I am always so tired...two dc...i work part time, house is always a mess, laundry always in a pile.

Neighbour - 2 dc, full time work in a good career, house is fucking spotless (I have been in at random times multiple times (they do not have a cleaner), kids in multiple activities, dad is a coach for one of the activities (he also works full time).
I thought fair enough that's a lot but fair play to them.

My dc joined a new activity yesterday eve and I bumped into neighbour in the corridor of the building, made our pleasantries, turned out her dc do this activity too and she is the secretary of the club and was at a meeting.

How do they do it?? why do they have so much time? where am i going wrong??

Who's else setting their alarms ridiculously early tomorrow morning to join the Tesco queue and bag their Christmas delivery slot? 🤣🎄

My husband gets up for work at 4:45am anyway, so he's already been instructed to wake me up at the same time so I can get myself ready to jump in the queue at 5am!

Thought I'd start a little thread so we can all keep each other company tomorrow morning while we're half asleep, clutching our coffees and desperately waiting for our turn to book our Christmas slots!

Who's joining me for the annual Tesco Christmas slot madness?

And it’s lovely - I think anyway.

https://www.johnlewis.com/content/christmas-advert

Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush……..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqglwjdgg045o

The celebrity has lost his bid for a permanent injunction to prevent The Guardian and ITN from publishing allegations that he abused his status to attempt or attempt to engage in “inappropriate sexual activities with a large number of girls and young women.”

There remains a temporary injunction preventing him from being named in order to allow an appeal against the judgement.

Please help decide what I should wear to a daytime lunch/comedy club show, I am not very stylish and pretty much live in jeans and top or gym clothes.

I have quite thick copper coloured hair and I normally use the Lidl (Cien) shampoo and conditioner in the red bottles but they seem to have changed the fragrance recently and it's now unpleasant and really strong and my hair reeks of it for a couple of days.

Can anyone recommend one that is not strongly perfumed please? Don't want to pay more than about £5 to £7 for 300ml.

About 3 years ago my husband started sleeping in the spare room due to his incessant snoring. Not only did it wake me up in the night, it stopped me from getting to sleep. I couldn't use ear plugs because I had to be on call overnight sometimes for my work and also my Mum was getting frail and she may have needed to contact me at night. He is also a light sleeper, and would often wake me up when he was getting up in the night to go downstairs if he couldn't sleep ( he would inevitably drop his phone on the bedroom floor when doing that , which meant I was seething with fury and couldn't get back to sleep!!) Any way..... three years later I have retired from work, my mum died and my husband lost weight and doesn't seem to snore. But, I don't want to ever share a bed with anyone ever again. My husband also seems happy with the arrangement. I love my own space, to read as long as I like, paint my nails at bedtime, have the room / bed as warm/cool as I like, listen to podcasts. So why do I feel that it is an admission of failure? That married couples should somehow sleep together, like my parents and grandparents did? I shouldn't care what people think, but I never tell friends/family that we don't sleep in the same bed if the subject ever comes up. It kind of feels like separate beds equals emotional distance too. We get on fine, we been together 30 years with the usual ups and downs. Does anyone else have this arrangement? If so do you feel a bit uneasy about it? Or are we just conditioned to sleep in the same bed as our partners?

My lovely FIL has died and we're in the process of arranging the funeral. MIL has said no black - or red. She'd prefer us all in eg green, brown, purple, blue.

The DTDs (14) will need something new. Ideally that would work for other formal occasions. And my brain just isn't working.

Reiss do a nice range but only goes up to 13. Used to have the dress in this photo, which would have been ideal, but too small now.

Any ideas??

My DD is in year 10 and is studying French. The plan seems to be for them just to memorise pre-written answers to questions, rather than actually trying to learnthe language. I guess this might be the best way to pass the exam, but it seems a shame, and I don't think she will know any French at all by the end of it.
Is this how it done nowadays?

I want the weirdest of icks, I’m bored and want a giggle..

I’ll go first…

skinny jeans

BIL and nephew are Man U fans- not mega but they go see them 3/4 times a year watch the games on tv etc. BIL is a well educated, articulate smart man. I like him. Nephew is 18 and lovely.

There is a new footy chant along the lines of “blah blah blah management idiots, fuck off home” they were talking about it, saying have you heard this? This is the new one.
Now, swearing aside, I said to BIL you can’t sing that it’s racist. And he said no it wasn’t, so in reply I said are the owners/managers foreign and he said yes, some but not all, and so I said- yep the chant is racist.

He thinks I am being ridiculous. I think he is being complacent and really should not singing it. He said it’s about sacking the management and I said the “go home” bit takes it to a different racist level

so am I being precious?

Hey! I always give my dds at least one new book at Christmas, so I'm looking for recommendations!

I think I'll get The Penelopiad for dd1 (age 15) as she enjoyed The Handmaids Tale. But I'm not sure what dd2 (age 13) might like? She's a good reader, has recently enjoyed Flowers For Algernon, so I wonder if there's anything with a similar vibe?

