Wales Business Insider Power 100 January 2012 – the women

The Insider Power 100 is out this month.  It’s 14 months since the last Power 100 list was published  in November 2010 which was also roughly the same time as the Western Mail published their ridiculous sexy lists for 2010,  inviting a quick  flick through the lists to see whether anybody featured in both.   Sexy, powerful AND Welsh -there’s a thought!     To save you the bother given the delay between the lists, I can tell you that there is only one person who features in both the Sexy lists for 2011 and the Power 100 list for 2012 namely Richard Parks (number 9 in the sexy list, number 92 in the Power list).

I have been running a one woman campaign in this blog to persuade the Western Mail to ditch the sexy lists and do “Wonderful Welsh People” lists instead.  I doubt this is going to be successful since more people find the Superwoman blog by googling (and not in an ironic way either)  those sexy lists than find it any other way.    In relation to the Power 100 list, my blogs have given the Insider a little bit of gyp about the limited number of women on the list.  This year I blog slightly self consciously about the Power 100 list because I am a new entry, in at number 94.   Is this perhaps a way of neutralising me – put me in it so I don’t blog about it?  I doubt that -my comments have not been particularly barbed – although I was a bit sarky  in last year’s blog about the absence of Laura Tenison from the list.  Last year’s list ranked “the most powerful people in Wales seen from a business perspective” and this year it tracks “the most influential  people in Wales as seen through a business lens.”  I think what that means is that there are more people in the list this year that have no power whatsoever but who like to bump our gums about those that do.    What has certainly made me smile is not that I am a new entry in the Power 100 list but that Laura Tenison is, at number 66.

But I’m not smiling much at all because THE WOMEN ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY!.  There were 12 women in the last Power 100 list and there are only nine this year!  That’s a 25% reduction.   I set out below the nine women listed, five of which are in politics or government:

5. Edwina Hart, Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science, up from 67 last list when she was Health Minister;

6.  Cheryl Gillan, Secretary of State for Wales  – no change

11.  Jane Hutt, business and budget minister – no change

18.  Dame Gillian Morgan, permanent secretary – down from 13

19. Sian Lloyd Jones, chief executive Finance Wales – down from 14

66.  Laura Tenison, MD JoJo Maman Bebe -new entry

71.  Hayley Parsons, founder Go Compare – up from 82

73.  Kirsty Williams, Liberal Democtrate leader – down from 71

94.  Bethan Darwin, founder Darwin Gray and Superwoman – new entry

These were the women featured in the previous list:

6.  Cheryl Gillan – Secretary of State for Wales – new

11.  Jane Hutt – business and budget minister (rising from 87 )

13.  Dame Gillian Morgan – Permanent Secretary, WAG (down from 11)

14.  Sian Lloyd Jones – Chief Executive Finance Wales (up from 17)

38.  Jane Davidson – Environment, Sustainability and Housing Minister (up from 56)

58.  Menna Richards – Controller, BBC Wales (down from 8  as Ms Richards had announced her departure from BBC)

63.  Jocelyn Davies – Deputy Minster for Housing and Regeneration – new

67.  Edwina Hart – Health Minister (down from 12 in the previous list when she was tied in 12th place with Huw Lewis and Carwyn Jones as the Labour leadership had not been decided at the time)

71.  Kirsty Williams – Liberal Democrat Leader (up from 86)

74.  Lesley Griffiths – deputy minister for science, innovation and skills – new

82.  Hayley Parsons – founder, Go Compare – new

100.  Elizabeth Hayward – director South East Wales Economic Forum -new

Some of the women missing in action from the lists should be reinstated including Elizabeth Hayward who has recently been appointed by Ms Hart to chair a task and finish group on a Cardiff City region and Ann Beynon,  Wales Commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights and  BT Director of Wales.  Others not previously on lists should be included such as Professor Laura McAllister, Chair of Sport Wales.   Including just these three, who are all very influential in Wales, would at least have meant that the number of women on the list stayed constant rather than falling.

If I have any influence at all in Wales this is what I would like to achieve the next time there’s a Power 100 list.  That the list of women should be getting longer rather than shorter!  That all the superwomen in Wales (and there are hundreds of you; I know; you come to Superwoman) email the Insider and tell them what you are achieving and how you are achieving it – that you shout out loud about your achievements and not hide your lights under bushels;  that you MAKE A BIG NOISE ABOUT HOW GOOD YOU ARE.  Let’s make it 13 women for 2013.  And if while you’re at it, you also think the sexy lists are shallow and not doing us as Welsh people any favours, tell the Western Mail that too.

Christmas nibbles by E J Catering

Christmas nibbles to put in the freezer.

MAKING Christmas food ahead for the freezer, spreads the cost, the hassle, the pressure and the mess but, as I found out this week, the most important part of cooking for the freezer is to make sure you have room in it before you start!

I spent an evening prepping, imagining Christmas and all the noise and mess with just a small amount of dread but the radio was on and the tunes helped my thoughts flow away – until I opened the freezer and discovered it was full.

This weekend’s job is to defrost and eat. At work my freezer is 3mx2m, big enough to keep a snowman in there, so I know my Christmas nibbles will be safe, even if they are six miles away from my house!

Twisted cheese and chorizo straws

2 sheets of puff pastry

1 egg

1 tablespoon of mustard – any type

100g chorizo or smoked bacon

4 spring onions

60g parmesan cheese

1 stick of celery

Remove the skin from the chorizo and dice small, or slice the bacon and cook in a hot pan until crispy.

In a small chopper or magimix put the chorizo / bacon, chopped spring onions, grated parmesan, celery stick and whizz it to a chunky paste

Lay a sheet of puff pastry on the work top and stab it all over with a fork. Now crack the egg and beat it with the mustard. Spread this generously over the pastry before spreading on  the chunky paste.

Lay down the second sheet of pastry, stab it and egg wash it and now put it on top. Gently stick them together. Put this all back in the fridge because it is much easier to cut and twist when it is firm and chilled.

A few hours later, remove from the fridge and cut strips lengthwise about a centimetre wide. Twist one hand to the right and another to the left till you have a lovely twist of pastry with the colour of the chorizo coiled through. Put them back on the baking tray and into the freezer.

On Christmas morning put them on a baking tray from frozen and into the oven at 175C for about 8-12 minutes. The family will be queuing at the oven door for the twists which look a little like sticks of savoury candy

Other fillings:

Sautéed leek and brie; red onion, tomato and Caerphilly (use a squeeze of good quality sundried tomato paste); blue cheese, walnut and celery – all delicious.

Christmas shortbread – make, roll and freeze

2 oz caster sugar

4oz butter

6oz flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon, ginger, cloves or lemon or orange zest whichever takes your fancy

Cream the butter and sugar together, add the flour and spice and work into a dough. Rest it in the fridge. Roll it out onto a floured surface about ½cm thick and cut into a shape. Freeze these on greaseproof paper until you are ready and cook from frozen at 140C for 8-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and lightly dust with sugar. Warning: the family will be queuing again!

Cheese or dessert madam? – Part the second by 72 year old Superwoman

Working for a charity isn’t exactly fluffy but there is some fun to be had. You don’t have to work for a charity – there are cultural, sporty and all kinds of organisations out there who would be glad to have your skills. Art shows, music festivals, teaching kids to stay on their bikes or walk up hills, whatever turns you on.

It is rather important that you are physically up to whatever you want to take on. Too many people who have worked right up to the wire and made no preparations at all for retiring are snapped up by the grim reaper relatively quickly. It’s hard to go from the work jungle to the nothing going on wilderness without preparing for it. She died of a broken heart and death from deadly boredom when she gave up work does not often appear on a death certificate. But would do if the doc wasn’t so fixated on finding a medical explanation. Heart failure. Indeed. Covers them all does that one. Your health is the biggest limitation you are likely to encounter. If you’re unfit and overweight, and hitting the booze and fags  start tackling those issues before you make further plans. Take up a sport. The golf courses are awash with oldies some of whom you may have met in a previous incarnation. When they weren’t wearing those funny jacquard sweaters.  Pringle have a lot to answer for. Even if you have been running up mountains at weekends for years this is no preparation for Everest. If you’ve got a medical condition of any kind it’s likely to get worse as you get older.  And new ones will crop up. Know your physical limitations and adjust your goals accordingly.

Some of you will have your eye on a new business. A clothing boutique, a toy shop, a florist or a cooking based operation, a little pub in the country perhaps. Maybe something with little capital outlay that you can operate on the net. These might seem like fun but this is no time to lose your competitive edge. There are people out there who’ve been doing what you fancy doing half their lives and the competition will be stiff. And in the present economic climate forget the country pub. You can pick up a bargain from the receivers anywhere. They’re falling like nine pins all over the place. And doing the gracious mine-hostess thing in a pub is extremely hard work. You may have been a brilliant cook and hostess for dinner parties. Running  a pub is not an extension of your dinner parties. Ever tried rolling a beer cask across the cellar from where the delivery man left it in the wrong place? Not the time to remember you’ve got a bad back.  If trade isn’t picking up in the first three months the next person stepping on your nice Welcome mat will be the receiver. New business? Spot the holes before you fall into one.

Some people go off on completely  new tracks.  The kids leave home, and you get empty nest syndrome. Reconfigure it as FREEDOM to do what you want– and grab with both hands. When my kids left home I said we might be moving before long. I was well under retirement age but your kids always think you’re  old and past it. Right – a cosy two bedroom retirement flat is it? No, we’re buying a 14 bedroom country house hotel. What? Is there life after kids leave? There is indeed. They’ll come back, and will either be a bit narked or over the moon to find the old lady has a new lease of life. Maybe you’ve always wanted to have  go at painting or throwing pots, writing a book, playing a musical instrument, learning Welsh, designing clothes or developing your hidden talents into a business, something creative (not that the spreadsheets weren’t creative – perish the thought.) Now’s your chance. You might find you’re a lousy painter/writer/ musician. And if you don’t have any other languages already Welsh is a helluva big obstacle course for a beginner.  Hot shot career women are not used to failing at things are they? Reality check time in some areas.  If you’re not good at losing, bury the evidence of your failure, a skill you fell back on at work sometimes, and try something you might win at.

Building up a hobby into a more absorbing activity is often a very easily attainable goal. Well done on making some preparations for retiring. The one thing you will have more of when you give up work is time. Unless of course you indulge yourself in faffing round the supermarket for two hours instead of the half hour it used to take you. It won’t take long for the glamour of that one to wear off. Not having the time is maybe what held you back from getting a painting in the Open Exhibition at the RCA  or the Tate. Try something local first. One of the things I enjoy doing most is running the local community art exhibition. I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler but it doesn’t matter. (I do have a splendid collection of paintings all over my walls screaming Good Taste.) I can organise and artists usually can’t. Marriage made in heaven. The clue is in the word community. It’s non – competitive and no prizes for the best rose, landscape or doggie portrait. Anybody at all within a certain mileage radius of the village can bring in a painting and we’ll stick it on the wall, without passing judgement. And what is very interesting is that these paintings sell. In fact so successful is it that what was originally an amateur show, and still is largely, attracts professionals who see that we sell and want a piece of that action. This in turn keeps the standards up.  It does of course take some bottle if you have never exhibited before to enter and might be hanging next to an RCA. They all have a chance of selling, from the £25 pansy to the £450 landscape.  The secret I believe is to keep your buyers as happy as your artists. We have a preview evening at the start of the show for all previous buyers.  Glass of wine each, bag of crisps between 90 people and a chance to meet the artists. I go into full on salesperson mode, and it does of course help to remember who they all are. “Hello, Mr K, good  to see you again. Your favourite artist X has some lovely work in this year – hanging over there.” Back comes a beaming Mr K with an X art work. Kerching. Everybody’s happy.  It breaks my heart to see the £25 pansies coming in. What level of self esteem does that artist have that they think their work is worth £25? The frame must cost that. I feel like going round and giving them a big hug. Couldn’t you nudge it up to 30 quid this year Nancy? Quiver of anxiety – couldn’t possibly. OK, suit yourself.

Then there’s relationships. If you are not in a relationship, good for you – you can do what you like. The world’s your lobster. Oysters? Come on girls, think big. If you are in a relationship maybe it’s time to take stock of the guy who in recent years may have turned into that lump at the other side of the bed.  Who the hell is he anyway?  Did I actually marry him once? Re-assess, review and either try to re-ignite the spark or if he’s your limitation, do your own thing. If he doesn’t want to join you, fine, if he has a better suggestion also fine– if he’s deadly dull he’ll be there when you come back, giving you a catch up on the latest football scores and so on, and you can buzz off to Madagascar again. Your friends of course are a huge asset when you retire. You have time for them now.  But you might also discover that like the lump at the other side of the bed  they too are not quite as exciting as you thought they were when you were all superwomen.

It’s never too late to make new friends.  I have to say ditching baggage not wanted on the future voyage is a major step when you are heading for a new start.  This is quite hard and depends entirely on how keen you are to embrace the new.  Try not to throw  the baby put with the bathwater.

Travelling is often a big ambition with all the time in the world ahead of you. You have three months (at least) instead of a fortnight to wander at will. This is where you need to take that health check. While 40 degree temperatures might have looked attractive when you looked through your Cardiff window at the rain pouring down they might not feel so comfortable in real life. And who knew there were so many mosquitos in the Sarawak jungle?  Who, unlike the colourful pests  in the Cairo bazaar, do not take money to go away. Do your homework before embarking on the adventure of a life time. If you want to travel with a purpose, there are plenty of aid agencies needing people of any age with skills. But they have to be the right skills. If you faint at the sight of blood, can’t stick a plaster on to save your life and  can’t teach people who don’t speak your language some training might be necessary. If you want to brush up first aid skills join the St John’s Ambulance brigade. And get into those frightfully expensive operas and concerts free.

Don’t forget your roots, don’t forget your comfort zone.  There are people left behind who care about you and they are not easily replaceable. You always have the option of staying in your comfort zone. Which won’t work if your job was the key component of your comfort zone.  I will not bore you with my final destination career. I’m an astrologer, which is a calling not an off the peg career choice. When I took that route half the people I knew said She’s finally flipped her lid this time, and the other half queued up to have their charts done. You too might choose to do something for which half the world will think you’re bonkers. Good luck with that one. Will of steel and rhinocerous hide required. We are never too old to change if we want to.  When you walk out of the work door for the last time there’s a whole new world out there to explore. Think mental, emotional, physical and social stimulation. Any or all of those are what you’ll miss most. They are all replaceable. Enjoy, have fun, be happy!

Dessert or cheese, madam? Part the first by 72 year old Superwoman

Dessert or cheese, madam?

 Part the first

The last course. What do you fancy ladies? Not to follow the nice main course you just had, your splendid career, but what to do with your life after that? What, me, retire? I’m miles away from that yet. Course you are. That’s what you said about being 40 when you were 20, remember?

At some point in the not that far away future you will glad hand and hug everybody at work, have a great retirement party and walk away with the witty cards and the carriage clock (or whatever) go home and say What now? Some of you will have breezed through the career trajectory as if on gilded wings, others will have had to struggle to get where they ended up. Either way they have indeed ended up somewhere and the idea of “ending up” is not appealing. The career might have ended but life hasn’t. So what do you do for an encore?

From the vantage point of the 72 year old superwoman….. (Aren’t there any other oldies hiding in the woodwork as part of the superwoman mob?  Reveal yourselves please.) Anyway from the oldie totem pole position I am about to share my pearls of wisdom with you.  First ask yourself what makes you happy? Happiness is a very elusive concept and one which I don’t propose to go into much here. The things you thought made you happy – often material things, you will have found out by now are temporary. That fancy car you  worked your socks off for made you happy for a while. Until it got its first scratch then it became a heap of tin you spent rather a lot of money on.  That love of your life relationship you made a massive emotional investment in made you happy, until it fell apart at the seams.  There is nothing wrong with temporary happiness but lasting happiness has to be self generated and come from inside yourself. Ask yourself the happiness question and it is likely you will find that what you put into something is reflected in the happiness reward you get out of it.

You’re all achievers. What would you like to achieve in the rest of your life? Go round the world on your yacht? Climb Everest? Feed the birds in your garden? Hang on a minute, before you set your goals you need to take stock of your assets. Forget the 38D boobs, they’ve drooped, as has the pert bottom you once had. Mental, physical, emotional and financial assets are the ones up for stocktaking. List the strengths and weaknesses, blessings and limitations.  Financially you might be very well set up and you have enough money to last you for life.  Everything goes up in price, so do a quick budget before you throw £20K at the Nepalese Government to get to the foothills of Everest and then have to find a team and supplies to get you up the hill. Ten years on your Council Tax might be a bit of a pull financially.  Bare necessities are always with you and whatever your budget for these double it for ten years down the line. Now can you afford that yacht?

Your brain is almost certainly ticking along like clockwork. Do you want to use the skills you built up in your job or do you want to go in another direction? I started my career as a psychologist, then acquired business and financial skills. Wrap those together in one parcel and my God people will beat a path to your door. Just one of those will have a queue forming round the block. I speak of course of working with charities.  There is an endless demand for people with financial, business, admin and legal skills within the 3^rd sector. It took me about 5 mins to launch myself as a charity treasurer. It can be enormously rewarding but sometimes it’s not quite what you expected. I went to my first regional meeting of a sub section of a charity I will call the Gaspers and Wheezers, for people with lung problems.  At the entrance to the venue was a lady hanging onto a handrail gasping for breath. Are you alright? Not really I didn’t think it was so far from the car. Where’s your car? She pointed to a car ten yards away. Would you like me to get you a wheelchair? Gasp, gasp, wheeze Yes please. Me and my new mate walked in to the room. Which was awash with people in wheel chairs with oxygen cylinders attached.  Then the coughing started. I spent the entire meeting running around giving people drinks of water in the absolute certain expectation that half of them would croak before the end of the meeting. They didn’t of course, they’re toughies, the gaspers and wheezers. Don’t ask about the money. Almost every small charity is run on a shoe string, and you return a deficit balance sheet every year and will achieve legend status if you can reduce the deficit. I do it by being very tight on the purse strings and slapping down any trustee who is looking for a little perk. The words “misappropriation of funds” works a treat.

Charity work is usually volunteering. You might get expenses or a small honorarium. Which will buy you a glass of wine or three. Not a bottle. Be in no doubt that the status of a volunteer is nothing like being head honcho of your own department when you were at work. A volunteer has no power at all as a worker in a sub branch of a national charity where decisions on policy are run  from London. And not much more in the little local charity you fancy. The only power a volunteer has is to walk away.  Your best bet is to get on the board of trustees of the charity of your choice and get a seat at the top table. I’ve hopped about various charities in my time. It’s a good idea to get involved with a charity whose objectives you care about.  If you do not have some empathy for one legged blind black lesbian asylum seekers don’t even think about working with them. There are dozens of charities requiring your expertise.  Medical, children, the homeless, the elderly, abused women, everything under the sun. Where there’s injustice and deprivation there is always going to be a charity for it. You need to decide at the outset whether you want to be hands on with the people you are helping or a back room girl. If you cringe at the smellies in the soup kitchen or have no aptitude for communicating with the mentally ill, while you may wish to be dedicated to their cause there is no need to  be hands on with the hapless victims of a society determined to keep them under who  you might be working your socks off to keep afloat financially. Plenty of space for you in the back room.

The other thing about charities and other well intentioned outfits is that you will not see eye to eye with everybody working for the same cause. You might have been top bitch in your job, some of these people have been top bitches/dogs in the do – gooding business for ever. You are a new broom, so they’ll be watching you like hawks. Is she going to make changes? Course she is – she was brought in  to try and drag you out of the doldrums. Any first meeting where you are advised to sit in the wings and watch what happens for a year doesn’t deserve you. There are inevitably change resistant old sticks who are very suspicious of new brooms, and will vote down your every change proposal. There are several approaches to this one. One is – you want to stay on the verge of going down the pan  and I’m supposed to sit on the touchline and watch that happen? OK you don’t need me- I’m outta here. Tact and diplomacy for getting them on side individually is another. One at a time is the divide and rule strategy here. Watch out for the deeply entrenched alliances. The other is to get a bit manipulative.  Like shoving a wedge between the entrenched alliances. We’ve all done the tact and diplomacy and the manipulations at our regular jobs – these are transferable skills. These people are all volunteers too usually and can be edged out. Just like the good old days at work, without the redundancy payments. Play to things that interest you and play to your strengths.

Working for a charity can be very life enhancing, for others as well as yourself,  and also gives you the rosy glow of giving something back and trying to empower people who have no power.  Be very careful which charity you choose and vet your colleagues equally carefully and you too could be the next Mother Teresa. Or not.  If you’re in it for a halo, forget it – try hang gliding instead. Charity work is the cheese course, filling and satisfying. Next blog about other fluffier retirement options. The lemon syllabub madam?

On Tempestuous Seas – Rowing Two Oceans – by Elin Haf Davies

“How do you do it?” is a question I often get asked when people hear that I’ve spent 22 weeks rowing across the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. My answer – anything and everything can be done when you want to do it.

When you adjust to the physical demands and sleep deprivation that comes from rowing 2 hours on 2 hours of, 24 hours a day for 11 weeks at a time, rowing across an ocean is actually very straightforward. Simple even!  Because there are just three things in life that has to be done – rowing, eating, sleeping.

How many times in the last week would you have jumped at the opportunity to be juggling just three things in your life? Every woman I know is constantly juggling a 1000 and one things. Work deadlines, bills to pay, school uniform to be stitched, car insurance to be renewed, and your mother-in-laws birthday present to be wrapped. The list for everyone is endless and ever growing.

So while my time at sea was physically gruelling it was emotionally and psychologically detoxifying. I didn’t need to worry about paying bills. Keeping my boss happy. Travelling to work in the rush hour. Or worrying what to wear. It was the perfect time for me to STOP! STOP rushing around. STOP worrying about things that really aren’t important but that society dictates that we should. STOP being part of the rat race.

And when I got back, and was re-adjusted to life on land, I felt the same sort of relief when I STOPPED to write a book about my experiences. It was a time to reflect, a time to appreciate what I have and a time to thank those that made my life what it is and to decide what direction I want the rest of my life to take: a PhD, a successful career developing safer better medicines for children, and many more ocean crossings.

I obviously appreciate that ocean rowing or even writing a book doesn’t appeal to very many women, so I’m not going to attempt to persuade the Superwomen of Wales to pick up their oars and pens. But I would certainly advocate that every single one should, now and again STOP. Stop to do something different. Something that takes you out of your daily grind. Something that helps you to see the woods for the trees. Jumping off the rat race treadmill now and again is like recharging the battery, so that you can continue being the Superwoman that we all have to be these days.

On Tempestuous Seas: rowing two oceans (£8.50) and Ar Fôr Tymhestlog (£7:50) are published by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Llanrwst, Wales and is available on line via GWALES . http://www.gwales.com/bibliographic/?isbn=9781845273606&tsid=11

Dr Elin Haf Davies www.nurseelin.co.uk<http://www.nurseelin.co.uk>

Hello I’m Nain – from 72 year old Superwoman

One  of the delights of getting old is alleged to be becoming a Nain ( Granny for the monoglot English or Mam-gu for those in the benighted south).  Particularly, I am told, the handing them back to parents when you’ve had enough. I just became a granny – to Eva Myfanwy now 9 weeks old. So way to go on grannyhood.  This  in not actually my first grand child. I have three teenage grandchildren in New Zealand.  I dashed out there within a month of the first’s birth.  What a gorgeous baby etc. I said to the parents.  Why not have a night out and I will baby sit. They got all dolled up and went out. Within half an hour grandson was bawling his head off. Unfortunately his mum had waltzed off with the milk bar and I had nothing to give the hungry lad. No idea  where they had gone and no estimated time of return. First rule of grannydom – don’t let parents leave without a forwarding number and ETR.  When will you be home doesn’t stop when they’re teenagers.

I jogged the little wailer round the room singing soothing Welsh nursery rhymes. The babe’s a Kiwi, isn’t he, so I cut no ice.  I finally got him to doze off to Taking a chance on love from my Frank Sinatra repertoire. I went out for the other two as well. It is quite hard to be a decent Nain at a distance of 12000 miles and they were all at least 5 years old before they recognised  me when I showed up again. Even then the eldest had to give the others a nudge as to who I was. I used to go out annually. As they got older I would stop off in Kuala Lumpur and raid the local Toys ‘R Us. She was into  Barbie dolls last year, he was into Lego, cuddly toy for youngest. Guess what? They had all moved on in a year so it was thanks Nain and quiet dumping of Barbie. Lego and Teddy. Those three are now teenagers and I feel I hardly know them.

This one’s different. Born in our fair capital city. I was down the minute she and mother were out of hospital and presenting my Nain credentials when she was 3 says old. Hello, I’m your Nain. Will I do? Hard to tell, they don’t do much at 3 days old but suck and sleep. Absolutely fabulous, gorgeous baby. Course she is. I had gone armed with a bucketful of Welsh nursery rhymes and early books. Dafydd Iwan and Edward did a lovely CD,  years ago. Nursery songs don’t change. I think we all know what happened to Dafydd but what happened to Edward since early 70s?  Touchy feely books with stuff like this feels like cat/dog/cow/sheep hair and they go miaow, woof, moo and baa. Preferable I think to trailing the real thing through the house. The first issue was her name. They had chosen Eva as  easily manageable in any language (my own kids having had to struggle to get people outside Wales to pronounce their names.) Myfanwy after paternal great grandmother. Eva seemed to be a problem. Welsh daddy pronounced it I-fa, spitting out the short “I”, French mother stuck an accent on the first E so it comes out as Ava. I opted out and said I would call her Myfi. I am hoping that will catch on. No two ways about Myfi – rhymes with luvvie. Next issue national identity. I said to Welsh son We’re claiming this one for Wales, quick, plant a Draig Goch in her cradle before the French grandmere shows up. I was privileged to be first on the scene as French grandmere has other grandchildren within spitting distance. French grandmere only speaks French. I said to son – tell grandmere in her own language to put her tricolour away, this one’s Welsh. Rough translation: Gerroff madame, this one’s mine. Happily grandmere has not I think attempted to launch a French invasion, and mum’s learning Welsh.

Myfi was a very placid baby. How do they do that? Mine all popped out yelling and fighting and haven’t stopped since. Maybe stroppy mothers have stroppy babies.  My lovely d-i-l is also placid. And how. I’m quite sure I didn’t have her patience when I was a young mum.  I visited Myfi again when she was six weeks old. Not quite so placid.  How they change in a short time. I am not sure whether she smiled or if it was wind.  I am not that experienced with babies as it’s 40 odd years since I had one , and I don’t go round chucking other people’s babies under the chin and doing the coochie coo bit. I do not think I am a natural grandmother. But will make a major effort with this one. Myfi responds well to Nain bouncing her round the room to Dacw mam yn dwad.  Halleluia – she knows she’s Welsh. There’ll be hell to pay if she doesn’t. Get out Ol’ Blue Eyes, you’re redundant and I’ve got a blue eyes of my own. Myfi is the image of her dad. Right down to the double chin when in repose. I’ve said to d-i-l If you want one that looks like you, better have another.

The new little family are now in Norway for a few months.  I’m going to visit in another month. Myfi will definitely give me a smile next time. I have offered to baby sit while parents have a night off. Don’t forget to get a bottle and express some milk. The deals’ off if you don’t. Nains of Wales unite. You have nothing to lose but the milk dribble on the shoulder.

Western Mail’s 50 sexiest women in Wales 2011

It’s that time of year again!  Western Mail has published its annual 50 sexiest women list with  the 50 sexiest men list to follow next week .  It’s also  the time of year I usually publish my annual rant about the inanity of these two lists.    I seriously debated whether I should bother this year – the Superwoman blog gets a lot of hits  from people searching not for my rant about the sexy lists but for the identity of those featuring in the lists.    But just in case there is anyone out there who might possibly miss reading my views …

Each year a different Western Mail journalist  has to do their level best to stretch the definition of sexy to something far more meaningful and rounded as per this effort on Saturday for the sexy woman list:  “The word sexy embodies a whole host of other adjectives.  Sophisticated, sassy, stylish”  Er no, those are adjectives all in their own right actually.   And then this little gem:  “Having a close relationship with your family and friends is sexy, as is going out of your way to help others and putting those less fortunate than you first.”  What rubbish.   The fact that a woman gets on with her father say or her friends from school is unlikely to have any bearing whatsoever on whether people find her sexy.  “Sexy” and “Her Dad” are two images that don’t normally come to mind at the same time and if they do the reaction is likely to be Bleurgh.  Nobody ever used the adjective sexy to describe Mother Theresa.    The meaning of sexy means someone you’d like to have sex with.    If correctly labelling your list “the 50 women in Wales we’d most like to have sex with” doesn’t sit right with you, then come up with another adjective rather than pummelling extra meaning into “sexy”.

There’s amazing talent in your women’s list – some of our best actors, singers, presenters, athletes,  hotel sales and marketing managers.  They are wonderful women bringing Wales to the world and the world to Wales; flying the flag high for our determined little nation in our struggle to get our businesses and business skills, our langugage and culture, our creativity and our sporting talent taken  seriously by the big wide world.  There will be the same kind of talent, with a heavier emphasis on rugby players, in the men’s list next week.  But to me, publishing a list that categorises our people by reference to being sexy is a list that says:  we don’t really care what you’ve achieved  or how talented you are, we’re only interested in you or your achievements if we think you are shaggable.

I’ve said it before but it’s worth saying again.  If the Western Mail, Wales’ National Newspaper, must do lists – and lists do seem to attract a lot of comment and debate  and thus presumably sell newsapers – then do 50 Wonderful Welsh Women  and 50 Wonderful Welsh Men instead.  Because Wales, we’re worth it.

Santiago de Compostela or bust by Pembrokeshire Superwoman

Well it seemed like a good idea to me…  But friends were taken aback…  “You are doing what?  In that old thing?  You are joking…  Seriously you are joking aren’t you?”  And all I had said was that I was planning on driving Miss Daisy to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain.

Miss Daisy by the way is my 1934 Austin 7 Tourer.  We have a love hate relationship and as you can imagine, she certainly did not relish the idea of a 2,000 mile round trip to Spain.  Well if you were 77 years old and had to carry someone my size all that way, you wouldn’t be too keen either.  Actually, Miss Daisy is no stranger to driving on the Continent with two trips to France and one to Ireland already under her bonnet.  Even so, on every trip, this little old car has always marked her protest by breaking down, usually in the most awkward place.

Sir Herbert Austin had always intended that cars like Miss Daisy were to be used for little jaunts into the countryside, or perhaps a week at the seaside.  But for some reason past owners of Austin 7s never quite got that message.  In fact ever since the 1930s they have had designs on undertaking massive journeys in them.  Indeed it is believed that more Sevens have circumnavigated the globe than any other single make of car.

Then I discover that I wasn’t the only one wanting to do this trip and we were joined by two other vehicles, a 1931 Model A Ford and a 1938 Austin Seven Special.  We were also joined by an Austin Seven fanatic, fortunately in a Landrover as his Austin had thrown a wobbly just before we were due to leave.  His tow bar was to prove helpful on several occasions.

So one morning last September I left Pembrokeshire with just about every spare part I could find stowed away in various crevices of the little car.  Miss Daisy didn’t disappoint, barely 100 miles into the trip the red ignition warning light came on.  ‘Uh-oh, dynamo’s packed up.  A good thing I packed a battery charger’.

We raised a big grin from the Guardia Civil at passport control as we arrived at Santander, or was it the girls in the low cut tops?  Our route took us from Santander to Gijon, then inland through A Fonsagrada, Lugo and finally on to Santiago.  And what a route!  The locals would come out of the cafés cheering and clapping as we passed through.  I think even Miss Daisy enjoyed the attention.  We used a sat nav set to avoid motorways and to take the shortest route.  This wasn’t a good idea as Miss Daisy doesn’t like Sat-Navs and as a result it took us along some very small roads and on occasion through farmyards, scattering chickens as we passed through.

Another small difficulty was that the Cantabrian Mountains stood in our way and as we headed inland, the long climbs and drops started.  Gently at first and then the climbs got steeper and every day we found ourselves travelling not only through the most stunning scenery but also over some very high mountain passes.  One pass turned out to be 1,500 feet higher than Snowdon.  At the top we stopped to let the engines cool down and to take in the scenery.  But when it was time to move on, Miss Daisy decided that she wasn’t going to start.  So after a shove from the others, we started to roll down the other side of the mountain.

This again was not a good idea as with no engine, I only had Miss Daisy’s cable brakes to stop us as we started on our 6,500 foot descent and Austin Seven brakes are not well known for stopping efficiently.  Fortunately the engine finally kicked in after we had dropped about 500 feet and by the time we reached the bottom, Miss Daisy was running perfectly again.  But no sooner had we got down than we started yet another climb.  The Sat-Nav then took us on some very narrow, steep climbs with sheer drops of several thousand feet only inches from our wheels.

It took us about six days to reach Santiago de Compostela.  Fortunately for us, the Archbishop of Santiago rather liked vintage cars and we had been given permission to park up in front of the cathedral for a photo call.  But as there would be thousands of pilgrims and visitors milling around after 9.00am, could we please be there by 8.00am, take the necessary photographs and go…

Our mission completed, it was time to think about our journey home and that is never as much fun as the journey there.  The route back to Santander took us north to Ribadeo on the coast and then along the coast road, finally reaching Santander four days later.   But while we didn’t have massive mountains to climb, the coastal scenery of what they call ‘Green Spain’ was still stunning.

Would I recommend such a trip to others?  I certainly would.  It’s such a different Spain compared to the Costas where we British normally head.  But it is quite beautiful and the locals are really warm and friendly, even if they think you are bonkers.

I’m doing John O’Groats to Land’s End next year and on top of that Miss Daisy is allowing me to turn her diaries in to a book. I know it’s not usual for a woman to own and drive a vintage car; this has been a male pastime for years with wives dutifully occupying the passenger seat…  But why not?  It’s brilliant fun and for those who live a high speed lifestyle, a car like Miss Daisy certainly slows you down and lets you put things in perspective.

Superwoman by E J Catering – How the Rhino got his Skin

My children Molly, Jake and I spent our summer holiday in my grandmother’s house in the heart of the Lake District.    Everyday we made pasties filled with the leftover supper from the night before, we packed drinks, a book and headed out for a walk around a lake, along a river, or up a small fell in search of a water fall.  The weather just held to a typical British summer and the kids threw stones, leaves and twigs, scrambled, climbed, moaned, ran, jumped and paddled.  We were constantly on hunt alert for slugs, mushrooms, frogs and Penguin biscuit rocks – amazing rocks found only on certain special mountains that conceal Penguin biscuits for little people with tired legs.

My Granny Anne’s house is full of old leather books with titles such as Ancient Foods of England, Collection of the Giant Moths of the British Isles, Birds of New Zealand, five volumes of  lectures by Winston Churchill, Games for Children, something for anybody and everybody.  I found a small red leather book printed in 1942, Rudyard Kipling’s Just so Stories. I packed it safely in our lunch sack and under a large oak tree read How the rhino got his skin.  At the beginning of time the rhino had a very smart, tight coat with three large buttons under his belly.  One day he came across a cake baked by a local warrior which he stole and ate.  The warrior was cross with the rhino and so the next time the sun shone and the rhino took off his coat to bathe the warrior rubbed sticky cake crumbs into the inside of the coat.  After bathing the happy Rhino put back on his coat and started to itch and itch, he rubbed against trees, posts and rocks to relieve the itching, his buttons broke off , his skin stretched and sagged and the rhino got his grumpy face because ever since he’s suffered itching under the skin!

Sticky plum cake

225g soft butter

450g  ripe plums

1 lemon zest and half its juice

225g caster sugar

3 eggs  225g self-raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

25g ground almonds

1 tbsp demerara sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a deep cake tin.  Stone the plums and slice into eight crescent moons.  Cream together the butter, caster sugar, lemon zest and juice in a bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, sift the flour and the baking powder into the bowl and fold in with the ground almonds. Add the fresh plums to the mixture.  Spoon into the cake tin, lightly level the top and sprinkle with the demerara sugar. Bake in the oven for 45-55 mins or until well-risen, brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. If the cake starts to look a little too brown, cover with a sheet of baking paper  Leave to cool slightly and remove the cake from the tin.  Serve with lightly whipped cream and a spoonful of honey.  And never steal anyone’s cake – you have been warned!

Superwoman by E J Catering – National Ice Cream Day

TWO weeks last Monday was National Ice Cream Day. I am sorry I missed it and with two small children how could I?
But who knew? Hands up, honestly if you knew!  Who decides these things, which national body, world wide organisation, local council of where comes up with this stuff?  Did you eat an ice cream two weeks last Monday?
Looking at my calendar for the rest of year its National Dog Day and Women Equality Day on FridayAugust 26 – why are they sharing, are there not enough days in the year?
It’s National Grandparent Day on Sunday, September 11 –  now that is an important one.
And why is not more commonly known? Someone  tell the card companies!
My mum is very active with my kids, has a great relationship with them  and we will be making a card, so in hindsight no one tell the card companies because homemade  is always the best way to a grandparent’s heart.
There’s UN Peace Day on Wednesday, September 21 and get this one, National Chocolate Covered Anything Day on December 15 – maybe my calendar is having a laugh or is there a Cover Everything in Chocolate group, where and when do they meet, is there one in Cardiff or should we start one?
Back to the ice cream and who says we can’t have a  second national ice cream day just incase you missed the first.

Recipe for vanilla ice cream, makes about a pint and half
½ pint double cream
½ pint full fat milk
1 fresh vanilla pod
6 egg yolks
6oz caster sugar
In a saucepan mix the cream and milk and gently heat.  Slit the vanilla pod in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds, add to the cream along with the pod (we will remove it later).
In a bowl whisk the egg yolks and the sugar.
When the cream is simmering pour it over the yolks, whisk it and return to the saucepan on a gentle heat until it thickens just like a custard.  If you overheat and split the custard immediately sieve into a cool bowl and beat the mixture well.
Allow to cool and churn in an ice cream maker until doubled in size.  Place in a freezer container and freeze until ready.
If you don’t have a churn or don’t fancy making your own I recommend Hapus ice cream on Caerphilly Mountain.
All that is left for me to say is Happy National Ice Cream Day the Second!

Little Superwomen

 My four year old daughter has since around the age of two and a half expressed very strong views on the issue of clothes and personal appearance generally.  This is in stark contrast to my 10 year old son who still doesn’t care much what he wears.  His criteria are that his clothes should be unremarkable and comfy, with plenty of give around the waist.   He is just about well behaved enough that if someone gives him a gift of clothes he can manage a thank you when I know what he really wants to do is to hand them back saying But these are clothes!  Where’s my real present?

If you give my daughter clothes she will jump up and down and clap her hands in excitement.  She will try them on, right there and then.  One of her favourite pastimes is making up stories that involve shopping trips with her two cousins to Marks and Expensive (her words) where they each buy princess outfits with knickers that match and then wear them to the café where they eat cottage pie.  Pink has the leading role in these stories.   Purple sometimes gets a supporting role and hearts, butterflies and sparkles make walk on appearances but as a general rule these three little girls are flouncing around M & S dressed head to toe in pink because my daughter really really loves pink.

So do little girls only like pink because of being brainwashed by cynical and stereotypical marketing campaigns and shelves stocked only with mountains of pink things?  Or do they naturally just like pink and the cynical manufacturers capitalize on that to increase sales?  Based on my experience it is the latter.  Little girls instinctively love pink and they always have.  My daughter has recently picked up a phrase from her grandmother that she now says at every available opportunity, partly because it makes her father wince when she does.  Pink she announces when she gets dressed in the morning.  Pink to make the boys wink.    And it’s not just pink she loves.  She also loves dressing up and jewellery and make up and tea parties.  She lines all her dollies up on the sofa whereas her brother at her age lined toy cars and trucks up on the window sill.  I’m fairly convinced that these differences do just come down to nature.  Boys and girls are different, right from the start, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with liking pink.

I have more reservations about my daughter’s princess obsession or more specifically her obsession with the Disney Princess franchise.  Officially there are eight Disney Princesses (with a ninth, Princess Tiana, due in 2009 who will be Disney’s first black princess) but when my daughter got a Disney Princess doll pack for Christmas it featured only six of them– Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella. Ariel, Belle and Jasmine.  Pocahontas and Mulan are presumably not princessy or pink enough for the Princess Pack and I do wonder whether Tiana will manage to break into the line up.   Leaving to one side any racism issues that lurk here, the fact is that the six princesses in my daughter’s princess pack are very wet.  They mostly hang around cleaning or sleeping waiting for their prince to come and this is what really bugs me about them.  I don’t mind the tiaras, I don’t mind the high heels, I don’t mind the pretty gowns.  I don’t even mind the one true love romantic stuff because actually I believe in all that.  What I do mind is the lolling around doing nothing while they wait for that true love to turn up.  I really mind that Mulan, the only one of the princesses who has any get up and go about her, gets left out.

I have no intention of spoiling my daughter’s princess and pink phase.  She’s having fun and I’m enjoying watching her.   I do make sure that Dora the Explorer (nice chubby Mexican girl, still wears pink but solves lots of problems) and Clarice Bean (very opinionated little girl who wears funky clothes) at least get a look in round and about the princesses.  And when I’m reading a princess bed time story I change the plot just a bit.  The princesses still get dressed up, there is still a lot of pink and they still get their man at the end.  But in my versions, instead of sitting around under apple trees or on their hands and knees scrubbing floors, my princesses are out there in their tiaras and high heels kicking ass and being vets and lawyers and teachers and mothers.    Because I believe in Superwoman.  Do you believe in Superwoman?  Clap your hands if you do.

Too young to have text?

Last Christmas my mother in law told me she had bought my eight year old son a mobile phone.  It was only a £10 pay as you go phone but I asked her not to give it to him.   I felt primary school was too young to have a phone.   I was 25 before I had my first mobile phone for heaven’s sake!   He was dropped off at school every morning and picked up from afterschool club at night.   What did he need a phone for? 

Less than a year later I  changed my mind.  We moved house and my son changed school.  The new school didn’t have an afterschool club.  A new and complicated system of after school care was devised involving my son getting the bus to school each day and two sets of grandparents, a part time nanny and a wonderful cleaner who doubles up on a Thursday as childminder.   With such a patchwork of people looking after him I asked my Mum in law could she please give him that phone after all.

He was delighted to receive it.  With a minimum of training from his Dad he had grasped not only how to use it but how to use the address book, the ring tones and the basics of texting, hardly suprising given that he’s been playing Nintendo DS since he was six and is much better at Sky plus than me.    I felt comforted by knowing that if he missed the school bus he could phone any one of the people in that address book and all would be well.  Of course I felt the twinge of guilt that comes as standard with being a working mum.  If I was taking him to school every morning and picking him up at 3.15pm every day he wouldn’t need to worry about missing the bus would he? 

Last week my son sent me his first text.  Four little words I’ll remember for ever.  Not “I love you Mum.” Not even “Why do you work?.”  This is what my nine year old sent. 

 ”I forgot my kit.”

So I got in the car, made myself late for work and took his kit down to the school.

And a few hours later I got my second text.  “Ths Mum for bringing my kit lv u.”

Which proves in my view that he’s not too young to have text.

Wales Power 100

In its November edition, Wales Business Insider Magazine has published its Power 100, described as Insider’s View of the most powerful people in Wales.    The list contains few surprises for the business people of Wales other, perhaps, than the prominence of policiticans and the public sector who according to Insider “get a good show as we believe their decisions on investment and contracts will become more important to the economy as it slows down.”

 It is perhaps also no surprise that only ten women feature in the Power 100.  They are:

12.  Edwina Hart, Health Minister

14.  Menna Richards, controller of BBC (and speaker at Superwoman 4)

17.  Iona Jones, Chief Executive S4C

23. Sian Lloyd Jones, Chief Executive, Finance Wales

26.  Jane Davidson Environment, Sustainability and Housing Minister

80. (big jump that) Katherine Jenkins, Singer 

82.  Jane Hutt, Education Minister

86.  Margaret Matthews, Managing Director Dow Corning Site Barry and Chairman CBI Wales

89.  Kirsty Williams, Liberal Democrat AM Member

100.  Ann Beynon, Director BT Wales

Of that ten, four are politicians and one, Katherine Jenkins, is a singer.  Whilst I am delighted that Ms Jenkins continues to fly the flag of Welsh talent so very high, she is at the end of the day a performer and I don’t quite see how she fits into Insider’s definition of powerful which involves having three types of power – executive power (which derives from their jobs), latent power (which is an ability to change the course of events) and influence (the ability to set the parameters in which business is conducted).  Signing a £5m deal doesn’t make Katherine Jenkins powerful by that definition although it does make her rich.  Unless of course she plans to use some of that £5m to set up a venture capital fund to grow Welsh business which isn’t half a bad idea. 

