in my day

Pumpkins v turnips

October 14, 2018 By Ellen Leave a Comment

Boy One was moaning about the huge effort it was taking to scrape the goopy stuff out of his pumpkin. “You’re lucky you’ve got pumpkins,” said I. “In my day we had turnips and that was a horrible job – it took ages and the turnip stank. The whole job made your arms ache.” I […]

What shall I use my Hobfather wishes for?

April 23, 2011 By Ellen 5 Comments

Some days you never know what’s going to happen next, and, in my book, that’s a wonderful thing. For instance, this week I turned up for a shift at STV to find the place hoaching – a technical term – with burly besuited chaps, the ones with wires running into their ears. I assumed we […]

Me and Bridget Jones: BFF until I became a Smug Married

March 5, 2011 By Ellen 3 Comments

I am horrified to learn movie types are planning a third Bridget Jones movie and that Renee Zellweger has agreed to reprise the lead, but only if they let her do it skinny. On the face of it the idea of a bony Bridget is bad enough. We loved her because she looked, well, normal […]

Put the lid on the toothpaste tube… just once

January 14, 2011 By Ellen 9 Comments

One of the things from the – seemingly endless – list of things they don’t tell you when you become a parent, is there will be some things your children will not learn, no matter what. Instead, you will repeat requests for the apparently simple tasks to be done again and again. You will also […]