ENGLISH MUM

The August roundup. This month I have been mostly…

Loving…

Holiday Extras’ new Travelling with a Baby guide.   I’m already a huge fan of Holiday Extras after their fantastic effort during the Icelandic volcanic ash disruptions.  Their CEO was posting travel updates every day on their website – a service that was invaluable to loads of people (including me) stranded all over the globe.   If you’ve ever travelled with a baby (or are planning to), you’ll know what a flibbin’ nightmare it is.  This guide is invaluable, so check out the website for tips on packing, choosing hotels, flying with a baby and much more.  (Oh and if you’re a fan of green travel and want to make greener choices when travelling, I noticed that they do a Green Travel guide too).

Coveting…

…Nicky Howard’s adorable animal pictures.  I saw them in an advert in the back of Country Living:

Have a look on the website and choose your favourite.  I love this one, but oh, I love ‘Wendy’ too, and ‘Norma’…

Feeling very proud…

…of my ol’ muckers from Northern Ireland, the Ulster Weavers, who’ve just won the textile licence for the London 2012 Olympics and have already launched a limited edition tea towel for the two year countdown.

For the month of September, Ulster Weavers are giving away a waffle weave tea towel to anyone who spends £25 or more, plus FREE UK Delivery on all orders over £30.

And as an exclusive treat for you lovely lot, they’re offering a special 15% OFF for the whole of September for Englishmum.com readers who quote code: ENGMUM09 when ordering!

Watching the skies…

…for black balloons.  My lovely mates at Disney have given me the heads up that they were at Bristol Balloon Fiesta (a hot-air balloon festival) recently with Mickey Mouse, where he launched a balloon race involving 5,000 balloons. Attached to each balloon is a ticket which, if found, can be redeemed for a special edition Mickey Mouse Campervan toy from Fisher Price!  Keep your eyes peeled for those black balloons!

Oohing and ahhing…

…at the beautiful new Icklebabe.com website.  Lovely Helen sent me some gorgeous little lavender hearts and a cute little egg cosy when I ordered my tea cosy too!  And check out the retro aprons!)

and finally,

Sparing a thought…

…for those children who don’t have a warm bed, happy fun-filled school holidays, the loving arms of a parent, the benefit of a safe home and financial security – all those things we wrap around our children.  Put it Right is a five year initiative by UNICEF UK to galvanise us all into action to protect the rights of children everywhere.   The haunting track is by Radiohead.  Please watch, and give what you can.

I’m moving so I might be awol for a while, but I’ll be back soon.  In the meantime, have a great September xx

The May roundup. This month I have been mostly:

Planning…

…for our big blogger trip to SeaWorld (just 17 more sleeps!).  The lovely chaps at Jeep sent me this beautiful backpack to take with me, bless ‘em:

Toning…

… well, hopefully – with my fab new Reebok EasyTones – there’ll be buns of steel by Florida, mark my words..

Hoping …

…that I’m in with a chance to win – my lovely friend Lu at Family Affairs has the most fantastic competition running to win a £150 Lavish spa gift.  Get entering right now!

Scoffing…

… these amazing chocolate pizzas:

In celebration of the World Cup, the Gourmet Chocolate Pizza Company have produced a range of football themed chocolaty treats including these mini 3” ‘Football Fun’ pizzas, which can be customized with the colours of your favourite team, football-shaped chocolate balls and football themed chocolate lollies.

and finally…

Wishing…

…that I could whisk the family away for a lovely holiday at Walt Disney World, Florida.  If you’re lucky enough to have some spare cash, my lovely pals at Disney have given me the heads up on some great special offers.  Book 5 or more nights in a Disney Hotel (Moderate or Deluxe) including park ticket and you’ll enjoy FREE Disney dining for the duration of your stay …

..or you can book Disney’s 14-day Ultimate Ticket now and receive it for the price of Disney’s 7-day Premium Ticket.