So, how do those women who want to (and I fully accept that there are lots of women out there, men too, who would rather have pins stuck behind their finger nails than figure in Wales’ Power 100) get our presence amongst the powerful up from a meagre 10%?   Brian Morgan, director of the Creative and Leadership Enterprise Centre at UWIC and number 78 in the list gives some advice in the Insider article which is not aimed particularly at women but is very relevant to us.   He says that to be powerful you have to demonstrate an ability to get things done; that you shouldn’t hide your light under a bushel and that a strong personality and networking skills are essential.    All good advice and all something that the Superwoman network helps women achieve.  Perhaps the biggest lesson for women here is the bit about not hiding our light under a bushel.  Most of the men listed in the Power 100 feature in the Welsh business press on a regular basis and in the Insider particularly rather a lot.    It seems to me that we all need to speak out more about our talent and our influence.   Shout out loud and shout out proud that ”Here come the girls”.  And maybe that way in years to come there’ll be a few more than 10 of us in the Power 100.

The hangover of all mothers

Twenty five years ago when I hit legal drinking age women drank shorts – martini and lemonade, gin and tonic or if you considered yourself very glamorous a sticky mix of cointreau and curacao called a Blue Moon.  Nowadays most of us drink wine and most of us lie about our units.  The Department of Health recommends that women drink no more than 2 or 3 units in one go and that sounds OK if you are under the illusion that a unit equals a glass.  Sadly, a unit is around 100 ml of wine or put another way you can drink the entire recommended number of units a day in just one large glass.  Since I can over the course of an evening out (or in!) manage to drink an entire bottle to myself very easily (three large glasses) that makes me a binge drinker.

A couple of weekends ago my sister and I became super binge drinkers.  You know how it is.  She and her family were staying over night, the kids were safely in bed, and whereas usually we’d both be nodding off in front of the ten o’clock news there we were, thanks to the energy boosting powers of red wine, still up at 2am chatting away and with a third bottle on the go.    Going past one bottle is always a big mistake.  Huge.   Therein lies the road to a superhangover and mine the next morning was gold medallion Olympiad standard.

My hangovers have definitely got worse as I’ve got older.  Before I had kids I’d just stay in bed till I felt better.  Now that’s no longer possible I attack my hangovers with lots of water, sugary tea and plenty of carbs.  My food intake on this particular hang over day consisted of white buttered toast for breakfast, a fish finger sandwich for lunch and sausage beans and mash for tea.  So if the alcohol doesn’t get me the processed fatty food will.   Feeling monumentally awful I insisted that my kids and husband spend all day with me on the sofa watching telly and eating.    I didn’t insist we went out somewhere to get a breath of fresh air, I didn’t tackle putting the garden furniture away for winter which had been my planned job for that weeked, I didn’t turn the telly off declaring we’d all had quite enough of that for a while and let’s read a book instead.   Instead we all of us snuggled up on the sofa all day.  I didn’t even get dressed.  As X factor started and I handed everyone a Twix each my son said to me “I love it when you have a hangover Mum, we get to spend such quality time together.” 

I knew there was a reason for drinking all that wine.

Bah humbug

For this particular Superwoman, December is most definitely the cruellest month.  Despite the fact that the shops have had their Christmas decorations up since 1 November I am liable to staple together the lips of the next person who asks me if I’m all ready for Christmas because of course I am not.   Not at all.   Indeed, if my fairy superwoman were to pop up right now with the three wishes routine this is what I would ask for:

1.  Please sort out Christmas for me.  This is no small wish.  It involves:

• Cards- buying some decent charity cards and writing them out, perhaps adding a  photo of the family in which we are all looking roughly in the direction of the camera and have our eyes open, addressing the envelopes, buying stamps (Scout ones where possible) and posting them all out.
• Presents -  the purchase of a wide selection of gifts for children, family, friends, cleaning lady, babysitter and teachers, must be tailored to the wishes of each individual but with due regard to budgetary restraints, wrapping them, adding gift tags
• Food and drink - purchase of too much of everything, all of which we will still have managed to consume by the end of boxing day save for a bag of walnuts which will hang around till mid March.
• Decoration – acquire a tree with roots which will actually live when I plant it out in the garden on 6 January and decorate tastefully, generally make my house look like the one in the M & S ads with Twiggy and the Take That boys, all flickering candlelight and log fires and lots of wood panelling.   Twiggy and the other girls not required although Take That can still call round if they like.
• Personal appearance – magic away about a stone in weight.  If fairy superwoman can do this I won’t even ask for any new clothes for Christmas.  I won’t need to.  There’s plenty of stuff in my wardrobe already that I like but haven’t been able to fit into for a while. 

2.  So that I am in a position to enjoy Christmas and attend my children’s carol concerts and the office party please also sort out all my work for me.  Again this is quite a big ask.  Everybody I speak to wants everything done by Christmas, for which I can establish no real need other than people like to come back to work in January (having started a diet and French lessons) to a clear desk.  My workload has become like a game of splat the rat.  Everytime I finish something, more work pops into my inbox.  I shouldn’t complain given the current business climate but I’m going to anyway. 

3.  If fairy superwoman can pull off these two, that leaves me with one final wish which I will use to ask for world peace and an end to poverty but if she can also see her way to bringing an end to the credit crunch some time soon that would be much appreciated.

La Femme Super

Rachida Dati, the 43 year old French justice minister, has in the past week received as much press coverage as Britney Spears, Cheryl Cole and the Beckhams put together for returning to work in Sarkozy’s government just five days after giving birth to her daughter by Caesarean section.

In this country the maximum period of maternity leave is 52 weeks and provided you have 26 weeks service by the 15th week before the baby is born, nine months of it is paid (albeit after the first six weeks Statutory Maternity Pay is only £117 a week). The first two weeks of maternity leave after a baby is born is actually compulsory and female employees are not allowed to work during this period so in this country Dati would have been sent back home to be with Zohra for another nine days. Even fathers have the right to two weeks paternity leave with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg calling for up to a year’s leave for fathers.

So does going back to work so soon make Dati a Superwoman or a Supertraitor by undermining the right to maternity leave for ordinary women? After all if she can make it back to work in five days after a C section why can’t everyone else?

Here is my take on the Dati situation:

1. Dati is no ordinary woman. She is one of 11 children from a family of North African descent and the first Muslim minister. Most women would not choose to go back to work after five days but they wouldn’t choose to be politicians either.
2. She is 43 and this is her first baby. She refuses to disclose the identity of the father. When she returned to work she looked absolutely amazing and was wearing four inch heels. Didn’t even have the good grace to look knackered and still have a bit of a baby belly. As I said, no ordinary woman. All of this meant that her return to work got a lot more press than it would otherwise have done.
3. All mothers (especially second time round mothers) know that work doesn’t stop just because you’ve had a baby. You don’t get to loll around in bed all the time cuddling your baby. There’s washing to be done; children to be fed; endless cups of tea to be made for people who come to visit your newborn. Maternity leave is not a holiday.
4. Just because Dati has made choices in life that the rest of us may not have made doesn’t mean she has let the rest of us working women down. We should not criticise her for making that choice any more than we should criticise the woman who decides to take her full 52 week entitlement.
5. The right to longer paternity leave would be a good thing. At present it is only the mother who has the right to a substantial period of leave and the right to return to work and thus it is only women who can take a career break to have children. There are lots of couples out there who would like to share the career break and share the parenting. Also unscrupulous employers who discriminate against women of child bearing years will get a shock when their male employees announce they are taking time off to look after their offspring.

What do the rest of the Superwomen think?

Doom, Gloom and Diets

Everyone at Superwoman Towers is on a diet. The fridge is packed full of low fat yoghourts, the place smells constantly of vegetable soup and all anyone can talk about is points, sins and Special K.

Actually, people don’t diet any more. Dieting is something people did in the seventies, involving PLJ lemon juice. (This was my mother’s top diet tip back in the day – absolutely no scientific reason for weight loss but it tasted horrible and put you off your grub). No, what people do nowadays rather than diet is detox which means we’re all (even the skinny people) off the booze and our water coolers are doing double duty.

Oh and we’re all exercising like mad. Having done nothing more energetic during the past six weeks than prize the lid off a reluctant tin of Quality Street we’re busy doing Pilates and circuit training and cycling into work all of a sudden. We’re all wincing on our way to the toilet (and toilet trips have increased by over 50% in line with the increased water cooler usage).

And you know what? We’re all as miserable as sin. As if falling house prices, thousands of job losses and the demise of dear old Woolies wasn’t enough we’ve decided to deprive ourselves of the little treats in life that brighten up dark wintry days in January. I am fed up. So fed up that yesterday around 4pm when I opened the fridge and spotted through the forest of yoghourts (Low fat! Low taste!) a ginormous litre and a half bottle of Chardonnay that someone won in a raffle yonks ago I seriously imagined myself opening it there and then. And I don’t even like Chardonnay. (Although I’ll drink it if it’s all there is on offer).

The worst part about it is that everyone knows that diets and detoxes don’t work. What we need to do is be mindful of what we eat and be sensible 80% of the time. Have soup at lunchtime instead of the triple sandwich pack so that we can have a glass of wine with our dinner. This feast/famine/feast again cycle needs to be broken. It’s a lesson in life that the banks would do well to take on board. Then perhaps the credit crunch would ease slightly and we can finally crack open that bottle of Chardonnay.

Doom, gloom and most depressing day of the year

Apparently today 19 January 2009 is the most depressing day of the year, based on a formula involving weather, debt, time since Christmas, time since failing New Year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take action. So it’s not just me that’s fed up then! Hurrah! I am definitely feeling the need to take action. Am going to pop out to the shops once I’ve posted this and buy everyone at Superwoman Towers some cake (following the rules set out in our earlier blog Cakes in the Kitchen). And that bottle of Chardonnay’s definitely for the corkscrew tonight.

Dubai Superwoman’s Day

Pull back the curtains and find swaying palm trees in the garden. Ok, so theres a little light wind, but beautiful blue skies and a warm and musky scent in the air.

Downstairs DH has already dressed and taken the LO off to school in the mandatory 4×4 and the maid is busily washing the dishes at the sink.

I turn my phone from ’silent’ to ‘general’ – this place is party paradise and they dont get going til around 10pm, mid-sleep disturbances with invites to dinner and drinks are ‘normal’ between 10pm and midnight. I see just the one missed call at 11pm, which, as it happens, is a pal in the UK who has forgotten we are +4hrs.

SMS number one comes through within seconds of my phone being awoken from its silence…it consists of an invite to a playdate after school at the beachpark; the second comes almost immediately “coffee, Shakespears @ 9am” – the kids have all been dropped off and the yummy mummys are all planning their day and my phone beeps away with invites and ‘news’ ( we dont call it gossip here, too unladylike), with school starting at 7.30am, and malls not open til 10am what else is there to do?

Right, quick cuppa whilst I decide what to accept for this afternoons entertainment. Next, run out with my two adorable gun dogs ( and when I say ‘ run’ I mean walk, I only run with the adult dog in the evening..its too hot during the day)

Ok, i’m now in full action. I need a flying stop at the local supermarket, which is daily – fresh salmon and herby cous cous for dinner with some french green beans followed by a mad dash back to the house. I need a shower before coffee with the girlies (after checking my emails and FB, naturally, there could be more playdate invites….!)

Shakespears at 9am; the idle chat consists of:
1 Whos’ DH has been made redundant (thankfully, none of ours yet, but apparently 5% of the workforce will be gone by the end of the year)
2 The Gaza clothes and food collection being held at the mall and how we will do a run around and pile the donations into one of the 4×4s on Thursday.
3 The announcement that over 1,000 cars are being abandonded at the airport a week by people who have lost their jobs are leaving the country and cant pay the finance.
4 The falling rental prices ( yippee!!!!)
5 Whats for dinner – for those of us who do cook ourselves. For some it was merely what they asked the maid to prepare before speeding off in their Choos and their Merc.
6 Social calander for the month – charity balls, dinner parties, weekend BBq get togethers. Its very important as we all help eachother out, when said MIL is coming in particular we support eachother by making ‘ that phone call’ which means you disappearing from the villa for a whole day, possibly more, to help a friend in dire need! Two weeks is TOOOOO long!
7 ..there was a 7th but I was busily sending Dh flirty sms’ – just to encourage the steak at home thing….theres a HUGE amount of burgers available here….

Right, next stop off to the gym! Circuit training session with the personal trainer at the ladies only spa/gym, a blast on the vibroplate a jog on the running machine and i’m “khallas”.

Time to pick up LO from school ( they finish at 1pm here), nudge the car into a space which looks like it could be a carpark for the rich and famous…actually, there was one ‘ normal’ car there, but i think that was the maintanance guys’? You could tell it was a ‘ normal’ car by the fact that it had two parking spaces empty on each side in case one of the ‘thats a nice’ cars caught something from it!!!!!

(ok, im just discovering i write like i talk, which is fast and a lot…stick with me…)

The afternoon consists of a trip to the beachpark with the kids, most of my pals ‘CWM’ ( come with maid) so if said child falls, needs a pee, has a nose explosion or ‘ Madam’ cant carry her Gucci bag there is somebody at hand to help out!!

I get home in time to start steaming the fresh fish, but the maid has already beaten me to it and has washed and ended the beans ( wonderful woman she is). DS runs in and out of the villa with the dogs, in the playhouse, on the swings, down the slide ( not in the pool its too chilly) and back in to grab 2 seconds of Ben 10 as he passes.

DH home, dinner served…healthy, yummy and accompanied with some Oyster Bay. Maid gets on with washing the dishes and laying out DS clothes from school in the am. DH and I bath DS together and read books together on the super king size bed whilst the dogs sit and wait at either side waiting to be told to come up for a cwtch. NO chance!!!!! The maid sneeks past the bedroom door with ‘ sirs’ freshly ironed shirts for tomorrow.

I hear the mosque humming in the distance, must be wine o’clock. DH and I downstairs by 7.15pm sat in the garden ( albeit with a light sweater) with a glass of wine chatting about the day……..

Did someone say something about today being the most depressing day of ………………?

Tragic death of a superwoman

We’ve been joking about the doom and gloom of diets and it being the most depressing day of the year so it was shocking to learn of the death of 41 year old litigation solicitor Catherine Bailey whose body was found in the Thames on Saturday.   She advised leading banks, brokers and hedge funds caught up in the financial crisis and told her husband last Friday that she was feeling under pressure at work  before disappearing from the office.    Her cause of death was drowning and she is believed to have committed suicide although investigations are ongoing.   Her law firm S J Berwin have issued press releases saying how distressed they are and that she was an exceptional lawyer and hugely popular.  She was married and the mother of three young children.    If she’d been practising law in Cardiff rather than London she might well have been one of us Superwomen.    

It is horrifying to think of how terrible she must have felt to take her own life and leave her husband and children behind;  how long she must have neglected her own mental health to reach a point where she just wanted it all to be over.  My sympathy goes out to her husband, her children, her wider family, her colleagues and all her friends.    We all like to think that we would never reach that point – that if work was getting to us that much we’d just walk away, call our family and friends and count our blessings in life – our family and friends, our health, the pleasure to be had in a good cup of tea and a chocolate hob nob or a good long walk.   Poor Catherine Bailey didn’t stop when she got to that point and kept going till she reached a destination from which she could not return.  So Superwomen this is a call to arms to us all.  Let’s  not worry too much about a bit of extra flab or that we haven’t been to the gym or haven’t hit our targets this month.  Let’s all take the time to count our blessings in life.  And in particular let’s all keep our eyes and ears open and watch out for our fellow Superwomen and Supermen who might be stumbling onto the same path as Catherine Bailey so that we can do everything in our power to catch them before they fall.

Superwoman’s back, huh? Pass the cheese doodles – a view from Canada

The following is an article from Canada’s Globe and Mail which appeared on Saturday 17 January 2009 by kind permission of the writer, Leah McLaren:

I’ve got a hot idea for a block buster sequel.

It’s about an average woman who manages to save the world by being all things to all people: Wife, mother, friend,  artist,  earner,  athlete, chef, sex kitten, cleaner, interior decorateor, self-actualiszed spiritual guide – you name it, our heroine does it.  The title, in case you haven’t figured it out yet,  is Superwoman Returns - and it’s coming to a theatre near you.

That’s right.  Superwoman is back.  Just when you thought she’d retired her cape and spike-heeled designer boots, that pulled-together, working-mother-with-a-social-conscience-and-impossibly-great-hair has returned to show us all up once and for all.  Unlike the last time, she is not going to give up and move to the suburbs.  The new Superwoman is hot, hip, defiantly downtown and eco-friendly.  To head off the bad press sparked by her last attempt to make the universe perfect, she even has some character “quirks” that make her seem more “real”.  (For instance, she admits to having struggled with postpartum depression in the three weeks before returning to work after her third, smokes a cheeky cigarette once a while and – Wait! Is that a laugh line on her brow? No injections for this chemical-free nouveau boho – the wrinkles on her face are a road map of her past, which has been incredibly fulfilling, thank you very much).

The new Superwoman is just like you or me, except that she’s way better at everything.  Forget the shoulder-padded, gym-slaving, working mom of yesteryear – this is a woman you actually want to be but, of course, never will.  The only thing she has in common with her predecessor is her breath-taking talent for making the rest of us feel bad.  Which we do.  Because we’re women.

I knew something was afoot last Sunday night, when I was scarfing cheese doodles and watching Kate Winslet accept her second Golden Globe of the night.  Observing Winslet’s new arm sinew and detoxified glow, I suddently remembered I was supposed to be on a cleanse (a.k.a as a diet).

My girlfriend from Toronto (who, unlike me, happens to be an incredibly busy mother, wife and successful magazine editor) had e-mailed me earlier in the week extolling the virtues of a new cleansing “system” she had been reading about.  “I know you love a good January cleanse,” she wrote.  “Too bad you’re not here so we could suffer together.”

I wrote back immediately vowing to eat brown rice and kale with her for 21 days, tracking our daily progress together online.  No alcohol, no caffeine, but think of how gorgeous how colons would be!  For five minutes I was very excited.  Then I forgot all about it.  But Gwyneth Paltrow is cleansing.  I know this because I occasionally amuse/punish myself by reading her weekly blog Goop, which could also be called Diary of an Unapologetic Superwoman.  It’s full of all sorts of unintentionally hilarious tips on how to “nourish your inner space” by eliminating white foods, pairing hot pink tights with a black mini dress and “embracing the Kaballistic view of families.”

It’s easy to roll your eyes at Gwyneth and Kate, with their self consciously constructed I’m-just-a-regular-gal personas.  Even more annoying is Caroline Kennedy, who, in her U.S Senate bid, typifies the late-stage incarnation of the new Superwoman.  A former member of the opt-out generation that eschewed the work-place in favour of full-time motherhood, Kennedy is now using her privilege to opt back in, proving that even traditional soccer moms, provided they’re famous and well-connected, might eventually “have it all”.

The real difficulty is imagining how these Superwoman can possibly find enough time to do all the things they apparently do.  Is it really possible to host a cooking show, run a website, work out with a trainer for two hours a day, do the cooking, spend quality time with the kids, be happily married to a rock singer, constantly update your wardrobe and be an A-list movie star?  According to Gwyneth, it’s not just possible, it’s balm for the soul. 

The reality of course, is that any woman attempting this in real life would end up certifiably insane, uncontrollably bitch, in need of serious medication or all of the above – which more or less describes the protagonist of my favourite new TV show, The United States of Tara, set to air Monday on the Movie Network.

Written by the only ex-stripper we know of to win a screenwriting Oscar, Diablo Cody of Juno fame, it follows the story of a suburban mon (Toni Collette) with one major flaw – she has three other personalities.  Judging by the first episode, the show is the logical conclusion of the Superwoman myth.  Tara’s tendencies to flip from biker dude to teenage beeyotch to Betty Crocker homemaker is a clever illustration of why it’s impossible to be all things to all people.  Now there’s a lesson every aspiring Superwoman should heed.

Well, that’s my un-Kabbalistic view for the week.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the kitchen to eat some white stuff.  Even real women have got to nourish their inner space.

Inspirational Superwoman

The other night I watched on the BBC ‘A Short Stay in Switzerland’, a moving docu/drama based on the true story of Dr Anne Turner, who, having watched her husband die through a seriously disabling disease, found herself diagnosed with the same disease but a more virulent form. The drama takes us through the rapid onset of her disease, her relationships with her children and her friends, and the decision she takes to go to a clinic in Zurich in order to have an assisted death.

I have my own thoughts on this subject, but debate around this topic is not the purpose of this blog.

Fortunately, for the large proportion of people watching , it was a very moving drama, touching on a subject very far away, which they privately hope ‘will never happen to me, or one of mine’. Unfortunately there will have been some people who were thinking, ‘I am one day going to have to face this ‘.

I watched it with 2 of my daughters.

I was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 aged 39, and subsequent malignant spread in 2006. I live every day with the knowledge that this disease is programmed to kill me at some point. I have cancer throughout my body, eating into my bones. For a long time before and since diagnosis, I worked fulltime as a director within a company, until finally stress, fatigue, reasoning and sense got the better of me last year and I am now at home. I have 4 daughters, 3 stepsons, all of whom are young adults, and a husband who works away. I am facing this.

When I was working I used to say, in my spare time I’m an artist. Now I say, all my time is precious and should be filled with calm and happiness. One day, time permitting, I would like to open a therapeutic gallery, a charitable place for calm and relaxation, conversation, and companionship, and use art to help people of all ages, in whatever type of distress, self express.

I have become a source of knowledge on chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, induced menopause, reconstruction, xrays, mri, cat and bone scans. Blood tests, ultrasound, hormone therapy, biphosphonates, cancer drugs, employment issues, financial issues, pain, alternative therapies, meditation, relaxation, nutrition and relationships, and I could go on. But you would never guess by looking at me, even close friends sometimes forget. There is no telltale sign of what’s going on, on the inside.

I’ve been told by my friends, my colleagues and my family that I am a ‘superwoman’. An inspiration.  Well, you know what? – I want to be.

Not because I want to be noticed, but if I can help and inspire even one person, young old, male female, adjust to facing a serious life event, or threatening illness without bleak fear, then I will have been able to make a difference.

 

Single Supermother

Like Rachida Dati I too am a single parent who has chosen not to divulge the paternity of my baby to anybody outside my immediate family. That is probably where the similarities end! Here is my story. 

 

Back in 2004 I found myself sat on the toilet on a balmy Autumn evening, looking with absolute horror at a positive pregnancy test. Pure panic overwhelmed me and I headed off down the lane for a walk. I was not in a relationship with the man who was equally culpable for my situation and I knew with absolute certainty that whilst the ride had been fun, messy situations and emotional scenes were simply not his scene. He did not prove me wrong.   

 

Until that day I was someone who partied every weekend, spent all my wages with joyous abandon and worked and played with equal fervour. Frankly, I did not have a care in the world.   During that walk, a mirror image of my selfish, hedonistic lifestyle looked back at me. I was an educated woman of 32 and surely I had to take responsibility for my actions? Yes I had choices as every woman should but by the time I got home, tired and emotionally drained, I was as certain as I have ever been of anything in my life that I would keep this child.  I had made my bed and I would lie in it, it was high time I grew up and took responsibility for my actions! Brave words indeed!

 

I am lucky to have a close and loving family and I adore my parents.  I have such respect for them that the thought of telling them made me feel cheap, like a sixteen year old caught smoking.  I could not bear their disappointment. Needless to say, I told Mum first! I cried and blundered my way through every hideous detail (I was brutally honest) and she was so relieved I wasn’t dying of cancer or something that my being pregnant was almost a relief. Because of my distress (hormones had really kicked in) and because she is a mother in a million, she did as she had done for the last 32 years, she stood tall, took it on the chin and said well my girl, we’d better get ourselves organised then if there’s a baby on the way! At that point, I don’t think I had ever loved her more; there have been dozens of occasions since.

 

I was painfully aware that to two upright people from a generation before who could not begin to understand the concept of a one night stand, the thought of telling their friends, colleagues and siblings would fill them with shame. Not a word of it to me though, and not a judgement cast against me, just the love and support that has always been there. How had I underestimated them so greatly? I was utterly humbled by my family’s love.

 

My daughter arrived on a scorching May bank holiday weekend by section with my Mother at my side and life has never been the same! I am still me but I am different. I am warmer, kinder, more thoughtful, tolerant and above all happier. My priorities have been turned upside down and my life is full of richness, I genuinely thank God each day for the life of my daughter. Now it has not been easy! I returned to work after only 6 weeks and I swear I never knew the meaning of tiredness until that point. My little girl had colic; awful soul destroying colic! I paced the floors night after night willing her to sleep but as soon as I sat down the screams would start. I’m still unsure whether it was her or me who cried the most during that time, but love abides and the instinct to love and protect prevails over colic, weaning, teething, terrible two’s and everything else that is thrown at mothers as we stumble on!

 

God himself sent my childminder, I am blessed with a wonderful family who are there to help out and support us whenever we need it, and I am very, very lucky. I do not know how I managed to have such loyal and caring friends, but that is exactly what I have and we are truly happy, my daughter and me.

 

I have also managed to get promoted twice during this time, gain a dog and I continue to work full time. I do my best and I hope that I am half way to raising a happy, well balanced little girl who knows that she is loved to distraction.   It’s all any of us can do. I feel guilt on a monumental scale, I work too hard and too long, but it is a necessity and, selfishly, it keeps me sane!

 

My social life is in tatters, sex is rarer than a lottery win and I miss adult company! When bedtime beckons at 7.30pm well that’s me for the night, I can’t go anywhere and if I’m out of milk, tough! I have never introduced my daughter to any man that has been in my life and I feel very strongly about doing so. Sometimes the pressure of being responsible for all the discipline is unbearable. It is at times like this when I long for the strength and love of a good man! It’s a tightrope walk my life, and I have pushed more than one good man away for fear of the impact he would have on our lives. I have recently met someone and I now realise that I am certifiably mad; he is rich, handsome, kind and he really likes me!! He is tonight, getting the old heave ho! Why? Where do I start, his life is so simple and free of problems, mess, children and animals. His biggest decision of the day is whether he should go to the gym or not.  He talks a good job but I know that he is selfish in a way that single, childless men can be and that my daughter would never be his priority as she is mine. It’s hard this relationship lark and frankly he fails the test! I’ll keep looking, I will remain eternally optimistic and in the meantime we will continue down life’s higgledy piggeldy path. I think that perhaps a man with baggage will be more understanding of my situation; divorced males with loads of kids apply here!

 

As regards Ms Dati, who on earth am I to judge? I am stunned by her stamina, jealous that she does not look dug up, as I did two days after my daughter’s birth, but I do not cast judgement upon her. Ms Dati will do as we all do; her very best.

Balls: good for your love life

Mr S. and I went to a ball on Friday night – you know the drill, black tie, half a glass of fizz on arrival, a not-bad-considering-they’re-catering-for-260 three course meal and a charity auction and raffle.    Oh and a fair bit of wine.

We don’t get out together that often without kids, Mr S. and me, and even when we do it rarely involves high heels and make up (me, for the avoidance of doubt) and dinner jacket  (him).   I’d forgotten how well he scrubs up.   I am so busy most of the time with our two children and our respective jobs I don’t look at him properly sometimes; don’t really talk to him other than to establish who is dropping off at school, who is picking up from rugby and which of us is making tea.     But on Friday night,  especially once he’d dumped the dicky bow and undone an extra shirt button  (black tie is sexy, dicky bows are not),  I looked at him rather a lot.   I watched him chatting and laughing with friends and colleagues and thought to myself this is how you look to women who don’t know you.  All charming and handsome and with a cute bum, not just the person whose turn it is to load the dishwasher.   And then I felt a rush of love and pride and a whole load of phwoar. 

Then came the best bit of the evening.  A live band, and a particularly good one playing boogie woogie rhythm and blues with a horn section and everything.  (Be prepared for this all you younger Superwomen – by the time you hit 35 or so about the only opportunity you get to dance  is  at balls and weddings).  Now Mr S. is really not that bothered about dancing (despite being rather good at it) but he knows I love it so he led me off to the dance floor and we danced together like we’d only just met.  Like there was no such thing as a credit crunch.   Like we didn’t have children and jobs and a mortgage and a week’s worth of laundry waiting for us at home.  And when I bothered to look round at everyone else on the dance floor (which wasn’t very often) it seemed that there were an awful lot of long established couples dancing just like that  too.   Eventually Mr S. gave me his seduction stare, a move which rarely fails him, and which left me in no doubt what else besides a load of laundry would be waiting for me at home and that it was time to go.  Balls:  good for your love life.

Getting down to the nitty gritty

OK, before I start, I checked it out and nitty gritty is not a phrase that has its origins in the slave trade, referring to the debris at the bottom of ships after slaves had been removed, but more likely just one of those phrases that uses rhyming duplication like willy nilly and hocus pocus.    Now that’s sorted, let’s get down to it.

My daughter (aged 4) has had nits on and off since November.   When I first noticed that she and my 10 year old son were scratching (and I’ll be honest here at the risk of losing my Superwoman cape; they weren’t just scratching by the time I noticed, they were practically gouging their scalps off)  I scurried off to the Sainsbury’s in town that lunchtime and in addition to a sandwich and a 4 pint of milk threw some nit solution in my basket.  “Crikey!” the woman on the till said when she rung up the total.  “Why is your shopping so expensive?  There’s only three items in here!” And then in a really loud voice “OH IT’S THE NIT SHAMPOO!”.  The people in the queue behind me all took a step back.  No really they did.  “Could you shout that a bit louder?” I hissed.  “There’s some people from my office over at the salad counter who didn’t quite catch what you said.” 

With my son, a good dose of nit solution, a double-episode-of-Simpsons-length session with a fine toothed metal comb and a visit to an understanding  hairdresser sorted him out.    His  hair was so short I could see the chicken pox scars in his scalp that I hadn’t seen since he was a baby (I’ve always wondered whether Mikhail Gorbachev was surprised when he went bald and found he had a birthmark on his bonce or whether his mother forewarned him of it)  and his nits were gone.  My daughter however was a lot less keen to lose  her long locks.  “We’ll cut it so you’ll look like Dora the Explorer,”  I enthused.  “But I don’t want to look like Dora!” she wailed, “I want to look like Cinderella!”  Supernannie (don’t you just love grandparents) was able to persuade her and she got a Dora.   And for a couple of weeks she was nit-free, or at least I thought she was, but then the scratching started again.  

I’ve now tried three different types of nit shampoo and in between applications have been dousing her hair in conditioner every other night  and combing it through with a nit comb, a process which we have both come to loathe, despite the chocolate buttons I give her to shut her up while I do it.   By the time I get rid of her nits I will also have got rid of her teeth.  Her poor scalp has been raked over so many times with a metal comb she scratches now even when she doesn’t have nits.   I can go a week, even two, without finding a louse or a nit, and then, suddenly they’re back. 

Of course, I ended up getting them too.  See, definitely not a Superwoman.  My husband didn’t though.  He puts this down to the fact that he uses wax on his hair so any nit would get stuck.  I put it down to the fact that it’s not him who does the combing or the shampoo application.  Combing my hair was a lot easier than combing my daughter’s and I got rid of my nits very easily although I have to confess that a couple of weeks later when I was at the hairdresser’s having my hair cut I did find myself praying fervently that the hairdresser wasn’t going to lean over and whisper in my ear half way through the hair cut that I had nits and should  leave immediately and never return. 

So after four months of struggling like super heroes against nits, my daughter and I are defeated.  She’s agreed to have her hair cut really short this week.  There are no cartoon characters out there with short crops and definitely no princesses but I found a way to persuade her.  I told her she was getting a pixie cut.  She thinks she’s going to skip out of the hairdressers transformed into a fairy.   Frankly I don’t care if she looks like Sigourney Weaver in Alien just so long as the nits have gone.

Snow and low

Thank credit crunchie it’s Friday.  Three days of cancelled school (due to an amount of snow that Canadians would consider ”a light dusting”) is enough to drive any Superwoman to distraction including those stranded at home with the kids and those left holding the fort in the office.   Having said that, when you first pulled back the curtains and saw that thick blanket of snow, wasn’t your immediate, instinctive reaction the same as mine?  “Yippee!  No school!”  The thrill of an unexpected day off is buried deep in us all, no matter how old we are and even if  by now bad weather is no longer a passport to a short snowball fight followed by lounging around on the sofa all day drinking hot chocolate.    Snow makes everything feel different, somehow more special or exciting, and trudging to the corner shop in your wellies to fetch provisions (more hot chocolate and a packet of shortcake biscuits if you must know) is much more of an adventure than getting in the car and zipping off to the supermarket. 

Whether we love it or hate it our attention is so taken up with the snow the fact that interest rates are now down to a record breaking low of 1% is not getting much of a look in during coffee breaks in the office.  Which is amazing really as some of  us remember the last recession when interest rates (briefly) reached 15%.  Most of us are seeing direct financial benefit from the rates cuts and feeling quite smug that we didn’t opt for a fixed rate (just like the people on fixed rates feel smug when interest rates go up) but what is evident from the chat in the office is that no one is actually spending their extra money.  Nobody is hot footing it over to Howells’  sale in their lunch break to spend their extra cash.  Far from it – the talk is all of  cutting back expenditure even further, bringing sandwiches in from home,  shopping in the reduced items aisle and careful fridge management so as to avoid waste and pay down credit card debt.  This is undoubtedly good for our individual  financial fitness but isn’t helping the economy much and this drastic change in our spending patterns is having a direct negative impact on our manufacturing and retail businesses.  So this weekend I urge you all to use a little bit of your interest rate cut and just go out and buy something.    Mind, the only buying I’ll be doing this weekend will be  in Lidl because on Monday my husband became unemployed. Look on the bright side though – at least I didn’t have to worry about child care when school closed again this morning.

The state of our floors

I’m not talking about kitchen floors here, you understand, but pelvic ones.    Yess, this one’s about stress incontinence.

Last summer we went to stay for the weekend with friends who had a large trampoline in their garden.  It had been years since I’d had a go on a trampoline and like the kids I couldn’t wait to get up on it and have a bit of a bounce.  Only when I bounced I got a bit more than I bargained for.  Horrified, I scurried off the trampoline.   It wasn’t until much later that evening and after two big glasses of wine that I plucked up enough courage to timidly ask the hostess  “You know the trampoline?  How is it for you when you go on it?”   She laughed.   ”Oh did you pee yourself a little?  Don’t worry.  Everyone does!”

Only I did worry, quite a lot.  Back home I googled stress incontinence.  Yet another thing for Superwomen to contend with, it’s all down to the pelvic floor muscles that support your bladder getting weakened by child birth or because we are getting older or fatter.  1 in 5 women over the age of 40 suffers from it.   For many women it doesn’t take something as drastic as trampolining to cause it – a cough or a sneeze will do.    To avoid stress incontinence we should do pelvic floor exercises or Kegels,  involving squeezing together the muscles that stop the flow of urine.   These are called “pull ups”  and we should do both slow and fast ones at least three times a day for at least five minutes a time.   I also discovered that there are special pelvic toners you can buy to help you but on the basis that these cost around £30 and look rather rude (put it like this – you can buy a discreet carry bag for your pelvic toner.  Enough said)  I opted for doing the pull ups on my own.

I tried to do them whenever I was stuck at traffic lights.  Sometimes I forgot but after a while it became second nature.  Now whenever I see a red light I immediately start Pavlovian clenching.  The only downside is that when I do them my eyebrows shoot up and down in time with the pull ups and my kids ask me if I’m feeling OK.   A few months later,   we went to visit our friends with the trampoline again and I insisted I had a go on it (even though it was drizzling a bit) and  – whey hey – the pull ups had worked.  I wasn’t about to try a Fosby Flop or anything but a decent dry bounce had been achieved.   Arthur Kegel (who is accredited as being the inventor of pelvic floor exercises although I bet there was a woman involved somewhere in the background) would be proud of me. 

One thing I have noticed.  Whenever I mention pelvic floor exercises to any woman aged over 30 she immediately starts looking distracted.   ”You’re doing them right now, aren’t you?” I ask.  “Huh huh”, they nod, a look of concentration on their faces.    So far though I’m the only one I know of  whose eyebrows go up and down.    Look out for me at traffic lights.

Scouts v Girl Guides

When I was growing up back in the seventies, my father (a leftie graduate of the LSE) refused to allow me to join the Brownies or to read Enid Blyton on the basis that they both fostered sterotypical attitudes towards women and he wanted me to grow up believing I could do anything a boy could do, not hang around at home keeping the place tidy and baking cake.  Furthermore I would have to make a pledge to God and the Queen neither of which he was fussed about.  My mother supported him on the Brownies issue but being more concerned that I should develop a love of reading than she was of the risk I might turn into Ann from the Famous Five she over ruled him on the Enid Blyton front and I read my way through the entire range.  My heart’s desire was to go to boarding school, play Lacrosse and have a tuck box in which to stash food for midnight feasts. 

Eventually I grew out of Enid Blyton but a life long love of reading had been established.  My mother’s mission was accomplished.  My Dad’s too, since I have never been in doubt that I can do anything a boy can do (sperm production and weeing standing up excepted).  However, despite the complete absence of Baden Powell in my childhood,  my son joined Beaver Scouts the minute he turned six, loved it from the start and, four years on , Scouting is definitely his favourite activity by a long chalk.  

Times have changed a bit since my childhood.   Girls go to Scouts now for a start and my son’s mixed sex pack is run almost entirely by women.  They do lots of physical activities and earn badges but they also make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and decorate biscuits for Valentine’s Day.   They still promise to do their duty to God (or to Allah if Muslim) and to the Queen but they also promise to do their best and to help people which are the sorts of promise society needs.  Boys and girls are taught they can each do whatever the other can and if boys want to bake cake and girls want to tie knots then good for them.  Best of all they get to go on camping weekends from which my son returns sodden, starving and exhausted but having had the “best time of his life, ever”.  I run him a deep hot bath (he will usually only ever have a shower) and I sit with him while he soaks and tells me about the fun things he did, the midnight feasts they had and how Ellen is the fastest runner but Callum is the best at hopscotch.    Scouting is  helping teach my son that people are different but equal.  The only downside to it is that having never been to Brownies, I am terrible at sewing on his badges.

I’m lovin’ Angels

Nothing gets people talking like giant public art.    The  recently announced giant white horse sculpture to be built at Ebbsfleet Kent, 50 times real size,  higher than Nelson’s column and dubbed the Angel of the South, has divided opinion.    You either love it or hate it.  The same goes for the 127 illuminated talking buoys to be moored in the River Teifi in Cardigan, to be called Turbulence.  Half the population of Cardigan has petitioned against their installation. 

Twas ever thus.  Built more than 10 years ago people didn’t like the Angel of the North either but now it is one of the most recognised landmarks in Britain and a trip to the North East is not complete without a pilgrimage to the Angel which is on a blowy hill top just off the A1 with not much else around it.    I’ve been and it’s breathtaking – well worth the trip.  Perhaps it’s just tall constructions the public don’t like.  In 1887 when the Eiffel Tower was built people kicked up a fuss about that too referring to it as  “this truly tragic street lamp” and “giant ungainly skeleton” but the critics shut up when in 1889 the tower received two million visitors.    Eiffel also had a hand in the construction of the Statue of Liberty, built in France and shipped to America in 1885.    Americans moaned a lot about her, complaining about her cost and I imagine when a 305 foot giant green woman popped up in New York Harbour she divided opinion too but five million people a year go visit her. 

It seems there is a cycle to these things.   People start off hating them, then  over time grow to love them and eventually millions of people go visit them.   Which is one of the reasons why I think we need an Angel of Cardiff.  I’ve even identified a good spot – that grassy mound off the link road near the turn off to Asda.   Let’s stick a big piece of modern art there – it would complement the Millennium Stadium, the Millennium Centre and the new Cardiff City stadium something lovely.    But it’s got to be  different and innovative and indicative of modern day Cardiff so please no giant sheep, harps, daffodils, rugby balls or leeks and definitely no reference to Millennium or St David’s.  And then we’ve got to think of a dedication to equal Antony Gormley’s wonderful quote for his beautiful Angel of the North:

“People are always asking me why an angel.  The only response I can give is that no-one has ever seen one and we need to keep imagining them.  The angel has three functions – firstly a historic one to remind us that below this site coal miners worked in the dark for 200 years, secondly to grasp hold of the future expressing our transition from the industrial to the information age and lastly as a focus for our hopes and fears.”

On second thoughts, nothing could equal that.  Perhaps we should just ask Antony Gormley to build us another Angel for Cardiff exactly like the first one only  a bit bigger.  Then we can call her Superangel.

Putting things in perspective

Since my husband became unemployed at the beginning of February I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t worried about our finances.    I earn a good salary but so did he and when you have two salaries coming in well you spend them both don’t you?  But for families with only one breadwinner the impact of losing that job is terrible.   Every day we hear of more job losses (like the announcement today that 850 jobs are to go at the Mini car factory in Cowley) and with each job gone the whole of the nation becomes poorer because people affected by redundancy (and that includes people who are not yet facing redundancy but fear they might at some stage) stop buying sofas and tellys and DVDs and pretty much everything else that is non essential meaning those businesses also lose sales leading ultimately to further job losses.    This means that we are all of us in a pretty miserable place at the moment.

However, three stories in the news this week have hammered home to me that misery is a relative thing.   I read the account in Saturday’s Western Mail by Neil Bennett (former deputy editor of the Western Mail and now a photo-journalist in Melbourne) of his assignment to one of the communities destroyed by the bush fires and the requests from the survivors not just for food and blankets but for men’s suits – dark men’s suits to be worn at the funerals – and this detail, this small sad detail, made me cry for the victims more than the telly coverage I’d seen.   We’d had dinner with Australian friends earlier in the week and I’d wondered why so many people had stayed to fight the fires because here we would have grabbed our kids and our pets and possibly the digital camera and got out as fast as we could.  It was explained to me that Australians routinely cope with bush fires and are trained from an early age to clear their gutters and the areas around their houses of vegetation,  dampen their roofs,  stamp out any embers and sit it out.  It was the size and ferocity of these fires that caught people out not the fact that they happened.   

The story of the Websters was equally upsetting – their three young children were taken into care three years ago following concerns that their parents had injured one of them and despite the fact that it has now been shown that the injuries may have resulted from a medical condition the children are to remain with their adoptive parents.  How utterly tragic is that situation for all involved – the natural parents, the adoptive ones and the children themselves – huge upset and hurt whichever way you turn. 

And finally there was Jade Goody.  This woman has lived her life so much in the public eye that you feel you know her even though you don’t.  And to hear that her cancer has become terminal and that she is to wed her fiance in a few weeks time in what is probably a publicity stunt but who cares if it raises money to finance her sons’ future is also very distressing. 

Sorry everyone I know it’s Monday and you could probably have done with a cheerier blog.   But if life has dealt you the redundancy card those stories do put everything in perspective don’t they?  And if you’ve got some enforced time off then be glad of it, spend some time with your family and friends and do whatever thing has been on your personal to do list for ages even if it is only getting out for a walk in the fresh air every day instead of being cooped up at work.   To quote Cat Stevens as my sister often does, doing the funny little dance she always does when she says it “We’re only dancing on this earth for a short while. “

Cakes in the kitchen again

Posting this one again because it’s funny and because it’s the birthday of one of our Supermen and he bought us a lot of danish pastries which for  £3.49 for 12 from Costco were pretty good.

Here at Superwoman Towers we get a lot of cake.  Celebrating your birthday by bringing cake into the office is a tradition honoured in offices all across the country and at Superwoman Towers we are delighted that it happens just about every other week.  Every Superwoman’s heart is gladdened by seeing an e-mail slide sweetly into her inbox announcing that there are “Cakes in the Kitchen”

Over the years the following set of rules, never spoken out loud but rigorously followed, has developed at Superwoman Towers on the etiquette of Cakes in the Kitchen.

