.

Although I don't have a really big interest in trains. I am a bit of a history geek and I do love nothing better then visiting museums.  I just love trying to get a sense of how things used to be.  I just enjoyed the whole experience from start to finish.  You don't realise how huge these engines are until you see them up close. The kids had a brilliant time exploring and learning all about trains and engines.  I know a lot of people that find museums boring but I love them.  We met a great guy who spent over half an hour showing us various artifacts and explaining the stories behind them.  He was so interesting that I could honestly have listened to him all day.


I now have 2 tired little children, happily asleep in their beds after a rather action packed few days.  My weekend has flown by again and I have loved every second spending it together as a family.  This is what weekends are all about. The best part of my weekend has been having to someone to share the great times with.  I have to admit I have enjoyed being single these last few years but at the minute I am enjoying being in a relationship even more. 

I'm back!

It's been a while since my last post, almost 2 months! I do not know where the days have gone,  I've enjoyed a great week in the sun and came back from the wonderful island Crete with a lovely suntan and a note book full of ideas and scribblings.  To date I haven't had any time to do anything with my scribblings but I'm sure they will come in handy at some point.

There have been some big changes in my life these past few months. Since returning from holiday I'm starting a whole new chapter.  Firstly, on 24th August my decree nisi was pronounced and hopefully any day now I should be in receipt of my decree absolute.  Yeah, over two years after divorce proceedings were started I am finally approaching the finish line. I'm glad to say that it has not all gone in his favour either.  The judge ruled that if I am not eligible for legal aid then my ex will have to pay half of my legal fee's.  Result.

 The good news is I am no longer a single mum.  I am officially in a relationship, the first since my husband.  It's strange how I totally enjoyed being single I wasn't looking for anyone yet out of nowhere, without realising fully what has been happening, I am now involved in 'serious' relationship. It was slightly weird at first having someone else in my life and getting to know them and like everything in my life it was complicated at the start.  Firstly, things were complicated on his side and then I had the worry over when to introduce him to the kids? Would they accept him? Would they even like him? Was it even what I wanted?

Thankfully, since coming back off my holiday it has all been fairly plain sailing,  His complications are sorted. The kids love him and have accepted him with no problems and I have to confess to being happier than I have been for a long time. So, yes it most definately is what I wanted.  All I can say is that it just feels right.  The next big announcement will have to be work colleagues.  Yep, we met at work.  It's been a little awkward working in the same office and trying to keep it all under wraps.  It's not that we have been doing anything wrong. We just wanted to take things slowly, get to know each other, without the office gossips watching our every move.  There are a few people at work that now know and I'm betting it won't be long before the whole world knows.

 As a result my writing has taken a slight sideward step at the minute but I am still determined to keep at it.  I have now completed the first 10 assignments in my course and covered all the non-fiction topics.  I am about to embark on the part that I have wanted to do from day one, the fiction aspect.  I found some of my assignments pretty tough going and I did struggle from time to time with the journalistic side.  This is definitely not my forte but I am glad I stuck with it and can now concentrate on my stories. 

I have a feeling that now I have posted this I will be re-bitten by the blogging bug and will no doubt be posting another entry very soon.  Watch this space!