Click on the linky loos for more info.  See how flibbin useful I am?  Onwards to June, then…

A New Generation weekend in Disneyland Paris

So blimey, what a weekend!  I hardly know where to begin.  Brace yourself, this could be a bit of a big one (as the actress said to the bishop).  A little while ago, the Hubby and I were invited to Paris for the launch of Disney’s New Generation Festival.  Basically, Disney are introducing their newest generation of characters, from Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen from The Princess and The Frog, through to Stitch, Sulley and Mike Wazowski (and the adorable little Boo) from Monsters Inc, through to characters from Ratatouille and Buzz, Woody and Jessie, to join ‘old favourites’ such as Mickey and Minnie, Donald and Goofy, with new shows and attractions either starting on 2nd April or planned to roll out over 2010.

Friday

I’ll start, dearest reader, with the nice, calm trip into London.  Speedily glossing over the screeching, panicking, suitcase hurling and fishwife-type swearing that featured heavily in our slightly late departure.

The wonderful Aude, Press Officer for Eurostar and the equally delicious and rather drop-dead gorgeous Alix from the Disney Team met us at St Pancras International and frankly, if they could have carried us onto our first class carriage on the Eurostar they would have done.  Nothing was too much trouble.  We had a lovely breakfast (cheese omelette, sausage, mushroom, tomato, yoghurt, fruit… you name it), and our peace was only mildly shattered by a very annoying man talking arse to his family the entire journey.  Ah well.

Arriving at Marne La Vallée (the station is right next to the parks and a five minute walk to the Hotel New York, but they still bussed us in), we were met by the wondrous Disney Sarah – our own patient, sweet Mary Poppins from the bloggers’ trip to Florida and after hugs, kisses and a birthday card, we checked into our fabulous room and set off at a rather ungainly trot for the nearest park, which happened to be the Walt Disney Studios Park.  By this time starving enough to gnaw our own fingers, we indulged in a burger the size of a child’s head (very nice, beautifully cooked beef and lovely fresh salad) and unwisely headed off to the nearest ride.  The Rock’n'Roller Coaster nearly reacquainted us with our lunches, but we persevered and headed straight to the Armageddon Special Effects show, which started out with a really boring presentation (mostly in French), but ended with a fabulous special effects mock-up complete with flame throwers, water jets and falling scenery.  I then forced Hubby to sit on Peter Pan’s flight (bit of a kiddy one, but I love it), where he did a full ‘London from the Air’ type commentary: ‘on your right, you’ll see The Tower of London…’

CELEB ALERT: We then sat next to Shane Richie and his family (who were very nice) in a specially cordoned off area (we felt well posh – it turned out later the pretty girl behind us was one of The Saturdays, but sadly I’m too old to recognise them) to watch the lovely Once Upon a Dream parade.  This was also the part where I got told off by Hubby for going ‘ooh look, there’s Chris Evans!’ in a really loud voice (‘sit down!  And stop bloody pointing!‘).

Then it was off to Café Mickey for dinner and drinks where we finally met up with fellow blogger Tara from Sticky Fingers and her lovely lad, plus a host of characters.  Tigger brought me a lovely 40th birthday cake and I got all overemotional when he gave me a hug.  Ooh, and DISNEY TIP: if you go to Disneyland Paris, do make sure you book (in advance – the queues are horrendous if not) at least one meal at Café Mickey.  The waiters get up on the bar and dance.  I nearly died laughing when they hauled Chip’n'Dale up there too for a shimmy.  It was like a furry version of Coyote Ugly.  We finished the evening in the hotel bar, drinking mojitos, and returned to our room to discover champagne on ice and fresh raspberry truffles.  Blissful.

Saturday

Plenty of free time today.  We started with Buzz Lightyear’s Laser Blast (Hubby got all competitive when he realised the front of the ‘gondola’ contained a scoreboard), then queued up for Space Mountain Mission 2 (never, ever again).  Onto a simulated Star Wars ride called Star Tours (which made us both regret being quite so greedy at breakfast – but oh, those croissants…).

After meeting the Disney chaps and the rest of the press pack for lunch, we headed back to the hotel for a little R&R: jacuzzi, swim, sauna and then a little snooze (we’re not as young as we once were y’know).

We ventured out later to watch the all-singing, all-dancing Disney Showtime Spectacular with all the new characters. It was really energetic and looking around, it was nice to see it wasn’t just the kids that were dancing and clapping (no, not Hubby – don’t be silly).

The evening saw the main event, a champagne reception to mark the official launch of Disney’s New Generation Festival.  We enjoyed private access to the parks (which was really incredible), a fabulous buffet: sushi, little canapés in teeny glass bowls,  little salads in globes and the layered strawberry desserts that you syringed straight up into your mouth – I was in heaven.