1.  If you love us make sure the cake is home made.  You don’t have to bake it yourself although we’ll be impressed if you do.  Every Superwoman should be a skilled delegator and have the number of a good caterer saved in her mobile phone that will not only bake the cake but deliver it too.
2.  If it can’t be home made then go for M &S or Waitrose or any of those gourmet supermarket brands.  You know the ones – with the silver and black packaging.  We like all of those.
3.  Bumper packs of value jam doughnuts not so much.  But we’ll eat them of course, especially come 4pm which is the time we used to get home from school and are all centrally programmed to need something sweet to eat.
4.  Buying fruit instead of cake because it’s a healthier option is not allowed.  Ever.  If you insist, you can buy fruit as well as cake but understand that the fruit won’t get eaten until the cake has run out.
5.  Often men say they don’t eat cake.  Often this is a lie.  Men who do eat cake cut slices the equivalent of three days of Weight Watchers points.  Bear this in mind when considering quantities required.
6.  Cakes must not arrive in the kitchen anonymously and must always be announced with an e-mail headed Cakes in the Kitchen.  Corny jokes or clichéd comments about being 21 again or 42 years young or another year rolling by are welcomed.  However, the person who always hears time’s winged chariot hurrying near needs to seize the day a bit more.
7.  When you collect your cake from the kitchen you must do a little skip on your way back to your desk as if you never eat cake and it is a rare and wonderful treat.  You must also murmur appreciatively while you eat it.
8.  In offices of less than 50 people, Cakes in the Kitchen is an office wide event and cakes must be delivered to every floor in the office.  Beyond 50 people it is permissible to confine Cakes in the Kitchen to your particular department.
9.  Food items may also be placed in the kitchen to mark your return from holiday.  The rules for such food items are not as rigid but ideally they should have some connection with your holiday destination such as Canadian Maple Syrup Cookies, Turkish Delight or Spanish Turron.   However, giant Toblerone bars from the airport are also acceptable.
10.  It is a truth universally acknowledged that Cakes in the Kitchen contain no calories.  Thus you may bring in left over cake from other events such as Christmas or your child’s birthday party and they will be eaten gratefully, collectively and without a trace of guilt.

Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and God

In the run up to Christmas 2008 my son (aged 10) told me that some of the children in his class had been saying there’s no such thing as Santa but, he said, reassuringly patting my knee, “I don’t take any notice of them.  I believe in Father Christmas.   And the Tooth Fairy.   And God.”  

He hung up his stocking on Christmas Eve with every bit as much expectation as his four year old sister and when a tooth came out on New Year’s Eve it  confidently went under his pillow.   (And thankfully despite rather a lot of  champagne and a banging head I woke up at about 5am and foggily remembered to remove it and shove some money under instead.)   In all honesty I think by now he has serious doubts about the existence of either of these benevolent beings who come unseen in the middle of night to leave nice things for children but he’s canny enough to keep on believing just in case if he stops the nice things might stop too.   However, I don’t think there’s much chance he’ll make it to Christmas 2009 and the ripe old age of 11 still believing in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy.   

So how do I deal with the issue of God?  As far as my son is concerned they come as a threesome – Santa, Fairy and God - who all look out for him.   When he was old enough to realise that everyone he loves will die some day and as a result got very upset he worked out for himself a theory about heaven that comforted him.  In his version heaven is one big party, with bunting  and pop and lots of cheesy wotsits, where everyone  he loves will go when they die and become young again  and wait for him to join the party when his turn comes.    “I’ll ride up on a cloud and see everyone there won’t I Mum?”  he asks.  “Gran and Grandad and you and Dad and Elvis Presley.”   I like this idea so much – can hear the party poppers going off and all the cheers as he steps off his cloud and I get to see him again-  that I can’t bring myself to tell him that many people, myself included,  don’t belive in God anymore than they do in Santa and the Tooth Fairy.    He’s 10 and still a bit afraid of the dark and he believes in everlasting life and frankly I wish I did too.  So when the time finally comes and he asks me the direct question whether Santa and the Tooth Fairy exist I will tell him “No” but when he asks me the same question about  God I’ll tell him that no one knows for sure and that he needs to make up his own mind on that one.

Shirley Conran’s Tips for Working Women

For those of you who did not see it in the Sunday Times yesterday, here are the top tips of the original Superwoman, Shirley Conran, for working women:

• Be realistic.  A woman can have it all but probably not all at once.
• Dump feelings of guilt about not being at home all the time.  Remember you are dumping them to protect your psychological health, your spouse or boyfrined – if you have one – and any children.
• One- parent mothers need to remember that no man – however wonderful – can replace a child’s father so help it to see as much as possible of his or her father, and have a bit more time to yourself, too.
• Try to be a bit healthier than you are at the moment.  Any higher aim is unrealistic.
• Plan on paper.  Keep a diary and plan your weekends and evenings as carefully as you do your weekdays.  Use an index card to plan your day, with not more than three things to do and three telephone calls to make.  If you add something, cross something else off.  List everything that needs doing and delegate all except five important items.
• Don’t take on too much.  If you do, get out of it firmly.  Just say no and keep saying no.
• My gran told me that you can’t get a quart out of a pint pot and this is the key to self-management.  Things haven’t changed.  To get through life you need a fast, adaptable sense of priorities to achieve your particular work-life balance. 

There’s a lot of good advice here.  I particularly like the bit about trying to be a bit healthier but that any higher aim is unrealistic and that women can have it all, just not all at once.  However, what Superwoman plans her day (on paper!) around only three things to do and three phone calls to make and is in a position to delegate?  Only three things to do is a day off for most of us, particularly as the only delegation most of us can do is to tell the kids to pick up their toys and their other halves to pick up their dirty socks.  Still, for being one of the first to tell the world that it is possible to have a career and children and for her OBE for services to equality, we salute you Shirl.

Pop goes the Band

OK I admit it.  I watched this on Living this week.  Well, there was a space left in my viewing schedule thanks to Lipstick Jungle having finished.

Even if you didn’t watch it you can’t (unless you don’t have Sky) have missed the adverts.  Dollar – David van Day and Theresa Bazar, 51 and 53 respectively, having a make over before they did a small reunion gig in front of half a dozen close friends and weirdly devoted fans.   They showed them both stripped to their undies and no make up and, to be honest, I thought both of them looked quite good.  Yes poor Theresa had some cracking bags under her eyes but she was still slim and pretty and David’s middle age spread was not too far out of control. 

David got a face lift and a personal trainer.  The face lift looked really sore and I think his ultimate weight loss of a stone had nothing to do with the personal trainer but the fact he must have felt too ill to eat.  Teresa got about 300 jabs of botox (administered by a woman the bottom half of whose face didn’t move AT ALL so that should have given her the hint to run away fast) and was horribly bruised for weeks afterwards.   Both looked better post procedure, both invasive and non invasive, but only in a “had a couple of good nights’ sleep” kind of way.   When they finally went on stage to mime their way through some of their hits it had to be said they did look much better than they had in the before shots but this was primarily because of the following:

1.  They’d had good hair cuts and David had ditched the dodgy blonde high lights.

2.  They had clothes so we couldn’t see their knobbly and wobbly bits anymore.

3.  They had make up on.

4.  The lights were dimmed.

Superwomen – The lesson I have taken from this program  is don’t bother with a face lift, get yourself a good hair cut and colour and some decent control pants instead and with the lights turned down a bit  you’ll look quite a bit fresher.  That said, I’ll be watching again next week.  Think it’s Bucks Fizz .   Can’t wait.

Definition of a Superwoman

This question crops up a lot.  What exactly is a Superwoman?  And are you only allowed on this site or to come to one of the Superwoman events if you are heading up an investment bank while simultaneously raising four children, volunteering in the Oxfam shop and training for the London marathon? 

To paraphrase my gran on the subject of beauty, Superwoman is as Superwoman does.  Being a Superwoman does not mean (or does not only mean) juggling a career with kids or other family commitments.  Being a Superwoman means trying to have a super life.   It doesn’t mean you necessarily achieve it but that you try.  And what amounts to a super life depends partly on individual choice and partly on the hand that life has dealt you.  Here are some of the Superwomen I know of:

• Mid forties, divorced despite sticking with her marriage through her husband’s numerous affairs and numerous failed attempts at IVF, now being a great aunt and a great friend, grabbing every opportunity  to enjoy life and never saying no (funds permitting) to a night out, a pop festival, a trip to the theatre or just a good laugh;
• Hard working, excellent lawyer married to another hard working excellent lawyer giving up her career to look after their two young children because something had to give; now spending a lot of time with her children (husband left for work before the children get up and often not home until after they are in bed) doing jigsaw puzzles and colouring and making fairy cakes and really enjoying it and never drinking on a school night ever;   
• Working in M & S part time including on a Saturday when all she ever wanted was to be a stay at home Mum because otherwise they won’t be able to pay the mortgage every month;    
• Widow with two very young children following the death of her husband in a car accident, keeping together a part time job, a home, and a happy face for her children despite carrying around a slab of misery inside her so large it would crush most people and still finding time to support the other widows in her support group including one whose husband cancelled all their life insurance before hanging himself in the garage during his daughter’s ninth birthday party;

So no you don’t need to head up an investment bank to be a Superwoman.  You don’t even need to have a job.  You just need to be a woman trying to be a bit super.   Whether you’re living on a really tight budget so as to be able to be at home with the kids or having to go to work so as to have any budget at all; whether you’re juggling a pretty demanding career with being a good parent or have decided that for you being a good parent means walking away from that career  – you are all of you Superwomen in our book.    We could have called the site Woman but that would not have been as catchy or as easy to find on google as Superwoman and besides, we like the idea of the capes and the high heeled boots. 

So what’s your definition of a Superwoman?  We’d be interested in your comments.

International Women’s Day

Tonight in Cardiff the IOD are hosting an International Women’s Day dinner organised by Eventure UK.   Prominent Welsh business women will be “arrested” and will raise bail money in aid of Cardiff Women’s Aid a charity that works with women and children escaping domestic violence.     Anita Dobson is guest speaker and even in these credit crunchy times the event will raise money, awareness and a laugh. 

International Women’s Day has its roots in the socialist movement  and dates from the 1900′s.  In 1975 the United Nations designated 8 March as International Women’s Day at which governments and organisations around the world hold large scale events to honour women’s advancement while reminding us of the need for continued vigilance to ensure women’s equality is gained and maintained. 

But women are still not getting equal pay for equal work.   A report by the European Commission published this week shows that women in the UK earn 21% less than men based on gross hourly earnings.  This is up from 17% last year.   On top of this female redundancy rates increased by 2.3% from January to September 2008 – almost double the 1.2% rate for men, according to TUC statistics and a report from management consultants Accenture published earlier this week in celebration of IWD (“Untapped potential: Stretching toward the future”)  shows that despite 59% of women business professionals feeling they are successful they are still  less likely than men to ask for a pay rise or promotion.

In 1911, in a poem now associated with strikes by women textile workers in Massachusetts, James Oppenheim talked of women marching in their quest towards equality.  Superwomen it’s clear we need to keep right on marching.  (But I think we should ditch the lines about battling too for men.   And anyway I’m not certain it’s healthy to mother them again)

“As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day

A million darkened ktichens,a thousand mill lofts gray

Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses

For the people hear us singing Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men

For they are women’s children and we mother them again

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread but give us roses!

Handbags at dawn

Disagreement is healthy right?  Discussion even better.  Check out yesterday’s blog about International Women’s Day and the comment on it.   Anything you’d like to add?

Should I stay or should I go now?

If I stay there will be trouble if I go it will be double……

Let me set the scene.  You are a working Mum.  You got up at 5.30am to do some work before your kids were out of bed; you forgot your son was going on a school trip and all you have in the house for a packed lunch are jam sandwiches and a geriatric pear (and all mothers know that pears don’t do lunch boxes); it’s your turn to drop the kids off at school and you wish you really were Superwoman so you could fly them there at the speed of light; you would like a shower but there’s no time and you’ll have to make do with swishing a few wet wipes around; the day ahead is studded with meetings and deadlines and at the thought of it all you could weep.

Sound familiar?  It does to me.  I’ve just described my morning this morning.   Little wonder then that so many working women eventually decide to stop work;  to go “off ramp” which is the term used by economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett  in her book published by Harvard Business School Press ”Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success”.  [Sylvia Hewlett - there's a Superwoman for you and from the South Wales Valleys  too although she's lived in America so long she doesn't even bother to identify which valley it is - well they all look the same from America don't they?].

Ms Hewlett’s book is about helping corporate America devise work place policies to stop the female brain drain and help employers “retain and reattach” highly qualified committed women.   It’s all good stuff –  advising companies in America to offer flexible working, family friendly policies and mentoring and coaching to help women build confidence.   In the UK parents of children under six (and from 6 April 2009 under sixteen) have the legal right to request (although not to get) flexible working .  But once you go off ramp can you really go on ramp again?

Eighteen months ago I would have said that most women who step away from a career path do not find their way back, not only because the business world is unforgiving of career breaks  but also because they don’t want to.  Once you get used to living without holidays abroad and Clarins moisturiser  and having more time for your family and for yourself why would you want to go back ?  But here’s the thing about the current financial climate and the extensive redundancies.  Women are going back to work right now because they have to.  Because if they don’t it won’t be holidays and moisturiser they won’t be able to afford.  It’ll be the food bill.  Financial necessity has got women steeling themselves and scurrying back on to those ramps far faster than flexible working policies.   Only thanks to the off ramp period they now report to the people who once reported to them.

Raising £60 million – tidy

My ten year old son was very keen that we should all sit down as a family and watch Red Nose Day together on Friday night.  He’d gone to school dressed up in silly clothes, he’d seen a preview of Smithy with the England football team on Blue Peter that had made him howl with laughter and he couldn’t wait to watch the rest.

I tried to prepare him for the emotional roller coaster of Friday night telly that lay ahead.  “It’s not all funny stuff  you know.   There’ll be lots of sad stuff as well.”   

It was me that needed preparing, not him.  Thirty minutes in and tears were oozing out of me and after that just as soon as the sad music started I was off again.   I pulled my children close,  thanked my lucky stars and reached for my credit card.   I take my hat off to the organisers of Red Nose Day for tapping into that feeling and making  millions of us extremely glad of the opportunity to give money to people less fortunate.   Lenny Henry and everyone else involved in helping raise that incredible total should be very proud of themselves.

Red Nose Day also made me very proud of being Welsh.   David Tennant, the current Dr Who, made in Wales of course, looked very dashing in his white suit and red tie (and Davina McCall looked great too but she did stick her bottom out quite a lot didn’t she?  Did she think it was Red Bum Day?)  but when Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon sang Barry Islands in the Stream I wanted to get to my feet and stand up straight, like they were singing Land of my Fathers or something.  And then came Sir Tom.  He might not have lived in Wales for years (terrible shame that) but he’s kept his Welsh accent and his voice is truly amazing.  When he joined in with Ruth and Rob (Sail away with me…) I wanted to jump up and punch the air,  in a rock anthem kind of way.

The Kilimanjaro posse did amazingly well and having raised £1.5 million and enough money  for a million malaria nets Cheryl Cole needn’t feel guilty about demanding a million quid to be a judge on X factor.  Well maybe just a teensy bit.  And then, hollow eyed and knackered,  Gary Barlow went off to sing with the rest of Take That and even though Take That aren’t Welsh I wanted to punch the air some more.   

By 10.30pm I had fallen asleep on the sofa.  Well it was Friday night and all that crying and laughing (and drinking wine at the same time) was exhausting.    Fat lot of good I would have been up Kilimanjaro.  But thanks to Red Nose Day I’ve been reminded (again) just how lucky we all are and what an amazing, life changing, difference people can make when they put their mind to it.    All together now, in the words of Barry Manilow, as sung by Nessa:  

“I can’t live without you if the love was gone

Everything is nothing if you got no one

And you just walk in the night

Slowly losing sight of the real thing.”

Jamie’s Italian coming to Cardiff

I went to Bath last week for a business lunch.  It’s ever such a pretty place Bath – all those mellow yellow houses  – and cute shops selling all sorts of expensive pretty stuff that you really must buy while you’re in there but afterwards  don’t have the foggiest why you  forked out 16 quid for three little pots of jam with gingham covers.     And it must be weird living there because around 75% of the people there at any one time are tourists and most of those are carrying cameras – living in Bath must feel a bit like living on a film set.   

Anyway, the lunch  was at Jamie’s Italian.   It only opened in September 2008.  You can’t book  and when I arrived (early) at around 12pm there was already a long queue of people snaking round the building waiting for the doors to open to nab themselves a table.   Half an hour after opening the place was full and it seats 250.  Recession?  What recession? 

Clientele was mixed – lots of business lunches and tourists but also lots of resident Bath yummy mummies, complete with bugaboos,  Boden clad children and quirky berets.  Imagine the cast of Mistresses having lunch.  There – you’ve got the vibe.

Food was good.  As it says on the Jamie’s Italian website

“The Jamie’s Italian menu is driven by what you’d find ordinary people eating over in Italy. Rustic, simple dishes, the best ingredients we could find both locally and in Italy – and seasonal too – made with care but delivered without lots of fuss.”

So as you’d expect there was fresh bread, good olive oil and balsamic vinegar, mixed platters of parma ham and salami, fresh pasta and grilled meats like steak and lamb chops with chips.  You had to pay extra for the chips.  That bugs me that does.  The waiter did however offer us tap water (not bottled) and when we said yes it came chilled, in a carafe with some lemon – very green, very Jamie.   

The atmosphere was lively and fun – nothing like making people queue for their table with no guarantee of getting one to make sure that by the time they sit down to eat they’re all excited and feeling rather pleased with themselves.  It wasn’t stupid money – about £65 for three courses for two and a glass of wine each and although it was the sort of stuff you could easily make at home for less money I really enjoyed it.  You could sort of imagine you were an extra in one of Jamie’s cookbook photos which I suppose is the whole point.    I texted my husband when I popped to the loo and said that I wished he was there with me instead of business lunch partner  (No offence business lunch partner!  He doesn’t read the Superwoman blog anyway.)

Jamie (get me! we’re on first name terms) doesn’t miss a marketing trick mind.  Everywhere there was a little bit of Jamie you could buy – jars of olives, bottles of olive oil, cookbooks galore.  The man’s a business genius and seems so nice too.

I was delighted to learn over the weekend that a new Jamie’s Italian is to open later this year in Cardiff in the St David 2 centre.  Seems everyone else had known about this for months but the information had passed me by.  This is good news for Cardiff and I shall definitely be going when it opens.    In the meantime I am planning an overnight stay in Bath very soon (it’s only an hour away by train) and another visit to  Jamie’s Italian for me and him indoors.

Badverts

Even though Sky Plus has made it possible to fast forward through the adverts, somehow or other they still manage to sneak in.     Is it  just me but in that Pantene advert,  the one where Myleene Klass is playing the piano barefoot and in a backless frock and flinging her head around a lot, don’t you think her hair actually looks a bit greasy?

Here are some of the other adverts that bug me:

1.  The Lloyds TSB one “for the journey”.  Do we really need reminding that we get on the train of life , all youthful and carefree, and then travel fast one way all the way to the tunnel of death?  This advert makes me want to live hard, die young and spend every penny I earn rather than plan carefully for the future.  And I like Julie Walters but the flat, whiny, nasal way she says “for the journeee” just sums up the misery of it all.  (Should say I was at a wedding before Christmas and shared my view on this advert with my table only to find out that the Lloyds TSB marketing executive responsible for the campaign was on the same table.  Oops.  But I’d said it by then.)

2.  Ewan Macgregor’s Davidoff advert.   What was he thinking?  The first time I saw it and he talked about travelling “further and further into the realms of the extraordinary” I really thought it was  a joke and he was going to have some serious message about the environment or Unicef.  All that deep soulful looking out over the desert  is absolute pants.  I hope he made a lot of money out of it and then donated every penny to Unicef.

3.  Dervla Kirwan’s M & S adverts – come on, she sounds like she’s in a porno, not a food advert.  “This isn’t just any old dirty movie, this is an M & S dirty movie.”

Interestingly Nadine Baggot (“beauty editor”) and the Olay Pentapeptides have disappeard off our screens.  Turns out Pentapeptides don’t stop ageing after all.  Dash – I really wanted to believe  that.  Just the fragile hope that it might work was worth £20.  The DFS’ Rock Star ad has gone too – the sofas had been enlarged beyond actual size.     Nickelback ruined a perfectly good song for nothing.

One advert which has grown on me is Aleksandr Orlov in the Compare the Meerkat ad.  This may have something to do with the fact that he appears to have bagged the prime slot just before the program starts again (which means unless you are particularly dextrous with the Sky Plus fast forward control you end up watching that one at least).   It’s silly but catchy and even as I’m typing this I’m singing “compare the meerkat dot com” in my head.  It’s not just me that likes Aleksandr.  He has  298,457 friends on Facebook and writes regular updates on his Wall.   See below for his last entry on Red Nose Day.  Now that’s what I call marketing superpeoples.

Dear friends,

 

As you may have seen, I have appear in televised British Broadcasting Brainstorm for UK Red Nose Day. Myself and other top business peoples get together to think of way to ‘do something funny for hard currency’.

Watch film of meeting here http://snipr.com/dq5rp

I join in over a satellite link-up, but unfortunately I spill a diet soda cola on connector cables and there was small fire.

However, I have not given up support of this top quality cause. Today at comparethemeerkat.com, we are all wearing entertaining hat. I have a crown I usually only wear on Tuesdays and I have bought for Sergei a little bonnet.

Your buddy,

Aleksandr.

 

Cleaning up before the cleaner comes

Does everyone else clean up before the cleaner comes or is it just me?  My husband has come to dread the way I leap out of bed early on Thursday morning barking instructions at him and the kids to clean up this and tidy that because “It’s Shirley day!”  

“What’s the point of having a cleaner if you do all the cleaning before she comes?” he asks wearily.

“I’m not cleaning, I’m just tidying up so she can get to the cleaning,”  I snap.   It is important that the house be tidy on Shirley day.  If it is not, she will tidy instead of cleaning because Shirley will do tidying over cleaning any day of the week.    I often come home on a Thursday to find that my airing cupboard has been re-organised so that my towels are arranged in order of size and colour but the extremely long cobwebs in the corner of the living room ceiling are still gently flapping.   She also used to regularly re-organise my wardrobe (including my knicker drawer!) until I eventually plucked up the courage to ask her not to.  ”It might look  a mess but I know where everything is,” I explained gently.  More truthfully I know that the clothes at the front of the drawers fit me still whereas those stuffed at the back have either shrunk in the wash or I have stretched. 

I know she will moan about this to the other people she cleans for.  I know this because she moans to me about them.  “So and so is lazy,” she whispers to me conspiratorially, “toilet like a pig sty; disgusting.”  The net effect of this of course is that I clean the toilet so that she doesn’t say the same about me and thus my husband is quite correct when he says I am  cleaning before the cleaner comes.  I do lots of other things too before the cleaner comes:

• I empty the bathroom bin because if it contains an empty toilet roll Shirley will deem the entire contents to be cardboard and therefore recyclable meaning that I afterwards have to fish dental floss out of the recycling box;
• I hide all post and school/cubs permission slips away neatly in one pile in the study or else Shirley will stuff it all into random drawers never to be found again because she thinks it looks messy out on the counter;
• I hide all delicate clothing or T shirts with logos on the front because Shirley’s iron only has one setting – extremely hot – and these things will end up burnt or smeared;

I have come to the conclusion that a cleaner is to household chores what a personal trainer is to exercise.    They don’t actually do it for you; they just stand over you and make you do it yourself.    I would not however be without her.   Between us we do get the house clean and tidy on a Thursday (roll up, roll up, one night only….); she is happy to babysit and my children love her and if there’s no food in the house she will go out and buy some and feed them; she has a heart of gold and I often find that I have unexpectedly acquired a new ironing boad cover or storage solutions for the kids toys from IKEA.  Before Christmas I acquired a new duvet cover.  Bright green, with an enormous daisy pattern and made of poly cotton, the sharp stuff that gives off sparks if you run your toe nail over it in bed.   

“Isn’t it pretty!” Shirley said proudly.  ”I thought you could do with some colour.  Your other stuff is so drab.”  Later as I exchanged the poly cotton green daisies for my drab 100% organic egyptian cotton cover I wondered to myself for how long, in addition to cleaning, I would also be doing the duvet cover shuffle before my cleaning lady comes.

Superwoman by E J Catering

Molly has recently out grown her high chair and enjoys the independence of feeding her self. She has been sitting on our kitchen step with a stool as her table, and though this is sweet it’s not all that practical for either Molly or us so this evening I bought and assembled a wee Ikea table.  I love making things but I have never been that good at carpentry. The measuring, sawing, joining always goes quickly askew; my lack of planning becomes obvious and the feeling of being out of my depth sets in.  But as I took this table from the box I realised this was my type of wood work!  9 perfectly cut, smooth, varnished pieces with 3 pages of instruction, four brackets and a bag of different shaped screws.  It was easy to attach the first bracket into a prepared ridge and easy to hand screw as the places had been marked with small holes – repeat four times.  Next attach to the top of the table and it’s nearly done, the speed and efficiency of my perfectly hand made table coming together. Then I attached the legs. What a sense of achievement.  I had actually made it!  As I put it into the kitchen and laid it with the small china tea set that I could not resist I couldn’t wait to get up and join Molly for breakfast, at her level.

 

Back to cooking and I groaned at the hassle involved in home made spinach and ricotta cannelloni until I thought of my success in assembling the table. It’s all about following the instructions and using the helpful products we have around us.

 

2 packets of fresh spinach

½ tub ricotta

3 cloves of crushed garlic

Salt, pepper, nutmeg

A knob of butter

A packet good quality fresh lasagne sheets

 

For the sauce:

Another knob of butter

Flour

Salt and pepper

Milk

A tsp of mustard

Parmesan cheese for the top

DIY method

 

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and plunge the spinach in, simmer for a minute, no longer, drain and refresh with cold water.  Spinach holds a lot of water which risks leaving your dish swimming so make sure you squeeze all the water out. Season the dried cooked spinach with the salt, pepper, nutmeg, butter and garlic

Add the ricotta, taste.  Lay out a sheet of lasagne, place a good spoon of the spinach mixture to one end and quickly roll, lay in an oven proof dish.  Work fast-ish so the pasta does not dry and crack, although if it does crack a bit this is ok, you are going to cover it with sauce and cheese.  Repeat the rolling until the packet is finishes. Spoon any left over spinach mixture over the top.  I was soon feeling like an Itailan Mama and really enjoying myself

 Make a classic white sauce, Melt butter, add flour and stir to a roux. Using a whisk add the milk and whisk till smooth and thick, season.  Mustard and cheese really like each other and bring out each other’s flavours. Spoon the sauce over the cannoloni, top with grated cheese.  This dish will happily sit in the fridge till the evening or freeze well for a month. When ready to eat put in the oven at 170 for between 20 minutes and half an hour, till golden brown and bubbling.  Serve with roasted peppers, garlic bread and or green salad.

 

Delicious enough to eat at any table – whether you have  made it yourself or not –and with the same sense of achievement.

 

Networking at kids birthday parties

I took  my daughter to the 4th birthday party of one of her friends from nursery school on Sunday.   What a nerve wracking experience!  I am of course talking about my own experience here not my daughter’s who was completely unfazed by the whole thing and within 20 seconds of arriving at her host’s home had run out into the garden, kicked off her shoes and disappeared into the depths of the bouncy castle.

As a working Mum I only drop my daughter off at nursery two days a week and since she finishes at 11.45am I never pick her up.  Consequently I recognised only a few children and virtually no parents.  Everyone else seemed to know each other really well and so, hugging a cup of tea like a comfort blanket and smiling feebly I stood around on the fringes of various conversations, feeling well..like the new kid at school.  I didn’t help myself much by a) arriving with a mild hangover (one of the girls from the office had got married the day before and we’d all been invited to the evening do)  and b) perching myself on an upturned wooden crate conveniently placed near the bouncy castle which promptly disintegrated under my plumptious weight.  I didn’t quite disappear into the crate legs and arms flapping wildly and find myself unable to get out but it felt like I had.  

At least that was an ice breaker (crate breaker?) and the other parents took pity on me and let me into their conversations. 

“Hi, is your daughter that one over there, the one with the short hair?”  (Eek – Possible subtext here – have you had to cut all your kid’s hair off because she has nits? – see earlier blog about getting down to the Nitty Gritty)

“Yes she is.”

“My daughter loves her, talks about her all the time…” 

Hurrah!  I was in.  Turns out of course that most people don’t drop off or pick up every day and that everyone else’s child care arrangements are as complicated as my own involving combinations of parents taking turns to be late for work (nursery doesn’t start till 9.15am), nannies, child minders and grandparents.    By the second cup of tea we were filching sandwiches of our kids’ plates (no point it going to waste is there?) and working out whether we’d been to the same schools at the same time (modern life being what it is there was an age differential between parents spanning 15 years) and who we knew that they might know (this is Wales; there’s no such thing as six degrees of separation; you get to three at most).  By the time we got to the cake and candles bit (delicious home made Nigella Lawson chocolate fudge, kids didn’t like it much,what a result) we were on first name terms.

The drop off on Monday morning was much more pleasant, studded with Good Mornings and How are you’s and Great Party.   I was no longer working Mum who drops her kid off with barely a backward glance and rushes off to work but one of the gang.  Really, throwing birthday parties for your four year olds should be compulsory. 

PS  Daughter came out with a top line on the way to the party.  We drove past two horses in a field wearing horse blankets, blue check ones, tied around their necks. 

“Look Mum, there’s horses in that field.  A big one and a little one.  And they’re having their hair cut.”

Superwoman by E J Catering

My phone beeped. It was the text I had been waiting for! He had posted the keys through my letter box.    

I had a beautiful candelabra, crisp white linen, a filled iced bucket, a dozen plump red roses and a fabulous vegetarian dinner for two all in the back of my car. 

I had chosen to accept my mission, which was to let myself into the house, lay the table, plate the starter, put the main course, thoughtfully prepared for bullet proof assembly in the oven, light the candles, decorate the dessert and leave the champagne on ice.

An hour later they would return home and he would propose. 

In my excitement of creating this magical moment in a house I had never been to before for a women I had never met, I read the house number incorrectly on my text!   As i struggled with the wrong key in the wrong door, neither of which I owned and felt very aware of this fact a light come on in the corridor.  “Avon lady” was about my only thought.  An elderly gentleman opened the door, put me right and I pottered 10 doors up.

Some years back I went to an amazing vegetarian restaurant in Brighton called Terre a Terre.  The menu is exciting and smart to read, the presentation is exquisite and the flavour and fresh ingredients are creatively put together.  My starter below was very influenced from my memory of my meal there

 

The menu

A filo mille feuille of roasted cherry tomato, courgette and Jerusalem artichoke with a home made pesto dressing

–

Wild mushroom, puy lentil and tofu fricassee served with a tian of sweet potato and spinach

–

Dark chocolate cheese cake with a fresh orange and toasted almond salad

–

Coffee and petit four

 

The starter – serves 2

Melt 2 oz of butter and brush a sheet of filo pastry, cut into eight squares, sprinkle with sesame and sunflower seeds and cook for 4 minutes in the oven or until golden brown ( oven @ 170oc)

Roast 10 cherry tomatoes, 1 sliced courgette and 2 peeled chunky diced Jerusalem artichokes in olive oil, crushed garlic, fresh thyme, rock salt and black pepper.  Roast at 190oc for about 20 minutes

Pesto – in a small blender place 4oz of parmesan, 3 cloves of garlic, 6 oz of olive oil, salt and pepper.  Whiz till smooth.  Add 8oz of fresh chopped basil.  It’s a brilliant alive green colour with a rich smell that stimulates the mind.

To assemble /build– Put a small tea spoon of pesto on the plate and stick a sheet of cooked filo on top, gently place a spoon of the roasted vegetable and a tea spoon of pesto, another layer of filo, another gentle spoon of vegetables, more pesto and top with the best sheet of filo

Decorate the plate by spooning pesto around then cover the top of a bottle of quality vintage balsamic vinegar with your thumb and circle the plate.  Very chef-y

 

She said YES x

Tesco for Schools and Clubs – philanthropic or just marketing?

This is the time of year when, if you shop at Tesco, you get asked if you are collecting the school vouchers.  If you say no you don’t get any.  If you say yes you get some blue vouchers (1 for every £10 spent) which you can hand into your child’s school which they can then convert into computers and other equipment for the school.  This may seem very philanthropic  but my question is – why bother with the blue vouchers at all?  

Last year my son’s school collected the vouchers and the effort involved in collecting and collating them was immense.  Kids spent days counting the vouchers and bundling them together into the necessary units.  Mounds of blue paper were collected and sent off to Tesco.  Presmuably an army of people employed by or on behalf of Tesco then spent a lot of time administering the blue mounds before hopefully sending the whole lot to be recycled but who knows, maybe they end up in landfill.   I have been told that some schools do not take part in the process  because they simply do not have the resource available to do all that counting and probably think they should be using the time to teach children. 

At the end of all this your child’s school gets some equipment.   But not that much.   A basic computer requires 25760 vouchers, a spend of £257,600 at Tesco.  The poorer your area is and the less you spend on food, the less vouchers you get.    If Tesco really are that philanthropic  why not skip all this middle process and just stump up for some equipment for every school in every area based on their profits during a particular period?  That would be the really philanthropic, green thing to do.  Think of all the paper saved, all the additional profits to be taken into account from sales to childless people who aren’t collecting the schools vouchers and say no when asked if they are collecting.  The woman in front of me in the queue the other day asked that her vouchers be given instead to me, the next in line and with kids in tow, and was told by the cashier that wasn’t possible.   

Thing is Tesco, every little really does help.  And if you really do want to help just give our schools the stuff without all this jumping through hoops and wasting paper.  In Canada, Tim Horton’s the coffee shop chain have an annual Camp Day when money from all coffee sales (that’s sales not profits) is donated and used to send children to camp.  Last year they raised Can $8.8 million.  But if Tesco were to do that , there would not be millions of scraps of paper in circulation, all bearing the name Tesco would there?

Credit crunch cut backs

My husband resigned from his job with immediate effect a few months ago.   I won’t bore you with the background but overnight our income plummeted.    Drastic cost cutting was required, even with the cuts in interest rate.   What we found when we reviewed what we spent (for the first time in many years) was that we routinely wasted money and overspent on things we could really do without.   We also had a lot more debt than we’d realised.  Bank accounts that regularly went into overdraft and a few credit cards each were fine so long as we had two incomes coming in but came as a big shock when we went down to one and had to look at our debts overall, a bit like getting on the scales after Christmas.  It can’t be as much as that, surely?  

What follows are some of the changes we have made to save money:

• I cancelled my gym membership.  I never went anyway.  Before I was fat and felt guilty about not going.  Now I am just fat.
• We shop for food more carefully.  We have become people that prowl in the reduced items aisle and buy five loaves of reduced bread for 10 p each that we then freeze, we buy fruit that is in season and therefore cheaper as opposed to grapes (our kids loved them but they were horribly expensive) and have discovered the kids actually like tinned peaches.   We no longer buy ready meals and have become big fans of own brands which, with the possible exception of Heinz baked beans. are as good as the branded stuff. 
• We take packed lunches to work and picnics when we go out for the day with the kids.     My husband was very proud that in his first week without work he ate lunch for an entire week for £1.10 – one of those reduced loaves and a pack of pate – which was about a third of what he used to spend on lunch for a single day. 
• We make soup.  Soup is cheap and low calorie.   You can use up all the sprouting carrots and wilting cabbage that you have in your fridge in soup.  
• I bought a twin pack of night cream and day cream in Tesco for £3.  Yes £3.  I could easily have spent £60 on two jars of face cream before.  Anyway antipeptides have been proven not to work now.  And I haven’t got appreciably more wrinkly since using the cheap stuff.
• I’ve discovered that I don’t actually need new clothes.  I had a pile of quite good stuff languishing in the bottom of the wardrobe that just needed a bit of hemming or a button sewn back on.  And forget dry cleaning.  If it hasn’t got wool in it, bung it in the machine.  And if it has, sponge off any marks, hang it in a steamy bathroom and off you go. 
• We buy cheaper wine.  Obviously I am not going to suggest you stop buying wine.  Perish the thought.  But trade down a bit.  You can still buy wine for £4 a bottle. 
• We asked for a rebate on our direct debits for gas and electricity where we had overpaid substantially.  Amazingly we were owed £637. 
• Motherhood what a sisterhood! – if your children need clothes or other kit, there’s a good chance you have a friend or relative or colleague at work whose kid has just grown out of whatever it is you need and will be glad to give it to you.  So ask. One of my friends just delivered two huge bin bags of clothes for my daughter who is absolutely delighted with them and so far is averaging six changes of clothing a day as she tries everything on.
• This one is less innovative but more obvious - we aren’t going away on holiday or for weekends away or meals out – that’s how we racked up those credit card bills in the first place.  Our kids haven’t even noticed.

Now here’s the thing.  My husband got another job within six weeks.   We’re back to two incomes.  But we are keeping going with our more frugal spending habits because now we know exactly how much we wasted and how much we owe and we want to clear it all.   And actually I prefer the more prudent us.  We don’t waste food anymore and that makes us greener.  We value the stuff we have more and we’re not buying more stuff and that makes us more anti-consumerist.  Our concerted campaign to pay off our credit cards gives me a feeling of satisfaction, in a war effort battening down the hatches kind of way.  My husband says it’s a step too far to cut toothpaste tubes in half to get to the toothpaste right in the bottom but hey - I’m in the swing of it now.      

   

Life Flows

Recently, I was watching television and was mesmerised by one particular advert. This showed a man on crutches skimming through a townscape. It was utterly compelling television. I was captivated as I watched him negotiating crowds, queues and narrow streets with balletic aplomb. It was only when his spinning and twirling finished that I questioned what I had seen.

I agonised –

·        Had I been watching a skilful able-bodied actor making capital out of the predicament of disabled people?

·        Shouldn’t I feel that his dance had been politically incorrect?

·        Had I been complicit in deriding the experience of those with mobility problems?

 With such nagging thoughts tormenting me I looked up the advert on Google. There, among questions like ‘what is the music on that advert’ and ‘where can I get crutches like that’, I discovered that the actor is Bill Shannon, an American artist who lives in Brooklyn. He chooses to express himself, so Wikipedia says, through dance and skateboarding on crutches. However, he has a degenerative hip condition called avascular necrosis which means that the hip bone is deprived of blood supply and so bone tissue dies. I read this with a sense of overwhelming relief. So, now, I was allowed to enjoy watching the advert!  Although one of my ‘things’ is that I try never to be self conscious, self pitying, or self justificatory, I must admit that the knowledge that the man using crutches was disabled was a relief.      If the actor had been able bodied, I would have only been able to admire the advert covertly and would have thought that Visa had performed a cheap trick.  As it is, I love the fact that this advert, whose strap line, shown briefly at the end, is “life flows better with Visa”, shows a disabled man who is not being handicapped by his impairment.

 This did make me think though about what handicaps us all. Is it our sense of being self conscious or having self pity or feeling self justification rather than any impairment we might have? Maybe, we would be better off doing as Bill Shannon does and letting life flow.

 

Superwoman by E J Catering

A few weeks ago it was my company’s 10^th birthday.  It was a very proud moment for me as 10 years ago with no business plan or knowledge off I pottered to a kitchen at the back of my father’s house and started cooking.  I wrote creative menus and would then lie awake at night wondering how on earth I would execute them.  Having made the commitment I quickly realised how much I could learn from really challenging myself.

 

I felt a real challenge on my hands with this party to produce the best event seeing as it is what we do!!  It would be a show case to all our suppliers, friends, family, corporate and private clients as well as past and present brides.  We had simple but swishy invites printed, wrote a new, modern, creative canapé menu which I had printed onto a 8 foot banner, Ice to Art gave me a ice sculpture with my name carved into it and I served a good champagne.  With nerves in my tummy I put on a little black dress, guests started to arrive and soon the fruit of our labour, the kitchen’s commitment and hard work were paying off.

 

Here are a few of our simple canapés from the early days.

 

Smoked salmon with lemon, caper and black pepper butter.

Soften a pack of butter and add the zest and juice of half a lemon, a tablespoon of chopped capers and a good grind of pepper.  Butter the bread with this butter and lay the smoked salmon neatly over the top, cut off the crusts and the canapé into 6. Neatly plate slightly over lapping.  They look best on a square or rectangle dish.   The flavoured butter gives this simple and well used canapé a lovely twist that you don’t get till your actually eating it.

 

Bloody Mary cherry tomatoes

Lightly roast your required amount of cherry tomatoes till the skins just split but the tomato holds it shape.  170oc for about 8 minutes.  Allow them to cool and with a small knife peel away the skins.  It is a bit fiddely but put on the radio. Make up a strong glass of Bloody Mary.  4oz vodka, 4oz tomato juice, a squeeze of lemon juice, a grind of black pepper, a dash of Tabasco and a pinch of celery salt.Marinade the cherry tomatoes over night.  Serve on a tea spoon and just pop into your mouth.

 

Crostini. A truly versatile canapé base and a good staple for any party

Thinly slice an uncooked par baked baguette and brush with butter, bake in the oven 170oc for about 5 minutes or till crisp and golden brown. 

 

Here are a few topping ideas. 

 

Mozzarella and roasted sweet peppers

Chicken liver pate and fresh grape

Welsh beef and horseradish cream

Caramelised onion hummus and a sliver of celery

Prawns in lemon and chive mayonnaise

 

At the end of the evening as well as at the end of 10 years I reckon challenge yourself, it’s worth it!

Celtic Manor on the cheap

Here’s me been banging on about my new frugal outlook on life and then over Easter I cracked like the sugar coating on a Cadbury’s mini Egg.   I booked one night at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport.   The few times I’ve been to the Celtic Manor I’ve always found it a slightly surreal experience - the hotel is so big and bling and North American and the golf course is so green and serene, it’s like turning off the M4 and finding yourself suddenly in the middle of High School Musical 2- but it had availability and a swimming pool and  a family room for four, two double beds, breakfast included for £122.   And boy, did we get our money’s worth for that £122.  

Our room was not going to be available till 4pm but we checked in plenty of time before then to have a swim.  Touch too much chlorine in the pool but nice fluffy towel each.  By 4.45pm we were ready to check in but our room was not ready so Mr S did his super moody face and we were offered soft drinks while we waited and a bottle of wine in our room.  Result!  One drink each in the bar to listen to the pianist and then off upstairs to our room to drink that bottle of wine and eat the picnic we’d brought with us in our M & S cool bag - parma ham, salami, salads, pate and french bread.  We watched Britain’s got Talent as we ate which was brilliant telly and that woman who looked like someone’s spinster Aunt and then sang like an angel will get to the final I reckon.  There is something bonding about all sleeping together in the same room every once and a while, like posh caravanning, and best of all we had a little balcony so could open the window and let in some air rather than endure air conditioning. 

In the morning we ate  enormous quantities of  breakfast – eggs and bacon, cereal, yoghourt and fruit, pancakes and smoked salmon for my four year old (Yummy, she said, I love fish.  Eat lots, I said,  you won’t be getting any lunch today)  and then we went swimming again.  Another nice fluffy towel each.  What with free parking thrown in we got great value for money for our £122 and most importantly we all felt like we’d had a proper break, just half an hour’s drive away from home. 

Before leaving we checked out the new Twenty Ten golf course that is being built for the Ryder Cup next year.  It looks amazing already and will look even better once it’s finished.    The Celtic Manor will certainly be a treat for all those who come for the Ryder Cup in 2010 and I’d just like to say a big thank you to Sir Terry Matthews, a Welshman who went off to Canada to make his money but who didn’t forget where he came from and has invested in the country of his birth.    I bet the Holiday Inn opposite the Celtic Manor is grateful to him too.    We should all be.  This is what was reported in Wales Business Insider’s email bulletin today:

Golf in Wales outplays UK

The prospect of next year’s Ryder Cup boosted revenues from golfing visitors to Wales by 13 per cent last year, according to Visit Wales’ latest Golf Tourism Monitor. It indicated that the number of golf visitors to Wales rose 1 per cent in 2008, bucking a 2 per cent decline across the UK as a whole. For the first time the number of day visitors has outweighed the number of overnight visitors. Spending per visitor rose 11 per cent to £177. Heritage minister Alun Ffred Jones said: “The marketing to raise Wales’ profile as a visitor destination will continue over the next year to demonstrate the quality of golf in Wales. It is already evident that hosting the Ryder Cup is having an impact on golf tourism throughout Wales.”

