spring 2010

magazine

because we’re mums and so much more

million
mums
...
massive
difference

life is a
daring
adventure

happy mums = happy families

mummo.co.uk
million mums

million mums ...

the Downing Tweet Christmas Party for million mums

all photos are courtesy of the Downing Street photostream on Flickr

and are reproduced here under the Creative Commons license
 mummo magazine

welcome
to the second edition of
mummo magazine, created
entirely by mums for mums to
celebrate Mothers’ Day and to
help support the ongoing
‘million mums’ campaign ...

Some of you will remember the first ever edition of this magazine, which we produced for Mothers’ Day last
year and which we thought would be a one-off! Well, guess what, the feedback was so fantastic that we
decided to do another one ...

Once again, I’ve been blown away by the amazing and varied talents of all the mums who’ve been involved.
Multi-tasking mums with myriad skills who, in addition to raising their children, manage to build successful
careers and businesses, contribute to their communities, have dreams and dare to make them happen. And
who are lovely, lovely people as well! It’s proof of what mums can - and do - offer to society. So let’s celebrate
motherhood not just on Mothers’ Day but every day ...

And, while we’re at it, let’s help to make motherhood safe. Did you know that around half a million women
every year die in pregnancy and childbirth, leaving an estimated two million children motherless. That’s a
global tragedy. What makes it all the more tragic is that the vast majority of those deaths are preventable. We
know what needs to be done < which begs the question, why isn’t it being done?! The truth is that, in many
parts of the world, women are still very much second class citizens, whose lives are simply not valued as much
as those of men. And yet, at the same time, women are often at the heart of their country’s economy, society
and culture. Women - and the bonds between them - provide the glue that holds everything together.

The problem of maternal mortality will only be solved through political will, which means that we need to
speak up, and speak together, to demand change. I’m pleased to say that the ‘million mums’ campaign has
made great progress and is really gathering momentum, but it needs your help to become an unstoppable force.
So please, please, if you enjoy this magazine, show your gratitude by joining ‘million mums’, making a small
donation (or even a big one!) and adding your voice to the campaign. In the two years between Mothers’ Day
2009 and Mothers’ Day 2011, a million women will die needlessly due to pregnancy and birth-related
complications - let’s give each and every one of them a voice.

From us to you, with love

Happy Mothers’ Day!

PS. If we can do this, imagine what else we can do.

Jo Rheam, founder of Mummo

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 3

contents

in this mummo magazine ...

mind and body
seven steps to more time for you Suzy Greaves, The Big Leap Coaching Company 6
I am not stupid Rosie Scribble, mummy blogger 9
beach ready belly?! Ann Garry, www.yourfoodmatters.co.uk 10
style secrets Lisa Talbot, www.lisatalbot.co.uk 13
help me Julia Lockwood, www.juliashomeopathyworks.com 18
tapping it all away Sue Atkins, Positive Parents 22

family and home

a new kind of school Lizzie Overton, Lewes New School 26
outdoor space Sarah Holden, Room to Bloom Garden Design 29
frazzled Hot Cross Mum, mummy blogger 32
angels and demons Sandy Calico, mummy blogger 33
home education: why would you?! Grit, mummy blogger 34
is there sex after babies? More Than Just a Mother, mummy blogger 38
loved up Rachel Foux, www.householdcompanion.com 41
day off Josie George, mummy blogger 42
a place for everything Emma Fletcher, The Decluttering Company 44
the negotiator Sticky Fingers, mummy blogger 46
what sort of parent are you? Dr Clare Bailey, Parenting Matters 48
carrot cake with a twist Mummo 50
if I had my child … Diana Loomans, www.dianaloomans.com 51

career and business

hard at work Sam Pearce, Mum’s the Boss 52
life through a lens Maleah Matthews, www.maleahmatthews.com 54
tweet tweet Karen Skidmore, CanDoCanBe 57
arty mum Jessica Zoob, www.jessicazoobdesire.com 59
saving the world with jelly ... Deirdre Bounds, Parties Around the World 63
cool kind clothes Alison Rothwell, Arabella Miller 68
 mummo magazine

friends and fun

have toddler, will travel Alice Griffin, www.alicegriffin.co.uk 72
off round the world Victoria Wallop, mummy blogger 76
spring is in the air Mummo 80
mums join together Mummo 81
rediscovering me Melissa Talago, Peekaboo Communications 82
365 photos Mummo 87

community and contribution

million mums, massive difference Mummo and the White Ribbon Alliance 88
yummy mummy Nadia Pendleton, Community Kitchens UK 92
charity challenge Mummo 96
slim your waste Karen Cannard, www.therubbishdiet.co.uk 98
mum power Gigi Eligoloff, Mums Rock 101

prosperity
the bank of mum and dad Merryn Somerset Webb, Moneyweek 102
waste not, want not Bish Muir 104
priceless Hot Cross Mum, mummy blogger 108

This magazine has been a creative collaboration between all the lovely mums listed above.
Everyone has given their contribution freely, in support of the million mums campaign.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 5

mummo
mind and body
seven steps
to more
time for
you ...
Is ‘me time’ a distant
memory?! Life coach Suzy
Greaves shows you how to
start making yourself your
number one priority <
Does this sound familiar? You wake up, wake the
kids, make breakfast, make their packed lunches, get
the train to work reading the background material for
your first meeting, work through lunch because
you’ve got to pick up the kids at three. You take them
to their dance class / karate class / swimming, make
tea while talking to your best friend who is having a
crisis, then make dinner for your other half who rants
about his work because he’s having a crisis. You wash
up while packing lunches for the next day before
sinking into the sofa and falling asleep in front of the
TV. Me-time? It’s non-existent. If this is your life,
you’re not alone ...
although you may
not get to spend it
quite like this!
A recent study showed that 86 per cent
of mothers felt exhausted, tired and
stressed the majority of the time.
It’s affecting our health and our sanity too. What on
earth is going on?
Why are you doing so much?
The media is full of tips on how to cram in more while
juggling the plates to amuse the kids while cooking
dinner, but if we are to make some lasting changes,
reclaim our life and find some me-time, we need to
address the deeper issues. I see clients exhausted and
still working like dogs, not because they are failing to
multi-task effectively but rather because they are
driven by their unconscious fears and the emotional
habits that lurk beneath the surface of their every day.
Until we discover and transform these habits and
fears, we will always be feeling overwhelmed with
zero me-time. Try this powerful and potentially life-
changing seven step process:

1. Why you do what you do?
Write down your answers to the following questions:
When you were a child, what earned you
brownie points and approval? (eg. being good,
keeping your head down, being clever, etc)
What earned you disapproval? (eg. being loud,
being different, being naughty)
What decisions did you make as child in order
to survive and thrive in your family? (eg. be
good / kind / successful)
How are those decisions showing up in your
life now? (eg. by ‘being good’ as an adult you
feel you need to say yes to everything)
2. What are you afraid of?
To uncover any unconscious fears, imagine saying ‘no’
to three of the most demanding people in your life -
your kids, your partner or your boss, for example.
Then write down the answer to this question: ’What
are you afraid would happen then?’ And repeat that
question until you get down to the ‘root’ fear. For
example, if I said no to my boss, she would shout at
me. What are you afraid would happen then? I
would cry. What are you afraid would happen then?
I would lose her respect. What are you afraid would
happen then? She wouldn’t like me any more. Bingo,
there you have the root fear.
3. Face your fear
Fear is strongest when lurking under the surface of
your life. Shine a light on it and it generally shrivels.
On a sheet of paper, write the worst case scenario of
your fear (lose your job / be left alone / be destitute) on
one side of paper and an action plan of how you’d
handle it on the other side. Once you face your
ultimate fears, you realise you will cope.
4. What are the consequences of not changing?
Write down five specific consequences of what will
happen if you don’t change and don’t integrate some
‘me-time’ into your life. Fast forward one year, then
five years - what will happen to your health, your
relationships, your family?
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummomag
mummo
1
magazine
5. What do you want?
Identify specifically what you want in the way of ’me
time’. How much time do you want - one hour a day
or one weekend a month? Where do you want to
have your ‘me time’ - in the park, the spa, the pub?
How do you want it - with your partner, friends, on
your own? Now work out what you need to get it.
Say no, delegate, brainstorm, ask for help? Write a
specific step by step plan - ask your husband to baby-
sit one night a week, delegate and train up colleagues
at work, try out different ways of saying ‘no’ until you
have a charming way of turning down almost
anything. (Try: ‚How lovely, but so sorry won’t be
able to help / do that / be there.‛) Once you have a
plan, start measuring what works. A client of mine
worked out that by saying ‘no’ four times a day she
gained one hour’s me time.
6. Stop being an adrenaline junkie
If you’re drinking coffee to get you going, eating sugar
to calm you down and are always late (although it’s
never your fault) you’re an adrenaline junkie (AJ).
And if you’re an AJ you’ll find it hard to find any time
for yourself as you're constantly over promising and
setting yourself up to fail by trying to cram too much
into your life. Identify three triggers which give you
the adrenaline rush and eliminate them. For example,
if you’re constantly late, leave 15 minutes early for
every appointment. Or if you’re constantly over
promising, deliberately under promise regardless of
the reaction you get.
7. Get more than you need in every area of your
life
What do you need more of in your life? Time, space,
money, energy, love? Figure out what you need in
order to be happy and healthy, then double it. Then
plan a way of getting it - whether that be sitting down
your loved ones and asking for support or scheduling
in three nights a week where you do nothing but lie in
bed and sleep.
Your very first step, though, is to book in some time to
sit down, on your own, with a notebook and a cuppa
(or even a glass of wine!) and work through the
process I’ve just described. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.
After all, an exhausted mum is no good to anyone,
whereas happy mums make for happy families!
7
mind and body

Suzy Greaves is the UK‟s leading life coach and author -

named as „one of the top ten gurus in the UK‟ by The
Daily Mail. She has written two books:

„Making The Big Leap‟ (voted one of the top ten life
changing books by The Independent on Sunday)

„The Big Peace‟ (described as „the ultimate guide to

contentment‟ by The Daily Express)

She‟s also a media columnist and celebrity coach, and

runs the Big Leap Coaching Company which specialises
in career change.

See her websites at: www.thebig-leap.com, www.thebigpeace.com, www.bigloveexperiment.com

Five words to describe me: enthusiastic, brave, impulsive, loving, determined

Things that make me happy: peanut butter sandwiches, lying in bed watching „Superman Returns‟
with my son and dog, lunch with my best friends, a bed with clean sheets

Vices: too much wine, a filthy house, an obsession with teenage vampire novels

Virtues: I‟m very kind

Motto in life: be brave

Favourite book: „The Artist‟s Way‟ by Julia Cameron and, for a novel, „Fingersmith‟ by Sarah Waters

Favourite film: „Little Miss Sunshine‟

Favourite music: the soundtrack to „Mamma Mia‟

Favourite food: peanut butter sandwiches

My children: I‟ve got a son called Charlie who‟s seven. He‟s funny, boisterous, loves Dr Who and super
- heroes and can use the Force like nobody I know!

A day in my life …

My day starts at 7am. My office is at the top of my house and lunch is whenever I stop! My son gets
home at 3.20pm and wreaks havoc. I relax by getting my Jack Bauer fix watching „24‟ or reading
unsuitable novels (the „Twilight‟ trilogy). My day ends in bed with a good book.

‚Promise me you’ll always

‚Courage doesn’t always
remember: you’re braver
roar. Sometimes courage is
‚We don’t have an eternity than you believe, and
the quiet voice at the end of
to realise our dreams, only stronger than you seem,
the day saying ‚I will try
the time we are here.‛ and smarter than you
again tomorrow‛.‛
think.‛
Susan Taylor
Mary Anne Radmacher
Christopher Robin to Pooh
 mummo magazine

I am not Dear Alison,

I have sent you this letter.
I have sent you this letter to read.
My name is Rosie.

stupid I am a person.
I have feelings.
I am a graduate.
I have four A Levels.
I am intelligent.
I am articulate.
I have a comprehensive grasp of the English
language.
I do not need to receive letters in bold type and plain
English.
I do not need pictures to aid my understanding.

‘Rosie Scribble’ questions There is nothing wrong with my eye sight.

I know what depression is.

the continuing stigma I have experienced depression.

That does not make me stupid.

around mental health ... In my experience, a huge stigma stills exists in society
surrounding mental health. It is a stigma which
affects those experiencing mental health distress today
About four years ago I received a letter not dissimilar as well as those affected in the past. Let's make a
to this, with the accompanying graphics: difference and break the silence that surrounds mental
health. See Breaking the Silence.
Dear Rosie,
I have sent you this letter.
I have sent this letter for you to read.
My name is Alison.
Rosie Scribble
I would like to invite you to a group. is a mummy
It is a group you might like. blogger based
It is a group for people who have depression. in the
Depression is an illness. Midlands. She
is a single
parent to a six-
The letter came from a mental health professional.
year-old
daughter
I used to suffer from depression, it is quite common, nicknamed IJ.
many of us are susceptible to bouts of blackness from
time to time. Life isn't easy. Five words to describe me: ambitious, driven,
thoughtful, friendly, busy
However, just because in the past I have been added Things that make me happy: hearing my
to a database that clearly classifies me in the 'mental daughter laugh, clothes shopping, waking up
health' category, does not mean that I cannot read. to sunshine, escaping in a good book, writing, a
Nor does it mean that I need to be sent letters in bold tidy house (which is rare)
type and very plain English. I do not need pictures to
Motto in life: Keep calm and carry on. Life is
assist with my understanding.
too short to worry it away.

If I had replied, it would have gone something like Favourite film: „Slumdog Millionaire‟
this:

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 9

mind and body
beach ready
belly?!
Nutritionist and mother of
two, Ann Garry explains
the low GL way to lose that
muffin top for good <
Fat around the middle, belly fat, love handles,
abdominal weight, visceral fat or muffin top – you can
call it what you like, many of us mums are all too
familiar with it! You may have worried about your
hips and thighs in the past but now your mid-section
is making up for lost time. The good news is you can
lose your muffin top for good but first we need to
understand how it got there in the first place. And no,
it’s not all down to picking at the children’s leftovers
and eating their party bag cakes (although that doesn’t
help!). Believe it or not, there are underlying
biochemical processes at work that result in increasing
abdominal fat as we age.
It’s all to do with stress and the action of the stress
hormone cortisol. Well there is no shortage of that in
our busy lives as mum!
Millions of years ago, our bodies were designed to
react quickly to danger. When your brain thinks your
life is threatened it stimulates the release of adrenaline
and cortisol which mobilise glucose to provide instant
energy for 5-10 minutes, allowing you to run from the
sabre toothed tiger. This is the ‘fight or flight
response’. The problem with modern day lifestyles is
that stress (our ‘perceived threat’) is almost
continuous and comes without the natural release that
either fleeing or fighting might provide. Unless you
do something physical, all that extra energy, in the
form of glucose and fat, has nowhere to go. It is
simply deposited as fat - around the middle of your
body because it’s close to the liver where it can most
quickly be converted back into energy if needed. Your
body is only trying to help! It tries to keep a
convenient store ready for constant use in your
stressful life. To compound this, cortisol levels in the
blood often remain high for a while after a stressful
event, increasing your appetite because your body

thinks it should be refuelling after all this fighting and
fleeing. This means people under chronic stress quite
often feel constantly hungry and have cravings for
carbohydrates and fats.
So there you have it, it’s not that we are all weak-
willed and greedy. There is a real biochemical
explanation for why we mothers often struggle with
fat around the middle. The question is, should we be
worried about it and what can we do about it?
Gaining weight around your middle does more harm
than simply making your waistband too tight. While
putting on weight in general can have negative effects
on your health, abdominal weight gain is particularly
unhealthy.
Too much belly fat increases your risk of:
heart disease
breast cancer
diabetes
metabolic syndrome
gallbladder problems
high blood pressure
colorectal cancer
Researchers have also found that abdominal fat cells
aren't just dormant energy waiting to be burned up.
The cells are active, producing hormones and other
substances that can affect your health. For example,
some fat-cell produced hormones can promote insulin
resistance, a precursor to type 2 diabetes. Others can
produce oestrogen after menopause, which may
increase your breast cancer risk. Researchers are still
sorting out how the excess hormones affect overall
health, but they do know that too much visceral fat
can disrupt the body's normal hormonal balance.
So given that ‘stress’ is part of our modern day lives,
what can we do to get rid of our muffin tops for good?
Dieting and cutting calories DOES NOT WORK! It
simply puts the body under further stress, reduces
your metabolic rate and encourages your body to hold
on to all the fat. An eating plan which balances your
blood sugar throughout the day will eliminate further
fat gain and will encourage the body to burn fat. This
is a low GL (glycaemic load) way of eating.
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
The golden rules for balancing blood sugar are:
eat 3 meals and 2 snacks every day
always eat breakfast
eliminate all sugar and refined
carbohydrates
add protein to each meal and snack
eat essential fats
avoid caffeine, sugary drinks and alcohol
don’t eat on the run
change the way you think about food
This may sound daunting at first but you can get help.
There are lots of great resources to support you
including books, websites and workshops. Have a
look at zest4life programmes, they are based around a
12 week format where you attend a 2 hour workshop
once a week and learn about the low GL process and
how to put it into practice. You’ll find more
information at www.zest4life.eu. You could also find
yourself a nutritional therapist to support you - look
on the British Association for Applied Nutrition and
Nutritional Therapy (BANT) website for practitioners
in your area. Good books include Patrick Holford’s
Low GL Bible and his Low GL Cookbook.
Exercise or physical activity has never been more
important. If you have fat around the middle of your
body caused, in part, by the activity of your stress
hormones, exercise MUST become one of your
priorities. By simply making time for exercise in your
life, you can control the potentially damaging fight or
flight response. Muscle is metabolically active. This
means it requires fuel in the form of calories just to
maintain it even when you are sitting doing nothing.
So the more muscle you have, the more calories you
consume, and, if you don’t overeat, the more fat you
will burn.
500g (1lb) of muscle burns 75 calories a
day, whereas 500g (1lb) of fat burns
only 8 calories a day!
This is one of the infuriating reasons why men tend to
find it easier to lose weight than women - they
generally have more muscle than women.
11
mind and body
So let’s look at a real life example of how this work’s
in practice.
Let me introduce Linda - she is 38 and has been
dieting since she was a teenager. In November
2009 she enrolled on a zest4life programme and
weighed in at 16 stone 10lbs and carried much of
her weight around the middle. She described
herself as having low energy levels (rated as
3/10), low self esteem (5/10) and poor eating
patterns (4/10).
Linda began the low GL eating plan and after 6
weeks she had lost a stone in weight and her
energy levels and self esteem had increased up to
a rating of 8/10. She has continued with the
programme since Christmas and as of 5 February
has lost a further stone and now weighs 14 stone
10 lbs. She is on target to make 12.5 stone by
June and 10 stone by October. She reports that
she neither feels hungry nor has cravings and
that she has so much extra energy that she has
been forced to take up exercise to burn it off! She
has joined a gym and has had great pleasure in
ditching her old clothes to the charity shop and
buying a new wardrobe for work. In her words:
‚I am never going back‛. Losing weight the low
GL way is changing her body’s biochemistry.
The weight Linda has lost is mostly fat and she
has become more efficient at burning fat, thus
making it easier to maintain.
So there you have it, if you are ready to take the
challenge and lose the muffin top for good, learn
about the low GL approach. You will not only lose the
inches and pounds but you will discover increased
energy, more balanced moods and a new zest for life!
Ann Garry is a
nutritional
therapist practising
in the Marlow, High
Wycombe and
Maidenhead areas
(Buckinghamshire).
She is married with
two children:
Natasha (12), a
“mermaid” who
swims 7 times a
week with a local club and Sebastian (10), a
goal-keeper, comedian and mathematician.
Ann‟s website is www.yourfoodmatters.co.uk
Five words to describe me: healthy, loyal,
trustworthy, committed, passionate
Vices: chocolate (yes, even me!) - I love Hotel
Chocolat!
A day in my life ...
My day starts at 5 or 6am (depending on
Natasha‟s training times), I take her to the pool
and then return home and go for an early
morning run - I figure if my 12 year old can get
up and exercise at 6 in the morning then so can
I! Once the children are off to school, I start
work. I am running 3 Nutrition programmes
every week so I dash off to the local hotel and
prepare for the group session.
Lunch is usually a quick soup/salad with John
(my husband) if he‟s at home and then into my
office at the bottom of the garden to write up
my notes from previous consultations or
prepare for the next Nutrition seminar.
The children come home between 3 and
3.30pm and then its a quick healthy ‘second
lunch‟ for them to fuel them through their
activities:- either swimming, football, cross
country, athletics, rowing or dance. Then they
are out at their sports until 7/8pm when we all
congregate for family dinner. We became used
to eating late after living in Spain for 2 years
and by their standards 7/8pm is still very early
for supper!
I relax by talking with the children or watching
something we all enjoy such as a family movie.
My day ends usually far too late, often close to
midnight by the time the lights are turned out.

style secrets
Award-winning personal
stylist, Lisa Talbot explains
how to dress for your
shape <
Fed up with the way you look?
Feel like you’ve got nothing to wear?
‚I just don’t have time for me, I’m a mum!‛
If that sounds familiar then read on <
We make an opinion on anybody within the first
seven seconds of meeting them and before they say
anything. Our image is our personal branding.
When we become a mum, whether we like it or not
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
life does change, but that doesn’t mean our style has
to change too. It may just need some tweaking.
Every woman deserves to look good and feel great. I
am a mum of three and a self confessed jeans person.
That’s my dress style and it fits my lifestyle. So I’ve
built my daily wardrobe and my ‘look’ around a few
pairs of great jeans. This means that I can get up, get
dressed quickly, get the kids off to school and feel
confident and comfortable while doing it.
You can build a superb capsule wardrobe in a cost
effective way these days. Style doesn’t have to be
expensive - there are so many fab shops like H&M,
Zara, Top Shop, Primark and so on in our high streets
which are brilliant for all types of clothing. If your
budget can stretch further then you have House of
Fraser stores which I love as there are so many great
brands in one place, which makes shopping fun, even
13
mind and body
Okay, so shopping isn‟t quite what it used to be!
with a buggy. And believe me, I’ve done it with a
double buggy so I understand that speed shopping is
a must if you’re not going to give up and go home
empty-handed! Before you go, think about the shape
you’re in, the stage you’re in and the sort of things
you really need to add to your wardrobe.
Motherhood stage
Post baby
Whilst our body recovers from the shock of the past
nine months, don’t put pressure on yourself by trying
to get back to your pre baby weight too soon. The best
style of clothes to make you look and feel amazing
will be tops that skim over your tummy, for example;
empire line dresses and tunics. A darker colour can
be slimming and a great piece of costume jewellery
will draw the eye away from your middle.
Pre-school mum
‚I just wear jeans all the time‛ - does that sound like
you? If that’s the case, then make your jeans the staple
garments in your wardrobe and invest in a few really
good pairs. You can make jeans look either very
casual ( not scruffy ) or super smart. With all clothes,
the proper fit is essential - having a great fitting pair of
jeans will make you feel wonderful as you go off to
the toddler group.
With your denims, add some wonderful tops: long-
sleeved T-shirts with a tank top or a boyfriend blazer,
a shirt and a wonderful necklace will look amazing.
Scarves can be worn all year round, they add an extra
shot of colour to any outfit.
If you are pushing a pram make life easy for yourself
and wear comfortable shoes. If you’re used to
wearing heels, all well and good, but if this isn’t
practical for you then go for a pair of cute ballet
pumps or glitzy Geox casual pumps.
A belt is also a superb accessory to jazz up any outfit,
and there are hundreds of different styles and widths
available in the stores. A belt can really jazz up your
jeans. In my mind, a belt completes any outfit.
If you do manage to get out the house for a night out
with friends, your jeans can be dressed up very easily
- just change the top to a glitzy one (very Spring
trend! ) and add a pair of heels in a bold colour.
Marks and Spencer have wonderful coloured shoes
this season or try Jones who always have an amazing
array of shoes to die for.
The school run mum
I found this one of the hardest times in being a mum.
My twins were going to big school (relief and
sadness!) but I knew the school gate would be very
daunting < and I wasn’t wrong!
I know the morning routine prior to dropping the
children off at school is a ‘suicide hour’, getting them
up, breakfasted and dressed all before 8.30am is hard
work! ‚There is no time for me‛, I hear you cry or ‚I’ll
get myself ready when I get back from school drop
off!‛. Making your wardrobe easy will make your life
easy, I promise. Building a capsule wardrobe is worth
every penny.
Build your wardrobe around a few key pieces to suit
your body shape, that way you will always look great.