Leaving our lovely, champagne-toting waiters behind, we filtered over to a mahoosive stadium where we watched the New Generation Dedication Show.  I can’t even tell you how bloody amazing this was.  Highlights for me was the aerial ballet dancer supported only by balloons, and the incredible Toy Soldiers from Toy Story.  Oh, and then there was Buzz whose shape-cutting frankly stole the show:

Later, we snuck another little mojito with the Disney peeps (who were having a brief five minutes before heading back out on celeb duty), and teased Disney Dave that we’d got him on video shmoozing and practicing his ‘princess moves’ with The Saturdays and Princess Tiana.

Sunday

Sunday was a free day in the park and we took the opportunity to use our Fastpasses (a MUST – this isn’t even high season and some of the queues were 90 minute waits) to visit Big Thunder Mountain (fab), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (or I liked the French version: ‘le temple du peril’!) and several of the smaller attractions.  A bit of retail therapy later, and it was onto a coach to travel into Paris to the Gare Du Nord (I saw the pointy top of the Eiffel Tower!), a fabulous dinner on the Eurostar (garlicy salmon on a bed of spinach and dauphinoise potatoes, far too much wine and some very funny conversation).  By the time we’d legged it from St Pancras to Euston (we had 15 minutes to connect), we were absolutely burned out.

I still found myself singing ‘It’s a Small World After All’ on the train home though.  Good Times.

EUROSTAR INFO:

 Eurostar operates a daily direct service in each direction to Disneyland Resort Paris (daily direct services to the resort will no longer operate on Tuesdays and Saturday except during school holidays)

 Fares are from £69 standard class return (adult) £44 return (child aged 4-11)

 Children under 4 years-old travel free (not allocated a seat)

 Leisure Select travel is from £146 return for an adult and £94 return for a child aged 4-11

 Return through fares start from only £77 (St Albans, Luton etc)

 2hrs 35 mins from London and 35 minutes less from Ashford, Kent

 Tickets are available from eurostar.com or from Eurostar’s Contact Centre on 08432 186 186



Life begins… ten reasons why I’m exactly the same.

So by the time you read this, I shall be winging my way to gay Paree to spend a fabulous, star-studded (what? Mickey’s a star), glamorous 40th birthday weekend courtesy of the lovely folks at Disney (yes yes, there’ll be the customary ‘this is what I had for dinner’ photos, don’t worry)  checking out Disneyland Paris’ New Generation Festival.

This was supposed to be a ‘now I’m 40 I feel different because…‘ kind of post, but I wrote it and re-wrote it, and frankly, I couldn’t find anything different about being 40 than being 39 (I’ve only had a few hours to get used to it, to be fair).  Okay, looking back on my 30 year old self or… god forbid… my 20 year old self – would I swap places? No. I’m probably happier in my – admittedly slightly less firm – own skin than I’ve ever been, but there’s nothing momentous I can tell you young whippersnappers about being 40, I’m afraid.  Nope, nothing to see here, move along…

So here goes, then, with reasons why I’m probably likely to be exactly the same forever, whether I’m 40 or 70…  In fact, I can feel a top ten coming on.  Brace yourself:

1.  I am still clumsy.  I fall down a lot, set fire to things and drop things all the time.  I’ve probably always been like it, but spectacular crashes aside (the walking down the stairs when the dog trod on the back of my slipper incident – henceforth known as slippergate –  springs to mind), I don’t seem to hurt myself too badly.  And boy, do I bruise like a peach.

2. I am still horribly unsociable.  And yes, years ago I suppose I used to beat myself up about not wanting to go to parties, and my horror of being surrounded by drunken, sweaty people…  But do you know what?  I still feel exactly the same.  The only difference is that now I don’t care.  I embrace my inner solitary mad cat lady and go with the flow.  I have lovely friends that I cherish, and who seem to love me for who I am, the nutters.  So I shall continue to adore them back, and spend lots of time sitting on my sofa while other people go and do that sweaty, socialising stuff.