Britain’s got something to talk about

I love Britain’s got talent.  It makes me laugh, it makes me cry.  Let’s face it there is nothing more entertaining than watching people with talent perform and nothing more funny than watching people without talent trying their best.  This is a programme that I can sit down to watch with my husband, ten year old son and four year old daughter which does not result in a plaintive request from one of us to “please can we watch my telly now” because BGT is telly for the whole family.    I love the fact that Susan Boyle and her “ordinary looks” have sparked such a heated debate about how women are judged on their appearance because the low level discrimination that women suffer on this basis throughout their lives is something that should be exposed.   A debate that Simon Cowell has fuelled again this week with his frankly rather creepy comment to a 21 year old dancer young enough to be his grand daughter that she was one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen.   

The other thing about BGT is that most of us are watching it AT THE SAME TIME.  Yes, yes, I know all about the millions of You Tube hits but 11.8 million people watched the opening show of BGT.     This of course is how telly used to be when I was at school - there were just four channels to choose from and on Thursday night every single one of us would be watching Top of the Pops and on Friday morning every single one of us would talk about Top of the Pops.    Half the time nowadays you can’t even discuss telly because someone will stick their fingers in their ears, saying “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me, I’ve Sky plussed it but haven’t watched it yet”. 

It seems to me that in these times of financial adversity we are all of us, whether we know it or not, trying to recapture an older way of life.  Sales of comfort food like custard, rice pudding and chocolate pudding have gone through the roof,  people are once again holidaying at the UK seaside or at Butlin’s,  brands like OXO and Persil are re-using their old adverts and everyone is loving Ashes to Ashes.  This in essence is the secret of BGT’s current success.   It is telly that can become part of a family ritual of sitting down on a Saturday night and watching something all together after tea.    It is comfort telly.

Superwoman by E J Catering – Wedding Season

The wedding season has begun!  I book myself monthly massages till the end of September as the hours I will crank up on my feet between now and then will be huge. 

 

Front of house the day flows with champagne, flowers, kisses, table favours, great food, smiling faces with a few happy tears, many hugs, too much drink and a bloody good holiday for the one lucky couple.  In contrast behind the scenes is such a mass of organisation it would make for a really good documentary. 

 

Every wedding is different. Each couple is bursting with their own ideas, tastes and styles and it all starts about a year in advance. But suddenly there’s a week to go and we really kick into action. Dinner rolls get made in their hundreds and the kitchen smells of fresh bread for 6 months. Huge quantities of meat, fresh vegetables, fillets of fish and bunches of glorious herbs arrive each morning. Trays of eggs get broken, separated, whisked and baked. Kilos of chocolate are melted and folded into litres of whipped vanilla cream.  Each and every item gets painstakingly prepared, cling filmed, labled and refrigerated.  Flower cups, filo baskets, crostini and truffles are made in their thousands. Hire lists of glasses, linen, crockery, cutlery, ovens, hot cupboards and tea urns begin to grow.  Counting and multiplying becomes second nature and before we know it the night before has arrived, which means double check lists, iron aprons and fill the crates.  I always have nerves now but would worry if I didn’t as I need the adrenalin to get me through.  Early to bed!

 

Packing the van is like moving house. Everything comes: pots, pans, ice, tea towels, chopping boards, washing up liquid, baking trays, oven gloves and boxes and boxes of beautiful food all ready for the oven or to go straight to the plate.  On arrival we assemble our kitchen for the day, the waitresses start the huge job of laying tables with precision and the room takes shape. The guests arrive, everyone is relaxed, the vows have been said but what is she wearing?  The kitchen heats up, building canapé platters, chopping garnishes, huge pots of reducing jus and artfully assembling the starter plates.    Sending out the main course I always feel like an air traffic controller, directing plates to tables like planes to runways, keeping things moving, keeping things flowing, and keeping one step ahead of the game.  Just as the hire equipment came out of boxes it must now go back in; just as the van was packed and unpacked it must now be re packed and once we get back to our kitchen it will be unpacked again!

 

Lemon Tart

1 Sweet pastry tart case

5 Lemons, zested and squeezed

400 Sugar

9 Eggs

350gr Cream

Bake blind and glaze the pastry cases, Zest and squeeze all the lemons. Bring the cream, sugar and lemons to the boil, pour through a sieve to remove the zest onto the eggs, beat and pour into the glazed pastry cases and bake.  120oc for 30 mins.

 

Bring on that massage!

Should fish of the day contain sausage?

I’ve just come back from a Saturday night away with my school friends, Superwomen each and every one, whom I have now known for more than 30 years, ever since we met as Supergirls during the terrifying, stomach swirling excitement of  our first few weeks at big school.  Organising time together is a bit like panning for gold.   Not very easy.  We are all of us busy with careers and children and relationships.  But once or twice a year we manage to hack out the golden nugget of 24 hours away together.

It may not come as a suprise that during these 24 hours we talk rather a lot.   We cover big topics, like the depression of a family member which is leading to over use of alcohol and the ex-husband who is starting another family with his new, younger partner and the impact this is having on our children, soon to sit GCSE’s and stroppy already.  We take it in turns to counsel and be counselled,  knowing (without knowing how we know) when it is our turn to  lead and our turn to be led, in much the same way we know how to do Dawnsio Gwerin.   In between the big stuff we talk about the small stuff – waxing v shaving, Grey’s Anatomy v ER, thongs v big comfy pants.  We laugh a lot.  We drink, more than our daily allowance of units but less than our weekly allowance in one go.  Just less anyway.   The one day we spend together is like seven days at a spa from which I emerge feeling calm and soothed, clearer about things in my own mind.   Altogether lighter.

We went out to eat in the evening at the Newbridge Inn, Tredunnock, not far from Caerleon www.thenewbridge.co.uk  This gastro pub with rooms has been on my list of recommended places to go for a number of years.  It is where my husband and I went for a night away a few weeks before our wedding for some calm before the storm; it is where we have celebrated a number of big family events and it is where on my recommendation two of my work colleagues were married (not to each other; there were two weddings).     The pub is right on the river Tredunnock next to the bridge and you can sit outside, held safe in the cwtch of the green hills around, and watch the water flow past and feel all calm and serene.  The pub is light and bright and has lovely log fires and the food is good.   BUT, watch out now, there’s a but coming….

Two of my friends don’t eat meat.  They ordered fish of the day which they were told was sea bass.  It was lovely they said, until they took a bite of what they thought was tomato which turned out to be chorizo sausage.  No mention of sausage had been made when they asked what the fish of the day was.   As they haven’t eaten meat for decades, this was an unpleasant, distressing experience but not wishing to spoil anyone’s evening by complaining they picked the chorizo out with the precision and delicacy of surgeons and ate the rest of their fish of the day.  As a lawyer, complaining on behalf of other people is something I do for a living.  I called over the front of house guy and explained the situation.  He was French I think.  He did a Gallic shrug anyway and said he would mention it to the chef.  Ten minutes later when it appeared he had perhaps not mentioned it to the chef, I explained the situation again to the waitress, who looked horrifed and rushed off to the kitchen to tell the chef.  Never to be seen again.  We paid our bill (in full and yes we tipped, it was the front of house guy who hadn’t mentioned the chorizo and we’d had some very good service from our waitress and another waiter and didn’t want them out of pocket) and we went back to our hotel.  We weren’t expecting drinks on the house or anything but we were expecting some sort of apology, an acknowledgement even.  Because in my view fish of the day should not contain sausage.  Or if it does there should be a warning to that effect.             

And so, as my Gran might say, the Newbridge Inn is off my good books.  And since no one at the Newbridge bothered to talk to us, I’m now talking to Superwoman.  All 1100 of you.

Four day week

Bank holidays are marvellous.  One extra day in a weekend makes such a difference doesn’t it?  Especially when the sun shines, a bit at least.    It means you get one day for boring domestic jobs, one day for lounging around and reading the paper/watching telly and one day to do something fun with the family.   We spent our lounging around day watching sport on telly – Celtic Crusaders getting beaten by Huddersfield Giants and Cardiff Blues getting pipped at the penalty posts by Leicester Tigers while commiserating with Cardiff City for not getting to the play offs.  Not a good day for Welsh sport sadly although nothing will put my lot off being supporters.     Our fun day was spent having a barbecue with friends and letting our children run riot in the garden while we sipped Cava and Mr S flipped burgers.    I’d bought one of those giant bubble wands for my 4 year old daughter from a pound shop (gosh those places have great bargains – check them out!) but the bubble solution was pretty weak and the bubbles popped.  “Hang on”,  I said to her,  “I’ll top it up with a bit of Fairy Liquid.” A good squeeze of the green stuff and enormous, durable bubbles ensued.  Daughter was delighted.    “Mum,” she said “Fairies  know how to make really great bubbles don’t they?”  Now she thinks that magical girly creatures with wings make our washing up liquid. 

When I put my ten year old to bed last night he said “I’ve had a marvellous weekend, Mum.  I wish every weekend was a bank holiday weekend.”   So do I.  But of course for a number of employees across the UK a four day week is now very much part of working life because one of the ways that employers have saved cost in this recession but managed to avoid redundancies is to invite their employees to cut down to a four day week and take a 20% pay cut.   80% salary is of course much better than no salary at all especially when it comes with an extra day off  (quite a number of employees have been asked to take pay cuts but to nevertheless still work their normal hours).  So what would you do with an extra day off in the week,  bearing in mind your salary has plummeted 20% and you’re now having to watch the pennies very carefully?   I know what I’d do.  I’d get myself down to Barry Island with the kids and get busy with the fairy bubbles.  And pick something up for tea from Aldi on the way home.

Superwoman by E J Catering – The Pandora

It seems like a life time ago but I was once free of children, responsibility, business and bills.  I took advantage of those years and travelled extensively. Being a chef I found it easy to pick up interesting and well paid jobs.  It worked particularly well for me in Australia where I spent 13 months.  I cooked for a very wealthy family in Sydney, spent 3 months on a tropically hot barbeque grill on a beautiful island just off the barrier reef and, the day after my 21^st birthday, I flew to a cattle ranch the size of Wales and cooked for the helicopter pilots and their families on the homestead, but that’s another story altogether.  I also spent four weeks at sea on the “Ocean spray”, an ugly 54 foot red tanker, cooking for 42 surface supply divers, archaeologists and researchers. We -  well they -  were diving onto the HMS Pandora which sank in 1813 under Captain Bly after it ran aground on a reef following a battle with the French.   Our expedition brought up the original cauldron as well as coins, crockery, cutlery, lamps, all pieces from a particular life and time.  I laid the table for our dinner around these amazing bits of history while “David Attenborough” moments were happening outside. Flying fish landed on the deck and we would sweep them back in; albatrosses would rest on the mast on their long migrations; a whale shark stayed with us for about 2 days, which was actually terrifying for me, it was just too huge to be a passive vegetarian! At night we anchored behind a small sand quay where on one occasion thousands of baby turtles hatched and swam to the light, to us. Dolphins jumped at breakfast and the phosphorous sparkled on their skin in the dark.

My galley kitchen was tiny and my freezer huge!   The hungry crew loved my old fashioned Shepherds’ pie.

 Serves 4

1 red onion, peeled and chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

2 courgettes , chopped

4 chestnut mushrooms

4 cloves of garlic

250gr ground beef

250gr ground lamb – ask your local butcher

Splash of red wine

Beef stock

Tomato puree

In a large pan place the chopped onion, carrot, courgette, mushroom and garlic and cook till soft. Turn up the heat and add the minced meat, hear a sizzle, allow to brown, season well with salt and pepper.  Add the tomato puree, wine and stock.  Turn down the heat and simmer for half an hour.

The top is a kilo of good creamy mash. Mix together half potato and half sweet potato peeled and boiled for 20 minutes in salted water with a sprig of rosemary. Drain and remove the rosemary then mash, or push through a ricer.  Add plenty of butter and season.  Pipe or spread and fork the mash over the top and bake for 25 minutes in an oven 180oc or until the mash is beginning to turn golden brown and the mince is bubbling around the edges. 

Serve with peas and tomato ketchup, ring the diving bell and call them all in!

Superwomen (and supermen) falling from grace

Can I tell you what really gets me about all this kerfuffle involving MP’s expenses?  It’s not the fact that they can claim an extra £24,222  income so long as they call it a second home allowance.  It’s not even the fact that MP’s voted for said allowance to be tax free and then fought hard not to have to disclose their expenses.  No what gets me is the fact they have time to get involved with so much renovation and repair work on their various houses, be they first, second or third homes.  That they seem to shop such a lot, like Phil Hope who apparently managed to buy £37,500 worth of kit for his second home between May 2004 and February 2008.   I have a full time job and two children and come the weekend I think my husband and I have done pretty well if over and above a kick around in the garden with the kids we have between us managed a dash round the supermarket, a few loads of laundry and to have reunited all the various bits of Polly Pocket that our daughter has sprinkled round the house.   Three years ago when we moved house  my mother in law gave us a load of old curtains that she fished out of her attic ”to keep you going until you have time to get something better”.    Of course there never has been time to get something better and those old curtains are still hanging at our windows to this day.  How on earth then do MP’s find the time to choose, let alone physically go out and buy, so much stuff?  Beds, curtains, TV’s, saucepans, kitchen accessories.  Keith Vaz spent £500 on 22 cushions for heaven’s sake.    Who needs 22 cushions?  Then there’s all the renovation work,  remembering to change round your second home when the renovation work is done so you can claim for the next renovation on yet another house all the while managing your various contractors AND having to put in your receipts.   The paperwork alone must take forever.   I mean how do they find time to actually do their MP work?  All that voting and attending constituency clinics and yet somehow still manage to find time to pore over the John Lewis catalogue and the Farrow and Ball paint chart.  Honestly MP’s really must be superwomen and supermen mustn’t they?

Sorry what was that?  You mean they pay family members at tax payers’ expense to do this sort of administrative work for them?  So they even spend our money to spend our money?  But it’s within the published rules you say?   Oh well!  That’s OK then.     

Yes, what really bugs me about this expenses kerfuffle is that I’ve finally realised that at the heart of being an MP nowadays is not looking after their constituents’ interests.  It’s looking after their own.

Superwoman by E J Catering – Bristol Zoo

On Sunday I took Molly and Jake to Bristol zoo. The sun was shining; the monkeys were jumping through the branches of the trees, balancing themselves with their huge orange curly tails. The flamingos flounced about with their heads foraging in the water for food and the lions slept in a shady spot, but that did not stop Molly giving them her biggest and best roar. Though the animals were amazing we spent just as much time smelling the flowers, beautiful large blooms and well kept borders. Some of the buds smelt tarty, some smelt like bathroom freshener and some smelt just like a British summer should, bringing back child hood memories for myself of playing in the garden when I was Molly’s age. The aquarium was a hit with Jake, it was very peaceful and tranquil, I balanced him against a low shelf and he just stared into the abyss of water and the many different shapes, colours and sizes of fish as they gently swam by the window inches from his face and small learning eyes. We had a lovely wee picnic on the grass where cheeky sparrows nicked bread sticks from the kids and Molly chased them away in toddler style! I bought a chocolate chip cookie from the shop to supplement our picnic. It was dry and uninteresting and with disappointment I chewed on some dried pineapple I had which made me think of this: Basic and totally adaptable cookie dough 115gr softened butter 100gr golden caster sugar 1 large free range egg 100gr plain flour 20gr porridge oats ½ teaspoon baking powder 100gr dried pineapple – cut into chunky chunks 50gr white chocolate drops or broken pieces In a bowl mix all the ingredients together with a hand whisk, stir in the pineapple and white chocolate chunks with a wooden spoon, roll into a sausage shape and wrap in cling film, chill for a couple of hours. This can be done a day in advance, when ready pre heat the oven 180oc gas 4 and cut the sausage shaped cookie mixture into 1 cm slices, cook on a greased baking tray with space between the cookies to allow them to spread. Bake for 8 minutes or until the edges are golden, cool before eating. The tart juicy pineapple in contrasts with the sweet white chocolate and the buttery fresh cookie melts in your mouth with a homely feeling and the taste of a slightly tropical summer. I think you may find this latest creation on our buffets for a bit, they are delicious, I know I am eating one now! Ideal for any picnic or sandwich box and with the monkeys not allowed them that makes all the more for you

Super Nannie is getting married

My mother in law rocks.  Really she does.  Her impression of Tina Turner, complete with wig, heels and air guitar is, to quote Tina, Simply the Best.  She makes great roast dinners and scrumptious birthday cakes.  She loves a party and the chance to dance.  Despite being widowed at just 42 and being floored with grief she picked herself up and made sure her children’s lives were full of fun and love.  She’s now doing the same for her grandchildren.  She is Super Nannie.

Two years ago Super Nannie found love when she wasn’t looking for it on the golf course with a lovely man, also a widower, who shares her sense of love, fun and loyalty.  They may be in their sixties but they feel like teenagers again, says Super Nannie.  And then she winks.   This summer, twenty years since she was widowed, Super Nannie is getting married to Lovely Man.

When I tell people this, their inital response is almost always the same.  “How lovely!”  Followed swiftly by “Does your husband mind?”  For the record my husband is very happy for his mother and Lovely Man.  Ok, her social diary is now fuller which makes her a little less available for babysitting duty and the first time she denied him the last piece of chocolate roulade because she was saving it for Lovely Man it came as a bit of shock but this is a tiny price to pay for Super Nannie being Super Happy which is exactly what she deserves.

I’ve now started to ask people what they mean when they ask if he minds.  Some people mean does he mind his mother finding a replacement for his father?  He does not.  Aged 36 and a father himself he does not in any way see Lovely Man as a replacement father but rather a bonus grandfather for our children.  However, what other people mean is does he mind, you know about the money and well, his mother’s house?  He does not care in the least.  Super Nannie’s house belongs to Super Nannie.  She can do with it as she pleases.  He would not give a strawberry fluff if she were to sell it and live it up with Lovely Man until every last penny of equity is spent.   Just so long as they don’t move in with us.

Super Nannie has got herself a fab wedding frock, an off the shoulder number which is all bride and not at all grandmother.  She is going to look amazing.   And we shall all of us dance all night at her wedding to celebrate that the best thing in life really is free.

Caravanning – love it or loathe it?

I’m back after half term.  Did you miss me?   Or did you not even notice there were no blogs last week?

Since you ask, I was in Mold, North Wales.  Staying in a caravan.  With my two children and my parents but minus Mr S who went to work.  We travelled up by train to Chester.   I missed our first train, because I was fiddling with my Blackberry and didn’t realise that the titchy two carriage train waiting way up the other end of the platform was our train.  Not until it pulled out anyway.  I felt stupid in the same way you feel stupid when you drive your car into a nine foot pillar in the multi storey that you failed to spot (done that) or realised you’ve left your purse at home just after you’ve loaded a week’s worth of shopping onto the conveyor belt thingy at Tesco (done that too).    There was another train 30 minutes later and once I’d got over feeling stupid the journey was easy and the scenery beautiful.

When I was a kid we had a static in Aberaeron, West Wales where my mother, a teacher, decamped every year for the whole of the six week summer holiday with us four kids.   Dad drove down on Friday evening and was greeted rapturously because he brought the dog with him and money for ice cream.   I am someone who has been brought up loving caravanning.  Having said that, I don’t understand why caravan interior design hasn’t moved on any in the past thirty years.   Do the sofa, walls and curtains really have to be such horrible designs and not go with each other at all?  Isn’t it time someone went into designing caravans with lime white walls a la Farrow and Ball, sofas with quirky cushions and wood effect flooring?  Did you hear me Johnnie Boden?

Going caravanning with my parents makes me regress to being a child.  I sat in the back of the car from Chester to Mold with my two children.   My Dad was  driving and my mother was handing out sandwiches and drinks from the magic bag at her feet (it’s never been totally empty, not once, my entire life) and even though they are both 70 and I’m 43 I felt myself slip back to the safety and simplicity of life as it was when I was about 10.   In the caravan, once we were all rammed round the table there was no getting out unless everyone else moved first and so my mother flitted round the table like a blackbird round her nest of chicks, swooping down to feed us all.  After dinner we all played cards and I felt very lucky to have this quiet, simple, time with my parents and my children.  I almost wished it would rain so we could listen to it drumming down on the roof of the caravan.   We went to sleep in tiny bedrooms with walls so thin we could hear each other breathe. 

In a caravan there is no getting away from each other.  You can’t disappear into another room to watch a different telly or pop another load of washing on.  There is never a good mobile phone signal.  Your family is in your sight pretty much the whole time.  This is the reason I love caravanning.  It’s also the same reason a lot of people loathe it.

Votes for women

Mr S won’t be voting today in the European Parliament elections.  He doesn’t vote generally.  He says there’s nothing to choose between any of the main parties (and as a total aside on that point does anyone else think that Nick Clegg and David Cameron are eerily similar, down to sharing a voice even?).  He has developed his own version of “none of the above” on the ballot paper by coming with me when I vote to demonstrate that his failure to vote is not because he is lazy. 

I always vote.  I feel I owe it to Emmeline Pankhurst and all the other suffragettes who finally, in 1918, managed to get the vote for women over 30.  Yes, over 30.  We had to wait until 1928 to get an equal right to vote.  That’s within my grandmother’s life time (who incidentally wouldn’t wear trousers for many years because it wasn’t lady like but has long since got over that).

Last time we had European elections in 2004 the turn out was 38% in the UK (41% in Wales).  The turn out this year has seen various predictions, some as low as 25%, others as high as 50%.  It’s a glorious afternoon here and thirsty Thursday at that and I imagine democracy may well lose out to the call of the barbecue and a cold glass of beer.  Most people are really only interested in the European elections this time round (and the county council ones being held in England) to see just how much the scandal over MPs expenses has impacted on the government.  Although it seems most MP’s across all the main parties have been trotting down to John Lewis at the tax payers’ expense  if you are a Labour MP your actions are perceived to be much worse.  Granted, Labour are in government and therefore sitting ducks left exposed on open ground while the other parties shoot at them from behind the bushes but the  real reason of course is that Labour MPs  (without wishing to generalise too wildly ) are generally elected by poorer areas.   That being the case, it shouldn’t have been rocket science for them to think to themselves  “No, I couldn’t possibly claim for all that (even though I’m  allowed to) when rather a lot of my constituents struggle to make ends meet.”   And if they didn’t have the political wit (let alone the socialist principles) to work that one out, little wonder that so many of them are deciding that they’re not cut out for  office.   

Jacquie Smith and Hazel Blears have been accused of a sisterhood pact to manage their resignations in such a way so as to maximise the destablising effect on Gordon Brown’s government.  We’ll have to wait till the results on Sunday to find out if the hands that rock the cradle have managed to rock the boat.  And then for a general election to find out if a refund of £13,000 on her expenses is enough for the people of Salford to forgive Hazel Blears and grant her wish to return to them.

Female window dressing

Is there anyone out there who actually knows what Caroline Flint meant when she accused Gordon Brown of  “female window dressing”?  What does female window dressing involve  exactly? 

Did she mean that Gordon Brown doesn’t actually believe in equality and that the women were there to make up the numbers?  And if so, did Blair with his famous babes also indulge in a bit of female window dressing back in 1997 when they all got elected?  Or does she mean that she was there to look pretty so as to get plenty of media coverage for Labour in a tethered goat kind of way?   Or was she a bit of both? And if Flint will insist on wearing skirts split to the top of her thigh and model for the Guardian in a short bright red dress with three inch heels she can hardly be surprised at being accused of doing the female window dressing all by herself can she?

There’s no doubt that the resignations of the WAGS (Women against Gordon) have attracted more nasty comments in the media than those of the men.  Jacqui Smith has been described as looking like a barmaid and Hazel Blears has been criticised for her height and her hair colour.    So far as I’m aware there haven’t been any cartoons of Smith,  Blears and Flint huddled together round a cauldron muttering “When shall we three meet again” but if there was one it would no doubt depict Smith as fat, Blears as short and Flint as a bit flirty.   

People should be judged on what they do not how they look.   All three of these women have been caught up in the expenses scandal.  It’s probably true that they didn’t like the new boss as much as they liked their old old one but if, like Diane Abbot,  their expenses claims had been squeaky clean would they have resigned?   Would we have heard about “female window dressing” then?  I don’t think so.

Climbing mountains – Welsh Women Walking Kilimanjaro

Last Wednesday, 10^th June, 80+ people, including a number of Superwomen enticed by an invitation to discover more about my Welsh Women Walking Kilimanjaro project arrived at St Fagans village hall.  The launch was sponsored by Darwin Gray and Thomas Carroll.

The event was a vehicle for me to share my hopes and aspirations for this project and to bring a group of people together that may be interested in taking part in the trek itself, participating in the monthly networking walks and/or sponsoring us.  

My passion is to promote walking as a means of wellbeing for women, and encourage networking in the fresh air between positive inspirational women. I kicked off the presentation with a series of ‘Whys’.

Why Welsh? Born in Wales, brought up in Yorkshire I have a strong sense of pride and identity in being Welsh. It is also significant that we aiming to raise £100,000 for 2 Welsh charities.

Why Women? I was brought up as one of four sisters and feel there is something special about spending time with like- minded women, both for business networking and as role models.

Why Walking? This is a simple one for me, I enjoy walking. Not only does walking help with health and wellbeing but it also enables one to connect with the local community. It’s no-cost, easy and green. I have been actively walking everywhere I can within the last year, and go for more strenuous walks with the Ramblers at every opportunity. I really want to encourage women to join me on our monthly walks starting on the 5^th July so they can share this experience, and maybe become motivated to walk more during their everyday lives.

 Finally why Kilimanjaro? It is more about the symbolism of Kilimanjaro rather than the particular mountain itself. I love the metaphor that we all have mountains or challenges that we face every day and by achieving them we grow.

Peter Griffiths Chief Exec of the Principality treated us to an honest and inspiring account of his climb to the top of Kilimanjaro 2 years ago, including footage. There was a palpable collective gasp when he mentioned gerbil like creatures and showed us photos of the conditions we could expect – we were mainly women after all! Following Peter’s presentation I asked for a show of hands to see how many people may be interested in climbing Kili next year and was astounded and delighted to see about 40 hands raised.

What now? I have arranged our first monthly walk which will be Pen y Fan on 5^th July. The team for the Kilimanjaro climb will be finalised in September and will embark on a training programme. If anyone reading this is interested in attending the monthly walks and/or sponsoring them please contact me at kili@scsaftercare.co.uk.

I have been delighted with the response I received following the launch. It seems many of those who attended were inspired by the presentation and will be joining us on the 5^th July walk.  Our journey towards Kilimanjaro will be filmed and Ty Hafan and Breast Cancer Care Cymru are excited about the fundraising. I have no doubt we as a collective powerful group will achieve our goal of raising £100,000 and reaching the top of Kili!

Who’s Who 2009 The Movers and Shakers in Welsh Business

The Western Mail’s “Who’s Who 2009 The Movers and Shakers in Welsh Business” landed on my desk last week.  It can also be viewed on line at Media Wales’ website www.walesonline.co.uk although you must first click onto the business pages and then on to the Who’s Who guide.   The criterion for entry is “those considered influential in the private sector”.  When we put in my firm’s submission for inclusion in the guide, the submission rules provided clearly that only one person per organisation could be put forward yet in his foreword to the guide Sion Barry advises “There are a few instances of more than one representative from a company” without detailing on what basis a company managed to get more than one representative in.    Number of employees?  Size of turnover?  Employing lots of people  ”influential in the private sector?”

Anyway because I’m sad like that and because I’d done the same thing to Insider’s Power 100 I counted up the total number of people listed in the Private Sector section – 354 – and then I counted how many women there were within that 354.  There were 32.  Superwomen we failed to hit even 10%.    The split of influential people in Wales (as determined by the Western Mail and ” a number of their business contacts who provided their invaluable expertise in helping to identify suitable candidates”) is more than 90% male, less than 10% women. 

If Sion Barry had been to a Superwoman event (especially our flagship event in October which last year was attended by more than 160 women) I think he’d be forced to conclude that women account for more than 10% of the influential people in the private sector in Wales.  (We’ve never said men aren’t allowed -we’ve just never had one apply to come.)  So why is our showing in this guide so poor?  I think it is at least in part to the requirement on the submission guidelines that only one person per organisation could be put forward.   The percentage of women on the board of companies is low (just 12% on the FTSE 100 boards in November 2008) but the percentage of women who are chief executives and chairs is even less.  Based on the Western Mail’s guidelines only the chief honcho could be put forward so even really very senior honchas with bags of influence could not be included if they did not have the top job.  Unless of course one of the Western Mail’s contacts identified them and what’s the odds those contacts have got cojones not ovarios? 

There’s lots of reasons women don’t get the top job.   Sometimes due to discrimination, sometimes  because they want to work hard but also be  good mothers which doesn’t sit well with the time commitment and unbroken career path of the very top job.   Michelle Obama doesn’t have the top job in America but she’s got plenty of influence.     Sion Barry invites us to email him if you believe you should be included in the list and says if you do he will consider adding you to the on line version.  Superwomen – let’s get emailing – sion.barry@mediawales.co.uk

The stress of the last few weeks of term

Crikey, aren’t the last few weeks of term busy?   It was sports day this week and  next week it’s the school fete (and the Scouts fete too) and then there’s  appointments with this year’s teachers  and appointments with next year’s teachers and then the week after that a sponsored walk.  And don’t get me started on the end of term present thing which I haven’t even begun to think about.  I have however picked up from my children that end of term exhilarated feeling at the prospect of endless freedom (for my 4 year old, 42 sleeps involving no school is a riches of time she simply cannot get her head round) even though I left school rather a long time ago and sadly there’s no six weeks break for me.   I need to get a grip or else come 20 July when I have to go to work I shall go into mortal decline.  I almost slipped down there this morning when I saw that Marks and Spencers are already advertising a 3 for 2 deal on Back to School uniform.  Give the kids a break! – the holidays haven’t even started yet and already the shops are scented with the smell of new satchels.  (I do realise that last bit shows my age and that no one has a satchel any more.  Does anyone even make satchels anymore?).

I am actually hoping to take a whole three weeks off this year  (Super Nannie is getting married – see earlier blog – and there is a lot of celebrating to do) and to manage childcare during the other three weeks with a combination of grandparents, nanny and kids clubs.  This was my plan last year too but I failed miserably because of a number of unexpected deadlines (and by unexpected what I really mean is that it wasn’t the deadlines themselves that were unexpected but the amount of work required to meet those deadines).  So this year I am vowing to myself to be better organised so that when I do go and join my kids kicking up their heels in our back garden everthing will be all tidy and tickety boo.  I’ll let you know how I get on shall I?

Taking up the Who’s Who Movers and Shakers Challenge

Well, I have taken your advice and emailed Sion Barry so, watch this space…………. 

In the course of my working life, I attend many meetings and, due to the nature of our business (transport) most of the people at those meetings are men. They are company directors, senior managers, account managers, who think they are either a mover or a shaker, or both, who have either come into the industry from elsewhere, or worked their way up through the company.

 There is nothing special about them; they weren’t born being able to drive an 18 ton truck or knowing how to run a busy service department, but they do have confidence in themselves, in spades!  Every one of those jobs could be done by a woman yet women seem to shy away from this sector.  It is the Cinderella of the whole logistics industry, yet, without the service providers who repair, maintain and test the vehicles, there would be no food on the supermarket shelves, no clothes in the high street boutiques and no beer or wine in the pubs and clubs!

 Perhaps it is because the industry projects the wrong image: people I meet for the first time, on hearing about my job feel they have the right to have a go at the “number of heavy trucks on the roads”, “polluting the atmosphere” etc., as if it is my fault and I should do something more environmentally friendly.  So, some stats for you – the latest figures show that there are just over 34.2 million vehicles on the road in the UK, just over 26 million of which are cars, 3.2 million are vans and just 446,000 are the goods vehicles that people complained about so vehemently. A sobering thought.

Yet this is an ideal industry for women; we are brilliant organisers, administrators and arbitrators, we are the best at multi tasking – think child-on-hip, Dyson-in-hand, dinner in the oven here, there is no job we can’t do if we set our minds to it and, above all believe in ourselves.

Friday Fun…

Superwoman likes women with attitude and Wendi Aarons blog on www.wendiaarons.com has lots of it.  Check her out  – she’s funny – see one of her gems below.

Dear Mr. Thatcher, 

I have been a loyal user of your ‘Always’ maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I’d probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I’d certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can’t tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there’s a little F-16 in my pants. 

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? I’m guessing you haven’t. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I’ll be transformed into what my husband likes to call ‘an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.’ Isn’t the human body amazing? 

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customer’s monthly visits from ‘Aunt Flo’. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women. 

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants… Which brings me to the reason for my letter. Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: ‘Have a Happy Period.’ 

Are you f—— kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness – actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you’re some kind of sick S&M freak, there will never be anything ‘happy’ about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don’t march down to the local Walgreen’s armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory. 

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn’t it make more sense to say something that’s actually pertinent, like ‘Put down the Hammer’ or ‘Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong’, 

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit. And that’s a promise I will keep. 

Always. . . 

Best, 
Wendi Aarons 
Austin , TX

 

---

Upgrade to Internet Explorer 8

Polo at Fonmon Castle – posh or what?

I was at the Polo at Fonmon Castle on the afternoon of Sunday 28 June 2009.  The St David’s Charity Polo Day, originally held at Pontcanna Fields but decamped to Fonmon for the past few years, has become something of a fixture in the social diary of South Wales and I was delighted to have been invited.   Everything I knew about Polo I’d learned from Jilly Cooper novels and I fully expected to be surrounded by devastatingly handsome people called Rupert or Perdita or Tarquin, all flashing their really good teeth and their really posh accents.  

 There was a big party tent and then lots of smaller tents (referred to as Polo boxes) that had been hired by businesses and individuals for the day.   The drinking, mostly champagne, started at around 12pm so that by the time the Polo kicked off at 3.30pm (ok I know Polo doesn’t kick off as such but you know what I mean) not a lot of people were in any fit state to pay much attention to it.    This is just as well, because as far as I could see the people playing the Polo, although very dashing in their jodpurs, weren’t much good.  They missed the ball an awful lot.  Maybe that’s how it is in Polo and that ball skills are meant to be entirely incidental to horsemanship skills but if you’d missed the ball as often as that during a game of rounders in my old primary school you’d have been the last one picked for the team the next time we played.    It did cross my mind that the people organising the Polo Day were well aware that the Polo wasn’t any good but didn’t much care.  “S’okay, the rubbish players can have a run out at Fonmon.   All that lot down there will be too pissed to notice.” 

Some drunk bloke with a weird accent that veered between posh and Australian shouted non stop commentary over a tannoy but mostly seemed to get the rules wrong and nobody was listening to him anyway.  Nobody was listening because everyone was too busy checking out the frocks.  Boy you should have seen some of the frocks.  Some of them short to the point they looked like they’d been tucked into the wearer’s knickers and others so low cut the wearer’s bosoms looked like sugared almonds nestled in tissue paper being offered round for general consumption.  There were vast expanses of flesh on show and most of it was spray tan orange.  When I went to the Portaloos (not bad at all for portable ones) I couldn’t get anywhere near the sink to wash my hands for all the scantily clad tipsy women queueing to touch up their make up, like a flock of parakeets. 

By 4pm disco music was banging out from the party tent and from quite a few of the Polo boxes.  The champagne was still flowing.  The good people of South Wales, myself included, settled in to do exactly what they’d come to the Polo Day for.  Not to watch Polo but to have a right good knees up.   And maybe, in the case of some of the pretty woman parakeets, find their very own Richard Gere.

Lessons from Life

Lessons from Life

1. Life is far too short to waste it hating anyone
2. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick; your friends and family will, so stay in touch
3. You don’t have to win every argument, you can agree to disagree
4. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile
5. Don’t compare your life with others, you have no idea what their journey is all about
6. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it
7. Take a deep breath, it calms the mind
8. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or doesn’t make you smile
9. What other people think of you is none of your business
10. However good or bad a situation is, it will change
11. Your children love you whatever you wear
12. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved
13. Envy is a waste of time, you already have all you need
14. Forgive everyone everything
15. Look at every so-called disaster and ask the question “In five years time, will this matter?”
16. When in doubt, just take the next small step
17. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good
18. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood, but the second one is up to you and no-one else
19. Use the nice sheets, wear the sexy lingerie, burn those pretty candles; don’t save them for a special occasion. Today is special
20. Don’t  take yourself too seriously, no-one else does

G’dai to the Ashes

I don’t like cricket, oh no, I love it….

Whichever side of the divide you are on, you could not have failed to notice that last week the Ashes (a cricket match between England and Australia for the totally uninitiated) came to Cardiff and that this was a VERY BIG DEAL.  The Western Mail’s front page actually said ”Come on England. ” In the media world of Pontcanna that headline from Wales’ national newspaper brought more traffic to a standstill than the 16,000 English and Australian cricket fans descending on Sophia Gardens for five days.

Anyway, there was a lot of whingeing about the Ashes coming to Wales and the SWALEC stadium not being up to the job.  Mostly from English people it must be said.  The Australians didn’t seem to mind at all and all those signs saying ”G’dai o Gymru” and ”Old South Wales welcomes New South Wales” must have made them feel at home.  That and the fact they come here to watch rugby anyway. 

You’ll be glad to know that  it all went off very well.  The pitch worked, lots of people arrived and then left again without too many delays and there was lots of singing.  The  match ended in a draw, amid more complaining, this time from the Aussies, that the English team had indulged in unsportsmanlike time wasting.  But even if the result was a draw for England and Australia the outcome was definitely a win for Wales, with Cardiff and the SWALEC stadium having shown themselves more than capable of hosting another top level international sporting event.

 The Ashes being in Cardiff certainly increased the number of Welsh people attending the event.  Die hard rugby and football fans who would never ordinarily have considered going to watch England v Australia at cricket went along because it was in our city and – well,  it would have been rude not to, wouldn’t it?  A number of desks at Superwoman towers stood empty over the five days as their inhabitants sloped off to see what all the fuss was about.   They reported back that it was a very enjoyable day out and boy can Katherine Jenkins sing.  Rhydian Roberts in his silver foil suit not so much. 

Of course, events like the Ashes are not just about sport.  They’re about business.   The five day event is estimated to have generated revenue of between £85m and £116m and the hotels of Cardiff were delighted to be fully booked.  By 7pm on Saturday night streams of people wearing Australian flags, hats with corks and five people dressed in banana suits (why?) were traipsing through Cardiff City Centre in search of more beer.  The bars and restaurants were doing a roaring trade and the chip shops and kebab shops were full to bursting.  People who hadn’t even been to the cricket but were in Cardiff for a normal Saturday night out were hollering “G’day” at each other and pronouncing themselves to be “Oztralian” in strong Valleys accents.  There was, it has to be said, a slight edge of aggression in the air due to a lot of people being on the outside of £xm worth of increased alcohol expenditure but given the money was being spent  in Cardiff  a little bit of drunken aggro was a small price to pay.

Here’s hoping that the Ashes come back to Cardiff again and that in the meantime all the people who woke up in Cardiff hotels with a hangover on Sunday morning were thinking what a great place Cardiff is for a night out and how they’re going to come back very soon for a proper visit to Wales.

Do you need to be a Superbitch to get ahead?

According to recent research by German academic Guido Heineck of the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg you are more likely to be promoted if you are aggressive, single-minded and none too kind to your colleages and underlings.  Ruthless ambition and singlemindedness are the qualities you need to get ahead.   Women who not only work hard but also don’t care what others think of them are the ones who get the top jobs.   According to Mr Heineck, women who adopt a more masculine approach to their work earn up to 4% more than their more passive colleagues.

Whoa!  Back up there a bit Mr Heineck.    You mean to say that for trampling over your colleagues all you get is up to 4% more salary?    So Nasty Superbitch who blows her own trumpet at every opportunity will earn £31,200 while Sweet Girl who remembers her colleagues’ birthdays and bothers to show the work experience students how to operate the photocopier gets £30,000?  And that difference is taxed?  I know which type of person I’d rather be and also which type of person I’d rather work with.  Think Sigourney Weaver v Melanie Griffith in the film Working Girl (if you are old enough to remember that far back).

Us working girls don’t need Superbitches as bosses.  What we need are women who act as role models and use their positions of power to inspire and encourage other women to succeed.  Women who are defined by Marilyn Davidson, a professor of work psychology at Manchester Business School, as Alpha Females.   Empathetic, inspiring women who are high achievers but who also believe in giving something back and in acting as mentors rather than reducing their direct reports to tears.   Who are willing to admit that juggling a career, kids and a relationship is really rather difficult and that “having it all” is probably not possible unless, that is, you are referring to guzzling an entire bottle of Sauvignon Blanc all to yourself.   In short what we need are Superwomen, who give junior Superwomen the self esteem and inspiration to keep on keeping on.

Go Alpha Females go!

A whine about Tesco Wine

I’m seriously hacked off with Tesco Wine. 

At the beginning of July I ordered some half price champagne from Tesco Direct.  I bought it to celebrate Super Nannie’s wedding (see earlier blog) and so I ordered rather a lot plus some white and red wine.    I was pleased with myself for having achieved something while simultaneously eating my lunch.  That was one thing at least I could  tick off my list. 

A word of explanation about my list.  It is a big list.  Huge.  In fact it is so huge I am unable to reduce it to paper.  If  I actually try to write down the list of things I have to do the sheer number of items overwhelms me.   Also,  if I start a list, it somehow starts to run away with me and transforms itself from jobs like “take kids to dentist/hairdressers/shoe shop;  buy J cloths; ring plumber re underperforming shower;” to ambitions like ”learn Spanish: get fit; read War and Peace.”   This is not good.  I can’t fit in the jobs let alone the ambitions.  Better to carry the list round in my head.

Anyway, I digress, much like my lists.  The champagne was due to arrive the following Sunday.  It did not.  The wine arrived but no champagne.   The delivery man was very clear that he had delivered all that he had been given to deliver me.  He showed me his delivery list.  He was right – no champagne listed on there next to my name.  I asked him if I could photocopy the list as proof no champagne had been received.  He reluctantly handed me his list.    No wonder he was reluctant – there was a little note next to the address after mine urging the delivery man to “use the extra two minutes allocated to this delivery to welcome the customer to Tesco direct.”  Poor man didn’t have time to hang around waiting for my photocopier to warm up.  Note to other Superwomen:  Don’t be offended if your Tesco delivery man doesn’t make small talk - poor man just ain’t got the time.

I phoned Tesco immediately to say the champagne had not arrived.  I was told they would look into it and call me back.  They didn’t.  I called again the next day.  Again I was told they would look into it and call me back.  They didn’t.    On the fifth phone call when still no one had called me back I cancelled my order and asked for my money back.  Tesco refunded me but with a lesser amount than I’d paid.  A sixth phone call finally secured a full refund.

So here I am, three weeks away from Super Nannie’s wedding day and with no champagne.    An item that I thought had been ticked off my (mental) list has reinstated itself.  Worse, along the way it created six other jobs on the list in the form of phone calls.  My list is breeding!   I can’t be doing with one step forward,  six steps back.    When it comes to my list and to quote a big arrogant supermarket that doesn’t call you back when it says it will – Every Little Helps.    This time I’m going to Majestic.

Superwoman by E J Catering

Confit is a cooking term used to describe slowly braising a piece of duck, goose or pork in its own fat and storing it in a pot covered in the same fat to preserve it.  Confit is one of the oldest forms of cooking and preserving. This technique is still very popular in many a good kitchen and the result is a meat which is extremely tender and full of flavour.  This is why this technique is so good for a meat that is too tough to just roast.

It originates from the south-western region of France. Neighbouring regions and chefs world wide have their own confit specialties. A confit should be stored in an earthenware pot to not allow light in and can be kept for a long time safely marinating in its flavour.  Traditionally a confit is served with a cassoulet of beans, chicory salad or cabbage. It is a cheap country style dish but carries a gastronomic stamp.

This week we made confit of duck for 60 wedding guests and served it with a pumpkin and potato dauphinois, a white bean cassoulet and each table was given a dressed chicory and walnut salad. 

To prepare our duck legs we used our bratt pan. It is an ugly, chunky piece of catering equipment but one of my favourites.  It’s a large cast iron pan half a meter square and maybe a foot deep that has a couple of gas elements that run the whole length below.  Once the gas is turned on the heat is evenly distributed and it was perfect for slowly braising our duck legs.  The bratt pan in our kitchen is rarely off this time of year as it is also the perfect bit of kit for poaching 80 peaches, sealing 40 salmon fillets, stewing a 20 kilo boeuf bourgignon to name just a few hefty tasks.   The first time I ever came across a bratt pan was when I was about 19 and was doing a week agency work cheffing at an army barracks where I fried 750 eggs for the breakfast service to the smartly dressed hungry sergeants and privates!