Grateful for any advice from people with similar age dc!

Snap and crackle but no pop: Rice Krispies reformulated due to lack of rice https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/nov/03/kelloggs-rice-krispies-coco-pops-reformulated-rice-shortage?CMP=share_btn_url
The final sign that the world is going to hell in a handcart!!! 😁

Dh has been saying for ages that he wants to start a particular hobby/activity. He hasn’t made any move to actually start but talks about it a lot.

Recently he had mentioned it to a friend (female) and said to me he might ask her if she wants to do it with him? I said ‘why haven’t you asked me?!’ He said he didn’t think it was my sort of thing despite the fact I’d said it sounded fun.

Anyway I’ve booked it for us both. He isn’t happy! Said how he has to let down his friend I said ‘so ? She can still do it if she really wants to?’ He said I shouldn’t have muscled in ??!!!

Just that really...

Hi all. I'm just caretaking until Reastie returns, but here's our new thread. Please do use up the old one first though.

This is intended as a friendly, kind, safe, warm and fuzzy place for people to share discounts, bargains and Christmas gift ideas both online and IRL. Please note the tone and intention of the thread and join with spirit as generous as DC helping themselves to the Christmas chocolate celebrations

Here’s some useful information about how to save the thread or a specific post so you don’t need to have a message to check in for every thread so you have the thread saved:

To watch the thread - click on the little bell that has ‘watch’ under my first message. This adds the whole thread to your ‘watched threads’

You can also bookmark a specific post by clicking on the ‘bookmark’ under the specific post. This saves your exact place in a thread but doesn’t alert you to new replies.

If you have any referral links or codes, please share them on the referral thread here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/christmas/5444936-bargain-referrals-thread-8

A reminder that we don't use affiliated links on here please

🎄 Emoji to copy if required for posting bargains as some agree this makes deals easier to spot. (or post in bold)

Well it's here....

https://www.johnlewis.com/content/christmas-advert

And I hate those bratty kids already LOL 😂😂😂

Its a long story which I will keep brief. I'm a 54 year old female.
I divorced my now ex-husband in 2009, We had 3 children together. At the time their ages were 15 (Boy) 12 (Girl) and 9 (Girl).
I have since been happily remarried since 2012.
For the last 9 years I have been estranged from my eldest daughter who is now 29. She refuses any contact with me. When I last saw her she was 20 and our meeting was very strained. She afterwards denied me any contact- this was based on the fact that a) she doesnt like my new husband and b) the fact that her younger sister, now 26, has (through her own choice) had no contact with her father since she was 9.

My eldest daughter now lives and works abroad and has done so for 9 years, and has no intention of returning to the UK / living back here, other than returning for short visits to visit her Father.
She also has had a very strained relationship with her younger sister and they barely have spoken over the last 5 years or so. But she has just messaged my youngest daughter (who lives with me) telling her she is pregnant.
She is apparently very happy which is good to hear but I am concerned about her and just want to be there for her during her pregnancy. But I made her a promise 9 years ago to not make contact and to respect her boundaries as she said that was important. Not only have I done this but I also have no way of contacting her as she has changed her number, blocked me from all social media and I dont have her address or email. So I have not made any contact with her for 9 years now. On discussing with my younger daughter she said that the older one would not have let her know about the pregnancy without her accepting that I am going to find out from her. So I am in two minds whether to contact her and send her a message using the phone number for her which my youngest daughter now has. I want to let her know I am thinking of her and wish her all the best for her pregnancy with no strings attached and no expectations - but if I contact her I feel I am breaking the boundary which I promised and have stuck to all this time. so I really dont know what to do.
I have a very fractured and extremely poor relationship with her Dad (whom she is still very close to) and short of asking him what to do or what she would want - which to be honest I dont want to do as would rather keep him out of it - then I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'd really appreciate peoples thoughts ideas etc.

Sorry im sure there are hundreds of posts about this but I used Search and couldn't find what I was lookimg for.

I'm not really looking for a conspiracy theory type discussion about whether something terrible is coming. I'm trying to keep really calm and thinking - we don't really know either way. But it seems sensible, on balance, that if lots of governments across the world are telling people to have a bit of a stash in plus some things like torches, radios etc - in the interest of my family I probably should. If I don't need it, hurray, and if whatever happens is too awful for a 1 week supply then...well, canned food will probably be the least of our worries.

SO my AIBU is just that I'm totally overwhelmed with what to get? I want to get a one off bulk shop really, with budget of max about £150. Would rather spend less because it's nearly Christmas and could do with that money elsewhere! We are a family of 2 adults, 2 teenagers. What would we need for 1 week that's vaguely palatable and wouldn't require either water or electricity to cook?? We do have an old school bbq so I guess if I get some bags of charcoal, could heat things on that if it isn't raining outside. Also - what can I get that will genuinely keep for a really long time as I stocked up for Covid and there was soooo much wastage; really don't want that situation again where everything just gets thrown out.