I would recommend you have the following: jeans, a
smart pair of trousers, a dress, a skirt, and tops that
can be worn with all. If you find accessorising
difficult, pop your necklaces / belts on your hangers,
that way they become another piece of clothing. I
would also recommend a boyfriend blazer ( Spring
trend again ) which will add smartness to your outfit.
The working mum
The type of job you have will determine what you
wear to work. Do you need to be formal or can you be
more casual? Are you customer facing? What is the
‘style’ of your workplace? If you hold a position of
authority, remember that your image needs to portray
authority. Wearing a smart jacket / blazer will set off
any outfit.
For your wardrobe to work for you, it needs to be
balanced between home and work. For example, a
full-time working mum’s wardrobe will be 5 days
working, 2 days (smart) casual. That way, you’ll get
more from your wardrobe and it will be quick and
easy to get yourself and your family ready in the
morning.
Our image is our personal branding at all times, but
this is particularly true in a work environment where
what we wear and how well we are groomed sends a
very strong message about how we will do our job.
‚Fashions fade, style is eternal.‛
Yves Saint Laurent
Body shape
Being a Style and Image Consultant I know just how
many of you struggle to find clothes that suit and fit
your body shape. I firmly believe that when you look
good, you feel great, and the best asset we all have is a
smile on our face. When we smile, our confidence is
greater and you will find more people are drawn to
you and want to listen to what you have to say.
I also believe that we should dress according to our
personality and lifestyle, and I always encourage my
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
clients to do so, whether they go out to work in the
corporate world or have the important job of a full-
time stay-at-home mum. No matter what job we do,
walking out the door looking good makes us feel
wonderful.
Having an understanding of your body shape,
whatever it may be, means that you can learn to dress
in the most flattering way for you. It makes shopping
so much easier and gives you greater confidence, as
you know you are making the most of your assets!
When I talk to my clients I tell them to imagine their
body is a parcel. Dressing your body is no different to
wrapping a parcel.
For a curved figure, imagine a ball - you would wrap
a ball in soft, floaty fabrics such as chiffon, cotton,
jersey, etc, This is because a ball is curved and we
want to follow and accentuate the curves.
For an angular body, imagine a shoe box which has
straight lines and corners. It can be most easily
wrapped in strong fabrics such as cotton with lycra,
linen, corduroy, strong denim, etc. This is because we
want to accentuate the angles.
I would recommend that the start of determining your
body shape is to have a properly fitted bra, as this will
give you accurate measurements. Once my clients
have a properly fitted bra they often cannot believe
the shape it gives their body. Some even find a
cleavage they never knew they had!!
There are 4 common body shapes <
apple
pear
hourglass
rectangle (or banana!)
On the next page, I’ll show you how to dress to suit
your shape ...
Lisa is offering Mummo magazine
readers a fantastic 20% discount on
any personal consultation.
Just quote MUMMO.
15
mind and body
apple
The apple shaped body tends to
be broader on the top and has a
narrower bottom half. The
weight of this body shape is
generally carried around the
tummy, therefore the waist is
undefined. This body shape
usually has a wonderful cleav-
age with slim hips and legs.
The body shape is curved
Clothes to suit
Fine knit jumpers, wrap around tops, shirts, single
breasted jackets, flat fronted trousers, straight or
wide leg trousers, jeans with wider waist bands and
straight or boot cut, A lined skirts, Empire line
dresses.
Clothes to avoid
Chunky knits, baggy tops with no structure, ruffles,
stripes, both horizontal and vertical, shoulder pads,
skinny jeans, pencil skirt
pear
The pear shaped body usu-
ally has a flat tummy, is long
in the waist and has a smaller
bust. This body shape is a
mixture of curves and angles.
Clothes to suit
Most T-shirts, boat and slash
necklines will make your
shoulders appear wider
which will balance out your
bottom. Any tops and jackets that show off your
waist. Empire line dresses. Shoes / boots with a heel
are great for this body shape as they add length and
make you walk tall.
Clothes to avoid
Avoid tops that end in a straight line across the wid-
est part of your body. The eye will automatically be
drawn to this point.
Images courtesy of and © copyright to iStylista Ltd - www.istylista.com - thank you
hourglass
The hourglass shaped body is
allegedly the ‘perfect’ body
shape. The waist is small and
short, the bust is larger and
the hips and thighs are
slightly larger.
Clothes to suit
Fitted styles to show off your
curves, fitted tops, corset tops
and wrap-over jumpers, jackets with belts, pencil
skirt, fitted and A line skirts as long as they are fit-
ted around the waist and the hips. Most trousers
will suit, high or low waisted.
Clothes to avoid
Boxy style jackets, Empire lines, tapered trousers,
straight up and down dresses, dresses cut on the
bias.
rectangle /
banana
The rectangle body shape or
‘boy’ shape is like a lot of the
catwalk models. This is a
very athletic figure which is
able to wear most of the
trends on the high street and
look fabulous in them. The
shoulder and hips are equal
in width, therefore the waist
is not easily visible. With this body shape the illu-
sion has to created of curves.
Clothes to suit
A line skirts, floaty tops, skinny / tight fitting jeans,
dresses that are fitted tightly around the top and the
skirt has a flare to the bottom, halter and slash neck
tops, double breasted jackets
Clothes to avoid
Pencil skirts, boot cut / flared jeans
 mummo magazine

Lisa Talbot is a personal stylist and image consultant, not to mention a mum
of three! You can book her for consultations via her website -
www.lisatalbot.co.uk - or by email - listalbot@btinternet.com.

Five words to describe me: mum, fun, easy-going, stylish, relaxed, loves
people (oh, and can‟t count!)

Things that make me happy: my job - I love what I do, and it makes me
happy to see my clients find their smile and confidence again

Vices: coffee

Motto in life: Looking good makes you feel great (and everyone deserves this!)

Favourite book: I don‟t read books, I love poring over style magazines like InStyle and Vogue

Favourite film: „Dirty Dancing‟

Favourite food: I love all food, but especially anything I haven‟t had to cook myself!

Favourite smell: freshly cut grass

Favourite piece of clothing: Jeans - I love them - skinny, bootcut, straight, whatever. And anything
with a tactile fabric.

My children: Robert is 21 and lives in Florida. He‟s a golf pro … he loves the sunshine. Thomas and
Maisie are my 6-year-old twins. Thomas is gorgeous but high maintenance and Maisie is horizontally
laid back which is super as if I had two like Thomas I would be in a mental institute by now!!

A day in my life …

Oh where do I start?!!! My day begins at 6.30am when the alarm goes off and I wonder where the night
went! Thomas and Maisie wake up about 7am, we all have a cup of tea in bed watching the news on
GMTV! After showering, the mad hour begins - children to get dressed, breakfast time, packed lunches
to be made, teeth and hair brushing and leave for school at 8.30am. Dave ( my husband ) just gets up,
gets dressed and goes to work. I‟m sure he has the easiest part of the morning!

We leave for school with Max ( my 2 year old Rottweiler) in the boot of the car. Once the kids are
dropped off at school, I walk Max, even in the pouring rain. I plan my diary so that all of my
consultations are carried out in school hours. I go off to work wherever that may be … but it never
feels like work! I usually finish work by 1pm which leaves enough time for me to grab a sandwich, let
Max out for a quick wee and then get to school for pick up at 3pm. Thomas, Maisie and I always have a
cup of tea with a biscuit when we come home and we catch up on everyone‟s day.

Dave rescues me from our lovely children about 6.30pm for bathtime and story reading. The children
go to bed about 7.30pm when we then have our tea. If I‟m not working in the evening I spend it „tip
tapping‟ on my laptop whilst sitting in front of the telly ( much to Dave‟s annoyance ). Although he
says he is deaf to the sound now after 10 years.

Bed is about 10.30pm, when I sit and watch the telly to wind down whilst Dave goes to sleep as soon as
his head hits the pillow! Another day over!!

Remember, get a generous 20% discount off a personal consultation with Lisa when you quote MUMMO.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 17

mind and body
Homeopath and mother of
three, Julia Lockwood
dares to broach the
difficult subject of
postnatal illness <
How could it have been that two weeks ago I was
happy, optimistic, and in concert with the shifting
lump within my womb? Now the baby is out, I feel
no connection with it. Don’t recognise it. What’s
more, I’ve gone mad, and I think it’s permanent. I’m
frightened of going in the car, of going outside even.
Frightened of the pain in my burgeoning breasts.
Frightened of the huge responsibility this tiny,
howling bundle has bestowed upon me. My partner
doesn’t understand. The house is falling apart. I’m
falling apart. I’m isolated, feel alone, and so, so
tearful. The nightmares are violent and truly
disturbing, and baby doesn’t sleep either.
Can’t cope, must cope, won’t cope.
I want to scream: ‚Take it back! I didn’t
ask for this!‛
Every mother’s experience of postnatal illness is
different, but the effects can be emotionally and
psychologically devastating. In that early period of
motherhood, where the first three days seem like a
year, and the first week a lifetime, the intimate
bonding between mother and child is of primary
importance in casting the die for the relationship for a
few years to come. Not only that, but the birth
experience itself, if managed to the mother’s
satisfaction, can elevate her to feelings of
empowerment, creativity and strength that will
nourish her ability to perform the rigorous duties of
motherhood well into the child’s adolescence and
beyond.

Unfortunately, as so often happens, the birth process
is completely taken out of the mother’s control. She
becomes a passive carrier of a parcel which needs to
be delivered. She becomes the recipient of strong
drugs, of harsh medical devices, of insensitive words
from insensitive midwives and doctors. She may well
ask, ‚Where is the love?‛ for the birthing process in
the UK today is governed by how the labour
progresses within the agreed bounds of that particular
hospital’s insurance programme.
After the birth, hospitals think, ‚Well, you and your
baby have both survived, that’s all that matters, and
now off you pop.‛ They should also be questioning
themselves. ‚That was a traumatic experience. Will it
have long-term effects on her as a person and as a
mother?‛
As a homeopath, I see in all my patients with
depression how a previous trauma or a long-standing
grief resurfaces when a new trauma occurs. The
trouble is that these past events are often
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
unrecognisable to the patient any more. My job is to
bring light to the whole situation, to help the patient
draw connections and heal the past so the present can
be enjoyed with good health, good energy and
creativity.
The causes of postnatal illness are complex and
unique to every individual mother, and again,
homeopathy will help to get to the root, the nub, the
centre of the disturbance, and treat that. In general
terms, however, I can see possibly that postnatal
illness can arise from a common, very early trauma.
So early that we would not be able to recall it, even if
we were super self-aware individuals. But it is there,
ticking away like a time bomb to resurface explosively
at childbirth. It is that trauma that occurred to most
babies of the 1960s and 1970s (ie. us): that of the
routine separation of babies from mothers during the
first week or two of our lives. It may have happened
to young, 1980s-born mothers, too. It happened to my
first son in 1997.
This separation causes babies to cry, which is their
main defence against abandonment, ensuring their
survival. But when not picked up, these babies
developed what psychologists call ‘learned
helplessness’. There is no point crying, because no-
one will act on the crying. This leads to submissive
behaviour. Animal tests have been carried out to
establish what learned helplessness actually is, and
how it affects our hormonal and immune systems at a
very deep level. Learned helplessness leads to lower
levels of adrenalin as the fight or flight reflex is
repeatedly suppressed. The results of animal tests
have shown that when an animal is repeatedly hurt
and can take no action against it, the adrenalin rush,
fight or flight, is replaced with an increase in blood
pressure, and the increased secretion of hormones like
cortisol and noradrenalin which depress the immune
system, making the animal more susceptible to acute
or chronic illness.
This theory is laid out in the book ‘Primal Health’ by
the leading French birth expert Michel Odent. He
states: ‚The implications of all these basic experiments
are of paramount importance. They help us
understand just how much a person’s entire
capabilities are decreased when they have no control
over what happens to them, and can only passively
submit.‛
19
mind and body
Going back to why mothers’ very early lives might
affect their susceptibility to postnatal illness, is the fact
that in hospital in labour, the fuse of their time bomb
is ignited. Mothers are once again in a situation which
is out of their control. They become passive patients,
whose birth plans are often ignored, and whose fear is
not able to be borne out by fight or flight. They are
cast again back to their first days when, cry as they
might, they could not get to be with their own
mothers, and the safety and emotional well-being they
afforded.
And between a mother’s passive state in hospital, and
the active state she needs to be in when she gets home
with her new baby, lies a huge crevasse lined with the
potential for postnatal illness. She has to go from a
state of learned helplessness to complete self-reliance
in one day.
Who can bound easily across a
crevasse like that, with giant sanitary
towels in place, new scars, and
howling baby in tow?
As grandmothers and aunts live so far away from us,
mothers have to do everything, straight away, at a
time when they need to be resting, eating, drinking
and feeding their babies, and nothing else. It’s a big
enough job – recuperation from childbirth,
particularly a caesarean birth, is never taken seriously,
and the need for it is vastly underestimated. The
media is awash with stories of celebs who spring back
to their before-pregnancy weight and are back at work
within days of the birth. These women are
suppressing huge hormonal shifts, are ignoring their
own needs and those of their babies, and their actions
are neither normal nor desirable if health and
happiness is the desired outcome.
In terms of postnatal illness, everyone is different, and
has their own unique susceptibilities. For you, it may
be that the overwhelming responsibility of caring for a
newborn child is the trigger, or your relationship
issues with the father or grandmothers of the child. It
could be none of the above.
But in all cases, even those where there is no
predisposing trauma or present issue, new mothers
are awash with hormonal activity. In the peripartum
period, there are massive hormonal changes, which
could be implicit in developing postnatal illness. For a
start there is the elevation of cortisol which occurs
during a stressful situation. Elevated cortisol levels
have the effect of decreasing levels of serotonin, the
‚happy‛ hormone, thus leading to feelings of
depression. (This is theory, although the exact
hormonal mechanism that causes depression is still
uncertain.) Cortisol also depresses the function of the
immune system, as explained above. Levels of the sex
hormones, progesterone and oestrogen, are
fluctuating. Progesterone is the hormone which
increases during the last two weeks of before your
period, and is identified with the depressive feelings
of pre-menstrual tension.
So in postnatal illness there is a double
whammy of hormonal (emotional)
upheaval and a body feeling weak,
tired and prone to infection.
Fortunately, homeopathy is a great way to help
mothers at a deep level, and help their hormones find
balance again. We have remedies made from
endocrine glands which secrete hormones, and
remedies made from hormones themselves. We have
remedies which correspond directly to hormonal
activity, and as homeopathy works on the law of ‚like
cures like‛, we can select those remedies which most
appropriately echo your symptoms, your particular
version of postnatal illness. We have remedies which
help patients who are suffering from acute grief, or
acute anxiety, or more chronic, deep-seated blue
feelings. The possibilities for homeopathy to match
your state and then elevate your emotional, mental
and physical health are just vast.
As a homeopath, I take a long consultation in which
the patient can explore all those issues which are
causing pain. I also take a keen interest in promoting
the health of my patients and providing support
outside of these consultations. Homeopathy is a
shoulder to cry on, an ear for distress, a well-educated
source of information, and a world full of remedies
whose healing potential could be infinite, and which
gently assist the patient along the road to a place of
optimum health, happiness and well-being.
 mummo magazine

It is always advisable to contact a registered homeopath if you are suffering from postnatal illness, as it can be severe, and
needs professional attention. Homeopaths are trained to assess varying levels of health, identify causes and analyse
symptoms. A homeopathic consultation also allows you to explore all the feelings you have about yourself and your new
baby, and unlocks this emotional and mental door to greater self-confidence and happiness.

However, the following remedies, which are readily
available from places like Boots the Chemist, may
bring you some relief in the short term.
Aconite: Following a traumatic labour, when you feel
extremely fearful, that you or your baby might even
die. Bad nightmares, feel generally worse at night.
Possibly attacks of panic or terror. There may be a
feeling of indifference to your family.
Ignatia: Feelings of anger and disappointment, as if
your beautiful ideal of having a baby has been
shattered. People needing Ignatia have trouble
holding back the tears, but try to control outward
signs of emotion by sighing, biting their lip, nervous
coughing or twitching.
Arnica: Generally indicated after giving birth for all
women. It‟s especially good if you feel bruised, and
want to withdraw from people, not to be touched or
bothered. If you say, “Leave me alone, I‟m OK”, and
feel morose and grumpy, then Arnica is for you.
Pulsatilla: You feel terribly emotional, up and down,
sometimes laughing, but often bursting into tears.
You need the support of others around you all the
time, and will even manipulate them into getting
what you want. You feel you need sympathy and
pity. You feel ten times better being in the open air,
rather than in the house.
Lycopodium: When the responsibilities of
motherhood are too hard to bear, and you feel like
running away from your family and new baby. You
feel an extreme lack of self-confidence, and
helplessness, but may hide this from others by telling
them how good a mother you really are. Generally
you feel worse between 4pm and 8pm.
Sepia: Everything is dragging you down, and you
feel dragging sensations in your body, too. You are
extremely tired, but actually feel better for vigorous
exercise, for example, dancing with the new baby or
doing housework. You feel estranged from your
family, and have trouble bonding with your baby.
You might even feel violent towards other members
of your family.

Julia Lockwood is a registered homeopath practising in the Marlow and

Maidenhead areas of Buckinghamshire - www.juliashomeopathyworks.com.
She‟s married and has three sons: Bryn (12), Rowan (9) and Conrad (6).

Things that make me happy: Laughter; being with my friends and family;
walking up mountains; seeing sick people become healthy; being in wild
open countryside; the sea and forests; good music

Motto in life: I have two - “Better light a candle than curse the darkness” and
“A ship is safe in harbour, but that‟s not what ships are for.”

Favourite book: „Way of the Peaceful Warrior‟ by Dan Milman

Favourite film: „Gladiator‟
Favourite music: people, especially my children, laughing
Favourite meal: something with lots of fresh, garlicky vegetables
Favourite smell: newborn babies (I‟ve only smelled my own!)
Favourite outfit: my running clothes
Most treasured possession: my dad‟s Breton shirt

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 21

mind and body
tapping it
all away ...
Sue Atkins of Positive
Parents talks about
Emotional Freedom
Technique, a new therapy
for the 21st century <
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a great tool to
help anyone deal with the negative emotions and
events of our everyday lives. It is highly effective in
addressing stress, anxiety, phobias, fear, trauma,
anger, illness, pain and sadness. It is as useful in
helping a child get over the pain of being called a
nasty name as it is in helping an adult gain emotional
freedom from a long standing trauma.
What is EFT?
EFT is based on tapping different Chinese meridian
lines with your fingers. You may have seen Paul
McKenna on British television demonstrating how
tapping various points on your body can alleviate
stress, anger and phobias. He has also shown how it
can treat weight loss, smoking and other addictions
and, in fact, I first became impressed with it when I
was regularly assisting Paul on his Easy Weight Loss
seminars. Whoopi Goldberg used EFT to eliminate
her fear of flying. And Chris Evans was impressed
with it on his BBC Radio 2 Show recently.
Tens of thousands of people worldwide have already
used tapping to conquer their anger, increase their
energy or let go of negative feelings. It has been used
to great effect in treating trauma victims in Kosovo,
Iraq and Uganda and after natural disasters like
Hurricane Katrina.

As an EFT Parenting Specialist I use it with parents
and children as another tool in my coaching toolkit, as
it’s a completely safe way of eliminating stressful or
anxious feelings with no side effects. I teach parents
how to tap out toddler tantrums and night terrors,
older children’s nightmares, exam nerves, negative
self talk including teenage embarrassment, OCD, self
consciousness and shyness. I even used it to tap out
my own daughter’s anxiety over starting her new
secondary school so that she could move forward
much more happily during the first few weeks. And I
show parents how to tap out their own feelings of
frustration, guilt, stress and overwhelm.
I use it to help parents of children with Dyslexia,
Dyspraxia and ADHD, or children with a mental
block in one area of school work like Maths or IT, as it
can help get positive energy flowing in the right
direction and make a difference in performance and
attitude. It’s a great tool for developing self
confidence and peak performance too.
There is substantial scientific evidence that these
simple tapping methods can provide impressive relief.
I’ve personally observed this time and time again, and
have seen many stunning results.
More benefits ...
It can work really quickly.
whereas conventional ‚talk therapy‛ can take
months or even years to have an effect, EFT
often does the job for you cleanly and
thoroughly in one or two sessions
It can help to resolve physical ailments as well as
clear out emotional debris.
headaches, back pains and other discomforts
often tend to improve or vanish as emotional
issues improve, and you may find that you are
more resilient to everyday stress
It is perfectly safe.
• there are no known side effects
You can apply it to just about everything.
you use the same basic procedure for your fear
of spiders as you do for improving your golf
you can also use it for everything from the
common cold to severe back pain
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
in fact, EFT has had reported successes for
nearly every emotional issue including fear,
trauma, depression, and grief
EFT is not perfect but it usually works well up to 85%
of the time and the results are sometimes spectacular.
Because of its unique approach, it can work where
nothing else does and, to many, it represents a new
doorway to healing and feeling better.
The technique consists of tapping gently on
acupressure points while ‚tuning in‛ to a feeling or
emotion and saying phrases that affirm how you
actually feel compared with how you want to feel.
The effect is an immediate sense of relief as the
‚charge‛ from the negative emotion is released. I
believe it is one of the simplest and most powerful
tools a parent can use on themselves or give a child,
which is why I am passionate about EFT and sharing
it with you.
How to do it ...
Step 1:
Use the fingertips of one hand to tap the fleshy
part on the side of the other hand. This is called
the Karate-Chop point.
Then say a Set Up Sentence 3 times:
“Even though I feel (sad, frustrated, angry,
stressed, overwhelmed, fed up, anxious, tired, ill … or
whatever is appropriate for you)
I deeply and completely love and accept myself
because I am a really great person”
Step 2:
Tap on each of the acupressure points shown in
the relevant diagram, about 5-7 times each,
starting at the top of your head and working
your way down through your body to the point
under the arm and finishing off at your karate
chop point again.
If you haven’t found complete relief do the
sequence again until you do.
23
mind and body

So there you go, all you need to
do is memorise the basic recipe
(as shown on the previous page)
and then bear in mind the
following few pointers:
EFT is an emotional form of acupuncture except that we don’t use needles.
Instead, we tap with the fingertips to stimulate certain meridian energy
points while we are ‚tuned in‛ to the problem.

you can use EFT for any

negative emotion from
anger, stress, fear, or food
cravings to a physical
pain from earache to
asthma
always use a Set Up
Sentence and be very
specific, aiming the
tapping at the specific
emotion or feeling you
want to reduce
trust your intuition and
say whatever comes into
your mind
as a parent, when in
doubt, tap yourself first
then tap with your child
be persistent until all
aspects of the problem
have vanished
be curious and playful
and try it on everything!
Adults

Toddlers
and
Teenagers children
 mummo magazine

Example Set Up Sentences

For you ...

Even though I feel guilty about leaving the kids < I deeply and completely love and accept myself
Even though I am worried about money < I deeply and completely love and accept myself
Even though I feel like screaming and running away < I deeply and completely love and accept myself
Even though I am embarrassed by my child’s behaviour < I deeply and completely love and accept myself

For your children …

Even though I don’t make friends easily < I’m still a great kid and I love myself
Even though I find reading really difficult < I’m still a great kid and I love myself
Even though I’m angry with mum and dad < I’m still a great kid and I love myself
Even though I keep thinking there’s a monster under the bed < I’m still a great kid and I love myself
Even though everyone says I’m dull because I don’t drink alcohol < I’m still a great kid and I love myself

For more information, example Set Up Sentences and stories of success, visit Sue‟s website:
www.positive-parents.com

Sue Atkins is a former deputy Headteacher who now runs her own parent
coaching consultancy, Positive Parents, and has recently been appointed as
an Ambassador for Schools Home Support. She lives with her husband and
two children in a farmhouse in Surrey.

