The sequel - Fab, Sparkly & often Moany 40 + : Preggie or New Mums - come say Hi!

[jeanjeannie]

We've now filled up the last thread - and the two before that! Seems that there are a lot of us old girls out there getting ourselves into trouble

So - if you've just found yourself to be with child or have a LO and you've hit (or about to hit - we'll let you sneak in just under the radar!)the big 4 0, then come say Hi!

There is always a spare comfy chair - plenty of cake and many old ladies to listen to your moans! Think of the lovely ladies knitting shreddies - only we're not sporting a blue rinse, but wearing cashmere and kitten heels

Hello regular ladies. I avoided putting FAT, F*cked or Knackered in the title - tempting as it was

Quality Street much depleted I'm afraid. Oh no no no JJ you got me very wrong. I enjoy being in on my own. I just like DH on his knees pleading to go out hehe. The children and myself had a gay old evening watching whatever we liked (in this case it was more Star Wars). Then corrie and all the other crappy soaps.

I'm trying to keep special K awake at the moment and she's grizzling to go to sleep. But if I don't then it'll be 12.30 and wanting to watch the tv with her dad.

Dr Browns are doing a great job and the wind is slowly dissipating

I hardly ever use our steamer. I think I went mad with it when I first got it and then it went to the cupboard where the soda stream, electric tin opener, bread maker, electric carving knife, yoghurt maker and ice cream maker are all kept. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Think it was when I was pregnant and eating really well........that's now gone and it's cake, chocolate and any other refined sugar I can lay my hands on. Carrot? What's that?

I loved my steamer but it is sadly no more, deceased, gone off to the great steamer vapour in the sky I just loved it for steaming veg for Iris's purees - a simple no-brainer which meant I didn't burn a hole in a saucepan by leaving it on the gas. It's an old trick of mine.....*thinks back to 2004 and the beetroot left for hours and hours while I went to the pub - whoops!

So, I'll be starting the weaning next week and just want to make batches of stuff to freeze.

Good job on getting through the Quality Street. And fab that the Dr Browns are doing their job

Yeah, never thought that far ahead that it could actually come in handy - if I can manage to get all the cobwebs off it.

So you're going for it next week then? Countdown to 'W' day. Does the girl have an inkling yet or are you going for the ambush?

If I go by what those in the know say, then K will starting on the weaning at around 4 months so that'll be just after xmas for us. Not going to attempt to give her real food until then unless she shows signs of chewing her fingers off.

Just watching Spooks. Never seen it before but it's been entertaining so far. Better than I'm a celeb (or renamed 'who'?) Can't stand it personally. Vapid nobodies trying to revive careers (or get them off the ground) by means fair or foul...no thanks

Morning. Grim down south it is

Verity is almost chewing her knuckles off - and watches like a hawk when we eat. She's licked an apple and seemed thrilled!

Just ordered a veg box from Riverford - mainly for her - so I can at least start her off on veg that tastes like veg!! We're not organic mad - but I'll just freeze it all down for her and then I don't have to worry about it.

Ooo I used to like Spooks - but I tried watching it last week but my brain was too scrambled and I couldn't follow the plot. I used to be reasonably intelligent - but now it's all gone down the plug - along with my hair

Off to singing group this morning and I suspect then we'll have peaked as Iris has a river of snot pouring from her nose into her mouth. I would stem the flow but she seems to be enjoying it

mrsB I hope last night wasn't too chilly and that today brings better news on the wall and gas pipe saga x

Lovely day here ooop norf! For once.. All autumnal - blue sky and beautiful colours.

Think I'm flying solo to Costco this morning. Didn't get there y'day afternoon due to sudden last minute flurry of orders.

K was a good girl last night and went off without too much of a fight at 11pm and didn't hear a peep until 7.30 this morning She's getting really good at this now. (at last, my order for a baby that sleeps came through!)

JJ sounds like the weaning plans are coming together nicely. Lets hope that she doesn't see her sister's trick of licking snot though as that doesn't count as one of your 5 a day

Yes mrsb. Hope that you're not too cold today. Also lets hope that the builders don't unearth anything else today - unexploded bombs, skeletons etc etc.

See from DM website that the on the NON CELEB programme there's a policeman, naked, in the shower. Is that allowed????