3.  I am still a nerd.  If I’m not cooking, then you’ll find me on Twitter, or I’ll be writing my blog and if I’m not doing that I’m gabbing to my mental bloggy mates on gmail and if I’m not doing that I’m probably on Facebook.  I sit with my ‘fercuck’ glasses on and type faster than a greyhound with a hot bottom.  I say things like STFU! and LOL! and do I care?  Nooooo.  I’m always saying to #1 that if anyone calls you a nerd, embrace it.  Do you think Bill Gates gives a shit if people call him a nerd? Doubtful.

4.  I still can’t take my drink.  On Saturday night, we started with a cocktail, then went on to gin and tonic.  I think I had two and was happy as larry.  Cheap date?  Yup.  When we lived in Ireland I could always tell how much alcohol I had consumed by how unsteady my last walk around the garden with the dog was.  We’re not talking 2 or 3 bottles here, we’re talking glasses.  I’m a total lightweight.

5. I’m still completely in love with my children.  In fact, I think I’m probably a better parent now they’re able to have a good, snorty, laugh-til-you cry silly conversation (at which I excel).  I was actually a crap Mum when they were little – no patience for reading the same book ten times in one evening, and hopeless at painting and stuff.  Still, they got to make loads of cakes.  My happiest time is 3.30pm, when the door bangs open and there’s a rush of testosterone-fuelled, slightly muddy-smelling energy in my direction.  Okay, so they ruffle my hair and go ‘alright, knob?’, but it’s with affection.  No, really.

6. I still have the stupidest baby hair in the world.  It’s like toddler hair – so soft that you can’t even put it up in a pony tail without the bloody thing falling out, slipping down the back of your t-shirt and ending up in your pants.  I’ve stopped trying to control it now and go through life looking like a blonde Russell Brand.

7.  Talking of toddler-ness, I still can’t help myself but go ‘oooh’ when faced with anything pink, sparkly or gorgeous smelling.  It doesn’t matter if it’s lovely shimmery nail varnish, the edible glitter you put on cupcakes or one of those vaguely scary ladies in Debenhams offering to squirt you with perfume.  I love it.  Well, I love the perfume, not the scary ladies.  In fact, I always get an urge to lick my finger and wipe it down their orange faces to see if it will leave a white mark. So far, I’ve resisted…

8.  I still love baking.  I love the mixing and the stirring and the lovely smells and the alchemy and the sheer pride of giving something delicious that you’ve lovingly created to someone that you adore.  In fact, I love it so much, I’m going to teach an evening course at the local college this summer.  A three week ‘Introduction to Cupcakes’ course.  There’ll be sparkles too.  It’s just how I roll.

9. I’m still married.  Something of a miracle this one.  Fifteen years and counting.  He tolerates my unending, ‘shiny, happy’ optimism and I occasionally tell him off when he’s really grumpy.  Apart from that, we rub along pretty well.  The fact that pasta makes him gag, he doesn’t do creamy sauces, and can’t stand pork OR buttercream is another matter altogether.

10. I am still stupidly enthusiastic about stuff.  I suppose this is in part due to my infernal, eternal optimism, but oh how I love having something to look forward to.  Holiday, birthdays, Christmas… all come in for some serious list-making, planning, wishing, hoping and longing.  Oh, and I still hunt in cupboards for my birthday presents. I can’t help it.

Anyhoo, I’ll see you on Sunday…  à bientôt! xx

Toy Story 1 & 2 on Disney Blu-ray, and a sneaky peak at Toy Story 3!

In my incredibly important position as Disney Blu-ray Ambassador *cough*, I get certain perks.  A rather fab one recently was a nice parcel containing the specially released Toy Story…

…and Toy Story 2, newly released in Disney Blu-ray

The first thing I’ll say that, as always with BluRay, the quality is AMAZING.  We were constantly fascinated by the little details, like the weave on the skipping rope, and the shine on the floor – bits that we didn’t notice before.  As a family, we love Toy Story (I think it’s our favourite Disney movie), and these new BluRays are worth the purchase just to watch the quality in HD.  We also loved the sneaky peak at Toy Story 3!

Toy Story and Toy Story 2 are released on Disney Blu-ray on 8th March 2010.  Toy Story 3 is out on general release on 18th June 2010.