Five words to describe me: enthusiastic, passionate, fun-loving,

committed, loya

Things that make me happy: chatting with friends, meals out with the
family, watching Chelsea FC, seeing change and transformation in the
families I work with, walking my three dogs, reading self development
books - PEOPLE!

Vices: Chardonnay, Toffee Crisps Virtues: dedication, positive energy, love of life

Motto in life: Life is what you make it

Favourite book: „Awaken the Giant Within‟ by Tony Robbins

Favourite meal: Chinese - crispy shredded beef!

Favourite smell: Stargazer lilies

My children: I have two, Will (17) and Molly (15). Will is passionate about sport and wants to be a sports
journalist - he is placid, calm and good in a crisis. Molly is into clothes, photography and friends and wants
to be a photographer. She is taller than me and fun to be with as she a quirky sense of humour!

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 25

family and home

a new kind of school ...

pirates. She’d been off sick for several days but had
Lizzie Overton is the heard about the new theme from a friend. Despite the
fact that I’m the headteacher of her school, she didn’t
headteacher of Lewes New expect me to be able to shine any light on the matter.
Educated in a school where learning is led by the
School, a school that is at group’s collective curiosity and imagination, Eartha
knows that her questions, as well as those of her peers,
the forefront of curiosity- are at the very heart of all that goes on in her class.

based learning ... Projects are shaped as one question

leads on to the next and the absence of
My 6 year old daughter Eartha loves to draw on the pre-determined activities means that
steamy glass shower screen while I soak in a hot bath.
She is generally content to let me watch and listen
she and the other children have a
while she chatters on about what she’s up to. But strong sense of ownership and
recently she insisted on a more focused interaction direction with all that they do.
where I had to guess what exactly it was she was
drawing with the only clue being that the pictures
As she skipped out of the bathroom to find her
were to do with projects that were going on in her
pyjamas I heard her declare, ‚Oh well, I’ll ask my
class at school. As we played it became clear that she
friends next week!‛.
was using the game to puzzle out for herself how a
recent project on maps had moved on to one about

Four years ago my now 10 year old son Ruben was at
a similar stage in his schooling. After many years as a
class teacher I was at that time enjoying a break from
my career. I hadn’t expected to find the perfect school
but I was hoping that my energetic little boy, who had
enjoyed a positive experience in a local nursery,
would make an easy transition to his first school.
Instead I observed how opportunities to learn through
playful exploration were immediately limited to make
way for a highly competitive culture where kids were
expected to hop through attainment hoops as quickly
as possible. The threat of missing ‘golden time’ on a
Friday afternoon or the promise of a headteacher’s
award were not enticing enough to persuade him to
keep hopping. Many a day ended with the teacher
asking if she could have a ‘little word’ about his
behaviour.
One of the most important lessons I
ever learnt as a young teacher was that
a child’s co-operation in the classroom
depends on how interested they are in
what’s going on with the learning.
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
I knew that the programme of activities which were
rolled out year after year allowing little space for
anyone’s curiosity or imagination, didn’t stand much
chance of engaging any child. I was loath to be that
teacher-turned-parent who suggested that my child
might be playing up because he was bored. On the
other hand it was clear that he wasn’t on track for a
happy or productive time at school.
I did a search on the web to find out about alternative
primary schools and came across a new school in
Lewes which, although still in an early stage of
development, was intent on providing a smoother
continuum with the play based learning that most
children enjoy before they start formal schooling. I
was so excited by what I had found that I applied for
the job of headteacher, enrolled my children and
relocated my family for a new start!
Over the last four years I’ve enjoyed working with
teachers at the school to shake up the lingering
Victorian notion that it’s the adult who holds the
questions and answers and it’s the job of the child to
follow compliantly behind until it is their turn to take
over. The legacy of this notion is a society so satisfied
with its ‘right answers’ that it forgets to ask the
questions that could breathe new life into our
education system and today’s other major challenges.
It is now very clear to me that if our thinking is to
follow today’s needs rather than the tram-lines of the
past, we will need instead to build up what Guy
Claxton in his book ‘What’s the Point of School?’
refers to as our ‘learning muscles’.
Our school, like many others, thrives on the energy
and goodwill of parents who are keen to be involved.
Whilst my son points out from time to time (usually
with a sentence that begins, ‚No offence mum but ....‛)
that having your mum as headteacher does carry the
risk of repeated embarrassment, he would also admit
that having your parents involved with your school is
generally a very good thing. In my mind, however,
the greatest support that parents can offer their
children is to understand that we’re all in this learning
game together.
‚The test of successful education is not the amount
of knowledge that pupils take away from school, but
their appetite to know and their capacity to learn.‛
Sir Richard Livingstone, Oxford, 1941
27
family and home
Whether in the classroom or in the
home, our children learn best not from
the answers we give them, but from
the example of our own curiosity.
So, when your child next asks, ‚Why do the birds sing
in the morning?‛ or ‚How did the world begin?‛,
don’t search around for a right answer but, instead,
offer something along the lines of, ‚Hmmm . . . good
question . . . I wonder . . .‛ and then listen and wait
for your child to initiate the game of puzzling out the
answers together.
‚Learning power is the lifeblood
of a happy life.‛
Professor Guy Claxton, University of Winchester
Lizzie at school with her daughter Eartha.
Lizzie working with a small group of children.
VIDEO:
watch children from
Lewes New School perform
their own version of
David Bowie‟s famous song:
„Changes‟ ...
Lizzie Overton is
the headteacher
of Lewes New
School in Lewes,
East Sussex. She
has two children,
Ruben (10, in pic)
and Eartha (6).
Things that make me happy: my children
Favourite scent: lemon, and the many
different smells of my children!
A day in my life …
My day starts at 6.30am when my partner
wakes me with a cup of tea.
My office is reasonably well organised, a little
small but adorned with pictures and messages
that the children at school bring me - and the
odd cartoon about teaching from „The
Guardian‟.
My children come to school with me on
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. My partner
picks them up at the end of the day but it‟s hard
to drag them away because they prefer to stay
playing with other kids in the playground. On
the other mornings, when I am not working, I
cook them a big breakfast and my partner takes
them off leaving me to enjoy some time alone.
I relax by walking, gardening, cooking, tidying,
wandering around a town or the countryside or
watching my children play.
My day ends with a bath, reading the kids
stories and a reasonably early night unless I
have something with a deadline. I‟ve been
known to tuck myself up with the kid at 8.30pm
after a particularly hard few weeks!

Mum-of-two Sarah Holden
of Room to Bloom shares
her tips on how to design a
great garden <
Until I studied garden design, I had always assumed
that a garden ‘evolved’ through the addition of spur-
of-the-moment purchases, presents and plant cuttings
from friends and family. When I first had a garden of
my own, I didn’t even think about its actual design - it
just ‘was’, wasn’t it?
As a garden designer, now I know better! Now I
consider my garden a place of pleasure, a haven for
wildlife, a chance to do my bit for the environment,
and most importantly, a place for our family to enjoy.
A well-designed garden is a place where people want
to be, a part of their home that they are proud of and a
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
outdoor
space.
magnet to draw them outdoors as soon as weather
permits!
A garden does not require a design to be lovely- many
evolve through years of love and care - but in today’s
busy world, a design can kick-start the process and get
you what you want more quickly and with less trial
and error!
So, for those who may want to make some changes to
their garden, here are some of the steps you should
take:
Step 1. Consider what you want your garden for.
Your ideal garden will have both a wishful aspect and
a practical aspect. For example, do you want your
garden for entertaining friends and family, a place of
seclusion and escape from the ‘real’ world, a reminder
of that magical Moroccan garden you visited last
summer, or a sensory delight? This can all be
possible, but don’t forget that your children need
somewhere to play, the washing needs to hang
29
family and home

somewhere, bikes need storing and you do enjoy

eating home grown vegetables!

Step 2. Make a list of what you do and don’t want

Make a list so that you capture everything, as you

will then be able to incorporate these into your design,
and decide areas of compromise, if necessary. Do you
want a formal garden, or a cottage-style garden?
Would you like your garden to follow a theme, such
as a colour scheme, or an exotic garden? Do you want
a water feature, lighting, a pergola or a summerhouse?

Step 3. Survey your garden

The garden survey is very important, as it will dictate

the design. This requires careful measuring to give an
accurate record of the size of your garden, the position
of the boundaries and any main features within the
garden. Changes in level should also be measured, as
this will have an impact on your final design. You
will finish up with a scale drawing that will be the
starting point for your design drawing.

Step 4. List the opportunities and constraints that

your garden has

Unless you have recently moved to a new house, you

already have. Either way, don’t forget the ‘must
are probably familiar with your own garden’s
haves’ on your list, as well as the existing constraints
personality and the opportunities or constraints it may
of the site.
have. It is better to work with what your site has to
Using very rough sketches, you can position the
offer, rather than otherwise - for example, if your soil
different elements within your garden, using
has an alkaline pH, use plants that prefer alkaline soil,
photocopies of the survey you drew up previously.
rather than trying to change your soil acidity. Your
This way, you can decide where you want the patio,
design will need to consider many elements including:
compost area, main pathways, plant borders, etc. You
can decide on the shapes you wish to use in your
existing plants and trees
garden - straight lines and symmetrical shapes usually
views from the house
give a more formal feel, whilst curves and random
sunny spots and shady areas
patterns will make the garden feel more informal.
frost pockets and damp areas
resident wildlife
As you consider the design, do take into account the
views beyond the garden
following design principles:
noise
wind exposure
Simplicity
soil quality and pH
keep it simple!
existing hard landscaping

Unity
Step 5. Now you can think about the design!
all parts of the garden should work
together
Your design may be a complete reworking of your
this can be achieved by limiting your
garden, or simply a few adjustments to what you
 mummo magazine

colour palette and the range of materials if possible

you use to make a more aesthetically
pleasing and structured garden
also, where possible, try to ensure that
your design works with your house;
otherwise it could look a little odd!
Scale & proportion
make sure the size of the different
elements in your garden work together
and are in proportion with each other
for example, don’t make a tiny pot of
geraniums the sole feature of a large
patio!
Focal point
include some feature (object or plant) to
draw the eye and to act as the centre of
attention
this will lead you into the garden and
may also lead you from one area to
another by enticing you around the
corner
too many focal points, however, will
cause confusion!
Soft landscaping:
consider your planting in terms of suitability
with your own micro climate and soil, colour
scheme, texture, final height and spread,
seasonal interest, hazards (eg. family allergies,
thorns, toxicity, etc) and maintenance
requirements
If you have ever considered designing your own
garden, I hope the above steps will help you both in
understanding the process and in providing you with
a path to follow. However, if you want to have a go,
I’d suggest that you also read up on it a little more as
there are lots of useful reference books available to
help. Otherwise, perhaps this article has given you a
taste of what can be done, and if you would prefer the
services of a qualified garden designer, feel free to
contact me and I will happily do it for you!
‚Coffee. Garden. Coffee. Does a good morning
need anything else?‛
Betsy Canas Garmon

Space
consider this in relation to the size of a
person and how that space will influence
how you will feel
for example, dividing a garden into
‘rooms’ will give a sense of intimacy, and
the use of symmetry will make the space
feel formal

Almost there! You will probably have a pretty good

idea of how your garden will look now, so start
drawing! This shouldn’t take too long, as simple is
best. It is also important that the design reflects your
personality as it is you that will have to live with it! In
addition, of course, you’ll need to consider your
budget (don’t design anything you cannot afford to
build) and the size of the space available.

Once you have an overall design you are pleased with,

you will want to think about the materials you will
use ...

Hard landscaping:
try and use locally sourced materials, as these
are more in keeping with where you live
limit yourself to two or three different materials

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 31

family and home

‘Frazzled’
Sarah Holden
runs Room to
Bloom Garden The new fragrance
Design and especially for mums.
lives in
Lechlade.
Although With subtle undertones of exhaustion
she‟ll travel
anywhere for and rage, complemented by hints of
masses of frustration and self-doubt, with a heady
money, she
aroma of worry.
works mainly
in the
Gloucestershire, Don't just be. Be ‘Frazzled’ ...
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire areas.

You can contact her by email: courtesy of Hot Cross Mum, more on page 108
sarah@roomtobloomdesign.co.uk

Things that make me happy: peace at the end

of the day, a job well done, something to look
forward to, achievements- especially the girls‟
Sandy Calico
Vices: quick to judge, speak before I think blogs at Baby
Baby. She is
Favourite book: „Black Beauty‟, „Jane Eyre‟, married with
„101 Dalmatians‟! two little boys:
Presley (2½)
Favourite music: Supertramp! and Cash (1½).

Favourite food: raw fish, a rare steak Virtues: I‟m

My children: I have two little girls. Alice is 4
and a half, Ava is 17 months. Alice is faithful,
loving, sensitive, kind and popular (especially
with the boys!). Ava is happy, funny,
mischievous, demanding, expressive.
pretty good
with money!
Motto in life: It‟s nice to be important, but it‟s
more important to be nice.
Favourite music: The Flaming Lips

A day in my life …

The garden at Snowshill Manor in the Cotswolds
My day starts at 7am when the boys wake up
and then it‟s pretty full on all day. At lunch, the
boys and I share sandwiches and yoghurts. My
office is a laptop on my dining room table. My
children love to be outside and are perfectly
behaved in public. At home they can be a
handful! They are now at an age where they are
starting to play together. It‟s lovely to watch
their two blond heads bent over their toys. I
relax by writing short stories and a blog. I also
love to sing. My husband and I write and record
songs and perform them live at open mic nights
(when we can get a babysitter). My day ends
with a kiss from my husband. I usually fall
asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

angels and demons
Blogger Sandy Calico
describes what goes on in
her head ....
I have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the
other.
The angel has a soft voice. If I talk at normal volume I
tend not to hear her. I speak over her without even
realising it. Sometimes I speak over her deliberately,
because I can. If I'm shouting I even forget that she is
there.
The devil has a loud and clear voice. Sometimes all I
can hear is the devil. The devil is in my head. Slowly
chipping away at my confidence. Nonchalantly
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
picking away at my good intentions. Greedily eating
away at my energy reserves.
The devil is my mind's screensaver.
The devil says ‚why did you think this was
going to be easy?‛
The devil says ‚go on, shout louder, your
normal voice isn't effective‛
The devil says ‚stick the television on, have a
bit of peace and quiet‛
The devil says ‚give them pizza again, they'll
only throw anything else on the floor‛
The devil says ‚pretend you can't hear them
calling‛
The devil says ‚you're not cut out for this,
perhaps you should go back to work, let
someone else look after them‛
The angel says ‚you are a good mother‛.
33
family and home
home education:
why would anyone do it?!
Meet Grit, a mother who
home educates her ten-
year-old triplets and shares
her reasons why <
The day we were stopped by the police and an
educational welfare officer, I was buying fruity buns
in Tesco. Squirrel was counting buns up to £1.80 in
her head and working out if it is cheaper to buy Tesco
own brand or special offer Warburtons.
Suddenly the police loomed over my shoulder. I was
questioned for fifteen minutes and I grew increasingly
angry. The police station tour was one I'd hoped to be
booked into with our local group, but not right now,
thanks. We were due in Sheffield. We were already
late setting off, and I hadn't yet acquired a lunch I
could throw over my shoulder at 70 mph up the M1.
Hence the fruity buns.
It's a hazard, choosing home education. Especially
now, as I'm writing this, when we are beset on all
sides by suspicion. In this last week alone it has been
suggested on the BBC that home education is a cover
to abuse our children. This is the same week that Fern
Britton on Radio 2 suggested that home educators are
a group so apart from normal society that we do not
even follow the same rules as everyone else.
Parliament is, meanwhile, considering legislation to
allow any inspector access to our home and -
astonishingly enough - allow unknown inspectors
private interviews with our children.

I think, if we look at history, we can see here how
people in minorities are marginalised, excluded, and
given many undesirable attributes which are used to
justify further punitive legislation. And is this ever an
uphill struggle? Raising public awareness over a
perfectly legal educational choice? Despite all this, I
would still say home education is a fantastic choice for
a child, a family, for parents, and for society.
Changing perspective
We decided to home educate our triplet girls after a
brief fling with the local nursery. Perhaps it was the
way the staff, although friendly, simply couldn't offer
a personalised education. Squirrel yearned to play
with the sand box. Day after day. Yet it was
tantalisingly out of reach. Other things had to be
done. It was never the right time. She had to go
outside, or stay inside, or something.
Perhaps it was because the children were escorted to
an area outside the nursery called 'the garden'. The
garden was an unforgiving, bald, asphalt patch, with
metal railings studded all around. There were lane
markings on the ground for children to run plastic
vehicles in circles.
Maybe it was the way that when the sun shone, and
we all wanted to visit woods or parks or - what the
heck - to drive to the seaside and equip Squirrel with
buckets and spades, that I had a dreary, burdened
feeling of obligation.
The whole world is our classroom. Why not teach about leaves and soil by run-
ning through woods? Why not teach about insects by chasing butterflies?
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
The final straw was finding out that Tiger, my tiny
girl, was hiding in the toilets, frightened because she
never knew what to do, too worried to ask, fearful of
getting things wrong, scared by the nursery room
knockabout, feeling vulnerable, frightened, and alone.
Then I began to question why. Why was I bribing
Tiger to go? Why was I trying to coerce her? Why
was I forcing myself to do something neither she, nor
I, wanted to do? Why was I taking my children to
nursery at all?
The decision was made. And in September, my
children did not go to school.
At first I had the most wonderful
feeling of liberation. Now we could
do anything, go anywhere, find out
everything.
There remained the last fear. The dreaded word:
socialisation. The one thing that home educators are
always accused of: the worst, the most awful. Taking
a child away from their age group. Plunging them
into a non-school world.
Ever seen the film ‘The Matrix?’ Socialisation is a
worry. But that's all. A worry. The shocking
discovery is that we are living in a deeply complex,
multifaceted society. And in a mainstream society,
you are aware of only a part.
35
family and home
We decide what we like to do, when we like to do it ...
Pack our notebooks, pencils and reading books, and take a
train to a London museum.
We can be miserable in a Post Office queue …
And if that's not taking a fully functioning citizenship role
in today's society, I don't know what is.
You are sat not far away from dozens of home
educators, busily networking, meeting in parks,
scheduling lessons, organising workshops, meeting in
playgroups, making theatre visits, arranging tours and
group outings. In your vicinity there is at least one
organised group, and many others who connect with
their own social networks and communities of
support. All the groups network, and there is no limit
to the discussion lists you can find and join once you
enter that community.
I would go further, and say that there is a wider, more
diverse range of people within the home educating
community than you have probably met at the school
gates. Take a pencil, and draw lines from the top to
the bottom of this society, from right to left and in all
directions, and there you have it: the people you can
meet in our home educating world.
We have met children of global travellers who speak
several languages. We have met gifted children, and
children with significant disabilities, both mental and
physical. We have met children of people who live in
poor areas where every penny is accounted for; we
have met people with acres of land. We have met
people from all faiths, and those with none. We have
met parents who are educationalists, factory workers,
farmers, bus drivers, psychologists.
We have extraordinary tolerance for that diversity.
That is a quality I believe we pass to our children. I
have never yet encountered any child in the home
education world bullying any other. And one thing
we all have in common is our desire to do what we
think is best for our children, and protect the freedom
we have to live the life we all choose.
The other world
Once started on this track, you may find you question
all that once you thought unquestionable. You may
find you become critical, more aware of political
process. You need the support of your immediate
community, and community issues affect you
profoundly.
The people around us - you - are our
greatest resource. When I need to
teach the children woodwork, I find a
woodworker. When I need to teach
French, I find a French speaker. When
I need to teach tennis, I find a tennis
player.
All these people are you - our neighbours, near and
far. Networking with these people puts home
educators at the heart of our society.
We give back in turn. My children now help me
create materials for a local toy library. They are well
known at the local libraries. The town caretaker greets
them. T he local shopkeepers know them, and at the
local museum, they are welcomed like old friends.
 mummo magazine

One day I expect my children to volunteer there, dress

up, and help out, probably greeting school children on
their annual tours.

So if you thought home education could be in the best

interests of your child, and you were placed to make
that jump, you would certainly feel adventurous.
Your life would change. Your socialisation would
take on a different form, and you may simply have too
much in your diary to do it all!

But be aware that you may need to be brave. And in

public. People will question your decision, and you
could find yourself defending your choice at a
moment's notice. Even, in fact, while standing in „Kids need to learn how to be free of their parents‟
I totally agree. I have no idea where they are.
Tesco en route to Sheffield, holding six fruity buns.

Grit is the home-educating

mum of ten-year-old triplet
girls: Shark, Tiger and
Squirrel. She is married to
Dig who is, as she puts it,
“big in commas”. She also blogs at Grits Day
and Smug Home Educating Bastard!

Motto in life: “Let not great ambition

overshadow small success.” I got that out of a
fortune cookie, but it does for me, especially the
days that I look at a three metre high sculpture
and I think, “we could make that from papier
maché. I shall put it in the diary for next
Tuesday after French.”
Want to learn wood carving?
Most treasured possession: Our freedom of We learn from a wood carver.
choice. I do not take it for granted. Keeping
alive our freedoms requires social involvement
and active participation.

A day in my life …
In the land of home ed, no two days are ever
the same. I can truly put my hand on my heart
and say that. This week in the diary I have
cinema, ice skating, French, arrival of relative,
craft activities, overnight stay in London,
swimming, two group meet-ups, felting group,
walk in woodland. Last week it was birthday
party, visits to friends, tea party, woodwork,
friends over, social meet, quilling. The week
before it was Chinese celebrations, library,
sewing craft, lakeside workshop ... You get the
picture! I keep a rigorous diary because if I
didn‟t, I‟d never remember where/when we are
supposed to be for what purpose.
We can take a working lunch.
Projects are not dictated by another person‟s agenda.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 37

family and home
is there sex
after babies?
Let’s talk about sex < with
bold mummy blogger
More Than Just a Mother ...
Never mind sex before marriage, the hot debate
centres on who’s having sex after children. How
much, how often, and how soon.
Just as soon as the first flush of parental excitement
has faded, the new baby is sleeping more than twenty
minutes at a time, and you’re able to sit down without
an inflatable ring, the question of sex rears its < er ...
head.
‚Oh darling ...‛ your husband whispers, as he slips
into bed beside you, a hopeful hand ferreting beneath
your brushed cotton jammies, fingers struggling to
locate the furrow where your Spanx pants end and
your nursing bra begins. ‚Harry’s six weeks old
today‛.
This will be the only time your husband knows for
certain how old your children are, so make the most of
it. Just as you have always known exactly how many
weeks pregnant you are, whilst your husband
pontificates that you are ‚about half-way now‛, so
you will always know the precise age of your
offspring, in days, weeks, months and eventually
years. Your spouse, however, has latched onto just
one date. One phrase has leapt out at him from the
scores of pregnancy manuals littering the house. Just
a solitary sentence out of the entire NCT antenatal
course has filtered into his consciousness and quite
possibly into his Blackberry as an Outlook reminder:
‚It is advisable to wait until the six
week check with your GP before
having sex.‛
An innocuous instruction prompting a dismissive
snort the first time I read it. You actually think I’m
considering having SEX again? Somehow, when men
read this same sentence, the words get thrown up in

the air and jumbled up, and when they fall back down
again they read:
‚You can have sex again when your
baby is six weeks old.‛
Which just isn’t the same thing at all.
I honestly don’t know how it happens, but a chat with
my mummy friends over a glass of vino has revealed
that each of us has had to fend off an amorous partner
on the stroke of six weeks. With an over-enthusiastic
labrador as a bed-fellow, there are a variety of
physiological stalling techniques at your disposal,
from spurting milk ducts to unmentionable goings on
down below, designed to deter even the most ardent
admirer from delving too deep.
P-Day for me was around 10 weeks after having the
twins when I finally decided I had to get it over with,
if only to stop my frustrated husband from using so
much hot water when he disappeared into the shower
every morning. We are on a meter, after all. I was so
busy gritting my teeth and wondering if the cross-
stitch would hold, that I forgot about contraception
until the crucial moment, interrupting Husband’s
‚Yes, yes, yes!‛ with a howl of ‚Noooooooooooo‛ as I
wriggled out of harm’s way before our new-found
fertility became responsible for another batch of
babies.
It is with nostalgia that I look back on
the pre-baby sex of my early married
days; the spontaneity, the raw desire,
the ability to orgasm without leaking
wee ...
Forget working full-time, or running a business, there
is nothing that epitomises multi-tasking more than a
post-natal woman having sex. Holding in your
stomach for an hour (well okay, fifteen minutes)
whilst simultaneously tightening your pelvic floor in
an attempt to redress the fact that you now have a
vagina like Dumbledore’s sleeve, is a feat not to be
sneezed at.
Last night I was caught up in the moment and allowed
Husband to flip me over and take me from behind
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
against the kitchen table. (No, I don’t know what came
over me either, but Eastenders had finished and my
wireless connection was on the blink. The scrubbed
pine has had a good going over from Mr Muscle.
Which makes two of us.) I glanced down at my
erstwhile slender torso, where my spaniel-ear bosoms
swung enthusiastically yet pathetically, like marbles
in knee-high socks, incapable even of masking the
corrogated curtain of stomach skin draped behind in
elegant folds. In an attempt to distract myself I looked
around to find something to focus on. Is that marmite
on the wall? I didn’t even think we had any marmite.
Oh God, I hope it’s marmite...
This morning I have a new resolution. A
determination to reclaim my lost sexiness and
embrace this strange new body I didn’t order, but
nevertheless find myself zipped into. It has to be
possible; the world is full of weird and wonderfully
shaped women who have active sex lives and are
presumably confident in their skins. Most of them
have appeared alongside Jeremy Kyle. I have no wish
to feature on reality shame-TV, however I am
embracing both their wobbly bits and my own and
vow to never again suck in my stomach, puff out my
chest, or insist I enjoy the missionary position simply
to avoid the forces of gravity. I will continue with the
pelvic floors though; the Harry Potter effect can’t be
overcome by magic alone.
39
family and home

More Than Just a Mother writes a fantastic blog whilst also managing
to work full-time and bring up three small children.