Oh johnworf I love Spooks. Complete hokum but I'm hooked. Was very when the delicious Rupert Penry Jones got blown to smithereens at the beginning of this series.

MrsB poor you. I have just made some banana and sultana muffins and will send the biggest ones your way.

Yes, I got up early to bake as we have our first signing lesson this morning. Lots of pressure on me as I have to pass on what I've learnt to the rest of the family. Except for DD1 who has amused herself by learning some signs from the internet. Sex. ginger, f**k off, lesbian, gay and very useful this one, fog. You get the general idea. Bless her, she's easily amused.

But jw, snot is green so surely it counts?

ladymac I'm sure that DD#1 will be a boon with her signing....a real party piece Get her to show the nice signing lady what's she's learnt and even better, construct a signing sentence with all of those words included

Haven't seen Spooks before so didn't see RPJ get blown up

I suppose it is one of your greens....when you put it like that

yukkk what a delightful though it makes cabbage sound like tasty option.
I'm totally wrecked today, Oliver was impossible to settle last night and he would half doze when I took him into our bed but make snuffle pig noises all night.
My task of the day is to try and tidy up Bens clothes he has grown out off (I may be some time!)

hello all

Thanks for the cakes ladies - keep 'em coming.

Just back form Doctors where D had his first lot of jabs. Lovely doc who said he hates sticking needles in babies - seemed quite put out by the whole thing. Not as much as D was, obviously.

House chilly enough so whipped D out of bed this am and into a hideous grey furry animal suit thing that my sister bought when he was born and we have never put on him. We call it the roadkill suit. Well, I hate to say it but it actually looked v cute and kept him toasty warm for the walk to and fro the surgery. Will put a pic up if her wears it again. Reminds me of the squirrel from Bo Selecta.

Builders here waiting for a plumber to come and sort the gas pipes. And the cold has left me with a weird clicking noise in my right ear And D cried and refuse to sleep from 6pm til 2am last night . Apart from these minor irritations life could be worse

jj lovely description of a snottery Iris!

Crikey mrsb you're having a great time aren't you? Not.

Do you have any local friends who you can go and 'chat' to for a few hours - and get warm into the bargain?

chuckling@the bo selecta squirrel road kill outfit. Isn't that squirrel a bit rude? Maybe it's just my filthy brain that told me that...not sure now.

Hopefully LO will be ok after his jabs. K had hers without any fuss (apart from screaming the place down when they went in but that's par for the course). Have some calpol on stand by

well the nearest is OH's mum's house and she has suggested that but I kind of need to be here to let builders in and out and show them things etc. So long as D is warm its ok anyway.

Aye yes jw the Bo Selecta squirel minus the unruly willy !!

Hi all

Home from work again today because still feeling URGY. Between lack of sleep and body adjusting to the new low Blood Glucose levels they want me one, just have no energy to deal with those idiots I work with!

mrsb I would love to see the roadkill suit! Sounds lovely.

JW I really enjoyed the first series or two of Spooks, but when Tom left, and then Zoe and then they started killing people off left and right? I got bored. OH still watches it every week, though.

JJ better get that girl some solid food!

Morning all

Had a lie-in and breakfast in bed this morning, but still felt sh*te when I got up, so DH says he can't see the point and shan't do it again. I think he's joking.

mrsb that suit sounds like something the lost boys wore in the Disney Peter Pan - roadkill indeed! I was v scornful of all those snowsuits and jumpers with animal ears until my mum knitted a little fluffy white top with polar bear ears for DD's first Christmas and she looked cute as pie.

Had to give a lecture last night and managed to do the old holding it in trick again - came home, straight to the loo, up it all comes. Then puked twice more in the night despite having nothing to puke. Really quite bored of it now But the midlands in also blue-sky and sunshine today, so may take a walk and buy a sausage roll. Not Greggs, sadly, but from a place that's almost as bad.

Ermintrude you're making me feel hungry. I could murder a sausage roll but we don't have a Greggs round these parts. Might be sausage overload too as I'm going to make Gordon Ramsey's sausage toad tonight and have just got 18 sausages out of the freezer. Mostly looking forward to the apple, cider and onion gravy that you make to go with it. Oh, and the sausages get wrapped in bacon first just in case any of you were worried that there wouldn't be enough pork in the ladymac house tonight.