Mickey needs you! Twin your Town with Disney

So this is cool.  My lovely friends at Disney have asked me to tell you all about their new campaign to search for the very first UK town to win the honour of being twinned with Walt Disney World in Florida!  This is the very first time that the British public have actually been able to get involved and nominate their town for consideration, before it gets judged by a panel.

But hang on, I hear you ask, what does the winning town get?  Well, obviously they get to bang on endlessly about how their town is twinned with Walt Disney World and bore everyone in the pub senseless about it, but they will also have the honour of receiving an official sign acknowledging the friendship made especially for them by  designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, which will be presented to them at an official ceremony in…wait for it…Walt Disney World next February.

One sign will then be placed on display for guests visiting the park in the UK pavilion at EPCOT, whilst the second can be displayed in their town in the UK.  Even better, the person whose winning nomination is selected will also receive a holiday for 4 in Walt Disney World to attend the ceremony!

Sadly, I can’t enter Cavan as it has to be a UK town (I’m working on them, don’t worry), but if you want to nominate your lovely home town, just log on to www.waltdisneyworldtwinnedtown.co.uk and tell Mickey why your town deserves to win either with a short video, photos, poem or just a sentence!

 So what are you waiting for?  Get gone!

Oh, and I’m loving the speculation on Twitter about the name of the winning town: Cheddar, anyone?  Or maybe ‘Ducksford’… ‘Bournemouse’…?

Flares, dead ducks, coop extensions Disney monsters and aliens

So since we bought the two new pullets at the Mullagh Fair, Hubby’s new project, the Great English Towers Chicken Coop Extension, is going quite well.  There’s been plenty of drilling and hammering (and swearing), but the finished item will double the size of their roosting/nesting space and hopefully stop Minnie, who was once the lowest in the pecking order and has now morphed into some sort of evil chicken bully, from pecking the new babies to death before they grow old enough to actually lay anything.  As soon as Hubby can get ‘this f*cking bit to fit into that b*stard bloody thing there’, then the chooks will have plenty more room to manoevre.

Panini, the new little speckly one, who Mr Lovely thinks might be a Rhode Island Red after all, seems to escape pretty much unpecked, but poor Elvis, the slightly camp-looking Minorcan with the enormous flares (hence the gender dismorphic name) sadly gets the brunt of everyone’s aggression, rushing madly around cheeping and trying to avoid getting brain damage from continually being pecked on the head.

Talking of Mr Lovely, we went up to see their brand new ducks this morning only to find one dead.  Poor Middle Lovely had only just put in a pond for them (he’s the teeniest, but most enthusiastic smallholder – it’s pigs next, apparently) and the one remaining duck was waddling about, quacking despondently.  I know it’s part and parcel of this smallholding business, but I still felt quite sad.  I tried not to cry in front of Mr Lovely though (I’m such a girl), as he and Hubby would never have let me forget it, the gits.

In other news, two more lubly pressies have arrived from the wonderful chaps at Disney (‘good grief’, said Hubby, ‘are you sure you’re not sleeping with anyone at Disney?’).  First up was a new Blu-ray version of Monsters Inc.  This caused muchas excitement as we’re all big fans, and last night a popcorn and Malteser-fest ensued whilst it got its inaugural viewing.  I know I’m scathing about the Hubster’s big ugly monster telly that I’m not allowed to touch – not even to dust – not that I actually ever do dust anything, but still… anyhoo, you really could see every little strand of fur on Sully’s back with the combo of HD TV and Blu-ray disc.  (Ooh, listen to me, I’m all technofabulous!)

My other pressie was a new Wii game called Toy Story Mania.  Now me and the other Disney 7 girlies had a bloody ball on this ride at Walt Disney World.  It changed even the mildest-mannered Dulwich Divorcee into a sharp-shooting, evil killer (‘die, m*therf*ckers, die!’).  Happily, shoot ‘em up games are my lot’s absolute fave, and this one’s eye candy into the bargain (I love those little alien thingies – they’re soooo cute!).   By the way, my #1 son just looked at this picture and said ‘Mum!  You can’t put that on the blog, it says ‘great knob’!!’  Er no, that’s a J, darling.

Oh, and while Hubby’s been building and the kids have been happily killing aliens, I’ve been doing a bit of experimentation in the kitchen.  Watch this space for a nice fruity teabread, coming soon!