Confit of Duck

4 Duck legs

½ the weight of the duck on the bones in fat

Rock salt

Fresh thyme or rosemary

Course black pepper

6 Squashed garlic cloves

 Season the meat and marinade over night.  Wash the excess salt away in the morning and slowly melt the fat in a braising pan, place the duck legs into the fat with the garlic and fresh herbs and gently simmer – braise for 3 hours until the meat feels like it would fall off the bone but will not.

Remove the legs and store in an earthenware pot in the solidified fat for up to a month.

When ready to eat, clean off the excess fat and place into a hot roasting oven 250oc for 25 minutes until crisp and serve with the above suggestions.

My wedding guests were thrilled with this honest dish and one lady virtually gnawed her bones clean!

Verdict of suicide for a superwoman

Back in January this year I blogged about 41 year old solicitor Catherine Bailey whose body had been found in the Thames.  Cause of death was drowning and at the end of last month West London coroner’s court recorded a verdict of suicide.  The coroner commented that it was probable she may have been suffering from a degree of post natal depression and added  “Ms Bailey was a very capable and professional woman and a loving mother of three young children who found it hard to meet the demands of motherhood and the high standard she had set herself.”

Half an hour before her body was found Ms Bailey, the mother of three daughters, aged 5, 4 and six months, had texted her husband “I am so sorry.  Big kiss.  All my love to you and the girls.  Hold them close.”  Ms Bailey’s story was always tragic but when I read what her last text had said I cried.   It was awful to think that a woman who had it all – successful career, happy marriage and three children - could be so depressed as to take her own life.  It was even worse to think of the family she had left behind, holding each other close as she had urged, and trying to come to terms with their loss.  Trying to understand why she felt she had no option but to take her own life.  Her oldest two daughters will have only limited memories of her as they grow up and her youngest none at all but the absence of their mother, even one they can’t remember,  will always be with them and the fact she committed suicide something on which they will probably dwell at various points in their lives – first boyfriend, wedding day, having children of their own.   

The fact that Ms Bailey was a successful solicitor is still recorded out there on the web.  If you google her one of the first results that comes up is the Legal 500, a well known guide to lawyers and law firms, where she is recorded as being “widely recognised for banking and security matters” and “noted for her expertise in financial markets litigation.”   There is no doubt that Ms Bailey’s death makes me feel particularly sad because I am a solicitor and a mother myself.  I know that Ms Bailey would have been secretly pleased to be ranked in Legal 500 although she probably played it down.  I understand the difficulties of juggling motherhood and a career and feeling that you are doing neither of them justice.  Of realising that there really is no such thing as Superwoman and that the mummy juggle means having to accept that “good enough” will do. 

Poor Catherine Bailey wasn’t well when she took her own life.  I’m pretty certain of that even though I never met her.  Her daughters and her husband need to take as much comfort out of that as they possibly can and try in the years ahead not to feel angry or guilty or abandoned.  It was an illness that took her from them.     Rest in peace, Catherine x.

Who says women aren’t equal to men?

You’ve got to love the Sunday Times.  There’s always something in there to blog about.  This week it’s the turn of Minette Marrin and her article controversially headed “Women aren’t equal to men – especially not the feminists” which stated that feminism had been the most wonderful force for freedom but that somehow along the way “feminism has lurched from silly excess to silly excess” such that Ms Marrin has “had to disassociate herself from the wilder attitudinising of the sisterhood” (is attitudinising even a word?) and also contained this little gem;

“Ambitious women can’t escape the problem that a serious success can never, of its nature, be a part-time option: she must choose between home and work, just as successful men must do.  The idea that a heart surgeon or a cabinet minister or a Lehman sister could be home regularly for bath and story time and weekend bonding is nonsense.  The world isn’t like that: while she is reading Winnie-the-Pooh, her competitors will be working or networking, and if not here, then in Shanghai or Mumbai.  This sadly for women is something that cannot be fixed.”

What a load of rwtch, as we say in Wales.  Why must successful women choose between home and work?  Why must successful men for that matter?  Being home regularly for bath and story time and weekend bonding doesn’t mean working part-time.    Being a successful woman at both work and home means working hard and smart and getting lots done during a sensible working day – to 5.30pm say - and then getting home sharp without going for a drink with your colleagues.  It means having no fat in your day to make small talk with colleagues or linger over your choice of lunch time sandwich and in my case also rules out going to the gym and any sort of beauty regime beyond a daily shower (no chance of me being used for female window dressing) but it definitely does NOT mean having to choose between work and home.   To suggest it’s not possible to juggle both is just buying into an old fashioned, macho attitude to life.    I’d like to say this attitude has ceased altogether but what I can say is that this attitude is fast dying out.   

It’s not only women who suffer from this outdated view of how things work.  It’s men too.  Most businessmen I know are home most evenings in time for bath time and a bit of Winnie-the-Pooh.  Sometimes they have to be home because it’s the other half’s turn to be out networking but mostly it’s because they want to and because they are Supermen who have worked hard enough during the day to be able to get off home at a reasonable hour.   And they want to be able to do that without being told that managing both home and work means they are not seriously successful and need to grow a pair.   

Time was women stayed at home and looked after the kids and men went to work.  And if that’s how couples today want to work out the division of labour between them then that’s what they should do.  Or the man can stay at home and the woman go out to work if that’s what suits that particular couple best.   Or, as happens in our house, the man and woman both go out to work and both look after the kids and arrange things between them so that the careers are successful.   Sometimes one or other of us has to pull an all nighter but only when we really need to, not just because we haven’t got enough done during our normal working hours,  AND one or other of us (but usually both) is home for bath time and stories and help with home work and general family fun.    

Maybe women aren’t equal to men in your house Ms Marrin but they are in mine and that’s thanks to feminism.   You might call me a “wild attitudiniser” but I’d prefer it if you called me Superwoman.

Usk wedding

By E J Catering.

As I arrived at this weekend’s wedding I was blown away by the tranquillity and beauty of the house and gardens; laden hanging baskets filled with blousy white flowers tumbled over the veranda which is where we set up our reception drinks to greet the arriving guests.  The marquee stood in an ethereal garden with filled wild borders of flowers and bushes – I only wish I knew their names.   Winding steps and pathways wandered around between rhododendron bushes and tall mature trees and every where dotted bonsai trees. This really was a perfect child’s den, ripe for creative adventure. The marquee was laid with cream linen overlaid with lace and all down the four long tables were perfect bonsai, grown from seed.

We had designed the menu with the bride to reflect their Scottish country theme. We started with mashed “neaps” piped onto hand carved willow forks topped with haggis and demi glace.  They were a hit and handsome men in kilts followed me round the garden!  Slow roasted and peeled cherry tomatoes – marinated in vodka, lemon and black pepper, were served on long handled teaspoons – an “abfab” moment in a mouthful – equally popular.  My bride had been very clear with her vision of the food and so the wedding breakfast began with baked whole camemberts served with home made rustic breads, charcuterie, olives and grilled courgettes.  This was followed by a BBQ of free range chicken skewers in local honey and rosemary; chunky Welsh beef kebabs and floured grilled halloumi cheese with a refreshing tomato and cucumber salsa.  We placed salads down the long tables between the bonsai trees and glasses of chilled white wine.  The meal rounded off with a beautiful white wedding cake that had been made and brought from Scotland by the groom’s parents – all we added was fresh local strawberries and a dark chocolate sauce.  The guests adjourned to the garden to sip more champagne and the merriment carried on late into the night under the moon and stars.

Neaps and haggis on a stick

1 potato

1 small turnip

1 oz of butter

Salt and black pepper

1 small haggis

2 fl oz of demi glace

Peel and boil the potato and turnip; drain and push though a potato ricer, this way the potato is completely smooth and has not been over worked.  Beat in the butter and season to taste

Boil the haggis for 2 hours

Pipe the potato onto a spoon or fork and top with the crumbled haggis and spoon over a small quantity of demi glace and eat

The bride sent me a quick e mail before leaving on her honey moon to say the food was beyond belief.  My job complete I settled down with tired legs for a beer

First day back from holidays

Grim isn’t it?  However much you like your job (and I do like mine honest) you’d still prefer to be lying by the pool reading your book (mine was Dawn French’s Dear Fatty – loved it; I laughed and  I cried and I loved Ms French’s positive, realistic attitude towards life) than be on your third load of washing already and watching your tan fade by the second. 

Holidays are part of the ritual of family and very important in building up shared memories of  time spent together.  I cherish my childhood memories of caravanning in West Wales with my family because back then the sun always shone, the sea wasn’t cold, sand was really actually very comfortable to sit on and there was ice cream every day.  That’s how I remember it anyway. 

I wonder how my kids will remember the holiday we just had in a little resort just outside Murcia.   Their memories will certainly be different to my childhood ones.  Here are just some of the ways:

1.  My 4 year old doesn’t hold a camera to her eye when she takes a picture.  She has only ever known digital cameras.    She holds it away from her to frame her subject and then turns the camera straight round to see the photo she has taken.   Good heavens – she gets to take photos!  Back in my day film was very expensive and absolutely no one except Dad got to take a photo.    

2.  She also doesn’t know a life without absolutely everyone in the world owning a mobile phone.  No queuing up for unfeasibly hot glass phone booths and deciphering international codes to make a call home.  As far as my daughter is concerned letting everyone back home know you’ve arrived safe and sound involves sending a text.  And getting one from Gran straight back. 

3.  By the same token, the advent of text means the demise of the post card.  Pity that really.  They were always nice to get – little squares of other people’s holiday landing on your doormat.  Don’t miss writing them and tracking down the right stamps though.

4.    Factor 30 is a fact of my kids’ life.   I never even heard of Factor 30 when I was little.  I thought Factor 8 was as high as it got and that it was specially reserved for red head kids with freckles.  We didn’t go lower than Factor 15 this holiday.  That Factor 2 Ambre Solaire oil that smelled deliciously of coconut appears to have been banned, much like smoking inside, something else my kids will (thankfully) never know.

5.  They will never know the excitement of French francs and Spanish pesetas and a load of other redundant European currencies.  Just the Euro.  Same old everywhere.

Somethings don’t change with the years though.

1.  Getting off a plane that’s left a cold British airport and landing somewhere hot where the sun is shining and then when you step out getting wrapped in a whoosh of lovely hot air.    The reverse is also true.  Getting back off the plane at that same British airport a week later, wearing only shorts and a vest top, and being surprised that it’s cold here isn’t it?   We all know it’s cold at home people!  It’s why we went away on holiday in the first place.

2.  That amazing feeling  on your first night away with a whole holiday stretching endlessly in front of you.   Lots and lots of time.  Three days in, time starts galloping and somehow before you know it it’s your last night.

3.  The first paddle in a foreign sea.  Lush.

4.  How the tiniest amount of sand brought in between your toes can turn your entire bed into a giant emery board. 

5.  How brown fat looks way better than white fat. 

Must dash.  Got some school shoes to clean and some pencils to sharpen.  Because straight after the first day back from holidays comes the first day back at school.  Even grimmer.

On not winning the Woman in Business award

I didn’t win the Woman in Business award at last night’s Chamber of Commerce business awards dinner.  Having made it to a short list of three I didn’t of course want to lose but nor did I want to win.   Winning would have involved going up to the stage to receive some sort of trophy under very bright lights and be photographed with John Sargeant and I was worried about that for a number of reasons:

a)      The awards ceremony started at 10.30pm.  The wine drinking started at 7pm.  Do the math.

b)     During dinner, a rogue piece of lemon tart suddenly jumped off my plate and landed in my lap leaving a big greasy mark down the front of my frock.

c)      I was not wearing my hold me in industrial strength pants, due to the fact that the last time I wore said pants I pulled a muscle such was the effort involved in going to the loo.  Really. Without said pants, it was all a bit wobbly in the belly and bum department.

I needn’t have worried.  Hayley Parsons of Go Compare won and good on her.  Wales needs people like Hayley Parsons to set up successful businesses like Go Compare and create lots of jobs.  And Go Compare had to endure the bright lights thing twice because they had also sponsored an award.

 Talking of creating lots of jobs, Admiral Insurance won Welsh Company of the Year award.  There was a sharp intake of breath from the room when Dave Stevens recalled how initially Admiral planned to set up shop in Brighton, only switching location some three months later to Cardiff.  Imagine! Those 2500 lovely jobs could have been on the south coast of England rather than right here in the middle of Cardiff.  

Today has involved some more winning-of-award stress in our house because today was our village fayre.  There is a Calendar Girls feel good feeling about people lining up to compete for the best fruit jam or bara brith (own recipe) or three matched runner beans.  Something old fashioned and comforting and generally very pleasing.  My 10 year old son retained his status as reigning champion of 3 decorated fairy cakes (he went for a sports theme this year – rugby, cricket and football, all made out of marzipan) and my 4 year old daughter got highly commended for her photograph of a chicken.   They are both of them delighted with their winning certificates and so am I because nothing compares with the sweetness of witnessing your children’s joy.

Men on maternity leave?

From April 2011 under (current) Government proposals, men will be able to take up to six months leave (three of them paid) during the second six months of their children’s lives if the mother returns to work.  According to Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, this will give families more choice and flexibility in how they balance work and care of children and enable fathers to play a bigger part in bringing up their children.

But will it?  It’s a fact that in the UK women are the primary carers for their children.  There’s lots of reasons for that.   Women have the babies for a start and are the ones with the necessary equipment to feed them.  They’ve got to be the ones who take off the first chunk of maternity leave.  Having taken their foot off the career pedal for a while and possibly slipped a bit down the pecking order, it’s not suprising that couples then decide that the focus should be on the man’s career thereafter.  He gets paid more anyway and  it’s difficult (although far from impossible) to juggle two full time careers with children.  Children would prefer it if the person looking after them when the school day finishes at 3.30pm was Mum or Dad and since Mum’s already in her employer’s bad books for having had all that indulgent maternity leave, she may as well continue in that vein and be the one who gives up work altogether or asks to work part time.    

Then there’s the fact that women like looking after children more than men.  In my opinion anyway.   My son was never interested in dolls.  My 4 year old daughter spends hours playing with them, cuddling and feeding them and parading them round in her toy pram.    Boys and girls are built differently.  Nuture has a part to play in that difference (nobody, including me, ever gave my son a doll as a present) but nature is by far the biggest contributor.

And finally, how many women out there who, having got through the first sleepless six months of a child’s life will want to hand over their maternity leave to the father and go back to work, just as things have got into a routine and the baby is sleeping through the night and smiling through the day.  Not many.  The estimated take up of father’s maternity leave is just 6%. 

But it’s a start.  The beginning of a challenge to the accepted view that it’s women who take time out of work to look after children because that’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it’ll always be.    There are lots of employers out there who when faced with two candidates of equal ability, one a man and the other a woman of child bearing age (and what’s that these days?  Up to 62 or so? ) will choose the man because he’s not going to take maternity leave is he?  Well now 6% of them will.  That 6% is enough to shake up some old fashioned thinking so that over time the take up increases and everyone stops looking surprised when Dad decides to stay at home with the baby for a while.    Assuming of course these proposals make it to the statute books before there’s a change in government.    Hurry up then Harman!  Get a move on quick.

She looks good….for her age….

This is one phrase I’d like to blast into oblivion with my superwoman strength.   Kapow.  Take that, you nasty little negative phrase, sewn in so insidiously deep  into our vocabulary.  Past the age of 35 no woman can just look good any more.  She can only ever look good… for her age.   Why do we do this to ourselves? (because if I’m honest it’s mostly women I hear tagging on FHA “for her age” to any compliment they pay to other women).  It’s like we’re all hard wired to think that post 35 we’re past our prime and the only way from there is down. 

It is true that from the second we’re born we get older every day but, great plastic surgery aside, there ain’t a lot we can do about that.    There’ll always be people older than us and people younger than us.  That’s the way life works and we should all embrace it and stop being so mealy mouthed with our compliments.  So let’s make a pact shall we?  Let’s not say FHA anymore.  Say it loud and say it proud.  “She looks good.”  Full stop.

After all we don’t hear many people saying that George Clooney looks good for his age do we?.  George just looks good.  Simple as.   So do we.

Your socks is on fire..

I’m a little embarrased to admit just how much my household is in the grip of  X factor passion.  Yes I know it’s all heavily staged, yes it’s terribly repetitive (that’s why we Sky Plus it and fast forward through quite a lot of it) and yes John and Edward are deeply annoying but the thing is it’s such good telly.    I know it’s good telly because when I got into work at Superwoman towers this morning everyone was talking about it.  (There was also a conversation going on about Strictly but it was strictly a sub-conversation; not the main event like X factor.)    I was genuinely looking forward to the results show on Sunday and when Lucie and Lloyd got through there was widespread punching of the air from my family sofa.    Oh and Jamie Afro has got my 4 year old prancing round the house singing “Oh o oh, your socks is on fire”.  Am hoping no one bothers to put her right on the lyrics. 

I know it’s sad that a telly programme should be one of the highlights of my weekend.  It’s all relative.  Immediately prior to the results show I was at a 4th birthday party.  30  kids, bouncy castle, full decibel disco music.  150 minutes of sheer hell after which you’re going to get thirsty but not for Lucozade.  I was harbouring a small glimmer of hope on the drive there that it was the kind of party where you get to dump your kid and come back after a mad dash round the supermarket but no such luck.  One parent per child, each standing dutifully behind our respective child’s chair while they ate one pink wafer each and a handful of chipsticks before running off to play with their mates, leaving the birthday parents in possession of half a tonne of limp egg sandwiches. 

There is a point to this story Superwomen.  Bear with me.   This party was a fancy dress party.  The boys were dressed in a variety of outfits – Buzz Lightyear, an assortment of Super heroes, a pirate, a cowboy.  For the girls however, there were 17 princess/fairies, 2 cheerleaders, 2 nurses and one sole doctor giving the girls something to aspire to.  There were also 33 adults in attendance , 28 of which were women.  Of the 5 men,  4 of those were related to the birthday girl leaving just one man who had actually accompanied their child to the birthday party of a friend.    Now here’s the thing, my husband had offered to take my daughter to the party but I said I would do it because it would mostly be mums attending and therefore it would be easier for me than for him.    Which it was but that’s not the point.   Ladies – it dawned on me during pass the parcel that we inflict this stereotypical chore on ourselves, constantly perpetuating the current state of affairs that it’s easier for us women to take our kids to parties because it’ll be us women who’ll be there in droves thus making it a self fulfilling prophecy that it’ll mostly be women there.     So here’s the lesson of the day:  there’s no point making your daughter dress up like an architect or a judge – that’s boring when you are four and fairies are so much more fun BUT let’s at least make our other halves go to kids’ parties more often so that it’s no longer the case that its Mums who watch over the bouncy castle in the company of other Mums.

All together now - Oh o oh – your socks is on fire……

Tell us what we want, what we really really want..

According to Cristina Odone in her study  for the Centre for Policy Studies published last week  called “What Women Want” we don’t find satisfaction in full time work but in our other roles as carers, partners, community members and above all mothers.  Only 12% of mothers wanted to work full time and 31% did not want to work at all.  49% of mothers with two children under five in a family where the father worked thought that those mothers should not work at all.  Fathers who were asked the same question gave an almost identical response. 

According to Ms Odone’s report the research found women feel bombarded by images of ‘superwomen who manage everything, plus a high-profile career’, when many just wanted to be stay-at-home mothers with their husbands taking the role of breadwinner.

OK, here are my thoughts on all this:

1.  Most people wouldn’t work if they didn’t have to, male or female.  If my husband and I won the lottery we’d give up work, spend lots of time with our kids, get fit, learn a language, do volunteer work, etc, etc.  That’s not to say we don’t enjoy work – we do and we get satisfaction out of doing it well  – but we’d have no qualms about giving it up.    A life made up entirely of weekends would be lush. 

2.  Frankly I don’t really believe people who say they’d carry on working if they didn’t have to.  I think when they say that they think their bosses are listening and are frightened in case they demonstrate lack of commitment.   However according to the What Women Want report 19% of women and 28% of men say they would not work if they did not have to.  Yeah and the rest.   

3.  Truth is, lots of families can’t make ends meet unless both parents work at least part of the time. 

4.  Another truth is that lots of women are single parent families and don’t have the luxury of being stay at home mums while their husbands take the role of breadwinner.  These women have no option but to be superwomen according to our definition of Superwoman – see the earlier entry on this blog. 

5.   And what about the blokes in all this?  I know  a lot of men who would love to give up work and stay at home with their children if they could but to pinch a phrase from Ms Odone’s report,  they feel bombarded by images in the press of Supermen who have high flying careers and manage everything.   Reports like this that seem to suggest it’s every woman’s right to stay at home and rely on her bloke don’t help any.    It’s socially acceptable for a woman to take a career break to be with her children but it’s a ballsy man who does the same, one who doesn’t mind people thinking that doing the school run every day means he hasn’t got any.

6.  I’d love to know at what time of day they questioned these people for this report.  Was it 9am on Monday morning say or 5pm on Thursday evening?  In the flurry of the start of a new school week, most working mothers ask themselves at least once “Why do I do this?  I’d like to give it all up and be there when my kids get home from school and bake almond cake and have clean skirting boards for once” but come Thursday evening with a good working week achieved and the weekend in sight and some money to spend on your kids you know exactly why you do it.  And you’re glad you do it.   

7.  Here is the thing: What women want is complicated.  It varies from woman to woman.  What each individual woman wants also varies from day to day.  Hell it varies from hour to hour.   In the space of a single day we want to be mothers, workers, friends, daughters and wives.  We want to be fun and cuddly and supportive for our kids, then kick arse business people at work, then soft and cuddly again at tea time and then have a grown up conversation with our other halves at night and get the odd bit of night time action.   

8.  What women want, what men want too, is the freedom of choice and not to be judged for those choices.  If you want to stay at home with the kids and can afford to that’s what you should do.  If  you want or need to work full time you should not be made to feel guilty about that choice.  In my experience part time workers are very committed and productive and employers should embrace and support part time working.   What we want is to decide for ourselves what we want.  One size does not fit all.

Zigazig  ah

Superwoman 5 – the feedback

We’ve never had so much feedback from an event.

“Rosie Swale Pope rocks!”

“Funny, moving, motivating, inspiring.”

“I’m going home determined to make a few changes in my life because I am Superwoman!”

“Rosie Swale Pope – what a brave, funny, warm and fantastically quirky lady.”

“Your best event ever.  Loved all the speakers.”

I’m delighted so many of you enjoyed.  The fancy new staging and lighting from Genero went down well and you loved the warm scones.  You asked for savoury food after the speakers and we’ll look into that for next year.  Rosie sold 90 of her books and Morfudd Richards sold every single book she brought with her so the opportunity to buy a few Christmas presents went down well.  We raised £4725 for our two charities Valleys Kids and Kitezh Children’s Community and we also sold 50 copies of the Superwoman cookbook, which was launched that evening.   A nice start to Tenovus’ goal of selling all 2000 copies printed and raising  £10,000.

It’s taken me and the rest of the Superwoman team at Darwin Gray a week to recover.  Although we love putting Superwoman together - sweet talking speakers, drumming up sponsorship and goody bag items and forwarding your lovely cheques to the charities  the week running up to the actual event is pretty stressful and tiring.  I don’t relax until the last speaker is speaking.  I was even more tired than usual for Superwoman 5 because I’d got up at 6am to sew badges on my son’s Scout Uniform (Long story.  And I sewed two of them on in the wrong place.) to find that our fridge freezer had fused and our kitchen floor was a sea of water and defrosting frozen peas.   I felt like I’d done a day’s work before I even got into work.   Starting the day knee deep in mushy peas is not a good look for any Superwoman.

But a week has passed and already I find myself, round about my every day work and my family,  thinking about all things Superwoman.  How shall we do things better next year?  What speakers and sponsors shall we manage to find?  And then of course there’s the Superwoman lunch in April to plan.

Rosie left a message on my voicemail yesterday.  She was in Edinburgh giving more talks.  Princess Bethan, her message said (?!) the women I met at Superwoman 5 were amazing, I loved it, they were all truly inspiring, lovely people, brilliant event.  If she’d actually been on the phone I would have quoted back to her her husband’s line “Rosie, Rosie, shall I take a breath for you Rosie.” But her message was clear.   It’s not just Rosie that rocks.  All of us Superwomen do.    Go girls!

I’ve never won a prize in my life – 70 year old Superwoman has her say.

Just read the blog from the blogger who failed to win businesswoman of the year, or whatever.  I’ve never won a prize in my life, apart from a poetry prize at school aged 11. I may still have the crap poetry book I won somewhere. It’s not that I haven’t been competitive, and not that I’m no good at anything, just it’s always seemed a bit weird to me to put yourself up for prizes at something you enjoy doing and know you’re good at then seek public recognition of same.  Self worth doesn’t come from public recognition – stuff that, it comes from within.

I am now 70 years old. I’m of that lucky generation where social mobility was available so dirt poor kids like me who got an education could do anything they wanted. When I left university very high-falutin’ outfits were queuing up to employ graduates. I had an interview with the BBC and realised I had made a complete eejit of myself when the talk turned to classical music and the guy’s jaw dropped when I mispronounced Sant Saens, about whom I knew damn all and now possibly can’t even spell. Thus began a 50 year career of bullshit. And lies. The secret of being a plausible liar is to remember who you told which lie to. Consistency essential. So did I get to be the coalminer’s daughter who became a brain surgeon? No. I butterflied my way through life following my inclinations, so never got to the top of any tree at all. But had a fantastic life doing what I did.

I have had at least six careers. Dancer? Pantomime babe tap dancing round the stage aged 6, (loved the shoes) long legs so progressed to front row of the high kicking chorus by 18.  Principal boy (wanna hear me doing Slow Boat to China, from Aladdin circa 1959? Not recommended.) til the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd lost its charm. Academic? I “coulda been a contender” for a chair – but got bored and moved on. Business woman? Almost made a million but left husband who got custody of the money while I got the kids. He made the million eventually. Software publisher? That worked til I realised my partner in that was bone idle and couldn’t keep up my pace. Hotelier? Great fun but not enough capital to make it the Ritz. If you want to age twenty years in five go into the hotel business. Author? One best seller then 8 niche publications.  I wrote the 8 in Welsh so never anything but a niche option. BUT – that’s what I wanted to do.  Butterfly? Yes. Other side of the coin is knowing when to move on and follow the gut instincts. Does this sound like an “almost” life? Not to me. Varied? Yes. I have no regrets about any “almosts.”

I am now sort of retired. I run the financial end of a small business. Having money skills I am also a charity treasurer. I run the local village Art Exhibition annually. Can’t draw a straight line with a ruler myself but like art and am a good organiser. I also had “the call” about ten years ago to become an astrologer. Late discovery of psychic ability. Many people I knew thought I had finally flipped my lid slipping across that fine line between eccentric and bonkers. Now they all want their charts done. Except one of my kids who asks How’s the witch business? Not witchy at all – your dear old fashioned mother communicates with the planets. Get over it.

Self belief has kept me going starting at the bottom of every ladder and following the next challenge. I have never tackled anything I didn’t think I could make a success of. So never failed. Except at marriage at which I am not very good at all. And I am a rubbish housekeeper. Not a bad cook. I have mentioned I am a mother.  I have three fantastic sons for whom I take no credit whatsoever. They were all brought up to stand on their own feet and pursue their own destinies. They do OK. All by their own endeavours. All I did was love ‘em to bits.

I’ve had a great life, have less ahead of me than behind me, but for as long as I have left will continue to dance on the tables whenever the opportunity presents itself, get up the noses of the po-faced, be very kind to selected people, help them out when I can and put two fingers up to many others.

I have achieved all I wanted to achieve, and still go on doing so. I am no superwoman, but for those who want to be, a few tips. Take every opportunity that comes your way – putting  only your own talents and skills on the line in pursuit of same. If you don’t enjoy what you do get out and do something you do enjoy. Avoid standing on other people’s heads, faces or shoulders to get where you want to be. Do your best by your kids and love them. Don’t take any shit from anybody. The latter is my life long mantra. If you have as rewarding a life as I have had and have now you won’t need any prizes. Prizes? For what? I have never won a prize for anything. And would never in a million years want to come second. I’m know I’m good, who cares what anybody else thinks?

Red’s Hot Women Awards 2009

Another set of awards for which I was shortlisted but did not win!  At least I knew beforehand this time.  I still got to go to the glamorous, glitzy awards ceremony on the 29th floor of the Millbank Tower with breathtaking views over the whole of London.  It was wall to wall famous people dahlink – Sarah Brown, Jools Oliver, Fay Ripley, Joanna Page and Jo Whiley who was the host of the awards.    I put my foot in it during the champagne reception by not knowing who Brix Smith-Start was (she’s a presenter on Gok’s Fashion Fix) and commenting that she had her photo done like she does it all the time (turn to the side, suck in stomach, pout like a Beckham).  That’s because she does you dimwit!  I also had the slightly unnerving experience of talking to a well known journalist who kept looking over my shoulder looking for someone famous/beautiful/thin/holding a camera to talk to instead. 

A lot of the women there were wearing high heels.  I mean really high, five inch heels.  Some were having trouble standing, let alone walking.  I don’t get this.  It just looks daft.  And painful. Just as well I’m a lawyer not a writer on a women’s magazine.  And most of the women in high heels didn’t eat the dainty finger sandwiches and scones on offer.  I could hear my Gran in my head complaining about the terrible waste, nay shovelling the left overs into her handbag to give to the dog later.  (She doesn’t have a dog).

When the winners were announced, I started to feel really very chuffed at being shortlisted.   They included Gillian Tett, assistant editor of the Financial Times (who dedicated her award to her mother, commenting that behind every successful woman there is usually an amazing mother.  Hear Hear!); Natalie Massenet, founder of Net a Porter.com; Katharine Viner, deputy editor of the Guardian; and the founders of Mumsnet, Carrie Longton and Justine Roberts.  The winner of the category for which I was short-listed, Mentor, was Kate Grussing of Sapphire Partners Leaders in flexible resourcing solutions for senior professionals.  Inspirational, motivating women.   And mostly wearing modest heels. 

The  returners award went to Catherine Paget, who, as a single mum of three and at the age of 39, started a medical course to be a doctor.  Red Hot.   She did say during her acceptance speech that the university had discussed whether she should be admitted due to her age but thanks to age discrimination legislation they let her in.  The award was presented by Sarah Brown who commented “What happens to us is down to us, we can’t control what happens to us but we can control how we respond to it.” 

I like the attitude of this approach but I also think that whilst we can’t control what happens to us, we can challenge it and seek to change it.  Kate Grussing’s work at Sapphire Partners includes championing the cause of flexible working and we can all drive this forward – not just with employers but also by challenging the attitudes of fellow employees (She’s not serious about her job, she skips off out of here every day at 3pm) and kicking ass when we are at work.  By this I mean delivering on the job, not actually kicking people, in the ass or otherwise.  We have a number of part time staff at my workplace, including one who only works 10 hours a week, but they whizz through their work like Tasmanian Devils and their contribution to our working week lasts until they are back at their desks again.   These women are all Red Hot Women too, each and every one. 

Details of Red’s Hot Women Award and the winners, “We’ll change the way you think about work” are in the December edition of Red Magazine.

The Western Mail’s top 50 sexiest women in Wales

According to the front page of the Western Mail (Wales’ National Newspaper) yesterday was Super Saturday.  This was because Cardiff and Swansea were playing football, Wales and New Zealand were playing rugby and the Western Mail was publishing its list of the top 50 sexiest women in Wales.  Wow!  Sport AND sex on the front page.  That’s got to help the circulation figures.

The job of trying to define sexy (or more accurately of trying NOT to define it) fell to Karen Price.  She asked “What does sexy mean to you?  Does it define someone who is conventionally gorgeous-looking with an effortless style to boot?  Someone who oozes confidence and isn’t afraid to stand up and be counted?  Perhaps it’s someone who’s intelligent and go-getting? 

Er, no, actually.  Stacey Solomon was charged with the task of looking sexy on last night’s X factor.   The primary definition of sexy according to my Chambers 21 Century dictionary is: sexually attractive, stimulating or arousing sexual desire and that’s pretty much what Stacey was trying to be although she found singing with a pout and walking with a wiggle at the same time difficult to do.  However much the Western Mail may try to stretch “sexy” into a catch all kind of definition for something much more complex and multi-layered, the clue to what most people mean by sexy is right there in the word.  It means shaggable.  

 

I obviously have a thing about lists.  I’ve already blogged about Insider’s Power 100 and the Western Mail’s Movers and Shakers complaining about the lack of women in those lists.  And now here I am moaning about a list compiled entirely of women.  There’s no pleasing some is there?  One of the things I’ve queried about the “business” lists is the criteria used for selecting the people who make the lists but at least they set out those criteria.   The top 50 sexiest women in Wales list didn’t bother with that but their criteria weren’t exactly difficult to work out – candidates have to be on telly or radio – acting, singing, presenting, news reading, reality TV at a push - and have a pretty face.    And if you want to be in the top half of the list you’ve got to be on telly and radio and sexy OUTSIDE of Wales too.

   

Katherine Jenkins made it not only to number 6 of the sexiest women of Wales list but also to last year’s Insider Power 100.   The only woman in Wales this year apparently who is both powerful and sexy.  Otherwise, there are no Welsh sportswomen or academics or business women in the sexy list this year (and just one politician, Bethan Jenkins at number 41, who used to be in a band apparently so that’s alright then).  Presumably, to answer Karen Price’s rhetorical questions, these sorts of woman don’t ooze confidence or are afraid to stand up and be counted?  Aren’t intelligent and go-getting enough? 

 

For the most part, I really rate the women who feature in the sexiest women list.  Joanna Page is exactly as the Western Mail describes her - funny, warm, confident, intelligent, down to earth and with a natural beauty.   The list is stuffed with talented, capable, outspoken, beautiful women who are flying the flag for Wales in the media in the fields of music, acting and presenting.   Women who have made us laugh and cry; made us proud.    That description uses more words and might not sell as many papers as “sexy” but it’s so much more accurate.   Here’s an idea for 2010: The Western Mail’s top 50 Wonderful Welsh Women in the media.     

A Tale of Two Bridges (with apologies to Charles Dickens)

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times………………”

Earlier in the year, it was announced that the toll on the Humber Bridge was going to be increased. The people of Grimsby and surrounding area, reacted to this news by starting a petition against the increase and getting it signed by 10,000 people!  In the face of this huge opposition, the Minister of Transport refused to increase the tolls.

 In October it was announced that the Government was giving a grant of £6m to the Humber Bridge Company, so that they can freeze the tolls until 2011, the grant will be used for necessary maintenance.  In announcing this, the Minister for Transport, Sadiq Khan, said that “the Government is committed to doing everything it can to protect communities and businesses from economic downturn and to help the country recover”

 The news of the grant was met with an angry response by transport and haulage companies and on both side of the Severn. Many companies who operate across this Welsh-Anglo border, rack up tens of thousands of pounds each year in tolls and though the Government’s commitment to reducing costs is very welcome, it should be applied across the board. The Freight Transport Association responded to the Minister’s comments by issuing a press release calling for the same commitment to be given to Wales and the South-West.

 However, it is not just transport companies who are affected, although the tolls they pay are the highest in the UK. Paying the toll has a knock-on effect for every company who use the Severn crossings in the course of their business. It is seen as a disadvantage to many large companies when looking at this part of Wales as a possible business venue.

Both bridges are owned and operated by Severn Crossing plc, but the ownership of the bridges should not be a reason to do nothing. There is a solution to every problem if you try hard enough to find it. The Government, in its’ wisdom, decided to add VAT to the tolls back in 2003. The tolls were not increased, so this slipped relatively easily under the radar and they just agreed with the company to extend theirterm of ownership.  This has meant that the bridges will not revert back to public ownership now until some time around 2016 and we just go on paying………….

 So, although age has curbed my former redheaded temper, I just felt that I couldn’t sit on the sidelines on this one.  I feel that the people and businesses of Wales have enough on their plate at the moment; times are tough out there and we need all the help we can get!  After the initial rise in blood pressure, I decided that I too would start a petition, to ask the Government for help for the Welsh economy too. And, in this highly computerised world we now live in, I chose an e-Petition.

 If you feel as strongly as I do about the inequality of this gesture by the Government, then please will you follow the link and sign the petition. I am told that if we get more than 500 signatures the Government has to respond.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/helpWelsheconomy/

Denise Lovering

Top 50 sexiest men in Wales

I feel obliged to mention the men’s sexy list having blogged last week about the women’s.    I’m all about equality, me.

Jamie Roberts is officially the Sexiest Man in Wales, well according to the anonymous researchers at the Western Mail who come up with the list.     As with the women’s list it would be more accurately described as wonderful Welsh men who are on the telly a lot.  Much better representation of sports people than on the women’s list - 10 sportsmen whereas the top 50 women’s list didn’t include a single sportswoman.   Then again five of the sportsmen listed were in the Welsh rugby team and let’s face it the men’s Welsh rugby team is on telly a whole lot more than the women’s.     

As with the women’s list the more you’re on telly OUTSIDE Wales then, as a general rule, the higher you scored so Joe Calzaghe was at number 10 and Matthew Rhys and Ioan Gruffydd were up there in the high teens.  Not certain therefore why Rhys Ifans was only in at 38 as he’s been on telly a lot this year.     One businessman also managed to slip into the men’s top 50 – Huw Eurig Davies, chief executive of Boomerang, the independent TV production company.  Not quite on the telly but runs a company that makes telly programmes and therefore a close enough association with the telly to scrape in at number 49. 

Two politicians made it to the men’s list (only one in the women’s) although only towards the bottom of the list,  “charming” Huw Lewis at number 46 and at number 47 the 63 year old presiding officer of the National Assembly Lord Dafydd-Elis Thomas because “power is sexy, but this former university lecturer from Ceredigion exudes cool and calm with it.”   If power plus cool and calm equals sexy where was Carwyn Jones then?  Or should we all be really rather glad that the person tipped most likely winner of the Welsh labour leadership contest has managed to avoid the sexy list?

70 year old Superwoman on Embarrassing your Children

Thanks for the complimentary responses to my old lady blog.

I have no reason to hide my identity but all Superwoman blogs seem to be anonymous.  My reason for being OK about anonymity is that one of my sons has a desk not a million miles away from Bethan’s, and I was hoping he would not be obliged to hide behind the filing cabinet in embarrassment about being associated with the mad old bat on the blog. There’s a saying in New Zealand, where another son lives, which is “You know you are getting old when you stop embarrassing your children”. I’m not there yet.

On one memorable embarrassment occasion I was invited to watch a son play rugby. I have of course, with three sons, spent many hours on this fruitless activity which does not interest me at all and I still haven’t a clue what they are actually doing on the pitch pushing each other over to some purpose or other. I know – sacrilege in Wales, innit? I was working as a lecturer at the time – sociologist/ psychologist. We trendy social scientists had a uniform in those days- bomber jacket, jeans, Doc Martins and a Rupert bear scarf. I said OK I’ll come after work. So showed up in boots, jeans, a pink and purple bomber and the regulation scarf. With hindsight one has to cringe at the colour clashes but hey – small sacrifice to be leaders of the academic fashion pack. I lined up on the touchline with other parents in sheepskin coats and manky fox furs. And that’s just the fathers. So looking well out of place. Nothing that’s ever bothered me. Gave son a little wave which he naturally ignored as too busy kicking somebody’s head in. Nasty rough game. It was mercifully over soon, and he came out of the pavilion and said Let’s go, bundling me towards the car, rather hastily, I thought. I said What’s up. He said you don’t have to come to any more matches. For this relief much thanks, but why? One of his team mates had said in the changing room Is that middle aged last chance trendy your mother? Oh, the shame of it!  Get behind that filing cabinet, sunshine, you’re outed and beans are spilled.

Superwoman and family at Walt Disney World

I’m in Disney World Orlando with the family for two weeks.  Taken the kids out of school to come.  Bad mother I know but historically the first two weeks in December (after Thanksgiving and before the American schools break up for the “holidays”) is the quietest time and therefore the best time to come.  A trip to Disney has never been on my wish list but it has always been on Mr S’s.  He came with his grandparents when he was six and again when he was sixteen and has very special memories of those holidays – magical, as Disney would have us say - and he wanted our children to have those same memories and so here we are  staying at Disney’s Old Key West resort.  One week down and one to go and we’ve already done Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Blizzard Beach and Sea World thanks to the military like planning of Mr S which has resulted in a colour co-ordinated time table (yes really).  With such incredible organisational skills at his disposal how come we ever run out of milk or forget bin day?

It’s not easy as he points out trying to keep us all happy – juggling the requirements of a Disney cynical 44 year old, a 5 year old Minnie Mouse fan and a 10 year old roller coaster junkie - and that colour co-ordinated time table of his has actually proved invaluable.    It has prevented us asking that biggest of all time wasting questions – what shall we do next? – because the time table tells us precisely what we are doing next and thanks to Mr S’s detailed research of the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2010 we have sailed to the front of the huge queues for the most popular rides clutching our Fast Passes and feeling smug.  If you are thinking of coming to Disney World I’d recommend this guide, it has made the whole Disney process much easier (note Mr S that I said process not ordeal) and the author Bob Sehlinger even gives tips on how to discipline your kids and cut your toe nails so your feet are ready for the average 5 to 12 miles you walk each day at the parks.

My kids are loving Disney.  I can’t quite say that I’m loving it.  Thanks to the planning skills of Mr S I am liking it a lot more than I thought I would and yes I have said thank you to him for all the time and effort he has put in to making those magical memories for the kids.    Certain bits of Disney I’ve really enjoyed – the Animal Kingdom was great (mostly because there were real animals there rather than human beings dressed up as Disney characters) and the water rides  are a lot of fun.   Watching my five year old interact with the REAL LIVE Disney princesses on her fifth birthday at a party in a castle was wonderful as is the joy on the face of my 10 year old son every time he steps off another stomach churning roller coaster.    However one of the high lights of this trip so far for me was when my five year old, wearing her Minnie Mouse ears, was asked by a kindly old lady on the bus where Mickey was?   At home, she said, without blinking an eye.  Making the tea.   That’s my princess!

Insider’s Power 100 for Wales 2010 – the superwomen

Sorry, been hanging out with Mickey Mouse, and so this is a bit late. 

The Insider’s Power 100 for 2010 came out in November.  As for last year, the list is ranked on the basis of executive power which derives from the job, latent power which is an ability to change the course of events and influence, the ability to set the parameters in which business or politics is conducted. 

Although Insider highlight a shift in power in 2010 from politics back to companies, the same women feature in this year’s list as in last year’s, with some slight movement up or down in their positions.   They are:

8.  Menna Richards, Controller BBC Wales

11.  Dame Jill Morgan, Permanent Secretary, WAG

12.  Edwina Hart, Health Minister - this was pre Carwyn Jones being voted Labour leader and so he and Huw Lewis tied with Edwina for 12th most powerful person in Wales back in November, suspect Carwyn has pulled slightly ahead by now.

16.  Iona Jones, Chief Executive, S4C

17.  Sian Lloyd Jones, Chief Executive, Finance Wales

56.  Jane Davidson, AM

86.  Kirsty Williams, Liberal Democrat Leader Wales

87.  Jane Hutt, Education Minister

88.  Katherine Jenkins, singer

91.  Margaret Matthews, director Dow Corning and Chairman CBI Wales

100.  Ann Beynon, director BT Wales

Good on you all for retaining your positions of power but it’s still a disappointment that the percentage of women in the list has not increased.   Let’s hope next year that some of our other powerful women like Laura McAllister, chair of Sports Council Wales from April 2010 and Liz Mihell, managing director John Lewis Cardiff, get recognised in the list, and improve the female representation.   

Lord Mervyn Davies (of Abersoch), minister of State for Trade, Investment and Small Business, in an interview with the Daily Mail in October, argued the case for corporate reform and for the need for board rooms dominated by a narrow coterie of men drawn from a few key sectors to change. 

‘We have had Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat, AIG, and these banking problems – there have to be lessons learned,’ says Davies.

‘I would like to see more diversity on boards, (and) I would like to see more training of non-exec (directors).

‘We certainly need more women on boards,’ the minister declares.

Hear hear Merv.

Don’t talk to me about diets

Happy New Year everyone. 

Don’t talk to me if you’re detoxing – it’ll just make me defensive.  Yes I know everyone ate too much over Christmas (tick in the box there for me ) and drank too much (double tick for that one ) and yes I know your suit was a bit tight when you went back to work yesterday (thrice ticked) but dieting at this time of year?  How can you face it?  Doesn’t your living room look so drab now you’ve taken the tree and all the fairy lights down that the only thing that could possibly cheer you up is a big glass of red and some buttery mash?  What was that you said?  That you’ve started training for a 10k too?  Bloomin heck, who do you think you are?  Superwoman?