Here‟s what she says about herself …

I am a 'glass half full' person and definitely more Tigger than Eeyore. I
am a terrible cook and would live off toast if left to my own devices. Or
perhaps just bread, to save having to actually prepare anything. Life is too short for arguments, celibacy,
or failing to kiss and make up.

My children ...

I I had a long battle with infertility before being lucky enough to fall pregnant with twin boys in 2006. My
boys were born at 28 weeks and were the most beautiful, precious things I have ever seen. When they
were a few weeks old, my eldest son contracted meningitis and we were asked to make a choice about
his future. We chose to give him dignity and we removed intensive care from him. He died in our arms,
aged five weeks. Four months later, I fell naturally pregnant with twin girls, sending me into a flat spin
for the duration of the pregnancy, terrified history would repeat itself. My girls were born safely at term,
fifteen months after my first labour, and I'm ashamed to say I wasn't the grateful woman I should have
been. They were the 'wrong twins'. It triggered a severe form of PND and post-traumatic stress disorder,
and the next few months are a bit of a blur. But we got through it, and I can pin-point the exact moment
I fell in love with my daughters. So now I muddle through life with my three toddlers, laughing and
crying in equal measures and writing about it all

A day in my life ...

I get up at 5.30am to get a run in whilst my husband and all the children are asleep; it's the only chance I
get. At 7am the nanny arrives and I leave my pyjama'd, sleepy-headed pygmies in her care. Work is
varied, exciting, hectic and challenging and I frequently find myself without time for a wee. I race home
through rush-hour traffic to take-over from Mary Poppins at 5pm for tea, bath and Beebies time with my
tribe, loving each minute but clock-watching all the same. By 7pm the last child hits the pillow and I hit
the bottle. Bliss.

Rachel Foux is a
psychosexual therapist
with almost 15 years‟
experience in the field of
women‟s health and
healing, in both physical
and emotional /
relationship matters.

She has practices in

central London and Hertfordshire. Her website
is www.householdcompanion.com

She is also the author of „The New Mum‟s Guide

to Sex‟, and has appeared on TV shows such as
Good Morning and The Good Sex Show. She is
married with two school age children.

loved
up
Rachel Foux shares a few
tips on how to make love
to the same man forever ...
We all aspire to have a loving relationship that will
stay strong and passionate until our dying days. But
in truth, even when we do find that special someone,
the reality of keeping the spark alive over an
indefinite period of time requires great effort and
discipline. Sometimes this can prove disheartening.
Interests may wax and wane under the pressures of
modern life, impinging on our sense of wellbeing and
impacting on intimacy.
Sexuality isn’t just about making love with your
partner or dressing like a sexy diva, although these are
both excellent ideas. It’s also about reconnecting with
the flame that burns inside you. Like all fires, you’ll
need to fan the flames by doing things that feed you.
It takes commitment from both partners to nourish
your relationship with love and tenderness to keep it
burning bright. Even when you’re having bad times
together, a low burning fire is better than no fire - it’s
always easier to reignite embers than a completely
dead fire.
Ultimately, the most valuable thing you can do
in your relationship is to keep the lines of
communication open, both verbally (‚I love
you!‛, ‚You’re great‛) and non-verbally
(stroking, cuddling, looking into each other’s
eyes). Without this, you will wake up one day
feeling that you’re sleeping with a stranger or
living like brother and sister, and not as lovers.
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
If you live with each other, look at how you
juggle your domestic life. Seek a practical
system where workloads are fairly distributed
and harmonised so that any resentment is
nipped in the bud.
If you have children, remember to invest in
valuable time as a couple outside your
parenting roles by going out for a romantic
dinners or the odd weekend away alone where
you don’t talk about the kids! Keep baby
clothes and paraphernalia out of your bedroom
to remind yourselves that you have an adult
relationship that requires its own space and
time to nourish and flourish.
Incorporate bland domestic duties with
foreplay and sex.
Try not to have sex in bed last thing at night.
You may be more inclined to doze off than
indulge in a bit of rough and tumble. The living
room, early evening after the children have
gone to bed, or anywhere else in the house
that’s beyond the convention of your bedroom
will stoke the fires of passion and will
encourage you to experiment with positions if
you’re doing it on or against awkward
furnishings. It can add more to the excitement!
Inject adventure and fun into your relationship
- try new things together - some sexual, some
not < from tantra to tango. Do anything that
gets you rocking and rolling in a non-domestic,
non-duty bound way. This is how you'll keep
meeting a new face in an old partner and fall in
love again and again.
Variety keeps things fresh, so break old habits
by surprising each other. If you usually make
love, same place, same way on Saturday
mornings then surprise him by slipping into
bed mid-week wearing a sexy little number
with some chocolate body paint!
‚I’m a terrible lover.
I’ve actually given a woman an anti-climax.‛
Scott Roeben
41
family and home

day
off

I could train wild animals,

A poem by the brilliant Poo wouldn’t make me queasy.
I’ve braved a toddler cutting canines
mum blogger Josie George So a lion would be easy.

of ‘Sleep is for the weak’ I hear Human Research pays well,

Volunteering’s all the rage.
and ‘Judith’s room’ ... And you get to lie down everyday
In an aesthetic haze.

Can I not be a mum today? Even prison inmate

I fear it’s not my calling. Seems more attractive by the hour.
The hours are crap for starters At least I’d get my meals served
And the job description’s boring. And time to take a shower.

I’d rather be an astronaut. Can I not be a mum today?

At least it’s quiet up there. One day, that’s all I ask!
My wobbly bits would suit no-grav, I promise then I won’t resent
Suspended in the air. My normal humdrum tasks.

Or I could try out espionage. One day of something different

I’d be great at fearless guile: To be adventurous, inspiring.
‚Yes sweetheart this is REALLY fun!‛ After all, I’m over qualified:
I’d lie through sugared smile. Is anybody hiring?!
 mummo magazine

Josie George is married and has a little boy, Kai, who is 18

months old. She lives in Staffordshire, where she looks after
her son and tries to grab every moment possible for her
writing. She blogs at www.sleepisfortheweak.org.uk and has
also set up an online community for women who write:
www.judithsroom.com.

Five words to describe me: creative, self-deprecating,

honest, empathic, daft

Things that make me happy: Writing, knitting, chocolate,

black tea with lots of sugar, walking through the sunshine
with my boy, chasing leaves and cats, taking photographs,
and time to myself. Oh, and writing. Did I mention that one?

Vices: Endlessly self-critical and annoyingly introspective.

Also prone to exaggeration and being hopelessly needy.
Easily distracted. Oh and stubborn, REALLY stubborn.

Virtues: I can think my way out of anything, I learn fast and am quite irritatingly good at the things I
throw my hand at.

Motto in life: "If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried."

Favourite food: Pizza, strawberry milkshake, and cake. I am a grown-up, honestly...

Favourite smell: My son's head when he's not had a bath for a day or two. Like damp sawdust - just
delicious ...

Favourite outfit: My pyjamas

Most treasured possession: My brain

My children: Just one at the moment, Kai, but more planned. He‟s a spirited, independent, sensitive
little monkey. Full of fun and life and curious about the world but hasn't quite figured out if he likes it
yet. Loves singing, diggers, watching too much TV and running amok through the town centre.

A day in my life ...

My day starts ... at a stupidly early hour. Normally 5am ish. Yeah, I know ... not good, is it? You
probably get the desperate humour now, right?

At lunch ... I usually forget to eat. Unless biscuits count?

My office is ... marked out by the arse-print on my sofa. My assistant has a habit of biting my knees
and trying to sit on my head. I really should get a new job …

My children ... will probably end up destroying either my health, my sanity, or both … but hey, if I
didn't have any, I wouldn't have anything interesting to write about, would I?

I relax by ... learning new things, writing, and imagining myself as a pirate / international spy / Robert
Downey Jr's girlfriend.

My day ends ... When I fall asleep on top of my laptop and my husband nags me to go to bed.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 43

family and home

a
place
for
everything ...

What on earth am I going to do with all the toys. I

Not a domestic goddess?
Don’t worry, professional
declutterer Emma Fletcher
has the answers to your
home dilemmas ...
I just don't know where to start. The clutter is
overwhelming.
Take a deep breath, do one room at a time and do it
thoroughly. Assign a home for each possession and
put like with like. Don’t buy any new storage items
until things are either gone, or placed where they
should be. Make sure you have boxes / dustbin liners
with you in each room to put things in, otherwise you
will just create more piles. Make sure they are
labelled.
don’t know where to put them and I can’t get the
kids to clear them up.
If you find your living room is always strewn with
toys and paraphernalia, try a fun storage solution for
the kids. See 'A Place for Everything' for animal
storage bags and boxes in fabulous colours. These can
be easily kept out of the way in a corner or under a
table, but the fact they’re so fun will hopefully
encourage your children to tidy their toys away into
them!
The laundry is everywhere and falling out of the
cupboards. There just isn’t enough room for it all.
Take all your duvet covers, pillowcase, sheets, etc and
put them on the bed or table. Then sort them into sets
or, if you prefer, ‘like with like’ - in other words, all
pillowcases together, all single sheets together, and so
on. If everything is pressed it will take up far less
room. If you don’t have a linen cupboard, laundry
can go into plastic boxes or mesh underbed bags.

Make sure everything is labelled. This will save time
and energy and avoid you pulling everything out just
to find one pillowcase.
Fitted sheets:
Make sure both top corners of the sheet are
puffed out.
Fold it in half from bottom to top.
Fit the bottom two corners into the top two
corners.
Make the sides of the sheet perfectly even by
laying it flat on the bed and smoothing down
Fold it in half again from bottom to top, then
fold from left to right
Lay the sheet neatly on a shelf, tamping down
in order to prevent any creases from forming.
No need to iron them because when they are
pulled tightly over the corners of the mattress,
any creases will disappear.
And here’s another useful tip:
Put a whole set of bedlinen together inside one of the
pillowcases.
There are five of us in this house and the shoes are
everywhere. My husband goes mad when he gets
home from work and trips over them all, which is
not a good start to the evening!
Shoes seem to get everywhere and can be very
irritating. Make sure you have a good solid well-
made shoe rack, or a large basket which can be picked
up quickly and moved around. See the ‘Tetbury Hall
Bench' by the Cotswold Company as an example.
Then encourage everyone (bribe them if necessary!) to
put their shoes away as soon as they take them off.
The bathroom cupboards are bulging and I can’t
clean them properly. I just don't know what to do.
First of all, declutter the cupboards and chuck out
sticky old nail varnishes and well out-of-date lotions
and potions. Go and buy some good quality,
inexpensive plastic boxes without lids. Make sure
they are going to fit by measuring before shopping.
Put like with like in each box - for example, all your
lipsticks in one, all your eyeshadows in another.
Then, when you clean, just pull out the box. Also, it is
much easier to see what you have and the box can be
taken elsewhere, ie, to do your nails, etc.
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
My wardrobe is stuffed full. I’ve put on weight and
can’t bear to throw anything out as I’m on a diet and
I’m sure they’ll fit again soon.
You have to be brutal with yourself and try everything
on in the first instance. If it doesn’t fit, or is too young
or old, chuck it out. If the diet is serious and the items
are 'good', put them away for a while and go back to
them. Do not buy anything until your goal is
achieved, especially a bigger pair of stretch black
trousers from M&S.
If you weed your wardrobe well, you will be liberated
and much happier to carry on with your goals. If you
need help from a friend, please make sure that they
are honest about an item.
Think about your lifestyle first and tailor your
wardrobe to suit it. Don't buy more kitten heels if you
never wear them. Buy good quality and only buy
something if it goes with something else.
I can’t get on top of my own admin. The bills and
school newsletters are scattered all over the place so
I can never find them. Nothing gets done and then I
forget about a coffee morning or a meeting.
The same principle applies as to the first question. Put
all your admin in one place before you declutter and
sort it out. Ideally your desk / own space should be in
or near the heart of the house and then you will get
much more done. You need a good filing system - a
drawer / basket / file with dividers for each subject.
Most importantly, you need an ‘in’ tray / ‘things to do’
tray which must be portable. Ideally, this is
something like a basket which can be carried around
with you, to the television, to bed even! Everything
goes in there. Secondly, have one notebook or diary
(whatever size you like) and make sure that
everything just gets written down in there.
My house is so bad, I don’t think I could bear the
embarrassment of someone helping me to declutter.
You don’t need to worry about a 'declutterer' like me
coming to help. However bad you think it is, I have
seen worse. Nothing will faze me and I have been
through most of it myself. Sometimes it’s better to be
with a caring stranger. At least we can be objective
and honest and are not emotionally involved.
45
family and home

the
negotiator
Mummy blogger Sticky
Emma Fletcher is a professional declutterer who
runs The Decluttering Company - Fingers describes a
www.declutterer.co.uk.
familiar family scene <
Five words to describe me: gregarious,
enthusiastic, outgoing, honest, kind
How many of you have experienced this scenario at
Things that make me happy: dog walking, meal times?
socialising, keeping house, reading
"How many more mouthfuls of dinner until I
Vices: too much wine and fruit crumbles can have pudding?"
"All of it. Eat all your dinner."
Motto in life: after a bad time, just keep going,
one day at a time … "No. How many mouthfuls but don't say all of
it."
Favourite book: „The Kite Runner‟ "Well you've hardly eaten any, so 55
mouthfuls."
Favourite film: „The Holiday‟ "Now you're being ridiculous. How many
Favourite meal: Sunday roast mouthfuls and say a proper number like 10."
"Ok, 10 more mouthfuls. But mouthFULS, not
Favourite smell: roses just a sliver on the end of your fork."
"How about 8?"
Favourite outfit: my blue Nicole Farhi floaty "No. I said 10."
dress and silk coat (Bicester Village!)
"But you meant 8, didn't you?"
Most treasured possession: my blue and "Err, no."
white jug on the website, my dogs and my "I'll eat 8 and then shall we decide then?"
husband!

My children: I‟ve got two fantastic step-

children, Edward (18) and Ellie (19) who are
bright, funny and great fun.

A day in my life …
At the moment I‟m looking after a 10-week-old
puppy, which is quite demanding, and if I‟m not
out decluttering I‟m working at home. I relax by
reading, watching television, just pootling
about and having a glass of wine at the kitchen
table! My day ends with cooking supper,
watching EastEnders or a film, book and bed.
 mummo magazine

This is a regular and infuriating conversation I have
with my 4 year old daughter at the dinner table. It's a
constant negotiation and has become so bad I've
started increasing the amount I put on her plate to
compensate.
I look at my plate, and there joining my single sliver of
carrot are a clutch of new friends, two potatoes and a
telltale trail of gravy joining our two plates together.
Doh!

I'm not a 'finish your plate' kind of

mum by any means. You eat until
you're satisfied, then you can have a
pudding if you still want one. Or if
mummy hasn't eaten them all. Or
hidden them so she can eat them all!

But the trouble is, the minute Mia has polished off her
pot of yoghurt or bowl of custard or whatever, 15
minutes later she's asking for 'snacks'.

"What about this cottage pie you've left? Shall I

warm that up for you?"

She looks at me like I've asked her to eat mud, chooses

to pretend I don't exist, turns her back on me and
starts rooting through the fridge.

Today the art of negotiation has moved up another

notch.

"Mummy, do you want to swap your carrots for

my potatoes?" (I have one solitary sliver of
carrot left on my plate.)
"No thank you. I'm going to eat all my own Tara Cain is a mummy blogger with two
dinner, thank you." children, Daniel (7) and Mia (4). As she says,
she‟s been “talking mumbo jumbo since 2002”
"Well, how many mouthfuls then?"
on her blog Sticky Fingers.

Oh brother. I give her a look that says 'ask me that Vices: Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. But I
question one more time and you may just be wearing don‟t drink, I don‟t smoke and I don‟t spend
that meal'. hours shopping, so I figure I‟m allowed!

Motto in life: Treat others as you wish to be

I think she picks up my vibes and sits quietly spearing
a 'bush' of broccoli, then asks: "Can I have a drink
please mummy?" I feel a warm glow upon me as the
flush of parenting success makes me sneak a crafty
smile as I get up to go to the fridge.
I sit back down and she's still prodding at a lone piece
of broccoli. Holy cow, she's nearly finished. No more
negotiating. The look was all that required obviously!
treated.
Favourite film: One? Are you kidding? I‟m a
total movie junkie.
Most treasured possession: My wedding ring.
My husband is my childhood sweetheart (we
were at school together) and we‟ve been
together for - gulp - nearly 19 years now. We‟ve
had plenty of highs and lows but he‟s a keeper!

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 47

family and home

what
sort of a
parent
are you?

Have you ever wondered whether you’re much

Dr Clare Bailey, GP, stricter than other parents? Or perhaps if you’re more
laid back than most? Or even too indulgent with your
mother of four and children? Many parents watch how other parents
respond to their children and wonder whether they
founder of Parenting would have reacted in the same way in that situation.

Matters, explains the I was in great admiration recently of a mother with a

importance of our
parenting style <
Do you run your family like an army general? Or are
you so relaxed that teatime’s more like a chimp’s tea
party? If you’re interested in finding out more about
your parenting style, go online and try this quiz <
very chatty and enthusiastic 3 year old in the
supermarket. She was talking through items on her
shopping list and encouraging her son to find them
and put them in the trolley. He was really enjoying
the task, trying so hard to be helpful and flinging
things haphazardly in the trolley - I would have
struggled with the temptation to race round quickly
and get the job done, avoiding breakages on the way.
And then you see the familiar scenario of someone
giving in to the wails for sweets at the checkout. Is the
first parent more child-centred and the other more
 mummo magazine

permissive? Most parents have a sense of what sort of 2. Permissive-indulgent

parent they are, be it strict, laid back or somewhere in
between, yet it can be interesting to see how our own These parents are warm and engaged with their
‘parenting styles’ compare with other people’s, and to children but with fewer or inconsistent limits and
get a clearer idea of what sort of parent we really are. expectations. They would be more inclined to give in
at the checkout as they hate to see their child upset,
All parents have their own unique blend of ‘parenting despite explaining how sweets will rot teeth.
styles’, which simply means we have a preferred
pattern of responses when with our children. For 3. Hands-off
example, we all lie on a spectrum between ‘being
engaged’ and ‘being uninvolved’ or between ‘being
These parents tend to be laissez-faire, less involved
strict’ and ‘being relaxed’. Although this will vary
and with fewer boundaries. They probably won’t
according to the age and personality of each child, we
notice the additions to the trolley or mind very much
will all have our own particular approach which tends
anyway.
to become the ‘automatic’ or ‘default’ style, especially
when under pressure. The approach you fall back on
4. Authoritarian-strict
is often determined by how you were brought up,
your own personality, culture or simply what you
Here there’s a stronger emphasis on control and clear
have picked up from those around you.
limits, over and above warmth and involvement. This
kind of parent probably wouldn’t be inclined to let
Research shows that there are four main parenting
their child out of the trolley and would stick firmly to
styles (D. Baumrind, Maccoby & Martin) - do you
what’s on the list.
recognise yourself in any of these?

Take the quiz on the Parenting Matters website to find

1. Balanced-authoritative out more about your own parenting style, and what
you can do to become even more effective ...
This is in some ways the ideal parenting style,
balancing clear limits and appropriate expectations
with warmth and involvement (as with the mum
involving her son with shopping and making it fun).
However, she probably wouldn’t allow him to add a
bumper bag of Mars Bars to the trolley, and would
explain why.

‚I looked on childrearing not only as a work of

love and duty but as a profession that was fully as
interesting and challenging as any honourable
profession in the world and one that demanded
the best that I could bring to it.‛

Rose Kennedy

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 49

family and home

Dr Clare Bailey is a GP
who also runs
parenting courses
carrot cake
through her company
Parenting Matters.

Five words to
with a twist ...
describe me:
enthusiastic, Ingredients
determined, a good
listener, bubbly 2 eggs
150g of brown sugar
A day in my life … 100ml oil
200g finely grated carrot
My day starts at 7.50am, I try to go for a run 50g walnuts
before breakfast or to practice meditation for
75g finely chopped pineapple (fresh or tinned)
15 mins (having just done a mindfulness
meditation course) before launching into the 50g coconut flakes
day. If I‟m honest, though, more often than not 200g wheat flour
I lie in for another luxurious15 mins. 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1½ teaspoons of baking powder
At lunch, at the surgery on my GP days, I grab a 1 teaspoon of salt
sandwich and packet of crisps during a
lunchtime meeting. When working from home
I usually reheat anything left in the fridge, often Instructions
in strange combinations such as leftover stir fry 1. Whip eggs, add sugar, continue whipping till it
with a sausage and baked beans. I avoid gets fluffy then add oil bit by bit.
skipping lunch as I would grind to a halt mid- 2. Add carrot, pineapple, walnuts and coconut
afternoon.
flakes and mix gently.
My office is at home in a converted stable and 3. In separate bowl, sift flour, add cinnamon, salt,
fives court. baking powder and mix well. Add to the
dough, mix to combine all ingredients.
My children: I have four children - Alex (19), 4. Pour dough into baking tray lined with
Jack (17), Dan (15) and Kate (10) who are the
greaseproof paper.
centre of my world and who are endeavouring
to keep it that way for the moment. They 5. Bake in preheated oven for about 1 hour at 150
inspired me to start Parenting Matters as I degrees (slightly lower for a fan oven).
realised that the more children I had, the more
skills I needed … not least because, being such
different personalities, they each needed a This recipe is reproduced under a Creative Commons
different approach. There is no „one size fits all‟ license from www.nibbledish.com
in parenting. I love them to bits but have no
illusions of attempting to be the perfect mother
(whatever that is) and good enough is fine most
of the time.

I relax by going for walks with my lovely

husband in the fields at the end of the lane.

My day ends by putting away the inevitable

remaining debris strewn by the kids (and
husband), putting the dog out, getting caught
up reading the papers, locking the doors,
turning off the lights ... then my husband says
he‟s going to bed too … and he does!
 mummo magazine

If I had my child ...

If I had my child to raise over again, Diana Loomans © 2009

I’d finger paint more, and point the finger less. This poem has been reproduced
with the kind permission of Diana
I’d do less correcting and more connecting. Loomans.

I’d take my eyes off my watch and watch with my eyes. For more info, visit
www.dianaloomans.com
I would care to know less and know to care more.

I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.

I’d stop playing serious and seriously play.