The Friday wedding spesh: the gory details

Okay, so obviously as usual I have to maintain the mystique which means you don’t get to see ALL the shots (email me if you want any more), but I’ve picked out the best moments of our day for you to see.  From the top, then:

Mable the Merc gets a pink moustache (thanks Moon!):

Moon and Ali being very silly, part 1.  It took me about 14 increasingly cross texts to get them out of the pub, too:

The boogie down the aisle (thanks to my adorable niece Lu for these pics).  For some reason I seem to have ‘the claw’ with me again.  And corr I could seriously ‘out’ some anonymous bloggers with these photos… you know who you are!!!:

The beautiful cake, forever to be known as the ’6am cake’, as that’s the time she finished making it on the day.  ‘One day, the full story of that bloody cake will come out’, said Jen’s other half.  Oh, do tell!  But seriously, how gorgeous is it?  God job, Jen, good job (and there’s that claw again):

Our first dance:

Mad Uncle Ali whirling me around the dance floor (you know it’ll end in tears):

…’erm Alg, you’re going a bit fast…’:

The moment it all went horribly wrong (look at his face, he’s going ‘Sis, what are you doing down there?!’):

Two really ugly gatecrashers.  Oh no, hang on, it’s Moon and Mad Uncle Alg being very silly, part deux.  Moon later decided that to ensure his lift home didn’t leave without him he would steal Mrs Lovely’s shoes.  Every time I saw him after that he was guarding the shoes zealously.  It worked, though, they got him home, where me Ma was exasperated with the giggly silly buggering about.  Kids, eh?: 

And here I am wearing my wedding present from Disney.  I couldn’t persuade Hubby to wear his top hat mickey ears, sadly:

Well, it wouldn’t have been the perfect day without a little Disney magic, now would it:

The Friday scoop! Disney’s Newest Baby: Alice

So the lovely chaps at Disney have released information about their newest film and I have to say it looks amazing.  I asked if I was allowed to post about it because you’re my lovely readers and you deserve a scoop, and got an answer in the affirmative, so have a look at this: Disney’s Alice (thank you muchly to the wonderful Sarah (I love you, Mary Poppins) and the techy guys at Disney for the code – I am living proof that a blogging nerd can still have absolutely NO clue about HTML):

Jay over at The Depp Effect will be delighted that The Mad Hatter is none other than Johnny himself:

And my boys were whooping when they saw the fantabulous Matt Lucas:

Alice also stars Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter and Crispin Glover, with Mia Wasikowska as Alice (not heard that name before).  There’s also some fab people voicing animated characters, including my fave Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman, Paul Whitehouse and the wonderful Barbara Windsor. 

I can’t wait for this – it’s directed by Tim Burton and I LOVED Edward Scissorhands and Charlie and the Chocolate factory – that slightly creepy ‘unreal’ feeling he gives his movies is just so unique.

Anyhoo, plenty of time as it’s not out until March 5 2010, in glorious Disney Digital 3D™.  Oh, and can I also point out I’m writing this ‘cos I’m excited, not ‘cos Disney have given me any free stuff, ‘cos they haven’t, not this time anyway.  So there.

Wall.E on Disney Blu-Ray DVD – a review by the Mad Professor

So as you know Disney very unwisely made us Blu-Ray Ambassadors, and revelling in his title a bit too much, #1 has decided to take over today’s blog post with a little review.  Jonathan Ross eat your heart out:

WALL.E is a funny and exciting film for people of all shapes and sizes. The story begins when a small, garbage cube-making robot called WALL.E, who, after hundreds of years making cubes of garbage, runs into a hi-tech and sophisticated search robot called EVE. The two of them set off on a brilliant and thrilling adventure across the universe.                                                                                                                      

I found the environmental element to the film a very well put warning to the world at the rate we are going, and it puts it in a way that children can understand. In the movie, the WALL.E robots have the task of cleaning up the mess that all of the people made. They all disappear from earth on a space ship hoping to leave behind the mess they’ve made, only becoming fat and stupid in the process.

I would say that it was a really enjoyable film all in all.

#1

Ah, my cherub eh?  He sure tells it like it is.  Next up: Bolt and Beverley Hills Chihuahua (derrr de de de da chihuahua! derrr de de de da chuhuahua!).  Oh you know the one (especially for Towny, this bit):

Click to Play!