To Not believe those articles where well known people describe their typical weekend

[Summerbreezing]

It always seems to revolve around family cycles in the country, early morning walks on the beach, brunch in cool cafes, and roast dinners shared with large extended families including Great Granny aged 89 and newest addition aged 3 months.

None of them ever ever seem to spend Saturday catching up on washing and grocery shopping; or hoovering around the feet of DHs and DSs sprawled on the sofa watching car racing;or dropping one child to swimming, before collecting another child from soccer, before dropping third child to birthday party. Neither to they spend Sundays reading the papers until 3 o'clock, then feeling guilty about 'wasting' the day and dragging moaning children out for a reluctant walk before lazily phoning the Chinese for dinner because it's half past six and they still haven't ironed any school shirts for next week and teenager still has to be nagged about finishing homework.

So AIBU to secretly believe all these well known people are liars and just inventing the perfect weekend to make us all jealous?

Well know people probably have cleaners

I just don't read those articles any more, they made me feel inadequate.

Same for magazines like 25 beautiful homes, home and garden etc. They are all either lying bastards or I'm a failure and so is my home

mumble If it makes you feel better, I've heard that the magazines usually bring loads of nice pictures, cushions, throws etc with them and tart up the rooms before photographing them.

Also, who has vases of fresh flowers on the kitchen work surfaces??

YANBU, especially as a few months later you're likely to be reading about the divorce/rehab, with the line 'to the outside world it seemed like we had the perfect life...' The smug lifestyle articles are fixed up by PR people.

Ditching magazines and newspapers has done wonders for my wellbeing.

"My Saturday's are spent beautifying our home. I'm a homebody at heart despite my busy schedule so it's good for the soul to really get back in touch with what's real. Then on a typical Sunday we have a late breakfast. Everyone is home so there's a real family atmosphere. We read all the papers and chat about current affairs before a leisurely walk together. After all that fresh air we're often ready for a feast so I rustle up our favourite Chinese dishes and everyone tucks in."

There you go.

Are you sure Coumarin - you've got it off to a tee!

On Saturday morning I usually stroll down to the village to pick up the paper and some of our favourite rolls for breakfast = On Saturday mornings we usually discover we're run out of bread. After a row, I grudgingly agree to go to Tesco for a sliced pan. I usually buy the paper while I'm there so I can hide behind it and not bother talking to anyone.

On Sunday afternoons we love to take the bikes down to the beach and go for a lovely, windblown cycle = On Sunday afternoons we love to loll around doing nothing and maybe drink some beer. But there was that one time we took the bikes down to the beach and it lashed rain and we got fucking soaked.

Sunday evenings are family time. We all descend on my MIL who's a fantastic cook and everyone enjoys a traditional roast dinner. There could be up to 30 of us there, from new babies to DHs Grandmother who's 89 = Once a month we have to go to bloody MIL's for one of her overcooked joints and watery potatoes. It's fucking chaos - kids tearing around and leaving the back door wide open, Granny telling the same stories that we've heard a million times, the telly blaring because FIL is slightly deaf and likes to ignore everyone and watch football, and surly teenagers refusing to chat to each other because they're surgically attached to their phones. I'd much rather be curled up at home eating a nice Chinese takeawy.

This must be the sleb version of getting the nursery bear. I bet they hate it.

I don't know about the celebrity ones, but my old boss did one of those for the Sunday Times, and his typical day bore no relation to how he spent his time!
Yes, he did all those things but usually over the course of a week. I think the journalist interviewing him took all the interesting things he said and put them all into one day. They probably do the same for the celebs

Vintage

Summer I don't want to brag (but I will!) I have a large vase on my kitchen work top filled with flowers which friends bought for me. I had 7 friends over for supper on Friday evening and I got two bunches of flowers. I always leave flowers in the kitchen as I think they look better in the kitchen than in other rooms in the house.

I also have flowers on my kitchen table at the moment! Had run out of space elsewhere as my DH can't resist a bargain and bought me a whole load of reduced flowers from tesco...the old romantic!

YANBU. The ones where they take a picture of the contents of the sleb's fridge are also very

Presumably if they are taking pictures of the inside of a fridge, they also send a cleaner. Or do slebs know a secret supplier of white goods which never quietly and secretly accumulate dramatic levels of sludge only and invariably in the couple of days before inspection (for ordinary people this is fussy BF or MIL coming to stay)

I only have flowers in the kitchen when DH feels guilty about something. When MIL sees them she sighs and says "what did he do this time" .

My typical weekend "Friday night: Get home from work, put on pyjamas. Fire up netflix, order a pizza, drink wine. Saturday: repeat, only without the getting home from work palaver. Sunday, see Saturday, only with roast potatoes instead of pizza". This is not a story. But yes, I do have a cleaner.

Meditrina - they probably have pre-taken pictures of special fridges that they ask the sleb to pick from!

Yes, I suppose they might! I rather thought they'd be "dressing" the real fridge (removing all the manky bits and adding lots of posh cheese and salad).

In fairness, if I knew someone was coming to photograph my fridge the leftovers, stray tomatoes, out of date cheese and half jars of pasta sauce would disappear very quickly - to be replaced by olives, sundried tomatoes, organic eggs, a whole chicken and a bottle of champagne just lolling nonchalantly between a punnet of strawberries and a melon.

"We love watching movies so we move all the chairs into rows, make entrance tickets and organic popcorn". [famous dad] is the usher showing everyone to their seats with his torch and afterwards I rustle up a huge roast dinner with all the trimmings. I love a family Sunday!"

Said no real person ever.

They all have 'help' and an awful lot seem to have a relative on site/payroll/close by for ad hoc child care when you read on ! Plus they were told months in advance as per Vintagejazz says to had time to spruce up the rooms to be photographed. Peter Andre has a teeny weeny 'help' lady who seems welded to his kitchen whenever hes doing his i love my kids programme if that helps.

We love to unwind on Friday evening. Whilst DH shouts at kids for flooding the bathroom and hall bathes our angelic children, I drink wine prepare us a delicious supper. Later on I drink more wine and watch Gogglebox while he plays on the computer we cuddle up together and talk about our hectic but fulfilling lives in a smug way.

Saturdays are a whirl of children's activities spent in B&M bargains and Lidl while DS1 goes to his dance class. In the evening the children we watch a boring family DVD while I drink wine and MNet

We try to find time to relax on a Sunday DH sits in his dressing gown, scratching his balls till midday before a spectacular meal if we go to the pub then we get ready for our busy week ahead hurriedly finding a clean school shirt and scrabbling together lunch money while DH cleans the rats' cage

Ha ha so true - before we pick up the one in (I think) the Express magazine we always laugh about whether it will include a) long walk with dog, possibly on beach/Hampstead Heath b) country pub lunch c)Roast dinner with huge family around log fire. I suppose they just pick the best bits from many weekends.