I’d run through more fields and gaze at more stars.

I’d do more hugging and less tugging.

I would be firm less often and affirm much more.

I’d build self-esteem first, and the house later.

I’d teach less about the love of power,

And more about the power of love.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 51

career
career and
and business
business

Hard at work ...

Sam Pearce from
networking company
Mum’s the Boss shares her
‘Working from home
lament’ ...

I’m meant to be working

I’ve so much to do
But the beds all need changing
And I must clean the loo
I want to be blogging
I’ve so much to say
But I’m constantly cooking
Or clearing away
I must make a phone call
But the kids won’t stop squealing
There are crumbs on the rug
And cobwebs on the ceiling
I need to start working
I’ve emails to send
But I’ve just had a text
From a newly dumped friend
It’s toddlers nap time
I need to get cracking
But the food’s been delivered
And the bags need unpacking
I must cook from scratch
Something quick and delicious
Cos takeaway’s quick
But it’s hardly nutritious
I promised I’d schedule
Some ‘me time’ today
But the chances of that now
Are dwindling away
The kids are in bed now
There’s just no excuse
But I’m dead on my feet now –
Oh, what’s the use!
But admit it, you wouldn’t change it for the world!!
 mummo
mummo magazine
magazine

Sam Pearce co-founded Mum‟s the Boss, a

support and networking group for mums who coming soon <
work at home and/or run their own businesses,
with her friend Helen Woodham. Currently they
have groups in Bedfordshire and Leicestershire,
with others planned. You can find out more at
www.mumstheboss.co.uk. They also blog at
the mummo
www.mumstheblog.co.uk and bake great cakes!

Five words to describe me: colourful, creative,

community-minded, chatty, curvaceous
marketplace
Things that make me happy: baking, cuddles,
a good book

Vices: chocolate, Twitter addiction, online

so if you’re a mum in business,
shopping why not be one of the first to
Virtues: good at baking cakes, good listener set up your stall?
Motto in life: To thine own self be true

Favourite book: The five people you meet in

heaven by ???

Favourite film: „Chocolat‟

advertising in the mummo
marketplace is meant to be
Favourite music: the soundtrack to the film
„The Piano‟ affordable
Favourite meal: lamb roast dinner £5 per month for a standard ad or
Favourite smell: cinnamon
£10 per month for a premium ad

Favourite clothing: my collection of colourful

coats

Most treasured possession: my KitchenAid

mixer If you’re interested, just email
My children: I have two girls, Annie (4) and advertising@mummo.co.uk
Molly (nearly 3) who are very chatty, clever - like to reserve a space!
their mum, obviously - and a bit bonkers!

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 53

career and business

life through a lens ...

Self-taught photographer
and mother of three,
Maleah Matthews captures
the exquisite beauty of
nature ...
 mummo magazine

Photograph shown opposite: I currently have this motto hanging on my

Lemon Drops computer monitor. I like it because it reminds me
that one day maybe I can achieve my dreams!
Photographs shown on this page:
Poppy Enchanted Garden Collection
Mod Meadow Collection Breath of Spring
If you can imagine it,
Photographs shown overleaf: you can achieve it.
Faintly Pink Love Blooms II
Sugar Plum Vines Star Struck Deux Thistle If you can dream it,
you can become it.
Maleah is kindly offering Mummo readers a 10% discount
on any purchases of her work. Just email her details of the William Arthur Ward
what you‟d like to buy and she‟ll arrange it for you.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 55

career and business

Photographer Maleah Matthews lives in Eugene, Oregon in the States and is married with three children.
You can see more of her work at www.maleahmatthews.com and you can also visit her Etsy shop.

Things that make me happy: I love playing with my kids, doing just about anything outdoors, and my
favourite happy place is visiting the ocean. My favourite thing to do is to spontaneously pack my kids and
camera for a day of exploring or hiking!

Favourite food: I love Thai food and all things chocolate! Favourite smell: The salty sea air

Most treasured possession: My camera gear, I would be lost without it!

My children: Delaney (8) is my very artistic child, she spends hours and hours crafting and drawing. In fact
she has become quite helpful to me during our photo excursions, she has a good eye for spotting things to
shoot. She is a kind little girl with a very old soul! Mason (6) is the family comic, always trying to make us
laugh. He's very athletically inclined and enjoys doing all things that make him go fast, or as he says "makes
me go speed!" He's very sweet with his sisters and he and Ella are the best of friends when they're not the
worst of enemies. Ella (4) is in a HUGE hurry to grow up, she wants so badly to catch up with the big kids, we
just let her think she is to keep the peace, lol! She can play in the dirt and mud, but she dearly loves to
dress up and wear lip gloss. She is the "spice" in the family!
 mummo magazine

tweet tweet

First off, I have to confess that I love Twitter. I find it

Social media marketing
specialist, Karen Skidmore
asks whether Twitter is a
whole load of twaddle ...
Twitter is officially the ‚most-talked‛ about website
this year. You can’t seem to open up a copy of the
Daily Mail or watch Friday night TV without a
mention of someone’s tweets. Politicians, comedians,
radio presenters, C-list celebs – they’e all at it, aren’t
they?
But how does Twitter work as a business tool? And is
Twitter something that you should be doing to help
promote your business?
an easy and highly effective way of communicating
with both potential clients and business buddies.
Twitter drives more traffic to my website than any
other website and gives life to my blog, with plenty of
fellow Twits stopping by and adding their comments
to my articles.
Having been on Twitter now for
almost two years, you could say I’m
twaddicted!
But just because I love Twitter, it doesn’t necessarily
mean that you should love Twitter too. There are too
many business owners feeling under pressure to start
tweeting yet, after a few weeks of fumbling about,
their Twitter account is deserted and unused. And, let
me tell you - there is nothing worse for your business
brand than a deserted Twitter account.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 57

career and business
So before you jump on the Twitter bandwagon and
start using it as a business tool, here are five questions
for you to answer.
Question 1: How well do you know your target
customers?
A common trap business owners often fall in to when
it comes to technology and marketing is discounting
an approach because they don’t like it themselves. For
example, ‚I hate email so why would this email
marketing work for my business?‛ It’s essential to
choose the communication channels that are right for
your specific target clients - and not for you. You may
not have started tweeting yet, but do you know how
many of your target customers are? And if they ain’t
tweeting, then is it really the most effective tool to be
using? Keep your target market in mind at all times.
Question 2: How many of your competitors are
tweeting?
Being one of the first to be tweeting in your profession
or industry could actually be a good thing. Becoming
an early adopter could help to differentiate you from
‚all the rest‛. But don’t be a copy-cat tweeter if you
find there are plenty of your competitors already out
there. Just because they are tweeting, doesn’t
necessarily mean that it’s right for you and your
customers. Make sure you answer question one!
Question 3: How much time do you have?
One of the biggest challenges business owners have is
time. And this is especially so with social media tools,
such as Twitter. Twitter can be a HUGE timewaster
< and quite addictive too! But if treat Twitter like
any other marketing activity, have a clear objective
and plan out a simple strategy - such as the number of
tweets a day and what to tweet about - you will find
Twitter will only be a time waster if you let it.
Question 4: Who should be tweeting?
A Twitter account can be set up to represent an
individual or a business. And there is no reason why
several people can’t tweet from the same Twitter
account to share the tweet-load. But if you are going
to start tweeting, you need a long term game plan.
There is nothing worse than announcing to your
customers that you are now on Twitter, only to fade
away in a few weeks’ time because you have run out
of steam. Have an objective and a plan!
Question 5: What do you tweet about?
Sharing a daily tip, recommending resources, making
a special offer once a week - the opportunities open to
you are huge. The important fact to remember is,
though, that if you try to sell on Twitter, it just won’t
work for you. You have to create value and use
Twitter as a communication tool - not an opportunity
to just sell, sell, sell. Whatever your plan is, just make
sure you tweet for your target customers.
For more about Twitter and how to use it in your
business, visit www.CanDoCanBe.com/
twitterchecklist where you can access ‚The Twitter
Checklist for Small Businesses‛ for FREE!
Karen Skidmore is a
mum, marketing coach
and social media
marketing specialist.
She works with small
business owners to help
them use the right
marketing tools in their
business to attract the
right clients. For more
articles and marketing
tips, visit her website www.CanDoCanBe.com
Five words to describe me: practical, straight-
forward, perceptive, chocoholic, curious
Things that make me happy: sunshine, warm
wind in my face, my children giggling
Motto in life: You can do and can be anything
you want - you‟ve just got to decide what it is
and GET ON WITH IT!
Favourite film: ‘Sex and the City’
Favourite music: David Bowie
Favourite smell: summer rain on a hot day
My children: Jodie (almost 10) and Harvey
(almost 8) - they’re both independent, strong-
willed, creative and verbal!
 mummo magazine

Tempest 1, mixed media with oil on canvas, 150 x 120 cm, from the Escape Collection

arty mum Jessica Zoob

took a risk: she
gave up her
career to paint
full-time.
Now she’s
living her
dream ...
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 59
career and business

Chinese Dream One 1 & 2, oil on canvas, 75 x 75cm each, from the Desire Collection, donated to Save the Children

Dragonfly Dancing, mixed media with oil on canvas, 200 x 90cm, from the Adventure Collection

On the eve of the millenium, Jessica announced to her

husband, David, that she was jacking it all in for a
new career as an artist. ‚He was horrified because we ‚I can walk out of my house and see a
had just bought a wreck of a house and had two puddle or a leaf or an old wall and that
children and we really needed my salary too, but I just
will be enough to captivate me and start
had to do it. It was complete and utter self
indulgence, but I was so inspired by the joy and
me thinking about its beauty. I can’t
freedom of seeing my own small children paint that I imagine ever sitting in front of a blank
wanted the same for me. Now I know this is what I canvas and not knowing what to do.‛
was put on the planet to do.‛
 mummo magazine

escape

Early Morning Rain 2, mixed media with oil on

canvas, 150 x 120cm, from the Escape Collection

Early Morning Rain 1, mixed media with oil on Bliss, detail, one of a pair, overall dimensions 120 x
canvas, 60 x 120cm, from the Escape Collection 210cm, from the Escape Collection

Jessica’s forthcoming exhibitions <

‚I paint for the joy of it and each painting 21/03/10 - 26/03/10
speaks of a particular journey in my own Images to Dream Into
life. There is only ever one painting in the London Design Week, Chelsea Harbour Design Ctre
world that tells that story and people fall
08/04/10-30/04/10
in love with the paintings that connect
Adventure (solo show)
most eloquently to them.‛ The Medici Gallery, Cork Street, London

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 61

career and business

Jessica Zoob
was once a
theatre
designer, then a
corporate
designer, and is
now a
successful artist.
She has two
daughters - Ana
(14) and Kat
(11) - and lives
with them in
Lewes, East
Sussex.
Fragile, oil on canvas, 200 x 170cm, from the
Desire Collection You can see more of her work on her website:
www.jessicazoobdesire.com

Five words to describe me: optimistic,

passionate, driven, creative, enthusiastic

Things that make me happy: my daughters,

sunshine, my work, dancing, swimming in the
rain

Vices: workaholic

Virtues: workaholic

Motto in life: live in the moment

Favourite book: „The Secret Life of Bees‟ by

Sue Monk Kidd

Favourite film: „The Notebook‟

Favourite food: chocolate!

Favourite music: tango

Favourite smell: springtime

Favourite clothing: my painting trousers

Most treasured possession: family photos

A day in my life …

At the moment pretty much all I do is work! 9

till 9 usually. I used to walk and swim and
dance and see my girlfriends but things have
been a bit crazy recently. I am hoping to get
some balance back soon. Luckily I absolutely
love my work, and my girls are very good at
looking after me!

Deeply crazy, mixed media with oil on canvas,

60 x 120cm, from the Escape collection

saving the world
with jelly and ice-cream
Deirdre Bounds, founder
of i-to-i travel and now of
Parties Around the World,
talks about a brand new
approach to party giving ...
A precious Saturday and another children’s party to
attend with my 4 year old, Ava. I’ve only just replied
to say that we’re coming (Tilly’s mum, who I’ve never
met, kept on texting me as she needed to know the
numbers - I’m so bad at getting back to people!). Doh!
I don’t have a present for Tilly, who’s having a ‘Fairies
& Scaries’ disco party. Now some mums are just
organized and float around the Early Learning Centre
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
for hours getting ten presents at once - sadly, I’m not
one of those (I mean, do they really exist?). So we
gulp down our breakfasts and, while my husband
keeps our two children occupied, I dash to Sainsburys
to buy Tilly a present. What on earth would she like?
I have no idea, I’ve never met her < so I grab a Dora
the Explorer pencil case and sticker book and hope for
the best.
Thankfully Ava has a Scaries outfit as it’s just after
Halloween and the party is a scream! Well, not quite
for us parents drinking tea and eating HobNobs, but
the disco is a success. The pile of presents wobbles on
the table and Tilly’s mum looks proud and flustered at
the same time.
The party bags and the cake-encrusted
car seat are the only material memory
of the afternoon.
63
career and business
Ava’s exhausted but has had a hoot. I watch Tilly’s
mum piling the presents into a bin liner while Tilly is
trying to open them and having a bit of a tantrum.
She’ll get them home and write the thank you cards
that we’ll be receiving soon. I wonder whether I’ll see
my Dora the Explorer pencil case doing the rounds at
another party as a recycled gift? It doesn’t matter <
or perhaps it does?!
This was exactly the scenario that I faced four years
ago with my son’s first party at the age of four - the
invites, the chasing of parents, the pile of presents, the
tantrums and those bloody thank-you cards! The
whole process - which should have been a joy - well, it
just stressed me out. To be fair, I was running a very
large travel company which I’d founded eight years
previously, and while I had no problem with the
concept of organising a party for my child, I did look
around that day and think ‘There must be a better way
than this’.
Surely, with the internet and
everything, we could find an easier
way to organise our children’s parties?
What I also couldn’t get my head around was the
excess of presents. I wondered what values it was
teaching my child. I figured there must be a different
approach, one that was not only easier, but also
educational and ethical.
And so the idea for partiesaroundtheworld.co.uk was
born, way back in 2005. The major problem was that I
was so busy with my travel company that I just
parked the concept. I subsequently went on to sell my
travel business in 2007 to TUI Travel and had about a
year off.
Then, in early 2009, I was working on a project with a
Leeds based entrepreneur called Carl Hopkins and the
concept of PAW was always in my mind - so I ran the
idea past Carl. He immediately saw the need for it
and agreed to work with me to bring PAW to life.
Carl’s wife was expecting a baby so he was truly
behind the idea. I suppose it became a bit of a crusade
for both of us. We looked at the model and thought -
‘OK, Just Giving and Oxfam Unwrapped’ seem to
work very well, so if we take the lead from those two
great organisations for the idea behind the ‘gift giving’
and also think about what busy parents may need to
organise their children’s party efficiently, then we’re
killing around seven birds with one stone.’
So we engaged a great designer and web developer
and began the slow process of making this idea work.
Everything was fine until we went to the bank to
arrange card taking facilities on our site. You see,
there’s a slight legal problem in that we cannot take
money and hold it on behalf of a third party (the
charity). It’s fair enough - I mean Carl and I could
have expensive tastes and take our families off to
Barbados or somewhere! So we engaged an
organisation called ‘The Charities Trust’ - which is
also a charity by the way - to be the financial gateway.
Not only that, they also arrange the Gift Aid, which
means that charities we support get around 118% of
what is paid.
Next, the choice of charities to support - well, that was
pretty easy as we stuck to a set of three simple criteria:
1. something that children can engage with and
understand
2. no more than 12 different charities as too much
choice could confuse
3. a mixture of UK / overseas along with animal
and human interest
To be fair, the charities snapped our hand off so,
sticking to our criteria, we chose to work with great
names such as The Born Free Foundation and some
smaller charities doing things like teaching children to
swim in Africa and helping youngsters with learning
difficulties in the UK.
By July 2009 we had a site that could help parents
organise the perfect party in six simple steps. We also
decided to make the set-up process free of charge:
 mummo magazine

Parties Around the World causes <

As a parent hosting a party for
This is just a selection of the charities that your child
your child, here’s how it works:
could choose to support with their party.

1. Choose a charitable cause for

your child’s party from our list of
Fab football
12 child-friendly causes
Buy footballs for the Homeless
World Cup
2. Then set up a party page online
and issue electronic or printed
invites

3. Guests are invited to RSVP

Buzzing bumblebees
online (no more chasing) and to
donate to your child’s chosen Plant flowers for bumblebees
cause

4. You receive real-time updates

about who is attending and can
also manage the party page online Delightful dolphins
Keep the seas clean for dolphins
5. After the party, you can print out to swim and jump
personalised ‘thank you’ cards at
the touch of a button

6. Your child receives a special Water babies

certificate announcing how much
Help children in Africa who need
they have raised, to be proudly to learn to swim
hung on their wall.

Meddling monkeys
Keep Afrika the chimp safe

Dance, Dance in Africa

Keep tribal traditions safe
through education

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 65

career and business
The launch
Towards the end of July 2009, we did a beta launch -
that means it was a test bed to see how the whole site
works and fix any glitches - and yes, there were some.
The launch was held at a Leeds Primary school - 70
children, Carl and I, 70 balloons and a small helium
gas bottle - laugh - seriously, we ran out of gas so we
were frantically blowing these balloons up manually
so all the children had one each for the balloon race!
We were EXHAUSTED. It was great fun though,
launching a business is a big adrenalin rush and we
were pumped.
Our first booking
By September we’d received our first booking - a joint
party for 60 children - and you guessed it, we didn’t
have the facility to book a joint party, but we fixed
that and arranged the party. We were just so excited
to have the booking. We were also chuffed that PAW
had received a double page spread in FlyBE magazine
- I didn’t even know it until someone said that they
were on a flight from Exeter to Norwich and read
about it. The response has been excellent, with people
saying ‚At last, somebody has tried to smash the
children’s party merry-go-round!‛
Ava’s party
The big challenge was my daughter’s birthday. She’s
just turned 4 and I thought - ‚OK, Deirdre, put your
daughter’s party where your mouth is‛. I sat Ava
down at the PAW site and asked her what she liked. I
reminded her that she loves honey and started to talk
about how honey was made. It’s no surprise then that
she chose the Bumblebee Foundation. After that it
was seriously so simple. The party set up page was
quick and easy - I just typed in the venue and time
details and then a list of people to invite. Quick as a
shot there were individual invites ready to be
downloaded, printed off and put into the school bag
to take to school.
The RSVPs started to trickle in - I got an email
notification as soon as someone had responded and I
could also manage Ava’s party page online. As the
party date grew nearer, I did feel a pang of guilt about
Ava not receiving a bunch of presents, but I stuck to
my guns.
On the day, everyone arrived with a card and a couple
of people did bring small gifts because they felt guilty,
but others mentioned that it was great not to have to
go out and buy presents! To be fair, Ava didn’t notice
about the presents and cared even less - she had a
whale of a time and that’s what mattered.
At home, she opened her couple of gifts and I was
grateful that I didn’t have to manage an unwrapping
frenzy! There was none of that - just a great day. It
was very special.
To cap it all, the next day I went back to the party
page, pressed ‘print thank you cards’ and down came
15 personal cards showing the amount raised. I
whizzed them off the printer and put them in Ava’s
school bag ready to be given out. The certificate for
Ava’s wall should be here soon < and, oh yes, £78.50
plus Gift Aid is on its way to the Bumblebee
Foundation.
The future ...
Now we are in early 2010 and the take up from PAW
has been modest. Currently we are considering
whether to change the model so that half goes to a
charity and half goes back to the child for a ‘dream’
present. That’s the challenge in business; to look at
things through other people’s eyes, not just your own.
We’ve developed a survey to find out more about
what mums would like from the Parties Around the
World service. It would really help us if you could
spare a couple of minutes to complete it.
The future looks positive for PAW - even though it’s a
slow burn, we still believe that it’s the right time for
this. Often an idea isn’t wrong, it just needs
modifying and, with your help, that’s exactly what
we’re doing.
 mummo magazine

Deirdre Bounds is the founder of i-to-i.com, the world‟s largest gap year
company, which she has now sold. She‟s also the author of ‟Fulfilled - a
Personal Revolution in 7 Steps‟ and the founder of Parties Around the
World (www.partiesaroundtheworld.co.uk). She is married and lives in
Yorkshire with her husband and their two children, Frankie and Ava.

Five words to describe me: motivated, mad, manic, straight-talking, funny

Things that make me happy: sitting outside our house in Greece,

watching our children play in the sea while the sun goes down

Vices: food, clothes

Virtues: my handshake is as good as a cheque

Motto in life: This too shall pass (good and bad experiences)

Favourite book: „Cold Comfort Farm‟

Favourite film: „One Flew Over the Cuckoo‟s Nest‟

Favourite music: Buddha Bar compilation or Genesis

Favourite meal: you can‟t beat a good Italian!

Favourite smell: getting off the plane in Greece

Favourite clothing: a fake fur brightly-coloured bomber jacket, purchased at Manchester Fashion Week

Most treasured possession: my mother‟s Irish Primary School Certificate

My children: I have a son, Frankie, aged 8, who‟s a gentle soul, and a daughter, Ava, who‟s 4 going on
40! My American husband is a Frank Sinatra fan!

A day in my life …

My day starts at 6am. We take it in turns to make fresh coffee and juice and bring it to bed. We chat for
an hour before the children wake at 7am - then all hell breaks loose!

Lunch is usually a soup or sandwich if I‟m at home. Otherwise I‟m at a function desperately trying to
avoid the desserts!

My office is an unused bedroom in my house.

My children are taken to school by our great nanny. She also collects them.

I relax by running, meditating or reading spiritual literature.

My day ends early, around 9pm, with a good mag, the weekend papers or a book.

Deirdre will give 50p to the Parties Around the World charities for every person
who completes her survey, so please take a couple of minutes to have your say.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 67

career and business
cool kind clothes ...
Alison Rothwell, founder
of Arabella Miller organic
clothing (and various other
businesses!) tells the story
of her success so far ...
What motivated you to go into business for
yourself?
I’d always secretly hankered after having my own
business, but I’d never really had that great idea or felt
brave enough to take the jump. Part of not feeling
brave enough was the fact that I was the family
breadwinner, as my husband and I had swopped roles
a couple of years earlier and we depended on my
regular wage. My background is public relations and
marketing, and although these are skills that many
choose to use as a self-employed business, at the time I
didn’t feel ready to start building up a freelance
business in those areas.
After I had my youngest child I wasn’t able to return
to my previous job and this seemed to be the catalyst
for me to set up my first online business, the organic
children’s clothing company, Arabella Miller.
As time went on, my previous skills in online
marketing started to make their inevitable way to the
surface and I started to be approached by businesses
to manage their internet marketing and search engine
optimisation. So I built a further two businesses,
Tribal Mash, an internet marketing consultancy, and
the SEO Training Club, which helps small business
owners learn how to diy their search engine
optimisation.
I now also have a couple of other interests, an online
baby bedding site (which my husband manages) and
Self Employed Mum, an online magazine I publish
together with professional blogger, Natalie Lue.
 mummo magazine

Tell us a little bit about what you do ...

At the moment I concentrate on Tribal Mash and the

SEO training Club as they are the newest businesses,
and my husband runs the bedding company. I’ve also
just appointed a UK distributor for Arabella Miller,
which is helpful.

How did you get started?

I started Arabella Miller after our youngest daughter

developed severe baby eczema (inherited from
Daddy!) and we looked for eczema friendly baby
clothing to ease her skin irritation. Wearing organic
cotton baby clothing really helped to relieve her
eczema and when she outgrew her organic babywear,
we looked for more organic cotton clothes for
children. One day, when we couldn’t find any funky
kids T-shirts I liked, I decided to produce my own. Alison with her younger daughter, Ruby

Tribal Mash and the SEO Training Club began after

the success of Arabella Miller. Using my previous
skills I was able to build the Arabella Miller brand
quite quickly and others wanted me to do the same for
Little Arabella Miller
their businesses too. The SEO Training Club was found a furry caterpillar,
started after I spotted a niche for helping small First it climbed upon her mother,
businesses who needed or wanted to do their own
internet marketing. then upon her baby brother.
"UGH" said Arabella Milller,
How did you find your first customers?
‚Take away that caterpillar!"
My first customers for all my businesses have found
Nursery rhyme, anon
me online.