I'm plum tuckered out from the signing session but I know all my farmyard animals now so my party piece will be signing along to Old Macdonald at playgroup this afternoon.

Ladym Sausage wrapped in bacon??? Streaky bacon? I always knew Gordon Ramsey was trying to kill us all with cholesterol!

Been to Jo Jingles singing group and decided Iris is bonkers

What is it with my ginger-haired munchkin that she has to be different? All the other kids sit nicely and pay attention - meanwhile Iris is running around, waving a streamer like a Morris dancer...Then she does everything that she's told - puts shapes where they're suppose to go - finds all the animals she asked to and then shouts out 'Boobies' and points to her chest

mrsB and PMSL laughing at Baby D in his Bo Selecta squirrel suit - priceless

hedgepig I share your pain. We were up 4 times last night and the mess is overwhelming.

I never thought of snot as counting as one of the five....excellent. That was lunch sorted then!

ladymac hope signing was fun - is that Makaton? LOL@ your DD1 and her burgeoning signing vocabulary - just think how advanced Elizabeth will be OOooo, muffins....I'll send a courier - you can just sling 'em in a tupperware bowl

ladymac ....I reckon you're Nigella Lawson! Come on, come on - you ARE aren't you!??!!

I know there are some famous folk heavily disguised on MN...but I think your foxy-hipped, husky-voiced veil is indeed slipping!

Do I win?!! Do I, DO I?

*slopes off to make St Jamie of Oliver's chicken and pancetta wrap recipe from his new book.

ermintrude where is the Midlands are you - I'm a 'middle' girl myself

Jo Jingles JJ how splendid. I used to go with Ben although he was the opposite to Iris as he slept through the whole thing, I got fed up of spending money for him to sleep through it in the end. speaking of which Oliver is now asleep so do I tidy up or have a nap???

jj, i'm in sunny nottingham.

I hope ladymac is nigella. I love her more than Nigel, or Jamie, or the River Cafe girls, or just about anyone. Although I admire Hugh F-W for being so sensible, compassionate and yet still rather rufty-tufty in his approach to keeping, killing and eating animals for meat. I always tell my more self-righteous veggie friends about one direct effect for which all milk-drinkers are responsible: the tens of thousands of male calves - born to cows who must be kept in milk for the dairy industry -who are slaughtered at birth because we Brits are so sensitive about eating veal and there's no market for them. Only vegans are blameless. And usually very slim. Hmmm, I may have to rethink.... But only after I've had some of that sausage and bacon

Oh Oh ermintrude whereabouts? That's where I'm from!!! My parents still live there - in Chilwell (near Beeston) Bless them - they're still bamboozled by the arrival of the trams. Although when I was home last I got VERY confused by the tram lanes - bit scary to look in the rear view mirror and see you're in the wrong lane and a tram looming behind you!

Ah, I spent many a wayward hour as a teenager looking sulky by the lions in Market Square!!

Also LOVE The HFW or Huge Furry Whipppingballs as he's known in our house

I'm not a Nottingham lass by birth jj but have lived in leafy West Bridgford for 5 yrs. Whenever people start bemoaning the lack of good schools in their area I just duck under my desk and thank my lucky stars, because WB is packed full of fantastic community primaries which feed one very good and one excellent comp. No need to pretend to be churchgoers or fork out cash (we wouldn't even if we could; that's what I pay my taxes for!). So, very lucky. But DH is casting about for a new job so I'm a bit anxious.... Beeston is nice; I've got a few friends there. Lots of people come to uni here and stay forever, I find.

OOooo ermintrude WB is lovely - has always been the 'posh' part of town

Yep there are great schools there too I went to Trent Poly for a year to do an art foundation and then skipped off to London for the degree. It's a big uni town - quite a few people I went to college with are still there.

I'm still PMSL @ Iris shouting 'boobies'! Fabulous! I bet that got everyones attention. (it'd get mine).

I've no idea what I'm making for tea/dinner/supper tonight. I did spot a packet of sausages stuck to the back of the fridge - there is no space due to baby bottles. I may winkle them out and throw them in the oven. I'm thinking perhaps pomme frites ..and I'm making them out of a recipe by a little known chef called 'McCains'

Tee don't tell me you've never had a chipolata wrapped in bacon (ooh matron) at xmas?? Surely they do them over the pond as well?