I've looked on the Preppers section but that all seems quite hardcore and survivalist! What does the absolute average Joe family buy who isn't prepping for the apocalypse, realistically won't survive a worst case scenario, but wants to be prepared if there are 1 week of power cuts etc? Specific brands, foods, recipes hugely appreciated!

I took a cab yesterday. I asked the driver to go a certain way (the cheapest) he didn't like it, but went. We got to a crossroads, when we were on top he asked which way, I didn't have time to answer so he went straight on. I said oh we are. Not going the cheapest way. He then turned and said don't threaten me, I can turn nasty when provoked. We then had an argument, I said drop me as soon as you can. I then had a 10 minute walk to my destination. I have a bad heart. And I am. 76. Not old these days but still not young. I'm. Not going do pretend that I am a sweet innocent. I then called him a f###### moron. But I was shaking, and he frightened me. What would you have done?
.

I need advice on a sofa bed please.

I’m looking for a sofa bed. My budget is £250 maximum. I want it to be comfortable as a sofa during the day for two people to sit on and I want to use it every night to sleep on so it needs to be comfortable to sleep on. I might be using it to sleep on for potentially 18 months or so, so it needs to be suitable for sleeping on every night and me not ending up with neckache, backache or any other joint problems. Obviously, this is a medium term solution and there are reasons why I am doing this without having to go into everything here.

Ideally, I’m looking for cream/beige or grey.

I have seen this online. Does anyone have any experience of sleeping on something like this? Will it be comfortable or too firm?

www.amazon.co.uk/Folding-Convertible-Sleeper-Chair-Pillow/dp/B0HFN95C1Z/ref=asc_df_B0GT5CYWLQ?mcid=53042c8c53283c4db60961d7280c5077&hvocijid=13686182767993384971-B0GT5CYWLQ-&hvexpln=74&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=696285193871&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13686182767993384971&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046632&hvtargid=pla-2281435175938&gad_source=1&th=1

Anyone with experience of sleeping on a sofa bed, do you have any recommendations for something that would be suitable?

TIA

I'm posting in AIBU because there's so much traffic here and I'd love to get some advice on something.

I have 3 DC and the youngest is DD (9 almost 10). In some respects she is 9 going on 7, and in others she's 9 going on 15! My other two are boys so this is the first time the issue has come up.

I had my first period when I was 11 and I believe my DM started pretty young too. My own DD is showing absolutely no signs of puberty and still hasn't reached that stage were there's any significant difference between the boys and girls in her class. They all still play together and the boy/girl divide that sometimes starts to happen at around that age doesn't seem to have started yet.

Every time I broach anything even remotely linked to her and puberty, she changes the topic. I think because she has older siblings, she knows it's a "thing" but she has zero interest in it and is not in the least bit shy about her own body. Happily parades around the house looking for her pjs and towels when she's getting ready for the shower or getting dressed. Respects other people's privacy but doesn't feel the need for it herself just now.

Part of me wants to not force the issue and instinct tells me she's not quite ready for any "preparation" but another part of me worries that I'm thinking that because it's ME who's holding on to her innocence. I'd hate for her to get her period out of the blue and feel shocked and unprepared.

If it's relevant my own periods were HORRENDOUS with endometriosis that went undiagnosed well into adulthood. My DM was the same and I worry that this is what lies ahead for DD.

If you were in my position when would you start talking about periods? I can't mention my own because I have a coil and haven't had a period for years. Otherwise that would be a brilliant way in.

So....

YABU - worse would be that she's unprepared. Start talking about it now.
YANBU - give it a while and try again in 6 months time.

Apologies if you’ve suffered any of my posts before.

DH and I have a very up and down relationship and I just can’t quite make myself leave. He’s generally very hands off with our child, and I’m exhausted of doing it all.

For the last four days of half term, he was away with his hobby (something that happens several times a year). That left me alone with our child who is just about to turn 3 and an absolute bloody nightmare.

Anyway, the morning after his return, after I’ve held the fort for four days, he complains that I didn’t box up the leftovers. ‘I’d have thought you’d have at least sorted that - I don’t want to work in a room that smells of old dinner’ (it’s a through kitchen/lounge).

I'm livid. Sent him a very firm message about feeling taken for granted. He made more effort when I got home yesterday, but then delegated bedtime to me as ‘DC is being difficult - you’ll have to do it. She just wants attention.’

I feel like I’m going mad. Wise ones of MN - am I overreacting? Am I being reasonable?

DH and I are looking to downsize.
We have seen the perfect cottage, not far from our DDs family (handy for childcare as it's currently taking us 40 mins each way).
We rang up to view it and the estate agent refused to let us as she said "An offer has been made and I'm sure it will be accepted".
DH and I wouldn't be making an offer, we would happily pay full asking price. Also we are lucky to have enough in savings to purchase, without selling our own home first although we obviously would at some point.
I feel for the vendors as much as ourselves, would it be unreasonable to push a note through their letterbox informing them what's going on?
It's been two weeks since the estate agent last rebuffed us and the house is still on the market.