What have been the highlights so far?

Making the TV finals for ITV’s ‘Search for a

Mumpreneur’ was great - although a strange
experience. TV exposure is not quite how I expected it
to be. I made some close friendships with some of the
other women who took part which has been a great
outcome.

I also was really thrilled to win a Mums Club award

last year as it was an award from my business mum
peers, and that’s very satisfying.

There are so many highlights I could talk about

including, for example:

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 69

career and business
the first TNT lorry with Arabella Miller clothing
the first customer who bought something and I
didn’t know them!
the first article in a magazine
the first radio interview I did (my mum came
too and she was so excited) ...
I would urge any business mum to write their
successes down and look at them when you are down
in the dumps - it really helps you to keep going when
things are tough!
Any low points?
Low points have been being let down by suppliers.
It’s incredibly frustrating when things go wrong and
it’s not in your power to put them right!
What’s been the best business decision you’ve
made?
Five months ago I decided to hire a freelancer to assist
me and it has been a huge godsend. I had literally run
out of hours in the day and having an extra person to
work on my projects has been of real benefit to the
business. I also don’t have to worry about the red
tape and day-to-day management of hiring and
managing a member of staff as it’s a different type of
working arrangement.
We all know that hindsight is a wonderful
thing. What, if anything, would you do
differently in retrospect?
I’m not sure I would do anything differently, as even
the things that haven’t worked out as well as I hoped
have been important learning points and have led to
other avenues opening up.
Where are you ‘at’ with the business now?
Arabella Miller and new baby Nursery Bedding
businesses are ticking along nicely under the helm of
my darling husband. The SEO Training Club is
developing into a really useful business resource, but
still needs a lot of my time on the development side.
I’m also working on a couple other related business
ideas - watch this space!
What do you think are the secrets of your
success? (And don’t be too modest about this!)
I think having an inquiring mind has been a great help
- I really get involved in the research side and this is a
good way to work out if a business idea is strong
enough to be successful. I am also a very effective
networker, particularly online. This has been a help
for everything from potential business partners to
having someone to moan with when things aren’t
going to plan!
Speaking of plans, what are your plans for the
future?
I’d like to continue to develop other online businesses,
particularly on the publishing side. The SEO Training
Club has shown there’s a real need for no-nonsense
information about internet marketing,
What do you enjoy most about what you do?
I love the freedom of working for yourself and also the
accountability - I’m responsible for the successes and
the failures! I love the fact that I can get up in the
morning and decide what it is I’ll be working on that
day.
Finally, how do you juggle work and family?
If I didn’t have such a supportive husband, I simply
wouldn’t be able to do this. He’s been a constant
‚cheerleader‛ for me and the businesses, but also a
voice of reason when I need an alternative
perspective. My eldest child is old enough to
appreciate the work I do and I’d like to think I’m a
positive role model for her. My youngest just seems
to like seeing more of me than she would if I had
returned to the workplace.
 mummo magazine

Alison Rothwell is a mum of two (three if you count her cocker spaniel,
Jedi) and lives in a small village in Lancashire. After a career in public
sector marketing and PR, she set up her first online business - Arabella
Miller - after the birth of her youngest child. She now juggles being a
wife and mother with her other business interests including an
internet marketing consultancy and an online publishing business.

Arabella Miller: www.arabellamiller.com

SEO Training Club: www.seotrainingclub.com
Tribal Mash: www.tribalmash.com
Self Employed Mum: www.selfemployedmum.co.uk

You can contact her on alisonrothwell@gmail.com

Five words to describe me: enthusuastic, multi-tasker, inquiring, networker, geek

Things that make me happy: spending time with my family, Walking through fields, gardening,
aimlessly wandering through cyberspace

Vices: red wine, Lush bath bombs, procrastination, handbags

Virtues: tenacity, approachability

Motto in life: Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve. (With thanks to Seth Godin.)

Favourite book: „The Lord of the Rings‟

Favourite film: „The Talented Mr Ripley‟

Favourite music: „The Smiths‟

Favourite meal: Fritto Misto with a glass of Prosecco

Favourite smell: newborn babies

Favourite clothing: my “homewear”

My children: I have two girls. Ruby is 3 and Martha is 11. Martha is a bookworm and a bit of a tomboy.
Ruby is creative and enjoys dressing as a fairy!

A day in my life …

My day starts with Radio Four at 7am or Ruby making an entrance, whichever is earliest!

At lunch, I’m at home with my husband.

My office is either my small room above a local shop or a corner of the dining room.

My children are at school, nursery or with daddy.

I relax by taking a long, deep, hot bath with something that smells nice.

My day ends at going on for midnight when I turn off my Macbook.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 71

friends and fun
have toddler,
will travel!
Alice Griffin, author of
‘Tales from a Travelling
Mum’, talks about taking
her daughter around
Europe <
Life is a gift, I believe this to be true, and with this gift
I want to experience all that I can, push my
boundaries, really feel that I am alive. I think it goes
without saying that these beliefs make me somewhat
attracted to the enticing world of adventure and that
this has often led me into the arms of travel. In my
opinion the two marry perfectly because whenever I
step outside of my comfort zone into the greater
world, there is an adventure at every turn, revealing
itself with each blink of the eye.
This spirit for adventure did not just grip me out of
the blue. No. It is something deep within, something
that I have turned over, explored, played with and
nurtured every day throughout my life. When I was
small I would pack a lunch and head off for the day
with a thought in my head that I was going to the
ends of the earth to climb trees, when really I was
going to the next estate. Since then I have been lucky
enough to leave my imagination at home and go out
to discover the real world. People sometimes ask ‚but
what are you searching for?‛ and as I get older I
realise that I’m not necessarily searching for anything
in particular, I’m simply trying to live in a way that
feels worthy of the breath I have been given. For me,
this means exploring, seeing new things and taking
chances because, let’s face it, when you strip it all
back , our time on this earth is short.
All well and good, but when at age 28 I fell in love and
then at age 30 fell pregnant, I wondered whether this
philosophy of life might have to change.
 mummo magazine

All around people said: ‚You must out from their slumber only to ensure that their
parents were not too drunk to wheel them safely
settle down when you become a home. Baby monitors and thermometers not
mother!‛ and ‚You can’t go necessary.

gallivanting here and there with a
baby!‛
I would walk home from work thinking to myself that
travel was such a huge part of me, how could I give it
up? I wanted my unborn child to know me, to
understand who I am as a person, and so instead I
opted to defy critics and when my beautiful daughter
Isabella arrived I popped her in a sling and along with
my husband we took her on a series of small
adventures by plane, boat, train, bus and car. What I
have realised since is that travel and adventure are
entirely possible with children, you just have to leap
right on in! We certainly did that when, as a family
(dog included), we sold our house in a UK city, gave
up our main income, packed up a camper and headed
off on the roads of France, Spain and Portugal for an
open-ended road trip. Isabella had just turned one
when we left.
I believe wholeheartedly that life certainly should be a
daring adventure or nothing at all, and why should it
be any less with children? They do not need as much
as we think they do, are far more adaptable than we
give them credit for and literally burst with
excitement at the new faces and experiences that they
encounter. I think it’s more about us parents learning
to keep cool than about children learning to adapt.
Dealing with an exploding nappy in a tiny toilet
cubicle, pacifying screams on a flight and running for
a ferry loaded with buggy, sling and backpack – I’ve
done them all and, yes, it can be daunting, but if your
baby doesn’t mind then why get flustered?
‚I travel a lot.
I hate having my life disrupted by routine.‛
Caskie Stinnet, American editor and writer

2
Some people expressed concern as to how she would
cope with this dramatic change of lifestyle. Well, I
have to say that if I have learnt anything it is that the
younger you get your children used to travel, and in
fact anything a little out of the ordinary, the better.
She was oblivious to the fact that she was living in a
camper with limited gadgets instead of a modern
house. She enjoyed the freedom of life spent in a
swimsuit paddling in rivers, running barefoot across
the fields of South West France making hay, and she
even mastered her own olive-picking methods when
we spent time on an farm in Extremadura, Spain.
However, when our journey saw us captivated by a
small village in the Andalusian mountains and
brought to a five-month standstill, the undeniable true
freedom of childhood really unfolded. Dusty walks
across the campo at last light, picnics in the mountains
watching eagles soar up above, tapas perched at the
village bar every Sunday - obligatory cheek-pinching
by the proprietor thrown in for free.

During our year on the road Isabella settled into our

changing environments with ease and we even
managed to maintain certain routines throughout -
3am at the local fiesta and Isabella and her four young
friends were snuggled up in their buggies, peeping

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 73

friends and fun

Seeing the world through my

Where in the world were these photos taken?
daughter’s eyes is nothing short of
exhilarating, it reminds me of what it 1. me and Isabella pondering life in the Estrela
mountains, Portugal
feels like to see things fresh, untainted 2. out walking and picking flowers in NW
by life and maturity. Spain
3. me and Isabella on a diving boat, Norway
4. me in the Andalucian mountains, Spain
In some ways it is hard to imagine my old life 5. Scott and Isabella having a picnic lunch in
travelling solo; it would be such a shame not to have Avignon, France
Isabella by my side, eyes glinting, cheeks rosy, a small 6. walking in the Sierra de Baza Natural Park,
arm sliding behind my neck whispering, ‚Look, Andalucia, Spain
Mummy! Pretty! Me lucky!‛ This world is a gift, I 7. Isabella on a local farmer’s mule, Portugal
believe that, and to be in awe of its beauty and feel 8. me and Isabella hanging out in Athens,
lucky to experience it, for me, is the most precious Greece
lesson I can teach my daughter.

Alice Griffin is married and has a daughter called Isabella,

who she took travelling, and a dog called Milla, who she
didn‟t! She recounts the family‟s adventures in her book
„Tales from a Travelling Mum‟. She is currently working on
her next book.

Five words to describe me: adventurous, positive,

dreamer, caring, fun-loving

Things that make me happy: my family, travel, walking my

dog, writing, ice-cold beer on a summer‟s day somewhere
3 where there are mountains, water, hot dust and friends

Motto in life: Follow your heart ... it might not always be a smooth path, but it is always exciting and
interesting.

Favourite book: Difficult! Either „The Alchemist‟ by Paulo Coelho or ‟As I Walked Out One Midsummer
Morning‟ by Laurie Lee

Favourite meal: Toad in the hole made by my dad (with veggie sausages) followed by syrup sponge
pudding made by my mum!

Favourite outfit: Shorts, vest top and Birkenstock sandals. They mean freedom.

My day starts when Isabella wakes up and wanders through to our room loaded with her teddies and
blankets and jumps in for a cuddle. Lunch is good when there is not a lot of conversation and just a lot
of mmmmmmmms. We all love our food. My office is wherever there is a space to put down my
laptop. As we are currently „static‟ that tends to be the breakfast bar in the kitchen as I can pretty much
do anything and still keep an eye on emails and play music! I do often reminisce about the wonderful
garden office I used to have before we sold up and went on the road… but I wouldn‟t change it ;-)
Isabella loves to dance around the kitchen dressed as a fairy, Snow White or a bumble bee depending,
and enjoys helping with any cooking that is going on. In the evening if I‟m not writing then I relax by
watching a good film snuggled up with hubby and Milla and probably some knitting. My day ends with
reading in bed by candlight.
 mummo magazine

‚Life is either a daring adventure

< or nothing.‛
Helen Keller

5 6

7 8

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 75

friends and fun

“Wherever you go,

go with all your

heart”
Confucius

off round the world ...

up everything to go travelling around the world with
Yes, Victoria Wallop is three small children?

packing her bags and In November, we will be leaving London with our
children aged 8, 6 and 4 and flying to LA for the start
preparing for the of a nine month trip which will take us around the
Pacific from Hawaii to New Zealand, Australia, South
adventure of a lifetime < East Asia and Japan. We will rent our house, sell our
car and give up our coveted school places in exchange
along with her husband for squeezing into budget hotel rooms, travelling on
chicken buses, home (or should that be road)
and three kids! schooling and carrying everything we need in a
backpack.

Long term travel is for students and hippies, isn’t it?
Parents of small children don’t drop everything and
head off round the world. So what makes two
normally cautious adults, who don’t spend beyond
their means, stay up late or drive too fast want to give
We have a few reasons for wanting to embark on such
a long trip. The most important reason is that we
want to spend more time with our children while they
are still young enough to enjoy being with us. Life is
short and precious. It may be a cliché, but it’s true.

Victoria‟s children - Dickon, Eve and Edward - on holiday in
Switzerland last year.
Yes, we could wait until the children are older but
who knows what the future will throw at us? We
have the means and the opportunity to do it now, so
why not?
Our children go to a lovely school, but I don’t believe
a few months off will do them any harm. Children in
the UK are the most academically assessed in the
world. We are also encouraged to fill their spare time
with tutoring, ballet, swimming lessons, tennis and
brownies. We are looking forward to stepping off this
treadmill for a while and if we can do it on a tropical
beach, so much the better.
Our youngest child’s birthday is the end of July,
which means he’ll start school at 4 years and one
month. That seems wrong to me. Formal schooling
(albeit at a great, child-centred school) should not start
that young. The opportunity to keep him with us for
one more year is very appealing.
Of course none of this would be happening if my
husband and I didn’t have a shared love of travelling.
Before we had children, we took every opportunity to
don backpacks and head off on adventures. We’ve
always preferred Tokyo and Fez to the Costa del Sol
and have very happy memories of sleeping under the
stars in the Rajasthan desert, eating pickled wild ferns
for breakfast in a Japanese ski resort, and snorkelling
off tropical Malaysian beaches with a curious shark
for company. These memories of previous trips
together have sustained us through the long years of
sleep deprivation, nappy changing and tantrums. It
seems obvious to us that, as our children grow older,
we should share this love of travel with them.
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010
mummo magazine
Now seems as good a time as any. We are mostly out
of cots, buggies and nappies, and have also had a
chance to catch up on a bit of much needed sleep.
Travel is not something I could have contemplated
during the exhausting newborn years. Our eldest
child will be in Year 4, one that a teacher friend said
was ‚eminently missable‛ and we’ll be back for the
beginning of Year 5, which will give her plenty of time
to catch up before the dreaded secondary school entry.
The younger two will miss Year 1 and Reception, so as
long as we keep up with reading and numbers, they’ll
be OK.
I think it will be great travelling with children.
Instead of being outsiders, looking in, we will have
something fundamental in common with many of the
people we meet. I’m looking forward to sharing
conversations with strangers about children’s ages
and sleeping habits. It will be just like the playground
on Clapham Common, but hopefully warmer, and a
great way to get under the skin of a country.
Children have a very different way of viewing the
world to adults, and I can’t wait to see what ours
make of Buddhist temples, Asian markets and the vast
expanse of nothingness that is the Australian outback.
They will encourage us to try things we might not
otherwise. We were intrigued by the Hello Kitty
theme park last time we went to Tokyo, but felt too
silly to visit. This time, it is at the top of our list, along
with buying ‚cool Japanese Transformers‛ and
watching Sumo. And I’m sure sweet eating around
the world will merit a blog of its own.
Of course it won’t all be sweet eating and theme
parks. An undertaking like this carries plenty of risks,
getting sick being one of the most worrying. We will
be visiting countries with malaria, dengue fever,
Japanese encephalitis and other nasties and we need
to decide how best to protect ourselves and our
children. We are also risking our children’s places at
their lovely school. We will be officially leaving and
there is a chance that we won’t be able to get them
back in on our return.
Missing family and friends will be hard, but hopefully
blogging, email and Skype will help. And we will
have each other. We are also making plans to meet up
with some family members for a holiday within our
holiday.
www.mummo.co.uk 77
friends and fun
For all the worries and the downsides, it’s going to be
an amazing experience. We will trek through
rainforests, stroke elephants, shiver on glaciers,
munch bushtucker and marvel at volcanoes spewing
lava. We will be swapping squeezing onto the
Northern Line and the morning search for homework
and swimming kits, for paddling in turquoise waters
and playing on beautiful white sand beaches.
It won’t all be easy, but it will be an
adventure. I wonder who will learn
more, the adults or the children?
Victoria Wallop is married with three children
and writes a blog: It‟s a small world after all.
Five words to describe me: optimistic, loyal,
thoughtful, funny-once-you-get-to-know-me,
happy
Favourite food: toss up between roast chicken
with everything and Vietnamese Bun (noodle
salad with chargrilled meat on top)
Vices: chocolate, preferably Green & Blacks
dark milk
Favourite book: I couldn't choose one book, it
depends on my mood. If I need cheering up,
„Pride and Prejudice‟ or anything by PG
Wodehouse does the trick. „Brideshead
Revisited‟ stands up to re-reading many times
Favourite smell: definitely proper coffee
My children:
Eve is almost eight years old. She likes
cheerleading and everything 'old fashioned',
particularly wearing a shawl and pretending to
read by candlelight. She is looking forward to
missing school and visiting the rainforest.
Edward is five years old. He likes the Wii,
animals and being outdoors and his love of
bugs extends to eating them. Needless to say
he is looking forward to visiting Thailand, where
he has heard you can eat fried crickets.
Dickon is three years old. He likes all forms of
transport but doesn't like spiders or worms,
which might be a problem in the rainforest!
A day in my life …
My day starts with a proper cup of coffee and
piece of toast served in bed by my lovely
husband, Steve. We then have the usual rush to
get dressed, ready and out of the door for
school and nursery. I have two hours or so to
catch up on housewifely duties and get ready
for our trip, but in reality, spend most of it
blogging and twittering. I collect Dickon from
nursery for lunch then we play complicated
games involving spiderman, dinosaurs and
power rangers until school pick up time. Then
it's tea, bath, bed for the children and supper
with Steve for me. I relax in the evenings by
watching TV, reading and always a scalding hot
bath before bed.
 mummo magazine

“The soul of a
journey is

liberty ,
perfect liberty,
to think, feel, do
just as one
pleases.”

William Hazlitt

h
a
w
a
i
i

Victoria is particularly looking forward to Hawaii -

hmm, wonder why?

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 79

friends and fun
spring is in the air ...
Six suggestions to help you make the most of it ...
Celebrate the start of spring
Witness the colourful blaze of more
than 38,000 bulbs planted at Holker
Hall and Gardens in Cumbria, to
celebrate the property‟s 60th season.
www.holker-hall.co.uk
Take part in a Ribbonwalk
Choose to walk either 10 or 20 miles,
in beautiful countryside and with
amazing camaraderie, in support of
Breast Cancer Care.
www.breastcancercare.org.uk
Go on an Easter Egg hunt
„The World of Beatrix Potter‟ hides
100 huge Peter Rabbit eggs across
Cumbria. The egg hunt map goes
online at 10am on 31/03/10.
www.golakes.co.uk
Get a dose of art and history
See some of history‟s most coveted
artworks in „Victoria and Albert: Art
and Love‟ in The Queen‟s Gallery at
Buckingham Palace. From 19/03/10.
www.royalcollection.org.uk
Visit the Enchanted Palace
Gaze in wonder at the way artistic
greats like Vivienne Westwood have
transformed Kensington Palace‟s
sumptuous State Apartments.
www.hrp.org.uk/kensingtonpalace
Follow a bluebell trail
Get local info from the Woodland
Trust, or Arlington Bluebell Walk in
East Sussex has 8 breathtaking trails.
www.woodland trust.org.uk
www.bluebellwalk.co.uk
 mummo magazine

mums join
together
One of the most powerful
features of Mummo is the
ability to set up groups <

When I first had the idea for Mummo (a scarily long

time ago now!) part of what I wanted to do was create
a way for mums to ‘find’ and communicate with each
other. It struck me that women, and perhaps mums
in particular, are generally great at supporting each
other and coming up with interesting, innovative yet
practical ways to get things done.
Never doubt that a small group of
I wondered what would happen if we could more
thoughtful, committed citizens can
easily track down and connect with the kind of other
mums we needed, whether we were looking for change the world. Indeed, it is the
mums in the same area, mums with the same sense of only thing that ever has.
humour, mums with the same passion for salsa or
mums with a certain set of skills. I also knew, from Margaret Mead, American anthropologist
my own experience in my own town, that a ’virtual’ (1901-1978)
community of local mums could be a phenomenally
powerful thing < and I saw Mummo as a way of
enabling this to happen all over the country.

A Mummo group is an ideal way to get together with Want to set up a group?
other mums over some common ground. You can
share 'insider' info, ideas and advice. You can join Mummo first of all and sign in-
organise community initiatives or plan a campaign for click on ‘groups’ in the left-hand
change. You can contribute to a group blog and, soon,
navigation
you'll be able to place classified ads so that you can
buy, sell and trade within your groups. And, of
click on ‘new group’ in the pink
course, you'll also get to know each other and, more header panel or right-hand column
than likely, become good friends. All without leaving fill in the form and save - that’s it!
the house. And all for free!

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 81

friends and fun

rediscovering
re me ...
Flicking through the Sunday papers, a picture of a
Melissa Talago, mother of yacht crashing through waves caught my eye. ‘THIS
COULD BE YOU!’ the caption read. It was an advert
two and business owner, recruiting crew members for the Clipper Round the
World yacht race, the only race of its kind sailed by
set sail from British shores amateurs with little or no sailing experience.

in September 2009 on her ‚Wouldn’t it be great to do something like this?‛ I

own daring adventure <
It was a cold January morning, a few weeks into the
new year. My resolutions to ‘get fit’ and ‘make time
for me’ hadn’t been ignored entirely, after all I had
made it to one exercise class. But both were proving
difficult. With two young children (aged 3 and 4 at
the time), a husband who was constantly out of the
country for work and my own small business to run,
the only real exercise I was getting was spinning on
the hamster wheel of life.
asked my husband. Expecting the inevitable weary
sigh of ‚Yes dear‛, I was surprised when instead he
said: ‚If you want to do it, go for it.‛ I laughed it off.
It was a ludicrous idea. I could barely find the time to
go to the loo by myself, much less set sail across an
ocean.
But that evening, I snuck onto the race website and
sent off an email asking for more information. Within
minutes I received an information pack. What it
described whet my appetite even more, but also
confirmed just how impossible it would be for me to
do it.
 mummo magazine

A single leg of the race would mean me being away
for 6 weeks. On top of that I’d have to squeeze in four
individual weeks of training. Given that during the
previous five years I’d never been apart from my
children for more than 48 hours, this seemed
impossible. And then there was the small price tag of
£8k that came along with it, not to mention what I’d
do with my business. ‚Oh well, it would have been
nice,‛ I said to my husband. To my surprise he said:
‚If it’s something you really want to do, we can make
a plan.‛
If I’m honest, I’d never had a deep-
Next up I needed to make some money. Once I added
up all the costs, the bill was rapidly nearing £12k. I
created a blog (www.moretolifethanlaundry.com) and
with the support of other mummy bloggers, managed
to drive awareness of my adventure, which resulted in
people donating money to my mission. I wrote to
potential sponsors, sold advertising on the blog, held
an online auction with prizes donated by clients and
held a nearly new sale in a local village hall. My
weekends were spent driving around sticking posters
up or mailing out prizes. All of my efforts took the
sting out of the price tag but by no means got close to
covering it.

seated desire to sail across an ocean.
But I did want to rediscover life
beyond the laundry pile. I wanted to
find me.
So I took the plunge. I filled out the application form,
paid the initial deposit and went for an interview to
secure a place on a boat. Just like that, 2009 changed
from an ordinary year to one of sheer lunacy.
The old saying of ‘How do you eat an elephant? In
bite-size chunks’ became my mantra.
Then the training kicked in. This included: three
intensive weeks of sailing training at sea, pushing me
physically and mentally while getting to grips with
sea sickness; one week of brain-achingly difficult
navigation and meteorology in a classroom; a day of
sea survival training involving swimming fully
clothed and clambering about in life rafts; plenty of 6
mile runs and doing core stability training at home to
ensure I was fit enough to pull my weight on board. It
was an incredibly steep learning curve including the
writing of several exams, but the wealth of knowledge
I earned, so utterly different from my normal life, was
liberating.

