Today so far I have nagged, bribed, cajoled and shouted to get the children out of the house in time for swimming (we have to leave at 8.50, which is a killer. Goodness knows how we will cope when M starts school next year), only to sit in traffic for half an hour to reach the end of the road; the two alternative routes I tried were no better. To the veg shop instead – might as well, since we are out and would have to go this afternoon – to find it doesn’t open until 10. I’ve promised soft play this afternoon in compensation; would it be really bad to not mention it and hope she forgets? I don’t really have the energy, and have rung round friends to no avail. If we go, we go alone.

Yesterday was not good either: the day started at 5 a-bloody-m with M complaining of a tummyache. Which received very little sympathy, it must be said (Bad Mummy) so she was sick to make her point. I packed her off to preschool anyway (Bad Mummy) because she scoffed two weetabix – how bad could she be feeling? – and she was fine. T was in bed asleep by 6 last night (having only managed a 20-minute nap during the day – and again today, Bad Baby!) and M not much past 7; I lolled about like a wrung-out rag until ooh 9.45 then gave up too. This week’s manuscripts are not getting the attention they deserve.

Dear readers, I need your advice. We have People coming for dinner on Saturday. I don’t know them well: he was Cameron’s first boss at Shell (and the terrifying head of the group I was in as a student there – fortunately he is no longer terrifying but really very nice) and she is his wife, who I have never met. What do I feed them? Also there is the getting-the-children-to-bed factor, which means it can’t be anything that requires much faffing, unless the faffing can be done 3 hours in advance. I’m thinking a chicken (in fact I have just bought a chicken so that is fairly set) which I can roast or pot-roast depending on the phase of the moon and the direction of the wind on Saturday. With rice and something spicey-and-squashy and something red-cabbagey, I think. But what to have for pud? The last few people (and People) to come have had Delia’s croquembouche: it looks most impressive and is really delicious, with very little effort. But it’s a bit summery and I’m a bit tired of doing it. Nigella’s bread-and-butter pud made with pain au chocolat? A pavlova? Something else? Whaddya think?

Every year, we make cider. We had two lovely apple trees at the last house and  – what luck! – we have two here (also we have a source of boxes and boxes of pears so we’ve recently been adding them to the mix. A kind of perry-cider combo). The best ever was a batch we thought had gone wrong but didn’t get away to throwing out before we moved to Japan. On our return, Cameron eventually decided to empty the demijohns that had stood undisturbed in the garage for all that time. As he was pouring it down the sink he though hmm, doesn’t smell too bad. We bravely tried a bit (expecting instant blindness and insanity to strike) and it was fantastic! Clear and sparkly and not too sweet.

This year, it has gone mad. There’s a vague fermenty smell to the entire house and the kitchen is full of plop-plop-plop mad-sciencey noises. Whether we* moved it from brewing bucket to demijohn before it was really ready to go, I don’t know (perhaps sitting on the underfloor-heated tiles in the kitchen has had some effect?) but every time we turn our back it escapes up through the traps and spreads over the table.

*When I say we, Cameron is i/c brewing.

Just a short quick post, sort of whispered (because Pewari, who is paranoid because she’s had lawyers’ letters, is convinced Gillian McKeith is actually psychic and will find me out and sue me for being mean) but I must direct you to this fabulous article*. I confess I don’t watch her programme; I saw it once or twice and couldn’t bear the bullying, nor the fact that she claimed to analyse people’s poo and the corners of their mouths. The article misses out the most important point (presumably because it would be libellous; as, presumably, is this. But I am a small and insignificant blog rather than a national newspaper so prepared to risk it): that she gives no indication of taking any pleasure whatsoever from life. Frankly I’d rather eat the odd ice cream or plate of chips and be happy than survive on aduki beans and goji beans (huh?) and be cross all the time**.

*I like the quote …otherwise it wouldn’t be called “science”, it would be called “assuming”, or “guessing”, or “making it up as you go along”, which sounds horribly like my PhD, and those of many of my friends – but that is another story altogether.

**Of course I am cross all the time. But that is the lot of a mother-of-two and not a result of over-indulgence in blue-green algae. That’s not food, it’s slime!

Tamsin is having a growth spurt (right on target for getting into size 3-6 month outfits) so today has gone feed-poo-feed-poo-feed-poo-sleep. And repeat. Meaning my day has gone feed-change-feed-change-feed-run about screeching and tearing out hair trying to wash nappies and provide food and entertainment for Maggie. Very hard going when single mumming again (he’s back tonight, hooray). I haven’t even managed to get out in the lovely sunshine despite good intentions and hopes. Although naturally I have been online (I can type one-handed while feeding a baby. No worries.)

Actually we did just knock up some blueberry and coconut muffins earlier. Ahem (buffs nails, looks modest yet smug). Pretty tasty and super-easy. Crumbs, bowls and spatulas (etc) everywhere still with little prospect of getting them tidied away in the near future, and tomorrow is Super Stress Morning (TM) as we try to get to swimming on time. Bring on the blizzards I say.  

I seem to be blessed with a windy baby this time around (M hardly ever burped and was never sick). Rather than going straight for the infacol in the modern manner, I am tweaking my diet to see if it makes any difference: first on the hit list is sugar because I have been eating loads since she was born (OK, OK, and before) and So-san, my Japanese midwife, was always very down on sugar. Tired, hormonal, naturally sweet-toothed…then Christmas came with its usual cake-and-sweety bounty and I reckon I’m nearly up at 1930s levels (according to a recent thread on Downsizer, the average sugar consumption of the poor working class in the North in the 1930s was something like 3 lb per week. Wow.)

I managed 30 hours and then the 4pm Hunger (familiar to all pregnant and breastfeeding mothers) struck. Two digestives, two bits of Christmas cake and four pieces of chocolate-covered ginger in about 5 minutes flat. And then, as I was off the wagon anyway, half a packet of jaffa cakes in the space between University Challenge and what would have been Waking the Dead if Maggie hadn’t woken up screaming, causing me to spend the rest of the evening on the phone to NHS direct. I’m not generally a neurotic mum but the screaming was quite out of character and she was complaining of a pain in the lower right-hand side of her tummy*.

Anyway, that was really a bit pathetic so I’m trying again. It’s not just about uncomfy Tamsin now – although she isn’t a very happy bunny today – but about my inability to resist chocolate. It is evil and it calls to me. Only today is proving quite hard enough to get through: I’ll see you the aforementioned screaming and raise you last night’s storm battering our windows, which are the village’s first line of defense against the winds that race across the Dee floodplains from the Welsh Hills, and a tax return. I’ve succumbed to a(nother) jaffa cake and, sadly, a horribly pinkly sweet fairy cake. But I am trying, and when the Ocado chap turns up in the next hour with lots of lovely savoury treats I should find it somewhat easier.

Incidentally, when did jaffa cakes become a health food? The packet is plastered with information about how they have only 1 g of fat but “lots of energy” (ie calories, no?) so are recommended by nutritionists.

*She’s fine.