Or Snow..don’t talk to me about snow either.

Honestly, entire country grinds to a halt.   Canadians wouldn’t even break their stride.

Who reads this blog anyway?

Below are our top posts this week plus what people were looking for when they found us….

Top Posts (the past week)

Top 50 sexiest men in Wales 10 views

Climbing mountains – Welsh Women Walking Kilimanjaro 8 views

The Western Mail’s top 50 sexiest women in Wales 7 views

Who’s Who 2009 The Movers and Shakers in Welsh Business 6 views

Red’s Hot Women Awards 2009 4 views

Single Supermother 3 views

Or Snow..don’t talk to me about snow either. 3 views

Cakes in the kitchen again 2 views

These are terms people used to find your blog.

Today

Search	Views
welch women walking	2
supermother blog	1
super woman calander	1
accountant birthday cakes	1

Yesterday

Search	Views
wales sexies men 2009	2
operation superwoman blog	1
jamie italian marketing	1
walt disney superwoman	1
welsh women walking kilimanjaro	1
wales’ 50 sexiest men	1
joanne beynon wales music	1
super woman cake	1

Oi Superwoman what colour is your bra?

Those of you on Facebook will know that last week women were updating their status with just one word – a colour.  A message was doing the rounds encouraging all women to do this.  I received a number of different versions of this message, in more than one language  - one message said the purpose of the campaign was to raise awareness of breast cancer, another said it was a bit of fun addressed only to women and that it would be fun to watch all the men wondering what was going on but yet another, more inclusive, version of the message urged men to post up the colour of their partner’s bra.

Anyway for a couple of days there were lots of colour updates.   The campaign had ”gone viral” – don’t worry, I didn’t know what that meant either –  it means people were copying the message and forwarding it on to their Friends (as defined by Facebook, not real friends, the ones that will lend you money and hold your hair back if you puke). From the various versions of the message I received it seems some people took the opportunity to add their own spin to the message, like a game of Chinese whispers. 

This viral campaign has apparently been hugely successful becoming one of the top searches on Google and is hailed as another example of the power of Facebook to send messages across the globe and force action.  From what I could see the campaign was a bit of a Mexican wave – by the time the people in the middle had got what was going on and were up on their feet waving the people either side had sat down.   The awareness part of the message had been ditched in a number of emails I received so anyone starting these campaigns needs to be aware that the message they start may not be the same by the end.   I’m also not certain what tangible benefits it brings to those fighting breast cancer or raising funds for breast cancer charities for “awareness” to be raised in this way but a lot of women did as they were asked and an awful lot of them wear very pretty bras mid week or at least they claim to.  For all anyone knows they were sitting there in greying undies posting status updates about their plunge neckline purple push up.   

The status updates inevitably led to further debate about bras.  How often do you change your bra and does it need to match your knickers? Always daily and always matching said most women making me feel like I’d  let myself go and was a dirty cow in one fell swoop.  Just a few brave women admitted to grabbing the first thing that comes out of the drawer.  One woman posted that she puts matching underwear on to go see the doctor and the dentist  – without specifying if her doctor and dentist are male or female, perhaps because it doesn’t matter – and  another that she cuts the size labels out of her knickers.  Maybe the reason this campaign was so successful is that women love  bras and identify with them so strongly - from the 70′s when bras were seen as instruments of torture designed by men and so were ceremoniously binned (but never actually burned apparently) , to Madonna’s pointy cone bra, Eva Longoria’s Hello Boys, Michelle Mone’s business success story with Ultimo and doing charity fun runs wearing bras.  However, there’s no doubting the ability of Facebook to spread a message round at the push of the send button and I’m certain there will now be a rash of such campaigns with everyone being urged to update their status NOW if they care.

For the moment another status update has grabbed my attention.    One (teenage) post last night read, ”I hate you you slag.  I hope you know how much upset you’ve caused.”  Oo-er, what’s that one all about then?

Welsh Women Walking Kilimanjaro – update

  Following our launch in May attended by many ‘Superwomen’  14 women will leave Cardiff on the 22^nd January to climb Kilimanjaro. We are getting close to raising £70,000. A real lesson in goal setting and the spookiness of life – at the launch I said our target was to get 12-15 women on the expedition and raise £100,000 to share between Ty Hafan and Breast Cancer Care Cymru – not having a clue how we would reach either and we are now on target to achieve both – be careful what you wish for …

The energy, passion and commitment of our team for both fundraising and preparing for the arduous challenge has been awesome. Most of us were strangers to each other prior to this challenge yet we have bonded and are incredibly supportive. The best thing has been the amount of laughing we have done, especially when we fall over in deep snow, drink champagne up the top of a mountain on New Year’s Eve, and camping out in freezing conditions because we ‘need to get used to it’, why do we forget to make sure we do fun things as we get older?!

Alan Davies who is our coach and has previously coached the Welsh Rugby Team has stated: ‘I have coached many teams over the years but I have never known such energy, mental strength and good humour as this team of women display at all times’ 

I am very proud of our team and what we have  achieved and believe Kili is just the start of many expeditions involving teams of women. My passion is still for Welsh Women Walking which will be re-launched in March. This is a networking group for women which involves a 3-4 hour walk in a beautiful place on the first Sunday of every month. If you would like to be added to our mailing list please email kili@scsaftercare.co.uk. You can find out more about this at www.welshwomenwalking.co.uk, and if you would like to make a donation there is a link from our site to Just Giving.

If you would like to follow our progress when we are walking Kilimanjaro please join our Facebook groups.

My personal blog

http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=135522918386&ref=ts

And our group blog – this is where we will post our messages and videos whilst we are doing the climb –  should be hilarious!

http://www.facebook.com/#/pages/Kilimanjaro/261698236345?ref=ts 

Thanks to all of you Superwoman who have supported us,  Jacquie Williams

Getting an Ooh from Cardiff Business Club

Dame Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson, spoke to Cardiff Business Club on Monday.  Perhaps not surprisingly given that the audience at CBC meetings is roughly 85% male Mrs Scardino advised that she would not be talking about women in business, commenting that she had not seen much difference between the way women and men manage companies.  Instead she would talk about the crisis in confidence in capitalism and the increasing loss of faith of the British and American people in it, due to the widening out  (pronounced by Mrs Scardino in her soft Texan accent as ”wahdening aht”) of the pay scales of those at the top from those at the bottom and the emphasis of the business world on short term profit. 

According to Mrs Scardino the answer to the problem did not lie in corporate governance because we either know right from wrong – the things our mother  taught us – or we do not.  Mrs Scardino considered the solution lay in the following:

1.  Morality;

2.  A long term view – that business was not all about quarterly earnings but longer term prosperity; and

3.  Having a purpose – that profits were not a means to an end and do not define a company and that a company has to have a wider role in society and move civilisation along.  However to move civilisation along a company must also have;

4.  An appetite for success, an overwhelming desire to be the best becaue that creates the tension that takes us all forward.

I really enjoyed the talk and agreed with Mrs Scardino’s views.  However, her talk did lead to an obvious question which, after much waving of my hand in the direction of Gerald Davies, I got to ask:

“You opened your talk by saying that you did not see much difference between the way that women and men manage companies yet your solution to the crisis of confidence – morality, long term view and greater purpose – are inherently female traits, things our mother taught us as you put it – how then can we get more women on the boards of UK companies?”

I’m gratified to say that the reference to female traits drew an affronted oo from the audience. 

Dame Marjorie’s response was that the code of corporate governance caused difficulties in that it provided that non executive remuneration should not be so meaningful as to call into question the objectivity of the director.  They had had this problem at Pearson when they wished to appoint a teacher to a board but for that teacher the compensation would have been meaningful.  The way Dame Marjorie saw it you had to be there to get there.

Although this went some way to explaining the lack of women on boards it did not answer my question.    If the response to the crisis of confidence is to practice the lessons our mother taught us we need more mothers on the boards of UK companies.  How do we get them there, especially if you have to be there to get there.

My view is the answer lies in quotas.  It might be tokenism, it will no doubt be unpopular, but it works.  In 2003 Norway gave its larger companies five years to ensure 40% of its boards were female or face being shut down.    Almost all of Norway’s companies met the target and most importantly improved profitability.  Finland’s listed companies must from this month have at least one woman on the board.   Spain is actively  increasing its female representation on boards and its percentage of companies with at least one female director was 55% in 2009 (up from 40% in 2006).  These countries are not doing this just to even things up, but because greater diversity in the business world achieves greater success for the business world. 

The number of women on FTSE 100 boards in 2009 was just 12%, the same as 2008. It would be nice to think that women could improve that percentage  by dint of their ability and dedication and ambition alone but hell we’ve had the Equal Pay Act since 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act since 1975 and there’s still thousands of tribunal claims a year for unequal pay and sex discrimination.  Change takes a long time.  Remember too that we’re only talking here about the top, listed companies in the UK, not smaller companies.   Even slow change comes from the top and trickles down.   If as Dame Marjorie says you’ve got to be there to get there then quotas are needed to achieve a significant increase in the number of women on UK boards. 

There, answered my own question….

Breast Cancer Care’s Welsh Fashion Show – one super model’s story

In just under four weeks I’ll be celebrating my 40^th birthday and a week later will be strutting my stuff on a catwalk in front of hundreds of people at Cardiff’s City Hall.  Both events seemed impossible to  imagine when just over 7 years ago at the age of 32 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, in December 2002, on the day I moved from London to South Wales with my then-partner to start a new life.

 It was supposed to be a new start after 10 years of frenetic life in the big city and we dreamed of a calmer pace of life.  Instead I had to spend my first year in Wales having first a lumpectomy and lymph node removal, followed by a full mastectomy and then four months of chemotherapy.  It all went by in a bit of blur to be honest.

My partner was with me every step of the way and held my hand through every painful chemotherapy session.  We felt that the diagnosis had brought us closer and so we got married at the end of 2003 which was a happy end to what had been a turbulent year.

 I was put on the drug Tamoxifen and came off it after 2 years in 2005 in order to try for a longed-for baby.

Unfortunately a tiny lump on my scar turned out to be a recurrence in March 2007 and a month of radiotherapy followed.

A routine scan in February 2008 revealed  secondary cancer in both lungs and lymphatic system which we were told was not curable but intensive prolonged treatment could help to slow down the disease.  My husband struggled to cope with this third diagnosis and sadly walked out in May 08 after I’d completed the first eight weeks of chemo.  I went on to undergo nine months of aggressive treatment whilst dealing with unexpected  divorce proceedings and someone who had been my rock over the past 11 years together turning into a stranger.

We’d started 2008 with an idyllic week in Florence and ended the year divorced.  I don’t quite know how I coped – in a way the weekly enforced routine of the chemo kept me going in a strange way.  I just had to get on with that and function as best I could. Luckily since November 2008 I have had 4 consecutive scans showing what they call “No Evidence of Disease”.   It is likely to be dormant somewhere but at least is not showing active cancer at the moment.

I am learning to live for the moment and  am focussing on celebrating life every day which helps me so much.  I can only plan a few weeks in advance but having lots of little things to look forward to drives me on.  I have gained so much self-confidence and am really looking forward to being pampered at the Breast Cancer Care fashion show and sharing the stage with 19 others who have shared similar experiences to me. I have been helped so much by the free support services of Breast Cancer Care over the past seven years and it feels good to give something back and help raise vital funds.  I have made many cyber friends on their website and meet up with several women who also have a terminal diagnosis and this helps so much to not feel so alone.  The Fashion Show feels to me like my chance to say “While I’m still here, I’ll celebrate every day and am delighted to be reaching 40 and while there’s life there’s hope!”

I have set up a JustGiving page for people to sponsor me for the Fashion Show with the money going straight to Breast Cancer Care.  If you would like to sponsor me the link is: www.justgiving.com/anneshingler

Breast Cancer Care’s Welsh Fashion Show takes place on 24 February 2010 at Cardiff City Hall.    With just a few tickets remaining, more details of the show can be found at: http://events.breastcancercare.org.uk/server/show/nav.215

Super Injunctions

My football mad, early rising eleven year old has taken to pinching my Sunday paper.  By the time I drag myself out of bed my Sunday Times has been whipped from the door mat and I have to track down said eleven year old to find it.  Usually the only bit he reads is the Sports Section and the rest of my paper gets handed back in pristine condition but yesterday I found that the main paper had also been pored over.   Because of course John Terry was on the front page  not for scoring on the pitch but off it.  Allegedly.   

“What’s alleged adultery mean Mum?”

“Erm,  he’s being accused of kissing someone else’s girlfriend.”  (He’s only just turned eleven and for the moment – I accept it’s probably a relatively brief moment -  not showing the least bit of interest in sex.)

“Whose girlfriend?”

“Wayne Bridge’s.”

“But he used to play with him at Chelsea before he moved to Man City!”  (I wish he was as good at remembering to bring his hat/coat/gloves home with him after school as he is at remembering football statistics).  “That’s awful that is.  You just don’t do that to your mates.  Can I go out the garden now to play football?”

When your average person is allegedly adulterous the press don’t tend to take much notice.  When you’re the England football captain they do.  And when you’ve tried and failed to keep hold of your Super Injunction (a court order which prevents not only reporting the allegation but also the fact that an injunction even exists) the press pays even more attention.   Freedom of expression getting one past the privacy post makes for good copy on more than one level. 

It’s believed one of the reasons that John Terry failed to retain his Super Injunction was because he and his lawyers emphasised to the court the possible loss of his future earnings more than they did the effect on his wife and children and this I think is one of the saddest aspects of this story.   Was John Terry really more worried about money than he was about his wife and children being publicly humiliated?   I suppose there’s a possibility that once she’d had time to come to terms with the betrayal Mrs Terry might also have been worried that his sponsors might drop him.   When you’re tamping mad with someone who’s image earns him sponsorship deals worth £4m and possibly considering leaving him,  do you start a viral campaign asking everyone in the world to post up on their Facebook status that your husband is a liar and a cheat or do you do everything in your power to keep his image clean and the maintenance pot as high as possible?

Life is complicated and the choices us grown ups make aren’t black and white like the choices we made when we were eleven.   I do know that.   But wouldn’t life be better for everyone,  however old or however rich we may be, if there were still some things that you just don’t do to your mates?

Superwoman by E J Catering – feeding a cold

Like the rest of Wales I seem to have a clinging cold that I just can’t shift.  No amount of early nights, hot baths, bed socks and chick flicks were helping so I decided to turn to food for a natural healing and flush it out with fresh chilli, ginger and garlic.  The  combination of sweet ginger with the pungency of garlic is a wonderful flavour combo. It will fill your house with an amazing aroma that begins to help clear your nose immediately and their anti-viral qualities are excellent for curing colds. Fresh chilles can be as stimulating as a glass of whisky!  In fact the heat from the chilli triggers the release of endorphins in the brain, which has a pain relieving effect similar to that of morphine.

 
These two recipes are quick and easy as I didn’t feel like cooking much.

Saturday night – Chinese mussels
1 kilo of mussels
2 fresh chillies, one red, one green
4 inches of ginger
3 stems of lemon grass
4-8 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons Thai fish paste
1 tin of coconut milk
Salt and pepper
Coriander

Wash the mussels removing any beards or barnacles.  If any of the mussels are open give them a good hard tap on the sink. The shells should close,  if not discard them.
Chop the garlic, ginger and lemon grass very finely.  Thinly slice the chillies on a diagonal.
In a large bowl mix together the mussels, garlic, lemon grass, ginger, chillies, Thai fish paste, coconut milk, salt and pepper.
Heat a heavy-based saucepan until it is just beginning to smoke and tip in the contents of the bowl,  placing the lid on tightly.  Give the saucepan a  shake and allow to cook until steam is streaming from the under the lid. Lift the lid and give them another good shake, all the mussels should be open. Add the chopped coriander to the sauce and spoon into a bowl.

Sunday lunch –Pan fried chicken with garlic sauce
2 free range chicken breasts – split in half horizontally
Salt and pepper
Pinch of cayenne
4-8 cloves of garlic – minced
8oz chicken stock
2 tablespoons crème fraîche
Season the breasts and in a good frying pan heat a splash of olive oil. Fry the breasts on both sides for a couple of minutes, they should have a nice golden brown colour. Remove from the pan and put on a plate.  Melt a knob of butter and add the minced garlic, fry for a couple of seconds and pour in the stock. Bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer, add the crème fraiche and  put the chicken breast back into the pan. Cook slowly a low heat  for a further five minutes.  Serve with something green.

I did feel great straight after both meals but am still not 100% cured.  Maybe this bug likes my cooking too!

Aur Pur/Pure Gold – Bethan Darwin, Back Home

 Libraries across North Wales have launched a reading promotion in partnership with local FE/HE colleges to introduce readers to the good reads available in Libraries. Now in it’s third year the promotion called Aur Pur/Pure Gold has been extended to reach readers in FE/HE libraries. Librarians from Estyn Allan y Gogledd, the reader development network, have chosen twelve books, all from Wales but which take the reader to many different places. The authors of the most popular books in English and in Welsh will be presented with an Aur Pur award designed locally. Reading groups in libraries across North Wales will also be reading and discussing the books, and they would welcome new members to join them. The aim of the promotion is to show the wide range of stimulating books available free of charge for readers in libraries in Wales, and has been funded from the Welsh Assembly Government’s National Marketing Strategy for Libraries. “Welsh gold is valuable, rare, and alluring”, said Alan Watkin of Wrexham Library Service .”The rich seam of the imagination is much easier to mine, and readers can find it at their local library. We’ve chosen twelve books from Wales, six in English and six in Welsh, which take you to many different places. Whatever your reading taste, there’ll be something here to entertain, challenge and enrich everyone. We are delighted that the promotion will reach a wider audience of readers via our partnership with the colleges’. All the books featured as part of the promotion will be available for loan via college and public libraries. The 12 books in the Aur Pur/Pure Gold promotion are:

Back Home, Bethan Darwin

The Schoolboy, Holly Howitt

Mrs D’Silva’s Detective Instincts and the Shaitan of Calcutta, Glen Peters

Tag, Stephen May

My Little Armalite, James Hawes

Flint, Margaret Redfern

Mr Blaidd, Llwyd Owen

Man Esgyrn, Sian Owen

Hi a fi, Eigra Lewis Roberts

Haf o Hyd, Geraint Lewis,

Alias Myth a Jones, Dafydd Huws

Women on Boards

The recent post on this blog ”Getting an Ooh from Cardiff Business Club” discussed the lack of female representation on the boards of companies.  I was therefore very interested to read an article in last week’s Sunday Times – 14.2.10 Appointments Section, written by Adrian Furnham and extracted from his book “The Elephant in the Boardroom” published by Palgrave Macmillan.

In his article Mr Furnham discusses the role of boards, which is primarily to make decisions but also to support the leader, the “first among equals”.  He comments:  “Rather than being a forum where educated, experienced and rational adults meet to try to make wise business decisions, they appear to be  places of intrigue and backbiting, fear and loathing.”

He goes on to identfiy the typical problems that executive teams face and how they should deal with them.  Problems included bloated membership – the optimal number for an efficient team is between 7 and 12 apparently, too big leading to splits with a few turning silent and others becoming very vocal, and so the size of the board should be limited to the optimal number.  Naked ambition for the top job and personal agendas are also problems, the suggested solutions to which are bringing succession planning out into the open and for teams to specify the personal criteria and the process by which the top job is awarded plus having a very clear agenda for board meetings.

The most interesting problem identified by Mr Furnham from Superwoman’s point of view is what he calls the Conspiracy of Silence.  He comments that suprisingly senior managers often cope with issues by never mentioning them, the well known ”elephant in the room” syndrome.  Executive teams often deal with emotional issues – succession planning, relationships at work, the company’s future – by just not talking about them.  Mr Furnham advocates putting these issues on the table and says ”Interestingly it is often tough professional women – so often missing from boards – who deal with this problem best.  This is an issue of emotional quotient rather than intelligence quotient  – and real balls.”   I’m assuming Mr Furnham used the dash advisedly there to make it clear that it’s the emotional quotient and not the intelligence quotient that requires real balls. 

So Superwomen when you’re making your case for a seat at the boardroom table bear in mind what Mr Furnham says.    Having women on the board is  not only good for profitability and for tapping into women’s talents and their increasing purchasing power it is also good for corporate governance .  Women will put the non discussable issues on the agenda and then tell it how it is.   Just make sure though that when you’re shooing the elephant out of the boardroom you don’t step in the mess it left behind.

A girl and a half

 

I grew up in the 1970’s in Clydach Vale in the Rhondda Valleys.  You turn left at Tonypandy and keep going up the hill till you reach Clydach.  When you hit mountain, that’s where Clydach stops.

We moved there when I was five.  My parents were both graduates of the London School of Economics and had lived in London and Manchester and Toronto (where my brother and I were born) and Worcester (where my sisters were born).  In 1970 my mother decided she wanted to go home to Wales and be closer to my grandmother.  My father, a boy from Wigan, decided he’d better go too.

 You got a lot more house for your money in Clydach than you did in Worcester.  My parents were able to buy a big old house, larger than most of the terraced houses.  They bought it from a Jewish doctor called Spector.  All the time we lived there it was always known as Dr Spector’s house.  There were tiny scrolls containing sacred Jewish parchment nailed on the inside of the doors.  The scrolls got less obvious every year as my mother gave the doors an extra coat of gloss. 

Although neither of them spoke Welsh my parents wanted us to be bilingual, like the Canadian French, and sent us to Welsh school.  I loved my school but it was a 40 minute bus drive away and only a handful of other kids from Clydach went to it.  What with the funny accent, the big house, the English Dad and the “posh” school, it wasn’t easy to fit in.  When I went to the Co-Op across the road shopping for my mother, Cynthia on check out said I was a girl and a half but she didn’t mean it in a good way.

When I was about ten I developed an obsession with horses.  I still have all my horse books, my Pony Club annuals 1975, 1976 and 1977.   I had riding lessons but they weren’t enough of a fix for me.  One day my Dad came home from walking the dog and said he’d arranged for me to go visit a lady called Hazel who lived with her husband Emrys in another big house with scruffy stables on a bit of hilly land carved out of the edge of the mountain just before it turns into forestry commission. 

 I went to Hazel’s all the time.  I  fitted in there just fine because Hazel didn’t just have horses but dogs too –Lassie dogs and Yorkshire Terriers- and there was almost always a litter of puppies.   There were tropical fish and terrapins and a mangy mousing cat and once even a fox cub that Hazel had found when she was out hunting and brought home.   She fed it and cared for it and we played with it like a puppy until it was old enough to be released into the wild and be hunted itself.  Hazel was a sporty, capable woman with red hair and pale skin and sturdy thighs.  She strode around the place in riding boots caring briskly for all these animals, her grown up children who still lived at home and me, a ten year old horse groupie. I never saw her do any cleaning and Emrys did all the cooking.  I didn’t approve of hunting but when Hazel went out with the hunt she looked regal as a queen, sitting high on her horse with her red hair done up in one of those nets. 

I stopped going to Hazel’s at some point, probably in 1977 about the time the Pony Club annuals stopped.  I finished growing up and went off to University and I didn’t keep in touch with Hazel.

Just last year, over thirty years since I last went to Hazel’s, I got in a taxi in Cardiff.  It took the driver and me about three minutes to recognize each other’s Rhondda accent.  He asked me where I’d lived and when I told him Clydach he asked for some reason had I known Hazel and Emrys?  Yes, I said enthusiastically, yes I did.   I was about to ask how they were, did they still have horses and dogs and the odd orphaned fox cub but before I got my questions out the taxi driver spoke again.  Both dead now of course, he said, long time ago now.  But she was a girl and a half that Hazel was. 

 The rest of the way home I sat quietly in the back and said a long over due thank you to Hazel and her family for all the fitting in she helped me do all those years ago when I needed it and for helping me feel very glad to be a girl and a half.

Guilty secret

Don’t tell anyone right but I have something to confess.  You know the newspaper the Guardian, the one that used to be called the Grauniad back in the day on account of all the typos?  Yes well I read it on a Saturday.  Don’t be daft – that’s not my confession – I haven’t done the confessing bit yet.  No, my confession is my peculiar fondness for the Soulmates ads in the Guide section.

It’s not only that I find it touching that there are people out there who are not prepared to trust the difficult business of love to match.com.  What I like is the effort and personality and quirkiness that goes into some of these ads.    This Saturday there was “Pensions in Paradise- newly retired, left wing, funky F, own teeth and bus pass, looking for laid-back bloke. E.Sussex” and “From the Beatles to Bowie & beyond – V.attract, v. youthful F, 50′s , wants M who lived in the 60′s and has stayed awake. Chesh/anywhere”    I almost want to contact these women myself and say sorry I’m not a fella but how about being friends with me because you sound like a lot of fun.    Then there was “Attract.intellig. Welsh speaking F 42, warm and enthusiastic with GSOH, open to a big change in life, ints in reading, growing and outdoor stuff.  Only looking for LTR with attract, quick-witted M, 35-50.  N’ham.”  It’s the Welsh speaking/N’ham bit that caught my eye.  Do you think she was hoping to flush out the quick-witted attract Welsh speaking men already living in N’ham or entice some Welsh speakers from Wales up to N’ham for a bit of siarad Cymraeg?   Or maybe speaking Welsh is something you have to get out in the open right at the start before you even go on the first date, much like the “I’m divorced and have a two year old son” stern conversation I had to have with Mr S when he first started flirting with me?

And are there blokes out there worthy of these women?  In the male section of Soulmates I found:  “Leftish, intellectual type, 68, full head of grey hair, semi-retired, usual Guardian interests WLTM affectionate, pretty, slim F with a view to living together, LTR with strong romantic component. Ldn.”  You can pack a lot of meaning into “usual Guardian interests” but if I was “Pensions in Paradise” I wouldn’t be calling “Leftish, intellectual type” any time soon,  no siree, cos the attributes he was looking for in a woman were being affectionate, pretty and slim.   Hardly that intellectual then.  Get your big red bingo pen out girls (oh, Guardian women don’t play Bingo, why not?  I love a bit of bingo me.  Ok any old pen then) and put a big cross through the middle of any bloke advertising for slim, attractive or young.  You’re all worth way more than that.   Also avoid stalker types like this one  “When you smile at someone it’s an act of love, a gift, a beautiful thing.  When you talk to someone new that can be beautiful too, so…talk to me!”  Don’t even think of talking to him Guardian women!  Run a mile!  Who does that leave?  Well there’s  “Work in progress. I’m a 53 yo M, keen on poetry, novels, theatre, visual art, cycling, walking, jazz & classical music, WLTM heappy, creative, 38 to 53 who is comfortable with herself and can surprise me!” Just don’t bother applying if you’re so much as six months older than me….  Or “Halcyon days.  Looking for F 30- 44 to spend quality time with.  My ints include sunshine, sailing, skiing, swimming (sea), Greek/Scottish islands, living a simple life and saving the environment.”  Is it just me or does this one sound a bit, well, pernickety  – swimming (sea), I mean really,  and also tight, like he’d  buy cheap scratchy toilet roll and use a tea bag three times and call it saving the environment?  Oh here’s one “Sexy Scottish smiler seeks sassy siren.  I am 42, 6′, emotionally intellig, slightly geeky & wear my heart on my sleeve WLTM someone under 50 for honesty, laughter and hugs.  NW “  Quick, Welsh speaker from N’ham.  Give him a ring.   You can teach him Welsh if he turns out to be a good kisser.  And if he isn’t N’ham’s far enough away from NW.

Happy International Women’s Day 2010

My grandmother is 90 next week.  We’ve got a big party planned – cake, balloons, live music and.. tap the microphone and say it in your best DJ voice… lights on for the buffet.   No bingo though – she drew the line at bingo, even if she is celebrating hitting top of the shop Nine Oh.  So what has my Gran’s birthday got to do with International Women’s Day? 

When my Gran was born in 1920 women over the age of thirty had only just been given the vote in 1918.  She was eight before the Equal Franchise Act granted women the vote on the same terms as men from the age of 21.    She was 55 when the Sex Discrimination Act was passed making it illegal for employers to discriminate against female workers and, amazingly she was 64 by the time Liechtenstein became the last country in Europe to give women the vote in 1984.  My Gran’s lifespan maps the progress of women’s struggle for equality. 

That is not to say that my Gran herself was one of the women actively engaged in that struggle.   She was always a stay at home Mum (although no one called it SAHM back then) and was proud to describe herself as a housewife.    Her priorities were getting married to a good man who made a decent living and having kids and keeping a clean and tidy house.   Later her priorities became coping with the difficulties of being widowed aged just 39 and after that they became her grandchildren and playing golf.   However, that struggle for equality running alongside her life meant that her daughter become one of the first girls from the Rhondda to go to University and that by the time her three granddaughters went to University there were as many women as men in the UK attending tertiary education and women no longer needed a man to make a decent living as they were perfectly capable of making their own.  Given that we’ve come such a long way in just one woman’s lifespan do we still need inherently sexist events like International Women’s Day and Superwoman?

That was a rhetorical question.  Of course we do.  Women are still paid 12.2% less than men for full time work in the UK, there are only four female chief executives of FTSE 100 companies and 30,000 women are estimated to lose their jobs each year in Great Britain as a result of becoming pregnant.  Of greater immediate concern than those statistics is the fact that in a recent poll of 1000 British girls (even if it was carried out by a mobile entertainment company) 60% said glamour modelling was their preferred career.  A quarter said they would consider becoming lap dancers.  

Somewhere along my Gran’s lifespan of progress, the struggle for equality has taken a huge step back.  How has the cult of celebrity reached the point where so many young women measure their worth by how they look and anorexia is on the up?  That’s why we need to celebrate International Women’s Day and the sort of events organised to mark it – like Women Inspiring Women organised by Chwarae Teg  and “Making a Mark – Women, the Media and Politics” organised by the Institute of Welsh Affairs Women.  To highlight the contributions women make at all levels – politics, business, culture, community and family – and to demonstrate to our daughters and to our nieces that this is where their worth lies, not in being a size zero with fake boobs and swollen lips.   Because, let’s say it together girls, internationally, we’re worth so much more than how we look.

Mums work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work

This one came to us on one of those round robin emails but is funny and sweet so we thought we’d share it:

WHY GOD MADE MUMS

Answers given by 2nd year school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?

1.  She’s the only one who knows where the selotape is.

2.  Mostly to clean the house.

3.  To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?

1.  He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.

2.  Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.

3.  God made my mum just the same like he made me.  He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?

1.  God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.

2.  They had to get their start from men’s bones.  Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mum?

1.  We’re related.

2.  God knew she likes me a lot more than other people’s mum like me.

What kind of a little girl was your mum?

1.  My mum has always been my mum and none of that other stuff.

2.  I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.

3.  They say she used to be nice.

What did mum need to know about dad before she married him?

1.  His last name.

2.  She had to know his background.  Like is he a crook?  Does he get drunk on beer?

3.  Does he make at least £8000 a year?  Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your mum marry your dad?

1.  My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world.  And my mum eats a lot.

2.  She got too old to do anything else with him.

3.  My grandma says that mum didn’t have her thinking cap on.

Who’s the boss at your house?

1.  Mum doesn’t want to be boss, but she has to because dad’s such an idiot.

2.  Mum.  You can tell by room inspection.  She sees the stuff under the bed.

3.  I guess mum is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What’s the difference between mums and dads?

1.  Mums work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.

2.  Mums know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.

3.  Dads are taller and stronger, but mums have all the real power ’cause that’s who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friends.

4.  Mums have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mum do in her spare time?

1.  Mothers don’t do spare time.

2.  To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mum perfect?

1.  On the inside she’s already perfect.  Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.

2.  Diet.  You know, her hair.  I’d diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your mum, what would it be?

1.  She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean.  I’d get rid of that.

2.  I’d make my mum smarter.  Then she would know it was my sister who did it not me.

3.  I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Sing for Life and dance at every chance

It was my gran’s 90th birthday party earlier this month.  She didn’t really want a party but I insisted.  Some of my family members would possibly say it was not so much insisting, more like light bullying.   In any event she gave in with good grace and let me organise a party.  We held it at the Soar Centre in Penygraig,  a former Baptist chapel converted into a light and airy multi functional community and arts centre for charity Valleys Kids which is a wonderful example of a building bridging the past, present and future of Rhondda Cynon Taf.

It was I think the only time ever that every single member of my grandmother’s immediate family were all present in one place – her two children, her six grandchildren and her fifteen great grandchildren ranging in age from 20 to a few weeks plus her sister Megan and lots of other family and close friends.   More bridging of the past, present and future.   The last time most of us had been together was for a funeral and I was so very glad that this time we were together for a birthday.    Everybody had made an effort to wear something purple, following the warning in the Jenny Joseph poem “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple” and we had a big group photo taken to celebrate the occasion.

We were honoured that the Sing for Life choir were able to join us and to sing  a medley of Welsh songs followed by Happy Birthday Mam in Welsh and English.  They sang it for Princess Anne and what’s good enough for HRH is good enough for Iris “Mam” Hopkins.  The Sing for Life choir is made up of people mostly from the Rhondda Cynon Taf area who have either suffered from cancer or been affected by cancer and is run in conjunction with cancer charity Tenovus.  Trained by team building and motivational company Sing and Inspire, the choir and their conductors Georgina Jones and Andrea Beardshaw have such energy and such a joy for life that it is uplifting to be round them.   They sang their hearts out to celebrate Mam’s good, long life and their own lives and life in general.  They are an inspiration.

After that it was lights on for the buffet, a few glasses of wine and four generations of family having a bit of a boogie together and yes of course Mam danced.  Because everyone should dance, every chance we get.  And sing for life too.

.

Women on boards again

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you will know that getting more broads on boards is something Superwoman feels strongly about – see earlier posts on the topic.

On 3 April 2010  – yep Easter Saturday when a goodly number of us were probably dashing round the shops buying chocolate eggs because it had suddenly dawned on us that Tesco wouldn’t be open the following day – the House of Commons Treasury Committee published a new report called “Women in the City”.    It’s a whopping 138 pages long but  a fascinating read  – yes really – and anyway a lot of those pages are the submissions made to the Committee by unions, banks, accountancy practices and also the City Women’s Network plus transcripts of the evidence given by witnesses.   You can download the pdf at www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmtreasy/482/482.pdf but if life’s too short to read a Treasury Committee report here’s what it says.

• British companies are all pretty shabby when it comes to diversity at board level but the City of London is shabbiest of all.  The boards of FTSE 100 banks are only 9% female and at executive director level women make up only 1 to 2%.
• The gender pay gap beggars belief everywhere – economy wide it’s 42% but in the City it’s a jaw dropping 60%.
• This lack of diversity has led to group think and made challenging and scrutinising executive decisions less effective.  (BTW, “Group think” isn’t defined anywhere but I’d hazard a guess at “macho men always agreeing with each other.”)   This has led to a culture in the City of risk taking rather than stability.   Professor Charles Goodhart of the London School of Economics thinks the banking crisis would have been less likely if there had been greater diversity on the boards because women tend not to blow the housekeeping all in one go (he didn’t actually say that last bit.)
• The right to equality is already covered by our legislation but that ain’t good enough.  A change in culture is needed.  It’s not being female that prevents women getting to the top because women who work and think like men do just fine.  No what we need is to move away from a perception that unless you work 12 hour days, drink like a fish and still be capable of standing straight in the lap dancing bar come 2am that you’re just not executive material my dear.  (This is paraphrasing things a bit you’ll understand.)
• Having said that we don’t need to go so far as to impose quotas like Norway did thereby  pushing up female representation from 6% in 2002 to 44.8% in 2008.   However Lord Davies of Abersoch has written to Financial Reporting Council proposing that listed companies be required to explain their policies for achieving greater diversity.    That ought to do it.
• A significant problem in achieving greater diversity on boards is a shortage of suitable women who actually want the job.  An awful lot of us  don’t want to catch tennis balls in our cleavages a la Venetia Thompson and have decided either to pack in the career thing altogether or content ourselves with not pushing for the top jobs. This means there’s not many women at the top to mentor the young ones coming through.
• So we need more initiatives and mentoring schemes to help and support women to progress their careers coupled with a shift in culture so that diversity policies are actually followed and driven through rather than just a means to defend tribunal claims.

Yep, I think that’s about it.  So what next?

If you would be interested in attending a training session on how to give women the tools they need to get on the boards and to push themselves forward for the top jobs get in touch.  If enough of you are interested Superwoman will organise one.

Use the good china and don’t keep anything for best

Last Saturday I went to a “Love Vintage” fair in our local community centre with my five year old daughter.    It was the lure of home made cake and tea that got us there.  Both my children can scan a kids’ tea party table and spot home made cake from a 100m distance.   However, once we got there we were both of us enchanted by all the old stuff on sale.   Bone china cups and saucers, glass cake stands, beautifully embroidered table runners and samplers and quirky clothes smelling of mothballs and 0ld lady’s perfume and history.

For a woman who really doesn’t enjoy shopping I bought quite a bit.   A  set of 20 or more different sized knitting needles in a red case ( I don’t knit but my mother does and searching for her misplaced knitting needles was something I did a lot as a child.    I hope she’s going to like the imprisoned abundance of this lot, fastened tight in their red case); a 1950′s apron, a deliciously un pc faux leather cigarette case emblazoned with the inscription  – “Smoke like Helen B. Merry” (say it out loud); the remains of a pretty pastel dinner set by Royal Winton, including two big oval serving platters and a soup tureen for all of £20.  Tureen.  What a great word.    My daughter had a great time picking through huge trays of beads and bangles at just 50p each as I made my purchases.  When we were shopped out (by which I mean I couldn’t carry any more) we sat at a table covered with a pink and blue flowered table cloth and ate buttery victoria sponge.    I drank tea from a real china cup and it tasted just wonderful.

“Vintage” and “vintage reproduction” is of course very popular at the moment.   A whiff of fifties nostalgia is what has made Cath Kidston and Boden and all those cup cake businesses so successful – we’re all hankering after blue spots and pink sprigs of flowers and a time when our mothers were waiting for us when we got home from school with a fresh Victoria sponge and clean sheets flapping on the line.    Of course when we conjure up these images we tend to forget that clean sheets back then involved back breaking hand washing and mangling and sore chapped hands with not much in the way of heavy duty hand cream yet invented.    And then there was all the embroidery and the knitting.  When those women sat down after a hard day’s mangling and Victoria sponge making they didn’t put Living on and settle down with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc to catch up with Grey’s Anatomy.  No, they got out the embroidery silks and did even more hard work, embroidering their  napkins and samplers with purple silk hollyhocks and yellow silk  daffodils and that woman in a big skirt and a bonnet like little Bo Peep (there were quite a few of those at the Vintage fair -did you have one in your house?).  And then they kept all that lovely stuff for best together with the good china and the pretty soup tureen and didn’t use it much and then presumably they died and all the things they treasured and loved ended up being bought by women like me in a village fair.

So when I got my pastel dinner set home I plonked some blue hyachiths that had previously been glorying in a plastic pot and put them in my soup tureen and I used the oval serving plate as a fruit bowl.  And I vowed to myself that I’m always going to use the good china and never keep anything for best.

Superwoman by E J Catering

One evening a few years ago, when I was unable to sleep, I got up and put the telly on.  Slumped with a duvet and head full of unnecessary action, I was taken off to the world of Hannah Glasse (1708-1770).  I had never heard of her before, but it seems that long before the renowned Mrs Beeton or Fanny Cradock, Hannah Glasse was the first “kitchen goddess”, way back in the 18th century.  She was an English woman who wrote the first known successful and commercial cook book, The Art of Cookery, published in 1747.  At the time, the name of the author was unknown, as she signed off her work “by a Lady”.

Hannah, who had grown up in the country with well-to-do folk, and experienced good food and the beginnings of hospitality as a way to show off wealth and possessions, found herself in the city as a very young wife and realised that there was a gap in the market.  Her book was based on simple instructions, accessible ingredients and easy recipes.  She simplified old fashioned text – so “pass it off brown” became “fry it brown in some good butter” and “draw him with parsley” became “throw some parsley over the dish”.   She cleverly engineered weights and measures instructions, making them foolproof.  In her famous recipe, To Roast A Hare, she suggests “as much thyme as will lie on a six-pence” – a clever means to measure without machinery.  She offered practical help with timing, suggesting winding a length of string onto your spit.  She reasoned that when all the string was on the floor, the roast was cooked, ensuring no need for a modern-day timer with a ping.  Hannah Glasse brought the first curry recipe to the British table, though it must have been basic, as it only requires coriander and black pepper. But when the dish was reproduced on that late night programme, I saw a group of food experts pronounce it totally delicious.

From where I sat on the sofa, I can tell you we have learnt a bit about presentation since Hannah’s day, but I was sold on her methods. So with Hannah as my inspiration, here’s my easy recipe for gooseberry fool.

Gooseberry fool

ngredients

2 quarts (2.2l/4pt) gooseberries

1 Quart (1.1l/2pt) of sugar syrup (water and sugar, bring to the boil, allow to cool)

2 quarts (2.2 l/4pt) of new milk

4 egg yolks

Pinch of nutmeg

Method

Take 2 quarts of gooseberries, which come into season next month.  Set them on the fire in about a quart (1.1l/2pt) of water.  When they begin to simmer, turn yellow and begin to swell and split, throw them into a colander to drain the water out.  With the back of a spoon, carefully squeeze the pulp through the sieve into a dish and let them stand till they are cold.  Meanwhile, take 2 quarts (2.2l/4pt) of new milk, and the yolks of 4 eggs and beat it all up with a little grated nutmeg.  Stir it softly over a low heat.  When it begins to simmer take it off, and by degrees stir it into the gooseberries. Let it stand until cold, then serve it up.

Blackberry, Orange and Apple – one or more of your five a day?

I got a spam email earlier this week offering me a webinar on “Blackberry Tips, Tricks and Apps for lawyers”.   For £160 and an investment of 60 minutes of my time watching the webinar I’d update my knowledge on how other lawyers are getting the most out of their Blackberry.  Us lawyers are evidently such nastily competitive types that the best way to sell webinars to us is not to advertise what we’ll get out of our Blackberry but to suggest that our competition are already getting more out of theirs than we are.

Thing is, I already spend far too long with my Blackberry.   I phone and text  with it, I email  with it, I access Facebook and the internet through it and take photos and video with it.  ALL THE TIME.   If,  heaven forfend,  I forget to take it with me when I leave the house or the battery runs out I panic.  Really.    For a start I don’t know anybody’s telephone numbers any more to ring them to warn them that I haven’t got my Blackberry with me so they should not construe my failure to respond to a text or email within three hours as indicative of my sudden death.  I can’t even make it through an hour’s telly without checking it once or twice.  Not even for telly I really like – things like Grey’s Anatomy or the Wire (series three now, ya feel me).   I tell myself and anyone who’ll listen that Blackberries (or is it Blackberrys?) are good for the working mum.  “You can nip off early from work and pick up the kids from school and no one need know you’re not in the office,”  I say.  This may well be true but actually what Blackberries (Blackberrys just looks wrong)  have done is to extend the working day to well, when you go to bed really.     I regularly get emails at all times of the night  from clients and other solicitors on the other side who are working late and I feel obliged to respond and thereby demonstrate that I’m every bit as hard working and dedicated as they are.    Nastily competitive see?

Of course, it’s not just Blackberries that people are working late on.  Apple I-Phones are equally bad and you can get push email on Orange and other mobile phones too.   We’re all at it – working round the clock because technology has made it possible and because the more people do it, the more people come to expect that level of responsiveness as the norm.  Twenty years ago when I qualified as a solicitor no one had computers; the world wide web and google and  facebook and twitter and Blackberry had not been invented (which sounds as archaic as sending very small children up chimneys and down mines)  and when you went home you didn’t do any more work till you got back into the office the next day.    Gosh doesn’t that sound nice?  The top tip, trick and application for Blackberries really should be “It’s 6.30pm.  PUT IT DOWN ALREADY.  STEP AWAY FROM THE BLACKBERRY AND SPEND SOME TIME WITH YOUR KIDS/OTHER HALF/DOG/WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT.

So, even though my husband says he’ll believe it when he sees it, I’m going to try and cut down a little on my Blackberry intake.  And unless that webinar is going to show me how my Blackberry can put the bins out and run the Hoover over I’ll be giving it a miss.

Another top tip:  When scrolling through  emails on your Blackberry  if you press ‘t’ it will take you to the most recent email.   Press ‘b’ to get to the least recent.