First issue to tackle was the maternal guilt. Was it

right for me to head off for six weeks on my own
without my children? After foolishly posting the
question on a parenting forum, it became clear that
there were two parenting factions: the mothers who
felt I was being selfish and unfair on my children and
those who wholeheartedly endorsed my plan and
wished they could do it too. I quickly realised that the
life lessons I’d be giving my children would outweigh
any potential separation issues.

Once I’d mentally made peace with myself, the

practicalities of booking in the training and organising
childcare had to be arranged. Without the luxury of
lots of family in country to help out, I managed to
cobble together cover by getting my husband to take
time off work (no mean feat!), using the help of friends
and paying through the nose for a nanny. From a
practical point of view, leaving the house for every
training session saw me having to write extensive lists
on how to keep the household running, while
emotionally, it was incredibly hard to leave the
children, despite them holding up marvellously.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 83

friends and fun
That’s me in the middle with a red bandanna and a white glove!
Every minute I wasn’t training, fundraising or looking
after my children, I was working on my business to
earn the money I needed. We reverted to a ‘make do
and mend’ mentality in the house. My wardrobe
didn’t get a new non-sailing related item added to it
all year. Left-overs became the new take out.
Summer holidays were spent in the garden. By
scrimping and saving, I managed to cover the
mounting bills.
This left me with one more challenge. What to do
with my business, a PR company –
www.peekaboocoms.co.uk - that I run from home.
Having toyed with the idea of taking on freelancers
for a while, I was forced to take the plunge and do it. I
recruited in three members of staff to keep the
business going while I was away. After doing
extensive handovers, I turned off my mobile phone
and shut the door on working life for 6 weeks.
On 13 September 2009, we set sail from Hull with over
200,000 people sending us on our way, including my
husband and boys waving from the front row. As we
walked on stage in our crew gear - looking every bit
like professional sailors rather than a bunch of
amateurs with a hankering for adventure - it hit me
that after the months of hard work, it was finally
happening. Me, a mum, who until the start of this
year had never dreamed of doing something like this,
was about to sail across the Atlantic all the way to
Brazil, via France.
And so the adventure began. For six weeks, I lived
and worked alongside complete strangers in a 68 foot
space, eating tinned food, having the occasional salty
shower, sleeping in swaying bunks and wearing the
same pair of knickers for days on end. I learnt how to
steer by the stars, do sail changes in the dark and
understand complex instruments. I discovered
muscles I didn’t know I had (farewell bingo wings!)
and learnt new skills I’d never previously
contemplated < like sewing, plumbing and extreme
catering!
We saw sunrises and sunsets that made us weep with
their sheer beauty and witnessed menacing squalls
with fierce rain that washed the sweat off our sticky
bodies. We experienced energy-sapping heat and
bone-aching exhaustion from the constant night
wakings of the watch system. We heard whales
gently blow alongside us and watched dolphins
cavort in our bow waves. We celebrated loudly as we
sailed across the equator into a new hemisphere and
sat mute in awe at the magnificence the night sky. We
danced, sang, laughed till our sides ached, cried,
shared secrets and discussed life.

Mostly - and best of all - I simply felt
free to be me. I wasn’t a mum, a wife,
a daughter, a friend, a neighbour, an
employer, a businesswoman or a
homemaker. I was just me.
The person living underneath all those roles and
labels. Someone who hadn’t had an airing for some
time. And it was great to let that someone out.
Standing on the bow of the boat with a view of Sugar
Loaf Mountain as we finally entered Rio de Janeiro,
what struck me was just how normal it felt to do this.
How had it ever seemed like such a foreign concept?
How is it that everyone doesn’t do this?
I had to remind myself of the awesome journey I’d
been on all year to bring me to this place, with the
incredible amount of work it had taken and all the
amazing support I’d received. And while it may have
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
seemed like a daunting thing to take on all those
months ago, it was worth every minute of effort that
went into it.
Waiting for me on my return was a grateful husband
and two far more confident little boys, inspired to set
off on adventures of their own. My business was
ticking along brilliantly and the house was still
standing.
As for me, I came home a lot fitter, with colour in my
cheeks and a stone lighter (hooray!). But most
importantly, I returned with my soul refreshed. I now
know that no matter how big the laundry pile or how
long the ‘to do’ list gets, it is possible to escape the
groundhog day that life can become. There are
adventures out there just waiting to happen. You just
have to go find them. You never know, you might
find yourself in the process.
Highs
Walking onto the stage in Hull in our crew kit,
with our boat song blaring out, crowds of
people cheering and knowing that I was part of
something utterly amazing
Being on the helm for the start of an around the
world yacht race
Speaking to my son on his 4th birthday from
the middle of the ocean
Holding an impromptu disco in the middle of
the Atlantic Ocean in a dead calm
Listening to whales swimming alongside us
during a full moon
Seeing the coastline of South America for the
first time
Lows
Missing my boys - and having to wave goodbye
to them in Hull (their faces nearly broke my
heart)
Eating tinned beans, corned beef and mystery
meat for weeks on end
The extreme heat from which there was no
escape
Being permanently sticky, sweaty and stinky
Missing the scoring gate and getting stuck in a
wind hole moving us from 2nd to 6th place
Having to do Mother Watch - ie.. cooking for 18
people for 24 hours in the world’s smallest
cooking space
85
friends and fun

Melissa Talago is married with two sons and lives in Berkshire. She
runs a Peekaboo Communications, a PR consultancy specialising in
the „tums to tots‟ sector. She also blogs at Home Office Mum and
More To Life Than Laundry. Oh, and she manages to fit in the odd
amazing adventure as well!

Things that make ne happy: cuddles from my children,

spontaneous get-togethers, bracing walks in the country

Motto in life: This is your life so start living

Favourite book: The Twilight series

Favourite music:: I‟m a big fan of Newton Faulkner

Favourite food: Thin crust pizza

Favourite smell: Freshly baked bread

My children: I have two little boys, Josh (5, almost 6) and Jamie (4). They are typical little boys,
boisterous, loud, protectors against baddy aliens, full of cuddles, lovely!

A day in my life …

My day starts at around 6am (or ealier depending on when the kids get up). Then the usual mad rush
to make lunches, get kids dressed and off to school before I start work at 9.30 am.

Lunch is something quick taken out of the kitchen cupboard and eaten at my desk upstairs!

My office is a spare room in our house. It‟s a permanent mess that looks more like a playroom.

My children are at school and pre-school before they spend the afternoons playing with me or going
to Karate.

I relax by walking on my own, reading or having a glass of wine!

My day ends much too late - usually 11 or 11.30pm because I stay up to read.

365 photos
Here’s an idea: take a
photo every single day for
a whole year ...
I don’t know about you, but in our family the camera
tends to only come out on high days and holidays,
and I forget to take pictures on ‘ordinary’ days. And
yet, it’s often the little things that we take for granted -
or perhaps don’t even notice normally - that can evoke
the strongest memories.
There are lots of people already engaging in the 365
photo challenge and publishing their pics on the web.
Feedback suggests that the simple act of carrying your
camera with you everywhere you go, and having to
come up with at least one photo a day, actually helps
you to:
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
slow down and become more aware of your
surroundings
gain all sorts of interesting insights into
yourself, your life and the world you live in
create a wonderfully evocative record of your
existence
So why not give it a go?
If you’re interested in a photographic challenge, you
might also like to check out these sites:
mummy blogger ‘Sticky Fingers’ runs a weekly
gallery in which she encourages other mums to
post their best photos on a particular theme
Susannah Conway runs an online course called
‘Unravelling: Ways of Seeing Myself’ which is
all about using photography to increase your
self-awareness and reconnect with the real you.
87
community and contribution
million mums
The ‘million mums’
campaign calls on mums
around the world to help
make motherhood safe <
One of my close friends is expecting her second baby
any day now. I texted her last night to see if there was
any news. I received this message back: ‚No, nothing
happening yet, but we’re all pretty excited now.‛
That one short text sums up for me the difference
between pregnancy and childbirth here, in the UK,
and in the developing world. Here, for most of us,
pregnancy is a time of promise and anticipation,
culminating in celebration when our precious little
one finally arrives. Okay, so that may not be exactly
This post is „recycled‟ from last year‟s magazine to save reinventing the wheel!
how it is for everyone but, regardless of individual
circumstances, as a society we don’t tend to see having
a baby as having one foot in the grave! And yet, for
women in many countries, that is the stark reality <
pregnancy and childbirth are the biggest
killers of young women of reproductive
age in the world today
more than half a million women die each
year due to pregnancy and birth-related
complications, leaving an estimated two
million children motherless
over 80% of these deaths are preventable
maternal mortality rates have not
improved for more than 20 years
 mummo magazine

a woman dies
Imagine this <
every single minute
Imagine going into labour and saying goodbye to your of every single day
husband or partner, and your other children, knowing
that the chances are you may never see them again < due to pregnancy or birth-
In Niger, a woman’s lifetime risk of dying in
related complications
pregnancy or childbirth is 1 in 7. Here in the UK, it’s
more like 1 in 8,000.

Imagine going into labour and having to walk to the

nearest hospital <

In the developing world, women in the throes of

labour often have to walk miles and miles, across
rough terrain, in the heat of day or cold of night, to get
to any kind of medical support ...

Imagine going into labour and not being allowed to go

to hospital <

In some cultures, women are prevented from seeking

medical care because it’s too expensive or because of
the risk that they will be seen by other men.

Imagine going into labour and being left alone, for white ribbon = hope
days, to deliver your baby by yourself <

Half of the world’s women give birth at home, alone

or with only an untrained friend or relative to help.

Imagine what would happen if things went wrong

and there was no-one who could help <

More than half a million women die each year due to

pregnancy and birth-related complications. Millions
of others are left with horrific damage - like obstetric
fistulas - which often results in them being ostracised
from their own communities.

Of course, the women are only half the story. Often

their babies die too. If they survive, their chances of
living beyond two years are massively reduced
without a mother. Any older children also suffer
hugely. They, too, are more likely to die. They are
also far more likely to suffer from malnutrition and
stunted growth, and far less likely to get immunised
or educated. The implications for girls tend to be even
greater, leading to a continued cycle of poverty and
poor health.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 89

community and contribution
Siti’s story <
Siti is an Indonesian woman who died eight years ago
after giving birth to her sixth child. Like most
women from her village, she worked very hard even
while pregnant. She awoke before the sun rose each
morning and did her household duties until her
husband's eyes closed late in the evening. She cooked
all the meals, but she did not eat with her family.
Instead, she ate after everyone had eaten their fill,
which often meant that she did not get enough food
for herself. She developed iron deficiency anaemia
and did not receive any antenatal care. Because she
had gone through pregnancy and given birth without
complications five times before, her sixth pregnancy
was not viewed any differently.
Although there was a trained midwife who lived in a
nearby village, Siti's family decided to ask the well-
known traditional birth attendant in their village to
assist with the birth. When Siti went into labour,
complications arose and she suffered from postpartum
haemorrhage. The decision makers of the family were
not home at the time, and Siti was not brought to a
health care facility until two hours later. Siti died
due to delays in seeking care, reaching care, and
receiving care, like so many women do in Indonesia.
This fabric panel forms part of an exhibition called
’Promises to Mothers Lost’, organised by the White
Ribbon Alliance to commemorate women who have
died needlessly in pregnancy or childbirth. It is
dedicated to Siti Nurjanah Binti Erna by Aliansi Pita
Putih Indonesia (Indonesia White Ribbon Alliance).
It’s a tragedy
The statistics on maternal mortality are nothing less
than tragic. Not just for the women whose lives are
needlessly cut short. Not just for the families left
bereft by the loss of their wives, mothers, daughters
and sisters. No, ultimately, this is a tragedy on a
bigger scale - for the communities, cultures and
economies of many countries in the developing world.
Mothers play a vital role in the economic health of
their families and communities.
Women are the sole earners for more than 25% of all
households. Their income is more likely than men’s to
go on food, education, medicines and family needs.
Each year an estimated US $15.5 billion in potential
productivity is lost when mothers and newborns die.
In addition, when problems arise in childbirth,
families often end up spending money on medical
interventions that come too late and that they cannot
afford. Communities must then take on the burden of
caring for the bereaved and impoverished family, and
governments are forced to manage the widespread
effects of this cycle of poverty.
So what can we do to help?
As mothers, there is a huge amount we can do to
change this situation, especially if we come together
and harness our collective power. That’s the idea
behind the ‘million mums’ campaign ...

What is ‘million mums’?
‘million mums’ is a new campaign that aims to
tackle the challenge of maternal mortality. It’s
being driven by the White Ribbon Alliance, in
partnership with Mummo, and will run from
Mothers’ Day 2009 to Mothers’ Day 2010.
The campaign has two simple goals:
to bring together a million
voices to speak out against the
needless deaths of women in
pregnancy and childbirth
to raise a million pounds to
help the White Ribbon Alliance to
make motherhood safe
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010
mummo magazine
Add your voice
Just go to the website www.millionmums.org and
provide your details.
You only need to give your name and an email
address and you’ll have added your voice to the
campaign. There has been no improvement in
maternal mortality statistics for over twenty years,
despite the fact that we know what needs to be done
and we know how to do it. Why no change? Well, it
seems that women are still a very long way from
achieving equality. They simply do not have the same
rights as men. Their lives, apparently, are less
important. We need to put pressure on the
governments of the world and call for them to take
action. Mums matter.
Donate some money
Just go to the website www.millionmums.org, with
your credit or debit card in hand, and give whatever
you can afford.
If a million people gave just a pound each, that would
make a truly massive difference. And, of course, the
more money you give, the more lives we’ll be able to
help save. In the developing world, it doesn’t take
much - just £10 will pay for an emergency Caesarean
section when a woman gets into difficulty in labour. S
Spread the word
Tell every mum you know. All of them. Send them
the link to this magazine or just the link to the
website www.millionmums.org.
As mothers, we know only too well how much mums
matter. For most of us, the experience of becoming a
mum strips us of any complacency or arrogance we
might have had and leaves us humble, exposed and
vulnerable. Suddenly, we’re excruciatingly aware of
how much we’ve got to lose. And we instantly
discover the unspoken bond between mothers, the
bond of understanding. There may be a thousand
other differences between our lives, but one thing
binds us together. We’re mothers, we love our
children, and we will do anything to protect them. So
please join million mums.
www.mummo.co.uk 91
community and contribution
Nadia Pendleton, founder
of Community Kitchens
UK, suggests a way to
make cooking for your
family fun!
I’m founder director of Community Kitchens UK or
CKUK (pronounced ‚cook‛) a not-for-profit
organisation bringing together vulnerable people in
community centres to cook a week’s worth of fresh
healthy meals. Since having my son Luca (20 months)
and being pregnant with number two, I have met lots
of mums who, like me, fast realised that along with
the joys of having a new baby comes a huge lack of
time!
yummy
mummy
I’m a real foodie and, like the mums I met, love
cooking. With a lively baby who rarely slept for more
than 15 minutes at a stretch I found it hard to cook
fresh interesting food every day as I used to. Loath to
rely on ready meals or snacks, I decided to set up a
’yummy mummy’ Community Kitchen from my
home.
A group of six of us get together fortnightly to cook
up a storm and have a great time doing it. We chat
over a decaf about the recipes we want to cook then
compile a shopping list, which I then bulk order
online to be delivered to my place the night before the
cook-up. On the day we take turns looking after the
babies and preparing the dishes so that there is
enough for each mum to take home at least two
generous portions of each dish. We sometimes cook
big batches of foods for the kids and other times for
ourselves. At the end of it we have three or even four
different meals to take home to the fridge and freezer -
not bad for an afternoon cooking, chatting and having
a laugh WITH our babies.
 mummo magazine

How to start a ‘yummy mummy’ kitchen ...
If you want to cook delicious fresh food AND save
time, money and effort get together a group of four to
six of your mum friends and start your own
community kitchen. Simply answer the following
questions to help you set up:
What happens if someone does not come?
Decide if you want to have a cut off point for
lateness. Usually even 20-30 minutes late
means it can be hard to get everything prepped
and cooked in the set time.
Money matters

The basics How much will be spent each week? Can we

lower costs by using less meat / fish?
How often will we meet? Once a week? Once a Where will we get the start-up supplies?
fortnight? First Monday of every month? Where will we do the shopping?
What days and times are most convenient to Can anyone bring their own home-grown
meet? produce? How will they be compensated for it?
Where will we meet? Each mum’s place on How will we arrange payment for shopping?
rotation? What about those who don’t have Will we pay in advance for shopping or in
space? Will the same people host each week? arrears?
How long will we meet for? Think about prep, Can we allow debts to accumulate?
cook and clean up time. Three to four hours is How will we keep records? Pick one book-
average. keeper and have a kitty box, any under-spend
How many recipes will we aim to cook in each one week means you can buy treats the next
session? week or keep it till the end of the month and all
How will childcare be arranged? All take turns go out for a well earned drink!
to prep, cook and watch the kids or one person / Occasionally there may be a participant who is
two people child-mind on rotation each session not able to contribute any money. The group
while the others focus on the cooking? Perhaps decides whether the participant can contribute
if one person can’t or doesn’t want to cook they something else, eg. garden produce, childcare,
can take the lead on childcare? transport or whether another arrangement can
Does everyone have adequate transport to get be made.
home with cooked food? If not, can anyone
give lifts, help others?
Who will plan the menus and choose the
recipes? All bring one recipe for each session
and lead it, or the person whose kitchen it is
chooses the recipes for their week, gets them
agreed with the others and orders all the food
accordingly
What will we do if someone has food allergies
or intolerances?
What will we do if someone doesn’t like certain
dishes? Make more of another, take a majority
vote or all have to agree on the recipe?
Who will do the shopping? On-line works best
so who will order? The hostess, the same
person each week?
How do we cater for our group size with recipe
portions? Two portions each of each recipe, one
baking dish each or more?
Is there enough equipment to cook with?
Will people bring their own pots and pans /
oven dishes or will you use the host’s?

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 93

community and contribution
Working out the cost
This process depends on the group, however
generally the total cost of the food is worked out and
then divided by the number of servings needed for the
whole group. This cost is then multiplied out for each
participant based on how many servings they need for
their family.
Example 1
The group is making 3 recipes with a total of 14
portions for each recipe (14 x 3 = 42 portions in total).
The total cost of the groceries was £55.
£55 ÷ 42 portions = £1.31 per portion
Sam has two other children aged 7 and 9 years. She
takes home 3 portions of each meal prepared - one for
herself, one for her husband and half for each of her
children. Thus Sam pays:
3 x £1.31 = £3.93 per recipe
£3.93 x 3 recipes = £11.79 in total
Example 2
Another way to manage food costs is to divide the
food out into even amounts for each person who
cooked. This way the cost is divided equally between
members. For example, if there are 5 people cooking
and the total cost of food is £55, each person pays £11.
£55 ÷ 5 = £11 per person
Shopping
Stick to the shopping list!!!
If you want to cut costs use comparison
websites for your groceries. Also compare
frozen to fresh vegetables and local market
prices to supermarket prices.
Weigh or count foods rather than buying in pre-
packed bags to make sure you only pay for and
use what you need.
community and contribution
Health and safety
Remind people of good hygiene practice while
cooking - hair up, clean nails, etc ...
Decide what will happen if one of the mums or
children is ill. Will they attend?
It is a good idea if someone in your group has
done a first aid and food hygiene course.
Make sure there are fire blankets and a first aid
kit and everyone knows if you have a smoke
alarm, also let people know the quickest way
out in an emergency.
Baby logistics
Does the host have room for prams or is it
slings only?
Is there parking nearby? Bus routes? Trains?
Taxi share home?
Does the host have enough baby equipment or
should the others bring mats / toys, etc?
Community Kitchens is a small social enterprise
bringing together vulnerable people (single mums,
low income, unemployed, elderly, new immigrants)
once a week in existing community kitchen facilities to
cook up to a week’s worth of healthy food in one
three-hour session. By joining together, the cost of
food is cut down, people try new foods and learn new
cooking skills as well as other skills such as budgeting,
organisation and teamwork in a fun and sociable
setting. This enables them to (re)connect with their
community and meet new people, helping them out of
isolation. For more information see
www.communitykitchens.org.uk
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
Nadia Pendleton is
married with one son
and another on the
way any day now. In
fact, she wins the prize
for most committed
contributor, sending
stuff through on her
actual due date!
Nadia is the founder of
Community Kitchens UK
and author of „The Melting Pot: The World in Your
Kitchen‟.
Things that make me happy: my family,
travelling to new places, cooking and sharing food
with family and friends
Motto in life: “Whether you think you can or you
think you can‟t, you are right”.
Most recently I have tried to live by the mantra “Be
the change you want to see in the world”. This
was shared with me by a wonderful Rwandan
refugee lady in London who came to Community
Kitchens as she wanted to do more for her
community. Despite everything she had gone
through she thought her peers should forget
about the fact they had been victims in the past
and do something in the present to make a
change - truly an inspiration.
Favourite film: It changes all the time. I hate
horrors and love a good cry but am not a fan of
predictable rom coms (except at certain times of
the month when I banish my husband to the pub,
put my son to bed and veg on the sofa with
maltesers and popcorn!).
Favourite smell: Anything that takes me back to
moments past - foods, people‟s perfumes, the rain.
Favourite piece of clothing: I live in skinny jeans
and boots.
Most treasured possession: There is nothing I
could not leave behind. When I‟ve been travelling
I‟ve found it liberating to carry just one bag and
not buy anything except food to eat and drink but
I do love photographs. My house is full of them.
My children: I have a 21-month-old son, Luca Kai,
and am due to have another son today! Luca is
energetic, very talkative, creative, inquisitive,
funny, very polite and sweet. Obviously I‟m going
to say adorable, clever and kind … as most
mothers would!
95
community and contribution
charity
challenge
So you’re up for doing
something daring in 2010?!
Well, why not try a charity
challenge? That way, you
get an amazing adventure
and a good cause gets
some cash.
win-win!
It’s a
The next page highlight just a few of the challenges
that are up for grabs, both here in the UK and
overseas. It’s designed to give you a taste of what’s on
offer and is by no means an exhaustive list. For more
information on the kind of trips available, visit the
websites of any charities you’d particularly like to
support and/or check out the websites below:
Across the Divide
Do It for Charity
Ultimate Travel Company
Charity Challenge
Classic Tours
Tall Stories
Action Challenge
 mummo magazine

25/11/10 - 05/12/10
17/07/10 - 18/07/10
Parkinson’s Disease
Oxfam
Society
Trailwalker, South Downs
Nepal Trek

01/09/10 - 05/09/10 18/11/10 - 28/11/10

Macmillan Cancer Support Home Start
Trek the French Alps Trek Costa Rica

02/12/10 - 12/12/10
04/09/10 - 12/09/10
Open challenge
Action Aid
(support a charity of your choice)
South African Community
Saigon to Angkor Wat bike
Project
ride

04/02/11 - 13/02/11
07/10/10 - 16/10/10
Durrell Wildlife
Marie Curie Cancer Care
Conservation Trust
Kilimanjaro Climb
Rajasthan Tiger Challenge

24/03/11 - 03/04/11
23/10/10 - 31/10/10 Open challenge
British Heart Foundation (support a charity of your choice)
Great Wall of China Run Brazilian Trek and Kayak
Challenge

04/11/10 - 14/11/10
whenever you like!
Scope
The Anthony Nolan Trust
Community Project,
Diving with sharks
Cambodia

Go on, what are you waiting for? You know you want to really! And it might be a great opportunity for your
family to find out just how much you do for them. Believe it or not, though, things won’t grind to a halt without
you ... but you’ll come back to welcome arms, refreshed and revitalised and ready to be ‚mum‛ again..

