Mrs Helicopter Writes

I have tried, every year since I can remember, to make pancakes. Normal, thin, crepe-esque pancakes. Not the  thick spongey   Scotch/American ones. And let me tell you, I am not a crap cook! I'm actually quite good. I have friends who (I think) can testify to this! But the ability to make a batch of crisp, even, round yummy pancakes escapes me every year. Mine absolutely always end up as burnt fatty lumps of under-cooked-in-the-middle batter. I have tried everything....different recipes, different pan heats, different techniques. I don't think I've ever got it right. I don't get it. I make really *BRILLIANT Yorkshire puds.....aren't they supposed to be the same thing?   *modesty passed me by during life lessons...clearly!  My mum used to make the most delicious, delicate pancakes. My brother and I just blindly took it for granted that every Pancake Day we would be shoving our faces full of sticky sweet sugar and lemon juice laden pancakes and we wouldn't ...

The internet is a wonderful way to present a heavily edited version of yourself to the world. Online I try to be funny and ranty and entertaining but if you know the real me, you’ll know that recently the ranty has been more prevalent than the funny. I have also had periods of depression and anxiety. Not just anxiousness about something tangible, like a driving test or 10 (ahem, sore point!). The anxiousness i have experience is known as free-floating anxiety. It permeates everything and leaves me paralysed with fear for NO reason, rendering me incapable of concentrating or functioning other than on a very basic level. Thankfully I haven’t experienced too much that since Gus was about 15 months bar a few wobbly days.  I am always aware, however, that it has the capacity to come back at any given moment if things start to overwhelm me emotionally.So, say for example, if I was in a permanent state of anger for NO reason at NOTHING and then as a result I was constantly explodin...

I am a woman of many hats. I have come to this astute conclusion only this week. And each "hat" requires completely different skills, socially, emotionally and physically. It’s bloody exhausting! And yet I am beginning to realise it is the nature of working motherhood. Actually it’s the nature of motherhood in general. The Mum Hat is not the same as the Partner hat and Friend hat and and and! Anyway, this post is going to be hat-heavy so if you have some weird HAT phobia , look away now. This is just ONE hour in the life of all of my Hats: Mum Hat I am the mum….I am everything "mum" incorporates….I am responsible, loving, protective, bossy, strict, shouty, short on patience, concerned, caring.  I’m concerned that I am feeding them correctly so I meet all their nutritional requirements, so that it will stop them developing some hideous disease; I try to discipline correctly to ensure they tow the line but are not emotionally scarred from the shouty mot...