mum


How to Find Time Alone as a Stay-At-Home Mum

As a stay-at-home mum, finding time alone can be difficult. As the kids are so used to being with you 24/7, getting any alone time can be a chore in itself. We all need time alone, and this includes your kids and partner too. Having alone time can help you to reset and get things done. If you need some help, here are a few tips on finding that precious alone time when you are a stay-at-home mum.


A Memory 11

As I walked in to the wool shop, I caught a small hint of a smell that automatically made my heart lurch and turn sharply for the door.

It was a heady scent of days long past and the sun streaming in through my mothers bedroom window. Little motes fluttering in the sunshine from the talcum powder.

I am sat on the bed, watching attentively as she pampered and preened. Apply makeup, gre


A lump in my throat 12

he shops are filling up with card for Mothers Day and each time I see or hear it mentioned it brings a lump to my throat. For the first time in my entire life, I do not have a mother to celebrate on Mothers Day and that makes me unbelievably sad. I want the world to stop and take notice of me. I didn’t want to my my mother in law a card, although today I did and to give MadDad his due, he said thank you and then made me cry by saying he understood just how hard that was for me to do.


In my heart and in my house 11

One of the hardest things for me about clearing out mums house if that I have had the urge to keep everything.  Even the things that I used to think were tat and rubbish.  My heart associates all these things with my mum. Finally we are getting to the end of the long journey of clearing the house of over 35 years of detritus and my niece will be moving in to continue the tradition of the house being a family home. She will be keeping a lot of the furniture and other stuff, so we haven’t had to deal with clearing everything, but it has been an experience I am […]


Under Pressure

I usually thrive on pressure, at least I did BC (Before Children), but now I am not so sure.  I think maybe I was being optimistic about looking for a part time job, as it seems that mum is not going to get back on her feet so easily this time and it looks as though I am going to have to spend more time looking after her as well as the children. What the Consultant has said is that she has permanent lung damage due to smoking and also the latest chest infection and reduced her respiratory ability too.  They officially  call it Type 2 respiratory failure or COPD.  In […]


The Past in Pictures

Once I started scanning in pictures, well I couldn’t stop and I have asked my mum of I can have the family tin, which is a box full of wonderful pictures and things from our family history.   Look at those side burns, this is me and my wonderful dad.  I still have the rabbit, well mini has claimed it and my mum still lives in the same house, although she doesn’t have the bar or the wonderful mural on the wall in the sitting room. This is me and my wonderful paternal Grandad who lived with us.  I was his reason for living.  He suffered from cancer before I was […]


Why have children when you have parents?

I suppose there comes a time in every person’s life when their parents stop being the supporters and start being the ones who need the support and the help of their children. Well it seems that that time has come all too soon in the Mad family.  My mum who is only 66 is in hospital yet again.  She is not in the best of health generally as she suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, but she how has COPD and is suffering with type 2 respiratory failure and it appears that she caught a chest infection on her holiday in Florida, which meant that she became oxygen compromised and when me and […]