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 97

community and contribution
slim your waste ...
A Suffolk mother of two,
Karen Cannard decided to
try and create zero waste
for a week. This is the
story of what happened ...
Do you ever have a little green nag that sits on your
shoulder, poking you in the ear, telling you that you
should reduce your waste and recycle more? If so,
The Rubbish Diet Challenge could be just what you
need to give it a good old boot and stop the nagging
once and for all. Although I didn’t realise it at the
time, that’s what I got when I signed up to my local
councils’ bin-slimming challenge in January 2008.
I’d seen an advert asking for local residents to have a
go at a Zero Waste Week. Not feeling entirely
confident that we could go for one whole week
without creating any rubbish, I set up my blog to chart
our progress and to seek help from friends in the
blogosphere along the way. And after just eight
weeks, with the zero waste challenge as the finale, all
we threw away during the last seven days was one
first-aid plaster. Since then, our contribution to
landfill has been as little as one carrier bag’s worth of
rubbish per month. Before the zero waste challenge it
used to be six huge bin bags!
When I first started to reduce our rubbish, I actually
thought I was a pretty good recycler. However, I was
surprised at what I’d learnt, not just about how little I
actually knew about my local recycling facilities, but
also about the impact of food waste on the
environment. So when Zero Waste Week finished, I
knew I couldn’t turn my back on the issue. I wanted

to keep finding out more and share it on my blog. The
real turning point came when I visited a disposal site
on the day that landfill taxes were about to go up and
saw the resources that were just being buried in the
ground and wasted. It was then that I really knew I
had to overcome my natural shyness and help put the
issue of waste firmly on the consumer map. I wanted
to find a novel way of inspiring others to join in.
So the blog, which was only intended to last up until
Zero Waste Week, is still live-and-kicking two years
later. Now, in 2010, I’ve launched The Rubbish Diet
Challenge with an online guide to help those who also
want to tackle their waste head-on!
What makes The Rubbish Diet Challenge
different to other waste reduction ideas?
Most campaigns ask us to reduce this, recycle that or
re-use the other and that’s great as it encourages
consumers and those in the manufacturing chain to
consider ways in which they can tackle waste.
However, with so many messages hitting us on a daily
basis, it’s tempting to think ‚that’s a good idea, I’ll
tackle it later‛ then get back to our very busy lives,
forgetting about our good intentions. The Rubbish
Diet Challenge helps those who are serious about
reducing waste to grab the bull by the horns with a
slimming plan that tackles their rubbish in a very
short time period. It’s a bit like WeightWatchers, but
for your bin, with regular weigh-ins to measure
progress and help maintain the momentum for trying
new ideas each week.
How would it work for me?
As with any diet plan, you begin with a weigh-in to
establish a starting point. It’s also a good time to
establish some realistic goals and a time-frame as a
focus for your project and find out if any friends or
family want to take part too.
The slimming plan then takes you through an audit of
your bin, to create a hit list of things that regularly get
thrown away. Ideas for eliminating this list are shared
over eight separate weekly sections, which motivate
readers to think about everyday activities with waste
in mind. There are top tips on how to avoid
packaging and how to reduce waste at source as well
as bags of information about what recycling labels
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
mean and how to make best use of your local facilities.
Each week, readers are encouraged to weigh-in as
well as keep tabs on their expenditure, which helps to
measure the financial benefits of reducing waste. The
challenge ends with a Zero Waste Week, with advice
on how to avoid rubbish when you are out-and-about
and how to reduce the amount of waste created at
events such as Christmas and birthdays. There are
even tips on how to put your challenge into the media
spotlight and get others involved, should you want to
raise awareness of the issue within your community.
There are also lots of personal anecdotes to keep you
entertained and to provide reassurance and further
inspiration where needed.
Top tips for Rubbish Diet
beginners ...
1. Firstly, become best friends with your
local recycling officer. Visit the website
www.recyclenow.com, which has lots of
information about what can be recycled
in your area, plus advice on composting.
2. When shopping, look for products that
you can buy loose as well as alternative
products with packaging that can be
recycled easily.
3. Remember a reusable bag isn’t just for
groceries. Use a smart one for other
shopping too.
4. If food waste is an issue in your
household, then check out
www.lovefoodhatewaste.com, which is
packed with tips on how to reuse
leftovers and includes recipes from top
celebrity chefs as well as advice from
householders across the UK.
5. Focus on ditching your disposable items
for reusable alternatives—for example,
swap kitchen towel for washable cloths
- and remember to seek out refillable
products where possible.
99
community and contribution
And finally ...
Enjoy that special moment when you hear the drone
of the bin lorry in the full knowledge that you don’t
have to scarper to put out your bin. If you play your
cards right it could last for months, and for some, it
may even be years!
For more information about how to put your bin on a
diet, visit my blog at www.therubbishdiet.co.uk
where you’ll find The Rubbish Diet Challenge
available in 8 manageable sections. And who knows,
as well as doing your bit to conserve resources and
help tackle climate change, it could even save you
some money too.
Let’s have less of this 
And more of this 
Karen Cannard created The Rubbish Diet
Challenge. She was shortlisted for two national
awards in 2009, has been featured on BBC Radio
4’s Woman’s Hour and is a regular guest on BBC
Radio Suffolk and other regional stations. She is
also a speaker at sustainability events in the East
of England. She has two children: Joseph (8) and
Thomas (5) who she describes as “lively, funny,
quarelsome and caring - a bit like puppy dogs
really”.
Five words to describe me: optimistic, creative,
happy, generous, time-poor
Favourite book: „Remembrance‟, Theresa Breslin
Favourite music: currently Lada Gaga
Favourite smell: jasmine
Favourite clothing: my very forgiving wrap-over
dresses!
Most treasured possession: my memories
A day in my life ...
My day starts at 6.30am to download emails and
messages, followed by breakfast and inching the
kids out of the door for the school dash.
Lunch is a quick ten minute affair, or an occasional
meeting with friends.
My children arrive home from school at great
speed and race over the threshold in an animated
manner.
I relax by socialising with friends, having a
relaxing bath or enjoying a night in with my
husband watching a romantic comedy.
My day ends at 11pm, when I crash into bed and
and plan the adventures of the next day.
 mummo magazine

But now I'm inundated with declarations that are

making me feel decidedly on edge - ‘Election to be
decided at the School Gates!’ ‘Mumsnet Election!’
‘Cybermums will decide!’ And I know I have to make
a decision soon but, to use a slightly predictable
analogy - if you want us to go shopping, then give us
something we want to buy. Not just more of last
season's neutrals - cut taxes, smaller class sizes, cut
spending, blah blah blah (seen it, bought it, bored of
it).

And while our American cousins had a very real and

mum power
Gigi Elioff of MumsRock talks about
what politicians should do to win the
mum vote ...
I know I should feel guilty but I'm beginning to lose
interest in the upcoming General Election. I've still
not decided who to vote for. And the scary thing is, I
really don't think I'm alone.
I've only ever voted Labour (there, I've said it!) and
occasionally in local elections I've voted Lib Dem, or
Green. Once, I actually didn't vote. This was mainly
because I knew my other half was going to vote for
the other side, and frankly I couldn't be bothered with
the walk. As he pointed out, he'd only cancel out my
vote. So we stayed in and had a nice cup of tea
instead.
exciting choice between candidates - silver-haired
statesman versus gutsy ex-first lady, versus the new
(black) hope of Barack Obama .... We get Dave,
Gordon and Nick. All white, all male, all middly
aged, middly road, middly piddly boringly
predictable.
Yet, this time round they are apparently courting us -
they want to know what women want, the mother-
jugglers, the fairer-sex thinkers, the SAH biscuit-
nibblers. But courting us with what? Where is their
initiative, their arsenal of new and inspiring policy,
their genuinely passionate pledges to change our
lives, and those of our families, for good?
Their mouths are moving, but I don't think I'm alone
in thinking, I can't hear a buggery thing.
So I suppose what I am saying is this. If you want us
to vote, to believe in you, then give us something to
believe in. Because the way things are going, come
Polling Day, we'll be staying in to wash our hair.

Gigi Eligoloff is a former TV producer and the founder of the Mums Rock website, a place for “mothers with
attitude to shop, share and rant”. She has a son, Kit, who is three.

Things that make me happy: chocolate, sleepy children (not drugged, though - that‟s
very wrong), sunshine streaming through my window, toes in the sand, good red wine

Favourite film: „Brief Encounter‟. No contest.

A day in my life ...

My day starts with the inability to wake up despite the fact that my son is slamming a
copy of „Noddy‟ on my head screaming “Read it to me ... NOW!”. Lunch is Neighbours,
Redbush tea and chocolate - not very healthy, is it?! My office is in my living room and
very close to the TV and kettle. I relax with trashy TV, Scrabble, smooth red wine and
marathon baths with rose bath oil. My day ends in the nick of time.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 101

prosperity

the bank
of mum
and dad ...

are babies so that they never have to worry about their

Editor-in-Chief of
‘MoneyWeek’, Merryn
Somerset Webb explains
why we should put our
financial needs first <
Ask any mother what she wants for her children and
one of her answers is likely to be financial stability.
None of us can bear to think of our children going
short of anything. So we spend a lot of our time
worrying about saving for their futures. Should we
top up their Child Trust Funds? Should we start
saving into Stakeholder Pensions for them when they
own old ages? And should we all go without now to
make sure we put enough aside to pay their ways
through university? Clearly, caring for our children
like this is a good thing but there is a huge problem
with the way that we tend to prioritise their needs: in
doing so we often neglect our own.
Most people of new parenting age are in debt (the
average under 30 has more than £7000 of non
mortgage debt) and have done little or nothing about
saving into a pension. Worse, according to a survey
from Scottish Widows a few years ago, 50% of women
stop saving altogether when they have children. And
those who do still save do so not for themselves but
for their families.
It is easy to think that your children’s needs should
take precedent over your own future needs, and to

feel selfish putting money away for the long term if it
might be needed for the short term. But this is a back-
to-front approach to money. After all, your children
won’t thank you if you save a few grand for their first
house deposit but they then have to use that and more
to pay your nursing home fees because your pension
pot is empty.
The truth is that your own financial
security is one of the best gifts you can
give your children.
They may not know it now but in 30 years’ time
they’ll be very grateful to you for spending less on
them and saving less for them so that you can pay
your own way in your old age.
Once you’ve taken care of yourself you can, of course,
start to save for your children (houses may be getting
cheaper but university certainly isn’t). But when you
do, remember that there is no need to do it in a special
way. There is little tax advantage in putting money
into accounts just for children and interest rates in
children’s accounts tend to be worse, not better, than
those for ordinary accounts. You are, I think, better
off just saving and investing as best you can and
leaving the choice of what to spend your savings on
later. A nice lump sum will obviously make a
difference to your children as they become young
adults.
You may, of course, want to spend all
the money you’ve saved on financing
your children < but you may also,
after 18 years of selfless dedication,
prefer to spend it learning to surf in
Hawaii while they join their peers
behind a Tesco checkout every
weekend!
Who knows? You might as well leave your options
open.
All that said, there is one thing you must do for your
child if you haven’t already: properly invest their
Child Trust Fund. Some time in the few months after
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
your baby is born a voucher for £250 (£500 if you are
in a low income household) will drop through your
door. The idea is that you invest it in a fund of some
kind and then top it up to its maximum of £1200
every year so that, when your child hits 18, they
have a nice little pot of cash built up to get them
started in life. I’m not convinced about the topping
up bit (for all the reasons stated above and because
the second you put money into a CTF you lose
control over it) but it is important that the first £250 -
and the next tranche of £250 that you will get when
your child turns seven - are used well. But how?
You get three choices:
1. You can put it in an approved savings
account and leave it in cash for the duration.
2. You can put it into what is called a
stakeholder account (where it is initially
invested in shares and then shifted into less
risky investments as the child gets older). If
you do nothing, this is the default option the
government will choose for your child’s
money.
3. You can opt for a shares account so that the
money is invested in the stock market for all
18 years.
In my opinion, this is the option you should take.
The last decade has been a dreadful one for stock
markets and there is every chance that the next few
years will be awful too. But over the next 18 years
the odds are that the best returns will come, as they
usually do, from the equity markets. By investing
your CTF voucher in them, the odds are therefore
that you will leverage the cash into the best possible
start for your baby. You can find a list of all the
funds you can put CTF money into at
www.childtrustfund.gov.uk.
Merryn Somerset Webb is
Editor-in-Chief of
MoneyWeek and author
of „Love is Not Enough:
The Smart Woman‟s Guide
to Money‟
Vices: red wine and Lindt
70% chocolate
103
prosperity
waste not, want not
Bish Muir, author of the
‘Use-it-all Cookbook’ and
mother of two, shares her
tips for reducing food
waste ...
As a former ‘Fairy Liquid girl’ - having been chosen
from a sea of precocious, blond five year olds to don a
witch’s outfit and utter the immortal words ‚I’m a
witch with long scratchy fingers and I’m going to
make you a witch too!‛ - it is perhaps appropriate
that, many decades later, I have returned to the
kitchen, and my Fairy Liquid, albeit for a very
different reason.
My inspiration for the ‘Use-it-all Cookbook’ came
from my mother. When she wasn’t ‘door stepping’
advertising agencies, she was perfecting the art of
using up leftovers, creating wonderfully tasty meals
from what appeared to be nothing more than the odd
carrot, half a pot of yogurt and some bacon.
Of course, as a product of post-war rationing, she is
not alone in possessing resourcefulness when it comes
to cooking. Having once worked as a royal footman at
Buckingham Palace, TV chef Gary Rhodes revealed
that even The Queen insists on keeping the leftovers
from the Royal Sunday roast and making them into
cottage pie and rissoles during the following week! I
can just visualise Her Madge in a pinny in the Royal
Kitchen! So, why is this a dying skill when now, in
the current economic climate, it is as relevant as ever?
Much of the answer lies in the fact that these
resourceful skills have not always been passed down
through the generations and we now live in a largely
‘throw away’ society.
 mummo magazine

Every year 6.7 million tonnes of food is our nose up at anything that is slightly wrinkly and
old (no hope for me then!). But the odd wrinkly carrot
thrown away in the UK, of which 4.1 or apple can be an ingredient for a number of
million tonnes is either unopened or delicious recipes, for example, casseroles, crumbles,
soups, etc.
untouched.
4. Be brave - don’t be afraid to experiment
To put this into some kind of perspective, on average,
each household will throw away between £600 and
We might all have our Mrs Cropley moments (the
£700 of food per year - that’s between £15,000 and
hapless organist from ‘The Vicar of Dibley’, whose
£24,000 in a lifetime. And the problem is getting
specialities included peanut butter and anchovy
worse, with food waste increasing by 15% every
sandwishes!) when our kitchen exploits have
decade.
disastrous consequences and we might have to reach
for the phone for a take away, but don’t be afraid to
This is not only a huge waste of money but also
try. Like any art, experimenting is a very important
disastrous for the environment. Food waste in landfill
part of creation and throwing a whole load of
creates methane, a greenhouse gas twenty times more
leftovers into a pot to make a ‘broth’ or stew is worth a
potent than CO2. It also creates a run-off called
try!
leachate which, as it runs down through the ground,
removes any nutrients from the soil, leaving the land
5. Shop cannily
baron and devoid of all life.
Buying seasonal vegetables and fruit can reduce your
So, what can we do about it? Well, here are my top
food bill substantially. If you don’t know what’s in
ten tips for reducing food waste and saving money:
season at the time, go and visit your local farm shop
or veg market where they will nearly always only sell
1. Make a shopping list
produce that is in season. It’s also better for the
environment as the produce won’t have travelled half
I have a note pad permanently glued to my fridge and
way around the world to get to your table.
so, whenever I notice something is running short, I
just add it to my list right there and then. Whilst this
6. Ignore sell buy / use by dates
might seem extreme, even the most basic glance
around the kitchen before you go to the shops is better
We’ve completely forgotten how to use our senses
than nothing and saves the build up of ‘veg
when it comes to food. With the exception of fish and
mountains’ festering in your fridge.
meat, very little is going to harm you if it is slightly
out of date, so smell, taste and sight will usually tell us
2. Shop at the right time
if something is edible or not. Caution must be taken
with fish and meat though, and both should be
Try, wherever possible, not to shop when you’re
consumed within three or four days of being
hungry or when you have small, tired children with
purchased or unfrozen.
you. Doing so is tantamount to food budget (and
New Year’s resolution) suicide! Go shopping when
7. Be bold with mould
we are hungry and all rational thoughts about menu
planning and money saving go flying out of the door
If cheese has a little mould on it, cut it off, don’t throw
and we end up with a trolley full of naughty snacks
the whole lot away. Equally, if you have a little
and Gu chocolate pots!
mould on the top of your yogurt or jam, just spoon it
out, it’s only penicillin after all!
3. Don’t be a food snob
8. Keep a cupboard full of essentials
We all know about the scandal of supermarkets
discarding any fruit and veg that aren’t totally perfect.
Most recipes use many of the same core ingredients,
Unfortunately, as a result we are conditioned to turn
so keeping a regular stock of these in your kitchen will

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 105

prosperity

enable you to rustle up a variety of dishes adding any

leftovers you might have in the fridge. These Chicken Crunch
essentials include: onions, flour, butter, oil, sugar,
stock cubes, pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes and so on.
My whole inspiration for compiling a book about
using up leftovers came from this one recipe which is
9. Trust the Tupperware
ideal if you have any leftover cold chicken or cooked
or raw vegetables. This is also perfect for children as
There is a reason why our mothers went to those
they love the cheesy, crunchy topping.
parties. Carefully stored leftovers will stay fresh in
the fridge for much longer and can then be produced
Ingredients:
again at a later date to make a soup, pasta sauce,
500g chicken or turkey meat (cooked)
filling for a baked potato, etc.
200g broccoli or leeks, chopped, or peas (cooked
or raw)
10. Recycle for baby
1 small tin sweet corn (optional)
50g butter
We spend a fortune on buying wonderful-sounding
2 tablespoons plain flour
‘organic’ baby food for our little angels but if you are
250ml milk / vegetable water
feeding your family a well balanced diet, then you
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
should be able to liquidise the leftover vegetables,
1 tablespoon lemon / lime juice
fruit, chicken and fish from the family meal, add a
200g grated cheese
little stock or water and serve that to your baby. It’s
Salt and pepper
much cheaper and you can even freeze it in ice cubes
1 packet of crisps / 3 tablespoons stale
to be brought out at a later date.
breadcrumbs

Small changes can make a huge difference - just

Method:
spending five minutes a week planning our grocery
1. Preheat the oven to 200C / 400F / gas mark 6.
shop could probably save around 15% on our weekly
2. Boil or steam any raw vegetables for about 5
food bill. It doesn’t take a great deal to save money
minutes so they are still crunchy, keeping the
and help the environment and if everyone changed
water from the pan to use later in the sauce if
their habits just slightly we could produce massive
you wish.
results. So to get the ball rolling, here are a couple of
3. Put the chicken and cooked vegetables into a
favourite recipes of mine which are easy, quick and
flat-bottomed ovenproof dish and add the
universally loved.
drained sweetcorn (if using).
4. Melt the butter in a saucepan and blend in the
flour.
5. Gradually blend in the milk, stirring constantly
over a medium heat until the sauce becomes
thick and smooth. Use vegetable cooking water
instead of some / all of the milk if you wish.
6. When you have a reasonably thick sauce, add
the mayonnaise, lemon / lime juice and half the
grated cheese and stir in well. Add salt and
pepper to taste.
7. Pour the sauce over the chicken and vegetables.
Crunch the crisps into small pieces and sprinkle
these, or breadcrumbs if using, evenly over the
chicken and sauce, followed by the remains of
the grated cheese.
8. Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes until
golden.
 mummo magazine

9. Serve with rice or potatoes.

Banana and Biscuit Pudding
Bish Muir is the
author of The Use
I defy even those who pronounce themselves the -it-all Cookbook.
worst cooks in the world not to be able to throw this She is married
one together! Not only is this a perfect way to use up with two
any slightly mushy, brown bananas but it also finds a children.
home for any slightly soft chocolate digestive biscuits
Five words to
or the remains of biscuits at the bottom of the tin. describe me:
Recently, I tried this using ginger biscuits and it was tireless,
fantastic - although it got the thumbs down from the personable, a
children as it had no chocolate in it! So, chocolate contributor,
covered ginger biscuits might be a good compromise! scatty, sporty

Things that make me happy: music, happy

Ingredients: children, sunshine and peace
3 or 4 ripe / over ripe bananas
250g natural yoghurt (or combination of Vices: untidiness, chocolate and taking on too
yoghurt and double cream - whatever you have much
left in the fridge)
Virtues: good cook!
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Squeeze of lemon juice Favourite film: „Amadeus‟, „Finding Nemo‟
6 or 7 chocolate digestive biscuits (or any other
leftover sweet biscuits or crumbs in the bottom Favourite food: anything Malay
of the biscuit tin)
Favourite piece of clothing: a hippy top from
Hong Kong, made from scraps of different
Method: material sewn together
1. Mash up the bananas in a flat-bottomed dish.
2. Add the yoghurt, brown sugar and lemon juice My children: I have two: Jamie (11) and Molly
and mix well. (9). Jamie is impish, fidgety, sporty, very
affectionate and a little bit naughty. Molly is an
3. Tear off two sheets of kitchen roll (still attached
angel - gentle, laid back, intuitive, moves
to each other) and lay out flat. through life at a snail‟s pace, doing just enough
4. Roughly break the biscuits onto one sheet of the to get by!
kitchen roll and fold the second sheet over the
top of the biscuits. A day in my life …
5. Crush the biscuits inside the kitchen roll with a
My day starts with a cup of tea in bed before
rolling pin, making sure you crush all the the chaos of the school run.
lumps.
6. Sprinkle crushed biscuits on top of the banana At lunch, I sit with my husband in the kitchen
mix and flatten down with a fork. and discuss our respective work.
7. Put the pudding in the fridge for an hour before
My office is the kitchen table!
serving.
My children do loads of after school clubs so
come back tired and hungry.

I relax by reading, swimming, playing tennis

and falling asleep in front of the telly.

My day ends ... falling asleep in front of the telly!

Then I drag myself upstairs and fall asleep in
front of a good book.

© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk 107

prosperity
priceless
Blogger ‘Hot Cross Mum’
sums it all up beautifully ...
Flashing shoes:
Lightening McQueen duvet cover:
Scooter:
Fireman Sam fire engine:
The look on a small boy’s
face when his beloved soft
toy has been painstakingly
sewn back together
There are some things money can buy.
For everything else there’s mummy.
Hot Cross Mum is a mummy blogger and freelance
writer, living in Ireland. She‟s also written a novel
which is just dying to be published! Here‟s how she
describes herself ...
“I am two parts mum, one part writer. I hung up my
€28 professional boots in March 2009 to take up my
€10 new post as a 'Stay At Home Mum'. Let's just say
that life has been very busy ever since. Staying at
€20 home with my two boys is by far the toughest job I
€15 have ever done, but I am sure they will be eternally
grateful to me and will shower me with flowers and
take me out for lunch when I am old and doddery.
Why are you laughing?
My days are now less about deadlines and
boardrooms and more about washing lines and
priceless bathrooms. I worry about what to cook for tea and
get annoyed about standing on bits of Lego in my
bare feet and finding raisins stuck to my purse. It's
not that I'm complaining really, it's just, well, a little
more hum-drum-mum than yummy mummy.”
See also her celebrity mum blog ...

If you’ve enjoyed this magazine, please spare a
thought for all the mums around the world who lose
their lives in pregnancy and childbirth.
Imagine if you had had to kiss your husband
goodbye when you went into labour, because
you knew the chances were you might never
see him again ...
Imagine if you had had to walk miles and miles
in the throes of labour, just to have a chance of
minimal medical care ...
Imagine if you had to give birth alone, without
even a midwife, let alone a doctor ...
Imagine if your children were left motherless ...
Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?
The thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. We know
what needs to be done. Together, we can help make
motherhood safe for women everywhere. So please,
join ‘million mums’ right now, give a donation if you
can and add your voice to call for change.
Just click on the buttons below ...
© Mummo Ltd : March 2010 www.mummo.co.uk
mummo magazine
thank you
Mummo would like to
thank all the fantastic
people who have
helped to make this
magazine possible <
all the mums who‟ve contributed articles,
images and blog posts - I never cease to be
amazed at how talented you all are
all the mums who are going to join, donate
to and help spread the word about the
„million mums‟ campaign - hopefully that
includes you!
my lovely sister for all her design input,
which she‟s given gladly despite having too
much on already - she‟s a star!
my mum, because she‟s my mum, because
she‟s been on “granny duty” yet again and
because she‟s always there for me
my man, who is 100% supportive even when
he thinks I‟m mad ...and who has made far
more than his share of packed lunches this
past few weeks!
and last, but obviously not least, my children,
without whom I wouldn‟t be a mum and I
wouldn‟t be doing this - I love you “more
than the sun and the moon and the stars”
xxxx
thank you
109
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