Who am I?

I am mum to two lovely (most of the time) girls, RoRo (5) and LaLa (2) – (they are now known by nicknames at the request of the eldest). I’m married to Chris, with whom I run a business, providing services to educational publishers. We work from home and split everything, roughly equally – work, domestic stuff and childcare (though Chris hasn’t yet mastered breastfeeding, so that’s all on me for the moment).

This blog started life purely as a parenting (or ‘Mummy’) blog, but over time has become a bit more general, with books and writing and cooking and recipes becoming a much bigger feature. Now and then I also talk about the struggles (and benefits) of working from home. I also write the odd (honest) review, though not very many these days. And every now and then I feel the urge to comment on politics or society or some such.

I am liberal, left-wing, Guardian-reading, reasonably open-minded, agnostic verging on outright atheist. Oh and I’m a lifelong vegetarian. I am never knowingly mean or rude, but I will tell you if I disagree with you – and am very happy for you to do the same. In parenting terms, I’m an extended breastfeeder (up to 2 years 3 months with the eldest and still going at the same age with the youngest), baby-led weaning advocate who will co-sleep when it helps, but also happy to put babies in cribs and cots if they’re happy to go in there. I also became a total sling convert with my second daughter and wish I’d discovered them with my first. I am strongly against using any form of physical discipline and will not stand up for anyone who chooses to hit their children. Other than that, I’m happy to let other people make their own parenting decisions and to let me make mine, without arguing about it.

I am not hugely sociable in real life, though I will talk your ear off if I’ve had a couple of beers. My alcoholic beverages of choice are real ale, red wine and Kir Royal. I love chocolate, especially luxurious boxes of chocolates. I’m starting to get back into exercise, thanks to my Zumba DVD and also enjoy taking the dog for a walk in the evening.

I’m attempting to write a novel and have been attempting to write one (not the same one) since I was a child. So far, I have yet to complete one and I have a fairly ridiculous fear of sharing details about any work in progress.

I love drawing and do some illustration work as part of our business, though mostly vector work in Illustrator. I’ve recently discovered Derwent’s Inktense pencils and was lucky enough to get a huge set of them for Christmas, so I’m currently spending an hour or so most evenings drawing and painting with them. My favourite things to draw are trees and I also like to draw decorative floral patterns.

The regularity of my blogs varies widely, though I’m a lot more likely to be a once-a-week gal than a two-or-three-times-a-day gal. Every now and then I try to do a regular feature (Book Week and Sunday Reading, for example), but due to the variability of my workload, I can’t always promise they will remain regular. I’m inclined at the moment to post categories on specific days though am loathe to be specific about this, in case I don’t keep up with it.

I love comments – whether you’re another blogger or one of those mysterious regular readers who I don’t know, please do leave a comment if you have something to say about a post. I’d love to know if you try any of my recipes – whether you enjoy them or hate them!

There are a whole bunch of ways to subscribe in the sidebar – you can subscribe to specific categories, subscribe by email, like the Facebook page or follow me on Twitter – or you could even do all of them if you really want to.

If you want to contact me you can email me at codingmamma@gmail.com