Having it all – a Superwoman’s view point

You do know don’t you that none of us at Superwoman actually believe we’re  Superwoman?  That we’re poking fun at ourselves because we’re rather a long way from Super?   You do?   Phew.  I’m glad we cleared that up.    So what about Having It All then?  Do we believe in that?

For those of you who missed the recent debate in the media about Having it All (generated by Allison Pearson’s  recent resignation from her Daily Mail column)  Having it All is a term used to describe women with careers plus children and/or ageing parents who also contribute to community and keep a clean, organised home, a decent face and figure and a happy other half.  Allison Pearson has been suffering from depression which she attributes to trying to Have it All and has therefore decided to resign.  So is Having it All possible?  Here’s our take on the situation.

1.  Lots of women go out to work because if they didn’t there wouldn’t be enough money coming in to pay the mortgage.   This is not Having it All this is Having no Choice.

2.   Women who Have no Choice regularly work long, stressful days.  Some of them are lucky enough to get well paid but many of the women who Have no Choice are on very low rates of pay.

3.  If you Have a Choice even if it would involve radical belt tightening then in our view you pretty much already Have Most of It.

4.  Having it All  is impossible;  as fictitious a concept as Superwoman.    Nearly Having it All is not impossible but it does involve prioritising, letting somethings go altogether and for others embracing the concept of Good Enough.   Good Enough is key to Nearly Having it All.     Minette Martin in her column in the Sunday Times this week had some great advice -  don’t read fashion magazines if they make you feel fat or frumpy or if they make you long for things you can’t have; don’t cook unless you really must: think catering rather than cooking; don’t go shopping unless you really have to; don’t have lots of clothes: have only a few that really suit you; give up answering the telephone just because it’s ringing.  The point here is that  if you are trying to Nearly Have it All you need to cut yourself some slack.   A would be Superwoman that we know, when asked how she does it all, replies “Big Bum, Dirty House”.  Quite a lot of slack there.

6.  If  Nearly Having it All and Good Enough are not for you (or are no longer for you, for whatever reason) and your family finances can cope then STOP and don’t waste your precious time feeling guilty about it.   You will not be letting your feminist foremothers down if you are doing what makes you happy, whatever that may be.  This advice applies whether you have children or you don’t and whether you are a man or a woman.    Wherever possible and financial circumstances/family commitments permitting you should do what makes your heart sing, at least some of the time.

7.  Depression is a terrible, terrifying thing.  We’ve already talked in this blog about the tragic story of 41 year old solicitor Catherine Bailey who, suffering from depression,  drowned herself in the Thames leaving three young daughters behind.    20% of women aged between 45 and 64 are suffering from depression , a 20% increase on 2003.   Anyone, be they man or woman,  who starts to become depressed by how they are living their lives should listen to their body and take immediate action to stop that depression becoming as bad as it did for Catherine Bailey.   Allison Pearson did the right thing.

On being too old to go clubbing but not to dance…

I went on a girls’ night out on Saturday night to celebrate a fortieth birthday.   Girls is pushing it a bit I admit – most of us are working mums and not looking as girl like as once we did.   Getting out for a night these days requires as much effort as we put into our GCSE’s (OK, fine, I did do O levels if you must be so pernickety) along the following lines:

1.  Advise spouse at least one month in advance that you will be out;

2.  Stick large note on fridge to the effect that you will be out, preferably highlighted in luminous pink;

3.  Remind spouse thereafter on a regular basis that you will be out;

4.  Fill fridge;

5.  As you leave for your night out, shake clinging children off legs as you step out the front door; approximately 10% of spouses will still call after you – “Where are you going?  It’s not tonight you’re going out is it?”

6. RUN

We gathered in the bar of the Park Plaza hotel to drink cocktails.  Oo-er get us, being all Sex and the City.  Some of us were even wearing high heels.   However, having grown  sensible with age,  we stopped after two and went into the restaurant because drinking on an empty stomach is really not a good idea is it?   And whereas usually come 10.30pm on a Saturday night we’d all be nodding off in front of the telly it was time to go clubbing!

I love dancing, me.   My daughter and I regularly have a bit of a boogie in the kitchen.   But clubbing isn’t about dancing is it?   It’s about copping off.    And drinking after last orders.     How could I have forgotten that?   When I walked into the club, the music throbbing in my chest and the dance floor squirming with impossibly young, very pissed people wearing only underwear and fake tan I felt truly and horribly ancient.   “I’m old enough to be most of this lot’s mother!” I hissed to my sister.  “Don’t flatter yourself.  You’re old enough to be their grandmother!”  she hissed back.  (This is not strictly true; I could be a grandmother, granted, but to someone going to nursery not out clubbing.)

Despite my advancing age, I did  get on the dance floor.    The floor was sticky with spilt drinks and crunchy with broken glass but a couple of us mums squeezed past the flailing arms of the hen party and the blokes on a stag night checking them out and jiggled a bit on the dance floor with the birthday girl.    I watched the courtship ritual of men and women trying to score a snog unfolding all around me and thanked my lucky stars that my snog for the night and for every night for ever and ever was waiting for me at home.

By 2 am, the place had emptied out a bit and was playing eighties music and all us mums and in particular birthday girl could dance like I do in my kitchen – for the sheer fun of it.

Superwoman by E J Catering

Molly’s first sports day was hilarious, as promised by the teachers and the fact that all the athelets were under four.  The grass track was about 15 meters long with two rows of chairs down one side filled with expectant and excited parents and grandparents.  There was a lovely atmosphere as we waited for our athletes to arrive.  At last the side door of the nursery opened and out streamed  40 kids –  two by two waving and smiling at their parents.  All the children entered all four races in groups of 5. The first race was just running forward; every one made it to the end in some form or another.  The next race was backwards;  they all made it to the end too although not all managed the full 15 meters backwards.  The next race was running forward but this time with a rubber ring on their heads, or at least it was at the start, not all the rings made it over the finishing line. The last race, but by no means the least, was the old classic egg and spoon race, brought up to date with a ping-pong bat and a bean bag.  Molly took this race very seriously and walked with full concentration from start to finish, completing the race a good 45 seconds after the race was well and truly over. All the parents clapped her all the way and she had a beaming smile on her face as she enjoyed her success and all the attention.  Jake, at nearly two, entered most races uninvited until in the end the head teacher gave in and gave the toddlers a race of their own.

I came last in my first ever mother’s race, to my amused disappointment –  I was not expecting to have to bat a ball as I ran.  I batted the ball way too high and spent my 15 meters chasing the ball forwards and backwards – let’s say tennis was never my best discipline but it was full of giggles and cheers from the little ones.  The fathers had to do the same race, but backwards!  Every one got a prize, a certificate and a lolly and went home full of the achievement of participating.

Raspberry ripple ice cream

This is a quick and easy cheat but full of natural flavour and fresh fruit.

1 litre tub of good quality vanilla ice cream

150gr of fresh or frozen ( defrosted) raspberries

Leave the tub of ice cream out of the freezer for about 20 mins with the lid off whilst you whisk the raspberries with a hand whisk to a puree.  When the icecream has become a soft constancy but by no means a defrosted liquid, fold in the raspberry puree with a large metal spoon.  Only make about 4 – 6 folds, it wants to have a ripple effect and not be completely mixed in with the ice cream.  Put the lid back on a re-freeze for at least an hour.  Serve in a bowl or in a waffle cone topped with a fresh raspberry.

This easy ripple ice cream is equally delicious with cherry, mango or strawberry purees

The sports day was really good fun, the sun shone and at the end the teachers were forced into a race. The Grannies were the only ones who got off scott free!

Super night for women at the Inspire Wales Awards 2010

I was at the first IWA Inspire Wales Awards 2010 at Cardiff City Hall last night.  For those who don’t know  – and I feel bad but I’d never even heard of IWA until last year – IWA stands for the Institute of Wales and describes itself on its website www.iwa.org.uk as

“an independent, membership-based think tank, dedicated to promoting the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales. It owes no allegiance to any political or economic interest group. Its only interest is in seeing Wales flourish as a country in which to work and live. It believes that can be done only by the effective mobilisation of all Wales’s intellectual resources.”

Wales’s intellecual resources were well and truly mobilised last night with 400 people attending the event.  The Western Mail was the media partner for the awards.  The Westie used to be the media partner of the Welsh Woman of the Year Awards (R.I.P since 2008).  I went to the Welsh Woman awards twice and didn’t enjoy myself much either time.   They were held in the CIA which in my opinion is cold and a bit too much like a drafty badminton hall to host a black tie do.  City Hall was much nicer and way posher but the awards could almost have been re-named the Welsh Woman awards because – get this -  of the nine individual awards up for grabs, seven were won by women.  Woo hoo!   And it’s got to be said that it must be great to win an award for women (which of course I wouldn’t know having never won one!) but even better to win an award which everyone is eligible to apply for.

I had a really enjoyable evening. Thanks very much to the Welsh Language Board for inviting me.   Diolch yn fawr.  Decent glass of something sparkly to start, a very interesting and entertaining table of people at dinner, and I got to hear Swansea based poet Nigel Jenkins read from some of his work for the first time – fabulous.  It was a pity that the singing act – the Three Waiters – didn’t sing something Welsh as well as Nessun Dorma and Toreador – a burst of Cwm Rhondda would have gone down very nicely, particularly as the event was to celebrate people who inspire Wales.

Below are the categories and their winners.  Congratulations to you all.  I was definitely inspired.

Young Achiever – Jessica Griffiths

Business Leader-  Hayley Parsons, Gocompare.com

Educator – Prof. Judy Hutchings, Bangor University

Science and Technology – Prof. Meena Upadhyaya, Cardiff University & Cardiff and Vale University Board

Arts, Media and Creative Industries – Olwen Moseley, Cardiff School of Art and Design, UWIC

Environmentalist-  Steve Garrett, RCMA Social Enterprise Limited

Welsh at Work – North Wales Police

Active Citizen – Adam Rees, National Assembly of Wales

Global Wales – Angela Gorman, Hope for Grace Kodindo

Sport – Lucy Powell, Duffryn Community Link

My Tour of Pembrokeshire – Fflur Jones

I recently took part in a sponsored cycle ride around Pembrokeshire. During a mad moment in January I had agreed to do it, along with three of my male colleagues. The Tour of Pembrokeshire involves three different races, one each of 117 miles, 83 miles and 64 miles. Being a very happy cyclist but also aware that a) I was not all that fit and b) would probably enjoy the social side of cycling just as much as the actual pedalling, I opted for the shortest route.

And so the training began. The Taff trail became as familiar as the palm of my hand, as I dragged myself out of bed at sparrows on a Sunday. My first few trips were of the cautious kind – 10 miles, or 15 miles at most. I discovered that I could do a nice round trip to Sain Ffagan and back via Ely. This was achievable after work on a nice evening. How I feasted on my supper on such nights!

I gradually became a little more daring. As I was training on my own, I was surprised how concerned I was about venturing too far into the countryside alone, early in the morning. I had my bike with me after all, I reasoned, so I should be ok. Having bought a speedometer however (which made me feel like a proper cyclist!) I realised that if a mad man decided to chase me as I was doing 3.5 miles going uphill, my only defence mechanism would be to turn back and whizz downhill at top speed!

As I got fitter, I managed to shelve my fears. If my time was to come whilst snaking my way up the Taff Trail at a snail’s pace, then so be it. I had some lovely rides up to Caerphilly mountain before whizzing at top speed (40 miles an hour once!) through Rhiwbina home. It was nice to feel myself getting more proficient at the pedalling game. The first time up Caerphilly mountain, I had to stop twice. The last time I went up without stopping, and in half the time I had taken the first time. Real progress. I had a lovely ride to Merthyr and back on a Sunday, dodging the rain under the tree canopy of the Taff Trail along the way. And with three weeks to go I managed to cover the distance of the Tour by cycling to the top of the Rhondda, over the Rhigos, and over down through the beautiful Neath valley, a magical place to which I had never been before.

The day of the Tour arrived. The first 10 miles were killers.  A constant climb up from Saundersfoot to Narberth, and I wondered why I was putting myself through this.   What was the point? Why was I so much slower than my male colleagues, who had shot off in front of me without as much as a cursory glance over their shoulders. I honestly did not know whether I could do it! I was going to have to admit defeat, and turn on my pedal and crawl back to bed where I rightly belonged at 8am on a Sunday morning. To hell with pride, I reasoned. It took character to admit defeat.

But from somewhere (possibly from the disgusting energy bar I consumed in a frenzy on mile 3) the strength came to stay in the race and keep going. The views were stunning, the company of my fellow cyclists pleasurable (apart from the two idiots who kept referring to me as banana woman), and the weather perfect. Five hours and fifteen minutes later, I was back in Saundersfoot with a big smile on my face, a very sore bum, and a slightly delirious buzz in my head. It didn’t matter that my colleagues had gone further than me or faster than me.  I had done it and that was all that mattered.

In the run up to the Tour the four of us as a firm decided to raise money for Tenovus and I decided to badger friends and family on behalf of Asylum Justice, a small charity that operates out of Cardiff, Newport and Swansea providing free legal advice to asylum seekers who are sent to Wales by the Home Office. Whilst I cycled along the beautiful Pembrokeshire countryside, I realised what a lucky, jammy, blessed girl I am to be able to undertake such a journey, in my own country, pretty much alone, without any real concerns in the world, other than having enough stamina to finish the course. I thought of all those women I had encountered in Asylum Justice’s legal sessions, some with a houseful of kids to feed on a few coupons a week, some alone and frightened, having had to leave their family behind, some young and bewildered, unsure of their age, their identity, or the reason why their families had bundled them off into the back of trucks, in search of a safer existence. Beautiful women, of all sizes, colours and creed, all of them seeking sanctuary in this country of ours, for all sorts of complicated reasons that I will probably never be able to fully understand. As I arrived back into Saundersfoot, rain sodden and hungry, I thanked my lucky stars that I had the privilege to indulge my love of cycling in order to assist these Superwomen from all over the world who have happened upon Wales without any real choice of their own.

If you would like to make a donation to either Tenovus or Asylum Justice, please click on the links below:

www.justgiving.com/darwingray

www.justgiving.com/fflur

A rant about roads – by Denise Lovering, Glenside Commercials

As some people may already know, I have been lobbying to get the tolls on the Severn reduced for quite some time now.  There have been lots of meetings with AMs and MPs trying to get them to support an enquiry into the impact of the tolls on the Welsh economy, with a view to getting them reduced.  I have spoken to transport managers and fleet operators, one of whom pays a staggering £200,000 every year in tolls. Everyone is agreed that “Something should be done” but what?

I work in the transport sector, not seen as a “sexy” place to work, as I said at a recent lunch, but one that is necessary. We all want fresh fruit, meat and fish in our supermarkets and shops, we want to be able to buy latest fashions (well some do) and some of us want to be able to go out on a Sunday to buy furniture, screw drivers, paint, bedding plants, charcoal for the BBQ and even loo roll (when the dog has grabbed the last one and thinks it’s amusing to chew it up!)

All these things, with a few exceptions, are delivered by road.  By the trucks that everyone sees as a menace on our road, by drivers who drive through the night to get our goods to market in other countries too.  The problems lie not with the trucks or the drivers, although we all have stories about the one that “drove like a lunatic” but with the road infrastructure they have to drive on.

Of the 33 million or so vehicles registered on our roads, only 460,000 are commercial vehicles – you know those big ones that we see everywhere!!

Take the M4, for instance.  This was in part, to be a road link between Ireland and Europe, as well as giving the people of Wales and the South West easier access to London and the South. It is part of the strategic road network of the UK.  The part that runs through Newport does not conform to current motorway standards, lacking continuous hard shoulder, having some junctions that are too close together and, worse of all, a restricted two-lane section through the Brynglas Tunnels with no escape route.

Hopes were raised in the 90’s when work started into the feasibility of an M4 Relief Road.  The transport sector in particular held its’ breath, yes it would probably be tolled, but they were used to paying tolls, but it would ease congestion, improve driving times and in general make travelling easier for all users. And so we all waited.   Then, last year, after spending approx £15m on feasibility studies, the Deputy FirstMinister announced there would be no M4 relief road, it would cost too much money!

Instead the proposed alternative will be a patchwork of roads and roundabouts called “M4 Magor to Castleton Corridor Enhancement” and we will have to endure possibly another four years of road works to make  it possible.  In four years time the traffic flow will have increased again and we will still be trying to find a solution to the congestion and frustration that the M4 relief road would have helped to solve.

We deserve better than this!

I was repeatedly told by AMs and MPs alike that the Severn tolls issue was not a “devolved issue” but one that I should take up with Central Government.  In a letter from the former Transport Minister, Sadiq Khan, he told me that he couldn’t do anything, as the tolls were governed by an Act of Parliament. It was like riding on the Magic Roundabout!

Together with a colleague from Freight Transport Association, I attended a meeting in the Senedd recently, organised by Mike German (now Lord German) a Welsh Lib Dem AM, who has long been an advocate of reducing or freezing the tolls.  The meeting was with the Deputy First Minister and we put our case for a reduction in the tolls and again he reminded us that the tolls were not an issue for the Assembly Government.

So I asked him why.  Why can’t the Assembly Government work together with the Welsh Office and Central Government, to come up with a joined up approach, something that will help all the businesses and people in this region; the people who pay the bulk of some £77.6m every year in tolls.   We asked for an inquiry, along the lines of the Buchanan Report into the Humber Tolls, to find out the impact of the tolls on the economy of Wales.  After listening to all we had to say, he said that he would consult with his team and get back to us.

To my utter astonishment and delight, I have received a copy letter from Ieaun Wyn Jones, confirming that, after due consideration, he has decided to agree to a study into the economic impact of the tolls on the Severn Crossings.  This will be undertaken by the Economic Research Advisory Panel.

I appreciate that there is still a long way to go yet.  But this is a start. The traffic on our roads is not getting any less; improvements to the rail network are years away and without proper facilities for access for vehicles, moving freight onto rail is a long, long way off.

The end of term

It’s the end of term at last.  Hurrah!   The fetes, the trips, the end of year concerts and the end of year discos are done.  The presents for the teachers have been bought and delivered and don’t children have a lot more teachers these days than we did?   The uniform that had grown too tight is finally in the charity shop bag after six weeks of me saying ” Just breathe in child, I’m not buying anything new this close to the end of term.  Do you think I’m made of money?”  On the last day of term I watched one teacher skip out the school gates.  Honestly.  Real proper skipping.

For my children seven glorious, golden school free weeks lie ahead of them.  They cannot believe their luck.  “How many sleeps is that?” asks my five year old in wonder.  She can’t get her head round the magnitude of the number.  Forty nine.    Such riches of sleeps.    Such abundance.    I wish I was a teacher or a child.  But I’m not.  I’m a solicitor.  And the most holiday sleeps I can reasonably manage is 21.  This is pretty good but it leaves a shortfall.   And so let the Mummy Juggle commence.    To be fair, my husband is also doing the Daddy Juggle.    It’s complicated this dance.   We shall take it in turns to start work late and stop work early, passing the baton of child care back and forth at the front door like relay race runners.   Then there’s two sets of grandparents, rugby camp, activity camp, swimming lessons and a little sprinkling of good friends.   I log the details of where my children have to be in my diary and what they will need when they get there.  I feel like I’m their PA.

We kick off the beginning of the holidays with a weekend trip to Newcastle upon Tyne.    I worked in Newcastle a life time ago.  It’s a great city with lots to see and do and we all enjoy ourselves.   The Premier Inn on the Quayside is clean and cheap and give or take a dozen hen nights very comfortable.   We see the Sage, the Angel of the North, the Baltic Art Gallery and the beautiful bridges.  I arrange to see old friends  – we met when we were training to be solicitors.   It’s strange this ageing process.  It takes a little while when we arrive at their house for us to get used to the middle aged faces we’ve now got, lay the extra pounds and the greying hair on top of our memories of former fresh faces.  We’re all serious business people now – twenty years qualified, don’t you know – and we  talk of business development and the recession and pension funds and children of course.   The children are nowhere to be seen though – they’ve quickly disappeared off to play together elsewhere in the house, age differences no barrier to getting on and getting away from the adults.    My five year old appears complaining of a sore tummy.    There was chocolate on offer and she has no off switch when it comes to chocolate – only when it runs out.   Her tummy is stretched tight as a balloon.  My husband picks her up to take her upstairs for a lie down and she throws up everywhere – over the carpet, over his clothes, the radiator gets a good splashing as does the sofa.   It smells only of chocolate which is a result.    My husband sees to our daughter (who now feels fine) and my friends – my very successful commanding £390 an hour solicitor friends – get on their hands and knees and mop up chocolate scented puke with me.  We laugh while we do it and when we laugh we look just like we did twenty years ago.    When everything and everyone is tidy again, we play Rockstar Wii very loudly and nobody mentions business again.

On going to the Garden Party (the one that Nick Griffin did not)

I’m not what you’d call a Royalist.  I’m not anti Royal either.  Just not that interested, in the same way I’m not that interested in the glossy celebrity photo shoots in Hello magazine or OK.  They  just don’t feel that relevant to me.  Having said that, when I received a letter saying I might get an invite to one of the Garden Parties provided I indicated in advance whether I would accept such an invitation were it received I was too curious not to go.  Well, it’s Buckingham Palace innit?

When the invitation arrived it advised a hat was required.  It also advised that National Costume was permitted and I seriously considered rigging myself out in the pointy black hat and red flannel  shawl but in the end decided against it.  Partly due to laziness (adult size Welsh costume is not the easiest thing to get hold of and the stuff available on the Internet is all of the saucy Welsh costume variety) and partly because when I googled the history of the Welsh costume it seemed that our current Welsh costume is just what rural Welsh people were wearing back in the late eighteenth century so not exactly the forward thinking, vibrant, multi-cultural, business minded Wales of today.    So I shelved that idea and borrowed a hat from Nannie for the occasion.

So, what’s it like?

• Much easier to get in than you might think – I expected some sort of rigorous search or at least some questioning about the amount of time I spent picketing South Africa house back in the early eighties but a flash of the passport and my husband and I were in.
• Much nicer round the back of Buckingham Palace than at the front.  The front looks a bit like a prison but the back is a soft orange colour, like the houses in Bath, and it’s quieter and of course there’s a big garden with a lake.
• They manage to serve tea to 7,500 people very efficiently  – cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, fruit cake, victoria sponge – and a really good cup of tea.    I had two cups.  And another piece of cake if you must know.
• Other nations do prettier national costumes than us – saris knock the spots of black pointy hats and prickly flannel shawls.   I think I might have seen one lady dressed up either in Cornish dress or Irish.  Either that or she’d actually chosen to look a bit like a milking maid in a green flannel frock.
• Cameras are forbidden but twenty minutes before the end, everyone was whipping out their mobile phones.  To start with it was surreptitious but as soon as people realised the Secret Service didn’t suddenly swoop down on a wire and grab you,  everyone was at it.
• There were a huge variety of people there – lots of chains of office and armed forces ; a good few women who thought they were going for a boozy afternoon at Ladies Day in Ascot orange fake tan the lot;  a gay couple with mohicans (short ones) wearing suits and with those big holes in their ears (don’t get those); lots of flowery frocks and sensible shoes with Amercan tan tights; and, Mr Griffin please note,  lots and lots of different colour skins.

The best bit for me by far was when Her Majesty passed right by us, about two yards away.  Not for my benefit but for the eighty year old lady next to me who was an ardent Royalist and was so pleased and proud to be that close to the Queen that tears shone in her eyes.    That was moving that was.    And the Queen, who is 85 and small and looks rather like my Gran these days, worked hard for a good few hours, talking to people and making them feel special.  Which is I think pretty much the Royal Family’s job these days and one which the Queen is rather good at.

Superwoman by E J Catering

Drawn by the mountains and images of wonderful prayer wheels, big bells and goats I  flew off to Nepal for four months.
Kathmandu was more amazing than I could possibly have imagined – the smells, the colours, the woodwork, the noise, the craft, the people, the monks, the flowers, the crazy driving, the wandering goats, cows, sheep, they all added to the magic.
I had got a job teaching English in a boarding school just outside Kathmandu that was not quite so magical!  It was just off a main road where trucks thundered by, there was dust, dirt and stagnant water.  But the school itself was full of happy, hungry to learn, polite kids.
I struggled a bit with the four hours of teaching each day but the bit the kids and I both enjoyed was in the bunk house.  The kids stayed in small dorms and I sewed dolls’ clothes with the girls, built Wendy houses out of boxes and played backgammon with the boys. We all learnt to juggle, play French cricket and stick the tail on the donkey, we made one for each door of the house!
I spent my afternoons with the school cook, an uneducated, hard working man and I think he learnt the most English out of everyone!  We all took our meals on the flat roof with the Himalayas in the distance. Together we made momos, a dumpling, steamed or fried with any meat or vegetable filling flavoured with spices.  Here is my version.

Momos
Fresh wanton papers ( available in the fridge section of the Chinese supermarket in Neville Street, Cardiff)
Vegetarian filling:
Onion, carrot, cabbage, fresh ginger, fresh red chilli, lime,  a tablespoon kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), coriander
Grate the onion, carrot, cabbage ginger and mix with the chopped chilli, squeezed  lime, Kecap manis and chopped coriander.  Season and taste
Pork filling:
8oz minced pork
One inch fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
2 spring onions
1 green chilli
1 stem of lemon grass
1 tbsp sesame seed oil
1 tbsp oyster sauce
Whizz the ginger, garlic, spring onions, chilli and  lemongrass with the sesame seed oil and oyster sauce.  Mix with your hands into the minced pork

Lightly egg the edges of the wanton papers and place small teaspoons of either mixture into the middle, pull the edges up into little money bag shapes, twisting the tops

Either steam for 5 mins or deep fry and finish in the oven.  Just make sure the filling is cooked through

Serve with lightly wilted bok  choy best bought at the Chinese super market.

I spent my last month climbing the Himalayas. Walking  into the most beautiful horizons each day was breathtaking.  Each day the mountains became bigger and bigger until at last at 4am we reached the Annapurna base camp.  We were there in the snow and surrounded by ice capped summits of the most beautiful mountains in the world.  Eat momos and climb mountains became my mantra.

We made it through seven weeks of summer holidays

How was it for you?  If you have children, you had to struggle with childcare.  If you don’t have children you had to struggle with the extra work of covering for all those people struggling with childcare.  At least the latter category get to go on holiday now, when prices are much cheaper and  places aren’t  jam packed with kids.

You learn a lot about people and the human condition generally when you go on holiday.  We had a week in Cornwall this summer and then later on ten days in Majorca.  This is what I learned:

Cornwall

1.  Absolutely everybody wears wetsuits to go in the sea in Cornwall.  Fat, thin, young or old it makes no difference.  Your parents would have wetsuits if they went to Cornwall regularly.  If you don’t want to stand out in the crowd on a Cornish beach get yourself a wetsuit.  Luckily they are relatively flattering.  Honestly.

2.  It’s true, people really do pee in their wetsuits when they hit the sea water to give themselves a layer of warmth.  This works but is also the reason why you should never borrow someone else’s wetsuit.

3.  Even when people are wearing wetsuits you can just tell whether they are posh or not.  It’s the way they stand.  Or maybe it’s the haircuts.  But anyway you can tell.

4.  When I was a kid we used to go to the beach with a couple of towels, a bucket and spade and some sandwiches in a Tupperware box.  Nowadays, unless you want to experience serious beach equipment envy you need folding chairs, at least two windbreakers, a cool box and a little tent.

4.  You really don’t mind so much if it rains everyday in Cornwall when you know you are going to sunny Majorca in a couple of weeks.

5.  This is a lovely holiday cottage, spacious, well equipped, great value and with a lovely garden.  Ten minutes drive to Polzeath beach or to Padstow.    Book it quickly before we do. www.lana-vale.co.uk

6.  Body boarding is not as easy as it looks.

Majorca:

7.  You may tell yourself that getting up at 6am in the morning to bag a brace of sunloungers is beneath you and anyway reservation by towel shouldn’t be allowed and isn’t  fair but one day into your holiday and you’ll be setting the alarm clock just like everyone else.

8. Abba and Elvis Presley tribute acts are really a lot of fun once you’re on your second jug of Sangria.  Gosh, even the kids’ disco and Crazy Chloe the entertainment rep dressed up as Thomson the dog are fun by that point.

9.  Don’t delude yourself that once you get your children onto the tour bus and up the Tramuntana trail they’ll actually rather enjoy the views and the chance to see a different aspect to Majorca.  They won’t.  My daughter threw up on the bus in an act of revenge.

10.   Wouldn’t it be nice to live somewhere sunny?

11.  I mean really nice?

Could you cope with an Au Pair?

I went for a business lunch at Jamie’s in Cardiff with one of the Superwomen yesterday.  I like the atmosphere at Jamie’s but have to say I think the food is going downhill. I had a steak which, had I been the host instead of the lunchee, I would have sent back – very poor quality meat and very touch.  Not a patch on the one I had at the Brasserie a few weeks back (not that I go out for lunch a lot you understand) even if the Brasserie does smell a bit damp these days.

Anyway I digress,  one of the (many) things we chatted about was pulling off the juggle between career, kids, family life and the odd tiny scraping of personal time.   We agreed from the off that no one manages it entirely successfully but one of the things which helps my lunch companion have a good stab at it is her au pair.  She has had about six or seven different au pairs over the years, mostly from Germany but also Spain and France.  For £70 a week  (guidelines for salaries for  au pairs in the UK are between £60 and £75) plus food and board her au pairs get the children ready for school including making breakfast, do all the washing and ironing for the entire family, clean their own room and those of the children, be there to look after the children when they get home from school and cook their tea plus two nights babysitting.  They don’t work weekends and are usually out the nights they aren’t babysitting, at language school or with friends.    Her au pairs get an en suite bedroom with a telly and broadband and must bring their own lap top with them.  They spend a lot of time on Skype apparently, talking to their friends and family, even propping up their lap tops to chat while they do the ironing.

This sounds like  a good solution to many a hiccup in a Superwoman’s life.   An extra pair of hands to help out, someone to get the kids ready so that you can attend early meetings, and two nights babysitting so that you can go to the pictures with your other half rather than deciding that the costs of a babysitter make it uneconomic to go to the cinema and you’d be better off renting a DVD instead.  But could you cope with having someone else living in your home?  My lunch companion had the considerable advantage of an en suite bedroom for the au pair set a little away from the rest of the family bedrooms.  This I think would be essential for most families considering an au pair.  However, my lunch companion has another tip for au pair management which is setting out very clearly from the outset and before the au pair comes to work for you what you expect from them, when and how.  She, being an accountant, has devised a spreadsheet setting out the tasks and the time lines.   Sadly, such efficiency is way beyond me.   I can’t do spreadsheets.  I can’t even manage my cleaning lady properly and still rush round the house the day before she comes tidying up so she doesn’t think I’m a slut and I cringe if I have to leave her a note suggesting she might, this week, just if she has time of course, mop the bathroom floor.  If we got an au pair I’m pretty certain I’d end up making her tea for her and not being able to go to sleep until I knew she was home from a night out safe and sound.    You’ve got to be a spreadsheet sort of person to cope with an au pair.

Superwoman by E J Catering

Wales the True Taste 2010 is just a few weeks away. The True Taste Awards are the Welsh awards for small and large producers of everything from free range chicken, confectionery, cheese, sausages, dairy, lamb, beef, wines, beers and juices. It includes the best well-sourced deli and vegetables grown in Wales.

We won an award last year for our homemade lemon and thyme cordial.  The accolade allows great marketing potential and support from the Welsh Assembly Government.

This year we entered the long and difficult tender process to cater for the awards dinner, research, menu planning, local sourcing, budgeting and creative ideas all went into my long tender document and I was thrilled to be awarded the job.   It is a great honour as all the guests are very knowledgeable food lovers.
All the food must be sourced from the county in which the awards dinner is to be held and each year this changes giving every county their time to show off their produce.  This year it is Pembrokeshire and there will be 500 guests attending the event.  The event  attracts many major sponsors.    I organise the staff – there will be more than 50 – and the table hire, including more than 4,500 pieces of cutlery, 3,750 items of crockery and I am yet to calculate the total number of glasses!
We hire in all the equipment required for the kitchen in order to get the meal out quickly, efficiently and of course piping hot. It is a mammoth but exciting task.
Last week we held the menu tasting at our kitchen in Clive Road, Cardiff. It is a fun, full-on day and lots of decisions were made.  I don’t want to give the menu away at this stage so my recipe this blog is for the energy bars I will making for the chefs to keep them going throughout the day which will be long, full of pressure, heavy loads and deadlines.
Ej’s energy bar
12 oz oats
2oz toasted sesame seeds
3 oz of walnuts
2oz pumpkin seeds
4oz crunchy peanut butter
4oz Welsh honey
Juice of half an orange
Zest of 2 oranges
3oz dried chopped apricots
2oz dried chopped prunes
2oz golden sultanas
2oz dried cranberries
Feel free to adapt the nuts and dried fruits to suit your taste or what’s already in your cupboard
Place all the seeds and nuts on a large baking tray and toast in the oven for about 5-10 mins.  Watch carefully you do not want them to burn, just turn golden brown and fill the kitchen with roasting smells.
In a saucepan melt the honey and peanut butter with the orange juice and zest
Add all the dried fruit and nuts to the pan.  Line a baking tray with cling film and then firmly spread the mixture into the baking tray.  Put in the fridge for at least an hour – overnight is best.
Turn out and cut into wedges.  For a really decadent version coat one end of each wedge in melted dark chocolate.  It does not have to be all healthy it just has to keep us going!

French women may not get fat but do they get equal?

The  Sunday Times recently reported (17 October 2010) that a World Economic Forum put France in 46th place behind countries such as Kazahkstan and Uganda for its overall treatment of women.  The same survey put France in joint first position for women’s education and health but near the bottom – 127th – for male versus female pay for the same work.  French women are paid 17% less than men in the same jobs.  “Sexism is extraordinarily entrenched in French society,” said Laurence Parisot, president of Medef, the employers’ forum.  “It’s so serious, so profound and has such ancient roots that laws are not enough.  Our culture has to change.”

Rachida Dati, Sarkozy’s “little Arab girl” who rose to be justice minister in the French cabinet  returned to work five days after giving birth to a baby girl whose paternity remains a closely guarded secret because she feared she’d get dropped from the goverment.  She got called a traitor to her sex for returning to work so early and got dropped from the government anyway.

Valerie Toranian, editor in chief of Elle magazine said French women are “exhausted.”  They have the right “to do what men do” but only if “we also take care of the children, cook a delicious dinner and look immaculate.  We have to be superwoman.”

That’s not my definition of Superwoman Valerie; that’s my definition of a door mat.   A Superwoman is one who after a day’s work  says beans on toast for tea is just fine and couldn’t give a stuff about manicures and pedicures because she’s too busy chatting with her kids about the day or going out to meet friends or having a glass of wine with her husband.   Life’s far too short to be immaculate.  Delicious dinners are lovely but any sort of dinner will do and husbands are very capable of delivering either type.  Superwoman doesn’t exist but feeling super does.  And time saved not cooking delicious dinners and looking immaculate will mean more energy to fight the gender pay gap and stick two fingers up at entrenched sexism.

PS: French women consume more anti depressants than any other females in Europe.  Perhaps French women don’t get fat because they’re just too miserable to eat?

Women on Boards: Call for evidence

Open date: 08 Oct 2010

Closing date: 30 Nov 2010

The low proportion of women holding directorships suggests British business is not using all of the skills and talents of the workforce effectively. Government is committed to seeing swift change in this area, and this Call for Evidence is seeking views from across the business world.

---

Women now form 51% of the UK population and 46% of the economically active workforce; they are responsible for the bulk of consumer buying decisions and consistently outperform their male counterparts educationally. However, research from Cranfield University has highlighted a lack of female directors in Britain’s top businesses, with women making up only 12.2% of directors of the FTSE 100 companies in 2009. The FTSE 250 companies have an even lower proportion of female directors at 7.3%, and nearly half of them do not have any women in the boardroom.

While UK boards must be meritocratic, the low proportion of women holding directorships suggests British business is not using all of the skills and talents of the workforce effectively and women are being denied the opportunity to reach their true potential and contribute fully to the UK economy.

The business case for increasing the number of women on boards is clear. Evidence suggests that companies with a strong female representation at board and top management level perform better than those without and that gender diverse boards have a positive impact on performance, being better able to understand their customers and stakeholders and benefit from fresh perspectives, new ideas, vigorous challenge and broad experience which in turn lead to better decision making.

This is as much about business performance as about promoting equal opportunities for women, Government is committed to seeing swift change in this area and pledged in the Coalition Agreement that “we will look to promote gender equality on the boards of listed companies.”

Lord Davies of Abersoch is currently leading a review on behalf of Government into the obstacles that prevent more women from reaching senior positions in business. His recommendations will be developed into a business strategy which will be published in February 2011.

The Call for Evidence will close on 30 November and is seeking views from across the business world, with the emphasis on finding solutions that will break down these barriers.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/Consultations/women-on-boards

Insider’s Power 100 and the 50 Sexiest Women in Wales 2010

I wasn’t going to blog about these two lists again this year.   Thought I’d said pretty much all I had to say about them in November 2009.  However, I had to review that decision after both lists hit my desk within 24 hours of each other last week and, more importantly, I noticed that a number of people were finding their way to the Superwoman blog by virtue of googling either Insider Power 100 or the 50 Sexiest Women in Wales.   So – here goes – the way Superwoman sees it in 2010.

Insider Power 100 – the Superwomen November 2010.

One more woman this year on the list, 12 out of 50 compared to last year’s 11, eight of which are politicans or in government.   Last year’s entries were ranked on power and influence.  Insider hasn’t said how this year’s are ranked but refers instead to “a new breed of leader bubbling up” and to the fact that “a lot of the new entrants and fast risers are entreprenuers” and of the 12 women featured only two fall into that category – Hayley Parsons and Elizabeth Hayward.

6.  Cheryl Gillan – Secretary of State for Wales – new

11.  Jane Hutt – business and budget minister (rising from 87 last year)

13.  Dame Gillian Morgan – Permanent Secretary, WAG (down from 11 last year)

14.  Sian Lloyd Jones – Chief Executive Finance Wales (up from 17 last year)

38.  Jane Davidson – Environment, Sustainability and Housing Minister (up from 56 last year)

58.  Menna Richards – Controller, BBC Wales (down from 8 last year as Ms Richards has announced her departure from BBC but perhaps the Power 100 went to print before she announced her non exec directorship of Glas Cymru?)

63.  Jocelyn Davies – Deputy Minster for Housing and Regeneration – new

67.  Edwina Hart – Health Minister (down from 12 last year when she was tied in 12th place with Huw Lewis and Carwyn Jones as the Labour leadership had not been decided at the time – Carwyn Jones is in at number 3 this year and Huw Lewis not at all)

71.  Kirsty Williams – Liberal Democrat Leader (up from 86 last year)

74.  Lesley Griffiths – deputy minister for science, innovation and skills – new

82.  Hayley Parsons – founder, Go Compare – new

100.  Elizabeth Hayward – director South East Wales Economic Forum -new

The following women who featured last year have lost their places this year:

16.  Iona Jones, Chief Executive, S4C – due to resignation/unfair dismissal depending on who wins the tribunal claim

88.  Katherine Jenkins, singer – due to the fact that Gio Compario has got the “shouldn’t really be in it but it gets people talking” place this year

91.  Margaret Matthews, director Dow Corning and Chairman CBI Wales

100.  Ann Beynon, director BT Wales

Well done again to all the women who feature in the list.  Just think if our numbers keep growing at one a year we’ll get equality by 2023!  Hurrah for Hayley Parsons in particular- creating jobs in Wales and a brand name known all over the UK.   Women are natural entrepreneurs but tend to keep their businesses small and manageable and capable of being fitted round child care rather than grow them to the size of Go Compare.  Hayley has shown that if women want to think big, they can.  The Superwomen salute you Hayley.  We also salute Laura Tenison, who didn’t make it to the Power 100 but should have.   Really – how many more jobs/stores/turnover millions/business awards does a girl need to land to be classed as a leader and entrepreneur?

I wonder if it’s any consolation to Laura Tenison that she did however make the Western Mail’s 50 sexiest women list for 2010.  Incidentally, there is no overlap between the two lists now that Katherine Jenkins has lost her place in the Power 100.   The Western Mail advises that amongst the models on the list we’d find women from the fields of art, business, music, sport, TV and politics.   I counted one from art (Cat Gardner) one from business (Laura Tenison), three from sport all coming in at number 39 or lower (Jazz Carlin (39), Jessica Fishlock (43) and Breanne Loukes (49) ) and one from politics, Polly Mackenzie and she’s Nick Clegg’s speech writer so I’m not even certain that counts.

This year the job of trying to define sexy fell to Claire Rees.  She tells us that “Our top 50 is about celebrating the women who have more to offer than pin up looks” and “Women who have achieved something, because that’s sexy, and women who have such infectious personalties you’d actually want to share a drink with them this Christmas.”      I’d love to have a drink with the women on the list – not because I want to have sex with them but because they are all of them flying the flag for Wales and flying it high.   Good on ‘em all.    They deserve a Superwoman salute too.   But, dear Western Mail,  it’s  high time you changed the name of this list because the clue to what sexy means is right there in the word sexy.  How about “the 50 most Wonderful Women in Wales” instead?

See you next week after the boys’ list comes out.

Western Mail’s 50 sexiest men 2010

It was the boys’ turn this weekend.    So how do you define sexy for men? The sexiest woman in Wales, Alex Jones said when she won last week that “sexiness was about attitude” and according to the Western Mail “our male winner has bags of that”.  The sexiest man in Wales (comedian Rhod Gilbert apparently if you don’t know already) then had a go at defining sexy himself and  said “Laughing makes you feel good about yourself, which is sexy, and I’ve always gravitated towards people who have that affect on me. I could never go out with someone who didn’t have the ability to have me in hysterics.  “  Jamie Roberts (number 1 last year, number 2 this) said on winning the title last year that sexy “was someone who challenges me intellectually.”   This actually did not help with defining sexy for men since both were defining what they view as sexy in the opposite sex not their own.

Two of the men in the sexy list also feature in the Insider Power 100.  Carwyn Jones (“our guilty crush”) is number 3 in the Insider list but only sneaks in at number 48 in the sexy list.  Huw Eurig Davies is number 43 in the Insider List and 38 in the sexy list.  Do you get more or less sexy the more powerful you get? If you’re a woman it would appear you get less sexy as there is no cross over between the Insider Power 100 list and the sexiest women list.

Has there ever been a gay person on either list?

Truth is that most of the men on the list are actors/presenters/singers/models plus a good sprinkling of sportsmen.   They’re generally fairly easy on the eye but it would look shallow to say that out loud so the definition of sexy gets twisted into something more dignified when actually the reason most of the men are on the list is precisely because they are easy on the eye and on telly a lot.  And perhaps a little because the Western Mail already has a photo of them in the archives.

The same comments apply to the men’s list as apply to the women’s.    People who take Wales to the world and bring the world to Wales deserve better than being herded on a list of “Men we think are shaggable.”  The Western Mail might as well do that gesture involving putting one arm in the crook of the other, gurning and saying “Phwoar.”

The story of a business start up

Emma and I started in business in May 2002, which seems such a long time ago now! We had two children each, Emma’s were 1 and 4 years old, and mine were 2 and 3 years old. We had met through our local National Childbirth Trust branch. We were both in a similar position, having given up busy full time jobs to stay at home for a few years. Emma and I were always busy organising coffee mornings and all sorts of fundraising events, one of the mums even said to us one day ” you two should run your own business”!

Shortly after that I happened to mention to Emma that I was going wedding dress shopping with my sister. We started discussing the fact that there was a need for a Designer Bridal shop in Cowbridge, the small market town we lived in. A year later we had opened our first shop! There was a lot of work and research involved, all of it with babies hanging off legs, and toddlers running around manically, but it was the start of a great adventure.

For the first few years we built High Society from scratch into a really beautiful designer bridal boutique. We’ve been through a huge learning curve, and all I can say is, if these walls could talk….we’ve seen it all!

In 2005 the building next door came up for rent, and we took the opportunity to take it over as a ladies clothes shop. We wanted to sell affordable fashion, as many of the other boutiques in the town did very high end designer clothes. We called the shop Havana, and over the five years the boutique has taken us on another equally demanding but very different learning curve. We’ve built up some great labels such as Fenn Wright Manson, Inwear, Farhi, Avoca Anthology, Hoss Intropia and Noa Noa.

Emma and I have always been very interested in fashion in general, in the concept of style over fashion, and in the idea of dressing to suit your own figure. Coming from a background of working with brides for the last 8 years, we have learnt that there is no such thing as a perfect figure, and that how you look is definitely more to do with how you feel about yourself, and how you present yourself to the world than anything else.

I am a great believer that as you get older, you need to invest in better fitting clothes. Particularly after you’ve had children, you find that you just can’t get away with wearing badly fitting clothes. I love to follow fashion, but I understand that I need to think more carefully about what I wear, how to make the most of my figure as I get older, and how to adapt the current trends to suit me.

Back to how the business has developed, in 2007 we had the opportunity to buy the gorgeous three storey building where High Society and Havana are housed, and to buy a more established ladies clothes shop in Cowbridge, at the same time. This made for a very interesting period, there was a lot of running around with children in tow at that stage!

In 2008, we decided to get involved in the Online world. We realised that this was the future, and because so many people love the service that we offer in our shops, we saw this as an opportunity to offer the same level of personal service quite literally all over the world. We started with highsocietybride.co.uk, a fabulous website where we sell lots of gorgeous bridal accessories.

This year we have launched yoursecretboutique.co.uk, an online version of Havana, as we realise that there are lots of women out there who love to shop in Independent Fashion Boutiques like ours, but can’t always get to one. The idea is the pleasure of your favourite independent fashion boutique but online from the comfort and convenience of your own home.

We love gorgeous labels whose clothes you fall in love with, for example Avoca Anthology, always a favourite with our customers. Clothes should be exciting and have a personality that suits yours. When we’re buying collections, we ALWAYS think about whether an item is wearable at any age. We consider length for example, and there are endless conversations about whether you can wear this if you have boobs (that’s Emma), fat legs(that’s my obsession!), etc. But at least we are real women buying for real women.-

Hope this helps you to understand who we are, and here’s to the future, it’s going to be interesting!  Awen x

What people were looking for last week when they found the Superwoman blog

Probably explains why the Western Mail have two annual sexy lists and the Power 100 their powerful list!  Someone was looking for sexyest women whales…..

Search	Views
superwoman blog	6
superwomen	4
fashion models diagnosed with cancer	2
list of wales top 50 sexiest women 2010	2
western mail top 50	2
wales’ 50 sexiest men and women	2
superwoman kilimanjaro climb	2
50 sexiest men in wales 2010	2
sexyest women whales 2010	1
something for the weekend sexiest man in wales	1
power 100 list women	1
50 sexy womens	1
“par baked baguette” bad	1
sexiest welsh men list 2010	1
carwyn jones sexest man in wales	1
power 100 list 2010	1
sexiest women in wales	1
she’s a superwoman blogs	1
western mail archives wales sexiest men	1
sexiest welsh people western mail	1
sexiest man in wales list	1
woman wordpress blogs	1
wales sexiest men 2010	1
fashion models who have had breast cancer	1
rhod gilbert sexiest man in wales	1
polo fonmon castle	1
western mail sexiest	1
sexiest welsh women 2010	1
50 sexiest welshmen 2010	1
top 50 sexiest men in wales 2010	1
sexyest person in wales 2010	1
western mail sexiest rhod gilbert	1
western mail wales sexiest male 2010	1
top 50 sexiest welsh	1
top 50 welsh women	1
most sexist person in wales 2010	1
alex jones	1
sexiest man wales 2010	1
top 50 sexiest welsh 2010	1
wales sexiest man 2010	1
top sexy welsh women	1
sexiest welsh men 2010	1
sexiest women blogspot	1
sexiest person in wales	1
sexiest men	1

Is feminism a myth?

It was reported in the Sunday Times this week that Dr Catherine Hakim, senior research fellow in sociology at the London School of Economics published a new paper a couple of weeks ago called “Feminist Myths and Magic Medicine.”  In it she argues that “most of the theories and ideas built up around gender equality in the last few decades are wrong” and that most women still want to “marry up”  – to marry men who are richer and cleverer than they are thereby “continuing to use marriage as an alternative or supplement to their employment careers.”   Government policy to promote equality is “magic medicine” and doesn’t work.   Women already have equal opportunities so the sex war is over and a 10% pay gap (it’s actually 15.5%) not that bad.   If women take lower level, lower paid jobs they do so out of choice.

The most shocking piece of evidence in the Sunday Times coverage was the fact that YouGov  had done a survey for the Sunday Times of 922 women the week before.  When asked “if you had young children and were in a financial position to choose, would you rather stay at home to bring up the children or go out to work?” 69% of these women said they’d rather stay at home.  I’ve never been asked to take part in one of these surveys.   I am probably at work when the surveyors are out on the street with their clip boards.  But if I were asked, my answers would probably be discounted anyway.  I’d need to ask way too many questions to clarify the question being put to me before being able to commit to a Yes or No answer.   “What do you mean financial position to choose?  Are we talking house with pool/two cars/fancy holidays/eating out twice a week sort of financial choice?  Or just about manage to pay the mortgage and the bills and eat on one salary sort of choice?  How young are these young children?  Does going out to work involve going to an office or cleaning an office?  And can my husband stay at home too or does he have to go out to work?  The devil’s in the detail isn’t it?

Anyway 69% of women faced with an incomplete factual scenario still answered they’d like to stay at home.    Don’t knows were 8%.  Only 23% of the women asked said they’d go out to work.     What I’d like to know is what 922 men given the same question would answer.  Because I know a healthy proportion of men who, if in the financial position to choose, would also like to stay at home and bring up the children.   And what if the question was “You have won the lottery, big stylee.  Would you go back to work?” what percentage of women and men would answer yes to that?   Work is rewarding and  interesting but it’s…well, pretty hard work a lot of the time.    These women saying they’d like to stay at home if they had the financial position to choose aren’t saying they are work shy wusses who want to marry up and thus proving Ms Hakim’s paper.   They’re just day dreaming about being in that financial position.

Ms Hakim, in my professional judgement, is talking pants.  Some 45,000 women are currently fighting equal pay act claims.  Just 12.5% of  UK board positions are held by women.  We are under represented in government and in industry.  We most definitely do need equality legislation and if we didn’t have it all the hard work of the past forty years will start to slide back.  I also believe, very strongly, that men need equality legislation too and a change in attitude  so that those who want to share the childcare and have a better work life balance (and there’s lots of them) don’t get perceived as needing to grow a pair.    Equality legislation means that equality is at least an achievable goal.  It also helps, over a long time, to change attitudes, a bit like the way the smoking ban has made smoking inside seem weird.   Doesn’t seem as if there’s much we can do about Ms Hakim’s attitudes, sadly.

Age is only a number

As an employment lawyer and a 45 year old woman it’s hardly surprising that I followed with interest the progress of the employment tribunal claim brought by Miriam O’Reilly against the BBC.  The 53 year old former presenter of Countryfile claimed she was the victim of age and sex discrimination when the BBC ruled her out as a presenter of the programme when it moved to a new prime time Sunday evening slot.  Last week Ms O’Reilly won her claim of age discrimination but not her claim of sex discrimination.

Ms O’Reilly was not the first woman working in television to argue that she was the victim of a knotty combination of age and sex discrimination.   Former newsreader Selina Scott settled her discrimination claim against Channel 5 in 2008 for a rumoured £250,000.   When 66 year old Arlene Phillips got axed from Strictly Come Dancing in 2009 in favour of 30 year old Alesha Dixon, hundreds of viewers complained of discrimination on her behalf.  However, Ms O’Reilly’s case was the first one to go all the way to a final hearing resulting in a reported decision that other employees in similar positions can seek to rely on.

The tribunal found that 68 year old John Craven being retained on the show did not demonstrate that age was not a factor in the BBC’s decision-making process and instead found that Ms O’Reilly’s age had been a significant factor in the decision not to retain her for the primetime show.  The tribunal found that if she had been 10 to 15 years younger it would have given her proper consideration.

Ms O’Reilly did not win the sex discrimination claim.  The tribunal found that comments about needing to watch out for her wrinkles when high definition television came in and that it was “time for botox” gave an insight into the particular problems that older women working in television face but went on to determine that had she been a man of the same age with the same skill set she would still not have got the job because the BBC were looking for youthful second tier presenters.  Therefore her sex was not the reason for the treatment she received.

The tribunal gave short-shrift to the idea that the BBC could justify replacing older presenters with younger ones to help achieve its legitimate aim of attracting a wider audience.  Whilst wanting to attract a wider audience was potentially a legitimate aim, discriminating against Ms O’Reilly to achieve it was not a proportionate means of achieving that aim.

BBC producers may think that young presenters achieve bigger audiences but actually the recent viewing figures attracted by Rip Off Britain demonstrate that the viewing public are less youth obsessed than the BBC think.  Presented by Jennie Bond (60), Angela Rippon (66) and Gloria Hunniford (70) Rip Off Britain has been attracting viewing figures of between 5.5m and 5.2m, 24.2% of the share.  Lynda La Plante’s Above Suspicion (watched that, wish I hadn’t wasted 3 hours of my life on it) got viewers of between 4.7m and 5.8m, the Silent Witness two parter that same week got viewers of between 5.9m and 6.3m.   What is particular noteworthy about these viewing figures is that Rip Off Britain had already been shown on BBC1 in a 9.15am slot in November and December and got 2m viewers then.  Big #ff for Glo, Ang and Jen – Here come the women! Time for you ladies to renegotiate your daily rate which was apparently only around £400 per day each, compared to, say, Christine Bleakley’s daily rate of £1730.  (A rate entirely justified according to one of the men in my office on account of her being “a honey”).

So what with 59 year old Sting and his 57 year old wife Trudie Styler (who even if they are not still engaging in lengthy tantric sex sessions look fit enough to do so if they were so inclined) age really is becoming only a number.

Superwoman Suppers

Brand new for 2011,  Superwoman launched an additional type of networking event  -  Superwoman suppers.   The idea behind Superwoman Suppers is simple and far from new.    Here is how they work:

12 women attend each supper. The intention is that there is a good mix of different professions, business women and entrepreneurs. It follows that only one woman from any one organisation can attend any one supper and groups of friends can’t book together.

In advance of the supper those attending are asked to provide a biography and also a business topic or question that they would like the group to discuss during supper.  Three or four of the suggested topics/questions are selected and circulated in advance to those attending together with the biographies.

We gather together for a delicious three course meal. During the course of supper, we change seat twice so that there is a chance for everyone to meet and chat with everyone attending.  There is some degree of cutlery and napkin confusion as a result but we can handle it. Pre, during and post supper and coffee we discuss our chosen business topics.  Bethan attempts to chair the evening.

The first five Superwoman Suppers (Feb to June) are at the Cameo Club in Pontcanna Street, Cardiff and have all sold out.  Emma Jenkins of E J Catering, award winning chef and long time supporter of Superwoman,  is our chef for these five suppers.  The cost is £35 per head for a glass of bubbles on arrival, a three course meal and coffee. Wine or other drinks can be purchased on the night.    If you would be interested in attending other Superwoman Suppers  (we are looking to organise other suppers in Bridgend, Newport and London over the course of 2011) just email me on bdarwin@darwingray.com

 

Superwoman by E J Catering

Last Thursday was Chinese New Year.  I decided to mark the occasion by eating a Thai glass noodle salad with sautéed scallops and king prawns followed by local belly pork with bok choi and bang bang sauce at a dinner I helped host.   It wasn’t directly in celebration but any excuse is a good excuse.
In January 1994 I travelled to Vietnam and arrived on the first day of the New Year celebrations, except I was not aware of it!  As I remember the celebrations lasted three days and it was basically open house.  Everyone invited me in, never had I been to such a friendly country and met such friendly people.  They gave me food, sweets, beer and flowers.   I went to a family house for supper of fresh white fish with a gorgeous sweet and sour red sauce, sticky rice and simple steamed greens.  I played with the children out on the street, pushing single bike wheels with a stick and running after them under candle lit lanterns and every now and then a string of fire crackers would be set off to everyone’s excitement.  If you’re not used to the noise it’s extremely alarming and you feel like you should run and duck for cover.

I have lots of amazing visual memories of Vietnam;  of markets, bus and train trips with stunning scenery streaming by,  gracefully dressed women and whole families of six or eight on one moped!  My favourite place was Ha Long Bay.  It is not surprisingly  a Unesco world heritage site and is in my personal seven wonders of the world.  The bay is filled with thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various shapes, heights and sizes.  It is ethereal and dreamy, you could float and look for hours, days, weeks or maybe forever.

In a small bay I ate the following dish and the local host gave me this recipe.  It is fresh, quick and easy.

Seared king prawns with mint and yoghurt
Serves 4
16 large raw prawns, peeled
Olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
A large handful of fresh mint
1 green chill – deseeded
Teaspoon of roasted and ground cumin
Teaspoon of sugar or palm sugar
A good inch of fresh ginger
3 tablespoons plain yoghurt
A handful of mangetout
Half a cucumber
Lots of fresh coriander
Sea salt and black pepper

Marinade the raw prawns in half the lemon juice, sea salt and oil.
In a blender or good heavy pestle and mortar combine the mint, chilli, cumin, sugar, ginger and yoghurt to make a sauce or paste.  Season to taste.
Halve the cucumber and remove the seeds, cut into thick chunks, halve the mangetout and cut through the coriander
Heat a pan and quickly fry the prawns on both sides, add the mangetout for just a second, turn off the heat and add all the other ingredients to the sauce pan and combine.  Serve immediately over steamed white rice and add a view of Ha Long Bay ( Google it!)

Salsa – the four minute love affair -by Salsa Superwoman

Recently I was talking about my love for salsa dancing and I said that at its best, what you get is a four minute love affair with no strings attached and no inappropriate touching. My intrigued companion subsequently asked me to share this observation in a blog. I agreed at once and then the second thoughts crept in. Was I, a ‘respectable married woman’ going to admit, in public, that this is what I get up to?

Actually, I am a serious person, I tend to be analytical, I tend to worry, I tend to work too hard and party too little. I am sure this makes me like so many other ‘superwomen’. I need the outlet of exercise, fresh air and walking the dog, but none of this exceeds the joy I feel when I hear a salsa beat strike up. I put aside the worries of the day; that I have a career, children and step children, a house to run, blah, blah, blah. Before you ask, I don’t put aside my handsome and sweet natured husband who endlessly tolerates that I go out dancing with friends who years ago nicknamed me ‘snake-hips’. (I think he secretly likes having a wife who can put in some cheeky hip moves.)

I began to dance over ten years ago, when I was a single parent of two small children. I had a passionate desire to dance and two left feet, so the dance steps were hard for me to learn. The rhythm was always there however, so that helped. I battled through my embarrassment for months until I could hold my own on the dance floor. I never got to be brilliant, but I can improvise now and put in styling touches such as a toss of the head, an extra shimmy of the shoulders, an arm flourished that even Craig Revel-Horwood wouldn’t actually despise. The best thing however, is the conversation that is a good salsa dance. Eye contact is important, following a lead and really responding to another person, moving as if one person. Sometimes it’s the closest thing to bliss, very intimate and yet not inappropriate. Most dances are ordinary, but in some, in a strange way, I almost love my dance partner, but just for the short time that the track lasts. It is the only perfect love affair, in that there is no aftermath and no disappointment. You both knew before that it would only last four minutes, with no recriminations.

Friends have implied that we salsa dancers are all up to no good and it is true that I have known people who have crossed the line and had a love affair longer than four minutes. Some have even met their future life partner on the dance floor and some were not single when they did it. That can happen anywhere though, at work, in the gym, at the tennis club. As they say, dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire, but we all know that people who are up for it will always find someone to party with somewhere.

My dance girlfriends and I agree about the finest local dance partners. The ones who make you feel like a Cuban Ginger Rogers even though you know that you do not look like one! Of course it was famously said of her that ‘she did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels’. Wikipedia says that whilst she was of course very talented, what lifted her from the crowd in her partnership with Fred Astaire was that she made it seem as if dancing with him was simply thrilling as she was such a good actress. Perhaps she wasn’t acting that part though. Dancing simply is thrilling. An ordinary man can be the most thrilling dance partner if he brings all of himself, his passion and his humour and his desire to please. I have often heard it said that a man’s part is to make the woman look good on the dance floor and that if the dance doesn’t go well, it’s his fault. If only the rest of life ran like that!

I will admit also, that as I get older, it gets harder. The doubts creep in. I ask myself if it’s appropriate to be out dancing in town without my husband, I watch the men asking the younger women to dance and realise that will happen more and more. So I find myself in Zumba classes and although they are bit like French conversation classes without ever going to France, I find they are tremendous fun and I still come out exhilarated. So somehow I know that I won’t give up my passion, but will just have to keep finding new ways to express it.

Superwoman by E J Catering – Be a Locavore

We all know a carnivore eats meat, a herbivore eats vegetables and an omnivore eats both but the other day my mum walked in saying she was going to try to be a locavore.   It seems it’s an American term for shopping and eating only local foods.  A few days later I bumped into an old friend on Cardiff’s Lower Cathedral Road whose New Year resolution was to shop and eat only from local sources for a year to see how it would change his eating habits.
The results are changing far more than just his eating habits.  He shops more regularly as it is often on foot and involves carrying bags.  As the journey on foot is slower and more purposeful he makes sure he never forgets his bag for life and so very proudly has not taken a new plastic bag this year.  Menu planning has become much more important and he finds himself reading lots of food related articles, recipe books and magazines.  His cooking is more efficient and creative, he is eating a lot more vegetarian meals, treating meat as a treat.  But the best of all is the social aspect, regularly shopping locally on foot he is meeting all sorts of old friends, work colleagues, it is doing wonders for business networking and making new friends.
Financially it is probably similar, what he is buying is a little more expensive but the quality more than makes up for it and he is not wasting any food.  Plus as the allotments begin to yield he is on a good few promises. He is well and truly becoming a character of the high street!

The Riverside Sunday market in Cardiff is a buzz of creative local suppliers. Standards and quality is high, food miles are low.  You follow the seasonal vegetables at their best .  I have recently starting juicing regularly.  The yield, flavour, smell and colour is so superior from local seasonal vegetables I am in danger of becoming a carrot snob!

Here are a couple of my favourite juices
A healthy booster
4 carrots
2 apples
1 celery stick
An inch or so of ginger

Detox and Vitamin C pick me up
2 raw beetroot
1 carrot
1 orange

Power and Irons
2 small handfuls of spinach
4 broccoli florets
1 carrot
2 apples
Small bunch of seedless grapes

Each recipe makes about a glass of juice

A year may be too much of a commitment for most of us to become locavores but we can try to be mindful about what and where we buy.  Maybe try buying vegetables only from a grocers for a month, there are lots of good ones.
Be healthy, be a locavore this Lent!

CEO interviews

I love reading the interviews with Chief Executive Officers in the business section of the Sunday papers.  I don’t know why since they are pretty much all the same.  The CEO rises at 6am, is collected by their driver and driven to the office where they deal with phone calls and meetings all day until it is time to go to dinner with clients or contacts.  The CEO usually relaxes by running long distances and holidaying somewhere exclusive like Barbados or Verbier.  Every couple of months the CEO featured in these interviews is a woman but even then the interview is along the same lines, except perhaps with a few less late nights so they can eat dinner with their children (“at least twice a week, usually steamed fish with vegetables”).

I like the idea of “rising” at 6am.  Rising has a wholesome, ashram yoga sort of feel to it.  I never rise.  I get hauled from sleep, usually by one child or another appearing at the end of the bed like the Ghost of Christmas Present complaining that the vital piece of sports kit they need THAT MORNING is still damp.   Our tumble dryer died a while ago (although we have somehow never found time to give it a proper burial and it remains crouched in our garage in a state of purgatory) and my only option to convert damp sports kit into dry sports kit is to deploy the hair dryer.  It works rather well although probably not as well as a new tumble dryer would.  In any event, I have just about got damp sports kit covered.  What strikes fear in my heart is when a child appears at the foot of the bed asking for a costume.  St David’s Day/World Book Day/Comic Relief – these things necessitate costumes and are the only time I wish I was one of those CEOs with a driver so I could send him in the car down to Asda to pick something up.

We usually give Barbados a miss for our holidays and go to Centreparcs instead.   We were there at February half term in fact.  It was packed and we had to wait for up to 30 minutes to go on the Grand Canyon Raft Ride.  As we waited I hoped we didn’t bump into anyone we knew because actually queuing in your bathers involves standing around for a long time wearing not much more than your underwear.  I suspect that rules out Centreparcs for most CEO’s.  It might be difficult to maintain the requisite aloofness if members of your workforce have seen you naked but for your Speedos and checked out your tattoo of “Deep Purple, Knebworth, 1985.”  Although I am not entirely certain that the man I spotted in possession of both of these items was in fact a CEO.

I also eat dinner with my children at least twice a week.  My husband and I don’t concern ourselves too much about steamed fish.  We have long since worked out that the key to juggling two children with two full time legal careers is a deep seated fondness for beans on toast.  CEO’s in business interviews don’t eat beans on toast do they?  They don’t shop for beans either or for costumes or wash sports kit or put the Hoover over or the bins out.   About the only part of my day that bears any resemblance to the day of a CEO is the meetings and phone calls all day.   But almost everyone who works in an office has those.  Big deal.

NoCompare Hayley Parsons with other CEO’s

So, I post  a blog just last Friday about the interviews that CEO’s give to the Sunday papers and how they’re always the same and, essentially,  not very real or relevant to real people.  And then this Sunday I open the business section of the Sunday Times and the interview is with the Welsh CEO of a Welsh company and guess what – it’s totally, gloriously, different to all the rest.

For a start Hayley is photographed not sitting in an office surrounded by papers and looking all CEO like.  No Hayley is photographed in her trade mark red shoes, in front of her shiny red Maserati and with a cardboard cut out of Gio Compario tucked under her arm.   She’s often home before 7pm, she goes on holiday to Centreparcs (so is a CEO who queues in her bathers for the Grand Canyon Raft Race) and doesn’t get involved in unnecessary things like posh lunches or jollies.  She drops her older son off at school before driving herself to the office and has just had six months off to have a baby.  Family comes first, she says.  She explains to the interviewer about GoCompare’s “coffee randomiser” that selects who has to make the coffee in the office.  She is described as “spikey haired, amply proportioned, heavily Welsh-accented, she is full of warmth and wonder.”  Oh and five years ago she set up GoCompare which last year made more than £24m of profit on revenues of about £100m last year.

Way to go Hayley!  Way to go.  Let’s hope the Sunday Times can find more CEO’s like you to interview.  Maybe someone at GoCompare could come up with a CEO comparison website.

Superwoman by E J Catering – The Royal Wedding

What will be on the menu for Kate and William next week?  I write so many wedding menus with the brides at my humble kitchen in Cardiff, we are creative, traditional, informal, formal, left field, classic but whatever they choose it always includes the couple’s favourite flavours and expresses something personal about them.

I can’t wait to read the royal menu, will it be cutting edge, will it be traditional?  My guess is it will be British, local and seasonal – the buzz words of the moment and for very good reason.  The food we produce here in Britain is excellent. The vegetable gardens and royal allotments won’t be in full bloom but I would bet their land and producers feature. Will any Welsh produce be included?

Looking back on the royal wedding menu history, Victoria and Albert in 1840 ate an elaborate menu of at least 10 courses, written in French as is the royal banqueting custom, and promising such gastronomic delights as cod with oyster sauce, roast leg of lamb, ballotine of duck with Cumberland sauce, pheasant with potato ribbons, pastries with fruit and chocolate profiteroles. Elizabeth Bowes Lyons’ wedding to the Duke of York in 1924 had a nine foot wedding cake, as it is traditional to send cake around the world to the many dignitaries that didn’t quite make the list but could not be left out altogether.

Our current queen had her wedding cake made from ingredients from around the world in order to link her subjects to her special day.

Another tradition is to have part of the menu named after your self for example Consommé à la Windsor, Suprèmes de Saumon Reine Mary and Côtelettes d’Agneau Prince Albert.  For dessert Elizabeth II commissioned Bombe Glacée Princess Elizabeth!   Andrew and Sarah’s main course of Carre d’agneau Palosie was served with Couroane d’Epinards aux Champignons, Feves au beurre and Pomme nouvelles. I had to refer  to my A to Z of Gastronomy to translate that into lamb with spinach, mushrooms, beans and new potatoes!

Food moves through the times with fashion shaping it but I support the movement for a return to simple, honest cooking.

Royal Guards Welsh Rarebit on Teeny Toasts

Teeny Toast

1 small par baked baguette
Olive oil
Powered mustard
Rock salt

With a sharp knife cut the baguette into thin round slices
In a bowl mix together the olive oil, mustard powder and rock salt
Brush the baguette rings in the mixture on both sides and bake for 10 minutes at 160C or until golden brown – these are now crostini and a very useful base for many canapé toppings

Royal Guards Welsh Rarebit

150ml bottle of quality Welsh ale
Splash of cream to help it bind
Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
200g cheese

In a pan reduce the ale by half and add a splash of cream, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, the mustard and grated cheese.  Remove from the heat and stir to melt the cheese.  Allow this to cool and set in a block in a small plastic container.
Cut slices of the rarebit on to the teeny toasts and place in the oven or under the grill to melt and lightly brown.  Garnish with pumpkin seeds and eat in front of the telly with a glass of chilled prosecco

Superwoman does gardening by Miranda Parsons

Sometimes I confess to being a little weary of sponsoring fun runs and half marathons and hikes up distant mountains and the like. Old cynic that I am, I feel as if I am sponsoring someone’s hobby, however worthy the charity. This is probably because I never run anywhere, believing walking, dancing and driving there to be the way forward. On the other hand, if you can’t persuade them to stop running about in that intemperate manner, then get them to sponsor your hobby, and one of mine is gardening!

Step forward the National Garden Scheme which in 2010 donated more than £2.6 million and in the last ten years over £26 million to nursing and caring charities, including Macmillan and Marie Curie and Help the Hospices. Over 3700 gardens feature in this year’s ‘Yellow Book’ with which many of you will be familiar. People open their gardens and extend a warm welcome and often tea and cake to fellow enthusiasts and members of the public who love a garden and go for inspiration for their own designing and planting, and ….(did I mention the tea and cake!)

The NGS began in 1927; with the simple idea that ordinary people would open their gardens at a shilling a head to raise money for the community nurses of the day. Even after the NHS was formed, these nurses needed support in training and in retirement. Now of course, charities such as Macmillan cancer support provide the sort of care that we hope that we and our loved ones will not need, but if the worst happens, it is a tremendous comfort to know that these dedicated carers are out there. The other purpose of the NGS, developed in partnership with the National Trust was to preserve important gardens. NGS still keeps overheads low, so most of the money raised at the garden gate goes directly to vital projects.

So, how did we get involved? My husband Alan and I are both keen gardeners. He has loved it since boyhood; I came to the passion later on. I like to think we complement each other well. I claim to be the brains behind the operation and he points out that this is not true! I will find him in the garden and say that I have ‘had an idea’ and he laughs and tells me that I have that look on my face where I go on to ask him to move the oak tree two feet to the left. As if I would ask a thing like that….. (Well I might). I am particularly interested in the design and structure of our garden and in forming year round interest and he is a plants man through and through and in charge of growing things up things and through things (I mean, how many clematis plants does one man need?) We often go around the garden gently bickering about what needs doing and about the aforesaid addiction to climbing plants, but frankly at our happiest. I always maintain that I cannot feel miserable in the garden, however hard I try.

Please don’t get the impression that we are in possession of the hanging gardens of Babylon here, just a much loved, medium sized, suburban garden in Cyncoed. To persuade Alan I took him to our local open gardens in Penylan and he could see that these gardens, ranging in size from very small, to small were nevertheless packed with design, with plants and with inspiration for others. That convinced him that our garden would do. We then had to approach the NGS to be approved and find a garden partner as when you have a smaller garden it is best to open in groups so that the public get better value for money. If any of you know other keen gardeners in Cyncoed, please let me know and I can try to persuade them to join us!

We will be providing tea and cake and attempting to part you from your charity pounds, things will be blossoming and blooming and Alan will have done all the weeding, and I promise you, no running shoes in sight.

We and our garden partners in Cyncoed are opening from 2-6pm on Sunday 15^th May and Sunday 24^th July this year. If you want to get in touch with me, you can email me through my website:

www.mirandaparsons.com

The National Gardens Scheme has a website where you can find gardens opening all over South Wales and beyond:

www.ngs.org.uk

Disco in aid of SANDS Saturday 9 July at Llandaff RFC

This one’s for Supermen too!  Do you remember the rugby club discos of your youth with fond nostalgia? On Saturday 9 July from 7.30pm to 11.30pm we are holding a disco at Llandaff Rugby Club raising funds for SANDS www.uk-sands.org.  We’ve got a classic rugby club disco buffet (pasties, sandwiches, cheese and pineapple) and a disco but we also have a live band – the Rise – www.the-rise.co.uk described as”probably the best covers band in Wales” and fronted by none other than Darwin Gray partner Kempton Rees.  Tickets are £15 each with half the ticket price covering costs and the other half going to the charity.  The disco is just before schools break up for summer and this will be a great opportunity for a night out with friends, family or work colleagues before everyone starts going off on holidays .   At just £15 per ticket  you can invite your entire team for the price of a couple of seats at a black tie fund raiser.  We only have 120 places  so if you’d like to come please email Caroline Hazell on chazell@darwingray.com and let us have your cheques made payable to Superwoman to secure your places.

We will also be holding a raffle to drum up a few more pounds for this amazing charity that gives much needed support to those affected by the death of a baby.  If you or your business are able to offer a raffle prize that would be hugely appreciated.  We will also be having a few rounds of bingo!

Hope to see you on 9 July throwing some shapes on the dance floor.

Superwoman by E J Catering

To end half term I took my children Molly and Jake to Folly Farm, it was a great day out, good value for money, spotlessly clean with loads to do, see and play on.  For me, although not necessarily for Molly and Jake, the highlight was seeing a journey of giraffes in Wales – five beautiful giraffes strolling around with the Pembrokeshire coast as their backdrop.

In January I was in South Africa and went on a four day safari. On our last day we asked if we could go on a walk into the bush.  Our guide asked what we wanted to track and we said giraffes. The experience was amazing, even before we saw the giraffes.   Walking in a straight line, close  behind the guide and his gun, we saw huge beetles, spiders and beautiful flowers. The creaks in the trees and bushes made our imaginations run riot.  Our guide told us a story of when he was training.  He had lain in the grass with his leg in the air in complete silence, moving his foot from left to right every now and again to imitate a young giraffe. An adult giraffe had become curious, walked over and stooped right over him, making his heart thump.
Within an hour we had seen 22 giraffes and we just sat and watched them walk around us in their natural environment.  After a while two of us lay down in the grass whilst  the guide and others walked off, about 150 metres away. We both put our legs in the air and moved our feet like periscopes pretending to be infant giraffes. The giraffes did move towards us but unfortunately there was a logging truck in the distance and they become anxious so we never got nose to nose with a giraffe but I have a fun memory.
For lunch we walked over to a quiet part of the farm to the nature reserve. Molly and I had made a spinach and ham tart which everyone devoured.
Being my weekend off I used a bought pastry sheet to line an eight inch tart case and baked it blind at 160C for 20 mins.
For the filling
6 eggs
2 large tablespoons of crème fraiche
1 packet of young spinach
200 g of cooked, thick cut ham, (I bought a joint and glaze roasted it the night before)
6 spring onions
150g Parmesan cheese, grated
In a bowl beat the eggs, yolks and crème fraiche.
To wilt the spinach, boil the kettle and put the spinach in a colander.  Pour the boiling water over the spinach.  This is enough to wilt it.
Squeeze out the moisture and put the wilted spinach into the bottom of the tart  case with the chopped ham and sliced spring onions.  Beat the eggs with the crème fraiche and season well with half the parmesan cheese, rock salt and black pepper.  Pour the mixture into the tart case and top with the rest of the parmesan.  Bake for 25 mins at 160C or until the top of the tart is brown and the tart mixture does not wobble.  Allow to chill and eat with a back drop of a journey of roaming giraffes!

She’s back – slimmer and fitter than ever before – 72 year old Superwoman

IF….. Diet tips from  a used to be fatty ( with no apologies to Rudyard Kipling)

IF you have let yourself go and your weight has crept up to fatter than two pigs proportions, you will feel better about yourself, and actually owe it to yourself,  to go on a diet. It is bad for you to be carrying an excess  couple of stones or more around with you.

IF you normally eat stuff slathered in cream, wine and other rich sauces, and can’t pass the biscuit tin, the cake plate, or the box of choccies without having a dib into them you will find it difficult.

IF you go for a diet made up of food you don’t like and wouldn’t normally touch with a barge pole it’s not going to work. From day one of a diet you need to be thinking about reaching your target weight and maintaining it so the prospect of a lifetime of things you don’t like will be neither appealing nor sustainable. Your diet needs to mirror your normal eating practices but stuffing a lot less into your mouth. It’s how much you eat as well as what you eat that has made you fat and a diet needs to signal a permanent change. Healthier eating  is for life not just for Christmas, in fact especially not for Christmas. Sustainability is the ultimate goal.

IF your diet of choice (and there are dozens of them available out there) is restrictive like all cabbage, grapefruit, eggs or whatever, this does not represent normal eating. The crash and burn (fast fat burning weight loss) diet  is both bonkers and bad for you. Variety and balance is what you should be looking for and while the weight loss might be slower it will all come off in the end. Just keep at it.

IF a few weeks in to the diet after knocking off a steady so many pounds a week you hit a plateau and the weight is not dropping away as you’d hoped, don’t despair. Your body’s metabolism is adjusting to the new regime and once it gets the hang of your objective it will say “Oh that’s where we’re going” and get back in line again.

IF you are trying to target one area, like the bingo wings, that doesn’t work very well . The fat shifts first from where the pile up is so it’s usually the pot belly and the muffin top that’s first to go. Then the fat backside. The meaty thighs and the bingo wings  are usually the last to go.

IF, as I am, you are very very old, the elasticity in your skin will have gone. When we had babies the enormous lump that involved whipped back into place relatively easily. When the bounce has gone from your skin what you get is the skin hanging in rather unappealing folds where it once might have recovered. I have lost two stones, and have a less than delightful row of pleats hanging round my belly. It doesn’t matter to me as nobody but me sees my naked belly and it’s preferable to the pot and the muffin top. Old former fatties who are on the pull might find this a disadvantage, unless the prospective lover is also awash with sags and droops.

IF you don’t take any exercise the weight will shift more slowly, and, if you’re not too old, exercise will help dissipate the folds of saggy skin effect. You don’t have to go mad working out at the gym and jogging, brisk walks and plodding up and down a swimming pool will do. Posture also helps. Walk and stand up straight and stop slumping like a sack of potatoes at your desk. If you thought the sack of potatoes act disguised the fat you were wrong. Only a wheelchair is higher visibility than being too fat.

IF you fall off the wagon, which you inevitably will, having a bottle instead of a glass of wine or a bag of chips instead of that one boiled potato you should have had, you won’t lose much, if anything, that week but put it behind you and get back up on the diet horse. With strengthened resolve. On a diet you pay for all that fun falling off the wagon brought. It’s great to get naughty but on a diet no more than once a month for about a day is all you can afford to spend kidding yourself you can get away with it.

IF you are competitive or joined at the hip to a fatty friend, go for a regime which allows you to be star of the show in the  local community hall or to compare progress with friend. I am a solitary kinda gal so the will of steel and support from mentors on the net did it for me.

IF you are a smoker, here’s where you have an advantage. When you are desperate for something to pop in your mouth the fag is always there for you. When the entire planet is anti smoking this is not a tip you will find on any diet regime anywhere in the world. Works for me. And Kate Moss. Talking of whom…

IF you are starting from size 20/22 or more it is daft to be aiming for a size 0. You will certainly drop a few sizes and that’s a real buzz. Make your target realistic. A size 16 for the really obese or a 14 for the not quite so obese will be a huge achievement.  Do not read magazines featuring cadaverous models. They are more unhealthy than the fatties. If you aspire to look like famine victim in Africa, go to Africa, and try famine as a weight loss venture. They don’t have any choice. We do. If your inadvertent choice is fatter than two pigs, it’s time you acted and headed for one pig size.

IF you are tall and people say You don’t need to diet you can carry it, give them a smack in the chops. We all know where our ugly lumps and bumps are and the overhanging flesh is and it’s up to each individual to deal with that if she less than happy with what she looks like.

IF a 72 year old fatty can lose two stones, without being a  diet bore at Olympic level, so can you. It’s wanting to feel better about yourself that motivates you. See you hanging round the elegant end of the size 12/14s in John Lewis. Go, girls, go.

Here’s another pastiche – with apologies to Rupert Brooke

If I should diet think only this of me

That there’s some corner of the kitchen fridge that is for ever furry.

Out! Out! damned tasty lump of gorgeous Cheddar

Begone ! you smelly Brie and Stilton treasures,

For you are simply lumps of lard as I am.

And now I must forsake you for another,

That cottage cheese in pride of place front-fridge.

OMG do I have to? YES. Get rid of the lumps of lard NOW.

72 year old astrologer Superwoman and the will of steel as determined by the stars

The will of steel – direct from our guys in the sky

I am getting feedback on the lines – I haven’t got the will of steel needed to diet.

A superwoman with no will of steel? Surely you jest.  We all have streak of steel somewhere. As some of you will know I am an astrologer.  Here’s a will of steel profile based on star signs.  Remember hardly anyone is 100% the Sun sign they were born under – there are 10 planets and 11 other signs all looking for a way in to influence your personality. So, a very rough guide.

Will of steel ratings 1* weak, 5* strong

Aries: 21^st March – 19^th April

Very self willed and self confident. Knows it all and won’t be told what to do. Dieting needs to be her idea to stick to it and it will be the diet to blame if she doesn’t. She may fail but as she never learns from her mistakes, it’s not her – it’s the diet. Don’t bother discussing dieting with her – she’s not listening.

WoS rating: *****

Taurus: 20^th April – 20^th May

Makes a mule look a wimp on the stubborn stakes. Apparently mild sort but likes to be in charge (to control freakery levels). Do not attempt to tell a Taurus what to do. She has loads of persistence and once committed will take control and keep going. A little bit unwilling to acknowledge she needs to diet.

WoS rating: *****

Gemini: 21^st May – 20^th June

A bit all over the place. Often hasn’t got a really strong grasp of who she is so persuadable to diet by someone else. Needs attention so once the someone else takes her eye off the monitoring ball is likely to give up. Could be a serial dieter with a string of failed diets behind her.

WoS rating: **

Cancer: 21^st June – 22^nd July

Emotional, though not without initiative and tenacious in hanging on to something she commits to.  Rather prone to get podgy, so knows she needs to diet but also needs family and friends’ support to diet. Will never speak to you again if you try to make a joke of her weight. And moody, so will have a sulk when the fat isn’t shifting as she had hoped.

WoS rating: ***

Leo: 23^rd July -22^nd August

Strong character, needs to be the leader in any dieting initiative. A high achiever. Bit of a show off so likes an audience and if her audience applauds loudly enough will stick to the diet. A group dieter, where she leads the group. Because of pride in how she looks is least likely to need to diet.

WoS rating: ****

Virgo: 23^rd Aug -22^nd Sept

Self – sacrificing type and very often puts others first so while often prone to fat is likely to diet at other people’s instigation. Virgo fat tends to hang around the upper body – back, arms, boobs. Good at dieting with someone she is “helping out” with their diet. Not hard to lead astray, but has the persistence to reach a goal.

WoS rating. ***

Libra: 23^rd September – 23^rd October

Apparently  indecisive but tends to know exactly what she wants. And what she wants is a box of choccies. Rather attention-needy, so requires loads of support. Prone to falling off the wagon then beating herself up about it. Idealistic so thinks she could make it, but not on her own.

WoS rating: **

Scorpio 24^th October -21^st November

The most stubborn and unpredictable sign of the Zodiac. Once she takes up anything which is her idea has the determination stick it out, but another one who is not likely to need a diet as much as some.

WoS rating: ****

Sagittarius 22^nd November – 21^st December

Very restless. Has plenty of will power in pursuit of a cause, but short of stamina for seeing things through, and easily bored so is off to the next appealing thing before completing the diet. Always on the move so not particularly fat – prone.

Running round in circles is good exercise.

WoS rating: ***

Capricorn: 22^nd December – 19^th January

Solid as a rock. Often in shape as well as will power. She may take a while to acknowledge she needs to diet (always too busy busy to notice) but once she sees the light, or the changing room mirror, she won’t be deflected from achieving her target.

WoS Rating *****

Aquarius: 20^th January -19^th February

Mind over matter. Aquarians will take an analytical approach to the weight problem, work out what to do about it, and get on with it. Do not invite Ms Aquarius to your party when she’s on a diet. She won’t come. Loves to party but has her priorities and the head rules the appetite.

WoS rating ****

Pisces: 20^th February – 20^th March

Compassionate (for which read soft as muck and a bit gullible). Not that self indulgent so not often a candidate for dieting. Somebody else may have to tell her she’s a big fat slob, but she is unlikely to care, and should she be able  to make her mind up at all about which diet to follow, is not likely to see it through.

WoS only emerges when Pisces is very threatened. Even so she’s the one hiding behind the sofa when merde hits fan.

WoS rating: *

So: Success depends on getting your WoS moving in the dieting direction and for most, getting the support systems in place. These are the Sun signs. If you have Mars in a strong place your WoS will be strengthened. A Pisces with an Aries or Capricorn Mars will gain at least two more WoS stars. An Aries with a Pisces Mars will lose one. You put the fat on – your task to take it off. Good luck.

St Brides Hotel and Spa, Saundersfoot

Mr S and I went to the St Brides Hotel and Spa for a night last weekend.  www.stbridesspahotel.com  It was a generous present from friends but it took us almost a year from when we received our gift voucher to actually organise ourselves enough to get there.    Our children and dog safely dumped on Super Nannie, we left Cardiff at lunchtime on Sunday and arrived at Saundersfoot within two hours.

The hotel doesn’t look like much from the back – not dissimilar to a modern doctor’s surgery – but once inside you get the full benefit of the most amazing thing about this hotel – the elevated view over Saundersfoot Harbour and Carmarthen Bay.  It is truly stunning.   We had a room with a sea view and if you go there it is certainly worth paying the extra to make sure you have a sea view too because the immediate feeling of calm you get from looking over the sea is priceless.

The hotel has a spa and a small outside infinity pool which also looks out over the view.   Our gift  included a massage each and the room I was in had floor to ceiling glass windows, again with a wonderful view – probably of more benefit to the therapist than me, given that I was lying with my face in that little hole thing in the massage bed most of the time and/or falling asleep.    Couples can have treatments in the same room together if they wish but Mr S and I didn’t go for that option.  It makes me self conscious if he’s in there with me.   You have to book your slot in the infinity pool and if, as was the case when it was time for our designated slot, there is another couple already in there canoodling while they look out over the sea, it can feel a little awkward, like getting into a big bath with a couple of strangers,  but it is a glorious feeling, your head all cold and your body all warm, looking out to sea.  Sorry, mentioning the sea a lot, but there’s a lot of it to look at from the St Brides Hotel.

More lovely view over dinner which was very good, lots of local Welsh produce on the menu and a big wine list with plenty of half bottles available if you wanted white wine with your starter and red wine with your main course as we did.  Slightly marred by the posh young couple from London sitting next to us who appeared to not understand the concept of inside voices.  I don’t think any of the diners in their immediate vicinity had any option but to listen to their dinner conversation and it wasn’t even very interesting, although they did appear to have a number of friends they didn’t like all that much.  We were seated next to them at breakfast the next day too (also very good) but they were considerably quieter come morning.

Our room was light and bright, with a large bed,  crisp bed linen and a pretty Welsh blanket folded at the bottom.  Couple of complaints – our bed was large because it was two singles pushed together and there was a gap in the middle when you came together for a cuddle.  Our bathroom sink was cracked and the grouting around the very small bath (which I think may have survived from a refurbishment of the bathroom and really shouldn’t have) mouldy.  A shame – but hey, you don’t spend very long in the bathroom when there’s a serene sea view to look at.

A walk on the almost deserted beautiful Saundersfoot beach after our full Welsh breakfast topped off our 24 hour stay perfectly.  It wasn’t just the beach that was deserted but the whole of Saundersfoot and lots of shops either closed down or not yet open for the season.  I hope it’s a bit busier there this week and the rest of the summer now that the schools have broken up.

St Brides Hotel and Spa is not cheap but a little of it goes a long way towards recharging your batteries.  And oh, did  I mention the view?