With only a few days to go before ‘C Day’, yesterday I had to pull the big guns out of my parental bag and threaten the ultimate in punishments. Cancelling Christmas. Or rather informing my daughter that if she didn’t quit with the naughty and start delivering more of the nice, then she’d be waking up to find a rather sad and empty stocking at the end of her bed.

This is obviously not something I’d ever want to do. It would ruin my day for a start – and then leave me with the problem of what to do with all those presents rattling around under our bed.

But the problem is, when you spend a large percentage of the year telling your child that Father Christmas only comes for those children who’ve been good, it does rather put you in a difficult dilemma when they then go and act like the devils spawn.

To be fair it’s not that she’s particularly naughty, as children go. She doesn’t have a criminal record or a HASBO to her name. She doesn’t even wander the streets with a penknife and a can of spray paint, mugging old ladies as she goes. No, her problem – along with every other 8-year-old in the world – is that she just doesn’t bloody listen. To me. Ever.

Everyday, or so it seems, I am met with the blank look, sulky pout or miserable face of a child who just doesn’t want to do what she’s just been asked. Which I could well understand if the asking in question was about  going outside to kill a chicken for dinner, or working down a coal mine to earn her keep. But it’s not. It’s more of an eat your dinner / brush your teeth / hurry up and get into the car sort of ask.

Of course I’m sure when I was her age I was probably a right royal pain in the backside at times. But that’s a while ago now, my memory is sketchy and that’s beside the point. As I keep saying to her, I really don’t understand how hard it can be to just go along with what I ask, listen from time-to-time, and use her ears more than her mouth.

So what’s a parent to do? Threaten the worst and then follow through? Or fill them with the fear of a present-less Christmas, and then relent at the end?

My husband could probably quite easily go through with the first option, and still sleep well at night. I, on the other hand, couldn’t. Christmas for me has always been about the stocking.

Nothing beats seeing the sheer excitement on my children’s faces as they attempt to haul their body weight in stuffed stockings across our bedroom floor. It’s the highlight of my day. Or rather my night, as this inevitably happens a mere 15 or so minutes after we’ve wrapped the assorted presents, deposited them at the end of the beds and finally gone to sleep ourselves.

So once again I have had to explain and outline to my daughter the terrible consequences that naughtiness can bring. This was followed up by returning the ‘missed call’ I’d received on my mobile from Santa. With my incredibly concerned child hovering in the next room, her ears wildly flapping like an African elephant, I apologised for her bad behaviour, promised she wouldn’t do it again and wished him a safe flight.

What I hadn’t taken into account in my oh so cunning plan, was the steam railway trip we had planned to take them on the very next day -  to see the very man himself. My poor daughter was so nervous about being told off she practically had to be shoved  past the overgrown elf and into the grotto.

Not only did this make me feel like total and utter crap, but as I had to hurriedly reassure her that she hadn’t been quite bad enough to get no presents at all, it also made the whole point of my exercise completely pointless. Marvellous.

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Like I’ve said before, it’s very hard to know how you measure up as a parent, and how badly your child rearing techniques are going to scar them life.

Then you see pictures like these, and you think phew, at least I’m doing a lot better than some.

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I’ve never really got the fascination with tattoos. It seems to me a very extreme (and permanent) way of expressing how you’re feeling at that exact moment, but doesn’t really take into account how you might feel in years to come. After all, over the course of a lifetime names come and go, ideas and trends change and something that might be considered cute and girly at 18 will probably look downright stupid at 50.

And surely the effects of gravity on skin is not a tattoos friend? That bright and delicate flower you might have on your shoulder when you’re young enough to think it’s a good idea, will surely just become a faded pile of squiggles around your mid drift when you’re old enough to know better.

I’m not sure if my aversion to being drawn on is my reluctance to have someone shoot ink into my skin with a needle, or because I have absolutely no desire to have something covering my body that in a few years I would no doubt regret. More than likely it’s probably because even at 34, my mother would still kill me.

Whatever the reason, I have managed to reach this point in my life with a completely ink free body. Not a Tweetie Pie, Celtic cross or a initialed heart is to be found on any inch, nook or crevice of my being.

It was the girl in front of me in the spinning class yesterday morning, that got me thinking about tattoos in the first place. She had children’s names (well I presume they were anyway) written in huge letters across the bottom of her back. It’s not that it looked terrible, it just seemed an odd thing to do. And a very popular thing to do, judging by the number of people walking around these days with the contents of a baby naming book etched on their skin. In fact an hour later I was in a Pilates class (yes, I was feeling particularly keen that day), and I noticed that two of the woman contorting like pretzels on the mats in front of me were also listing their offspring – this time around their ankles.

I started to wonder if I was the only one who believed having their names on a birth certificates was no longer enough.

Now of course I can completely understand the idea of celebrating your kids. But wouldn’t a t-shirt, or a photo frame do? Do you really need to wear their names on your skin for the rest of your life to show how much they mean to you? Who knows, perhaps I’m an uncaring parent, but I can categorically say I have no wish to have so much as their initials on me, let alone their annual school photos tattooed all the way down my back.

I guess that’s something they’ll just have to live with. And perhaps discuss in therapy later. That said, I do however have a set of silver dog tags with their fingerprints on. These I can wear whenever I want – and take off whenever I want. Makes perfect sense to me.

Who knows, maybe there’s something about getting a tattoo that I just don’t get. Along with multiple earings, nose rings, tongue studs and bellybutton piercings. I’ll admit it does indeed sound like I have an issue with pain, but I’ve had two kids so it can’t be that. I think it just comes down to taste, and preferring my art hung up on the wall, rather than looking back at me in the mirror.

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Here are some recent ramblings of an enlightened male, that will no doubt make mothers everywhere grind their teeth in annoyance.

According to Michael Odent – a medical expert and ‘childbirth specialist’ – fathers-to-be should no longer be present at the birth of their children, and should be banned from the delivery room. Apparently they make our time in labour longer, more painful and more stressful.

Oh, what a load of crap.

I believe it’s the trying to push and pass out something the size of a bloody melon that is the cause of all the pain and stress, not having the father sat beside us in the room. Something that Mr Odent would know if he was to give it a go. Oh that’s right, he can’t, he’s a man.

Now I can only speak for myself, and the 22 hours in total I’ve spent in labour, but having my husband in the room helped, not hindered the situation. He made the time go faster by talking to me, making me laugh and occasionally laughing at me (as he winched me on and off the birthing ball). He fetched me reading material and fluids, and let me wrap my fingernails so snugly around the bones in his arm I left scars, without making so much as a whimper.

For me, high as a kite on gas and air, the time actually passed quite quickly. For him, unable to escape from my vice gripe long enough to even let the blood flow back into his fingertips, the time must have practically stood still.

His one very stupid idea of offering me a Jaffa cake half way through a contraction aside, my husband was an absolute god send, and made an otherwise traumatic occasion much more bearable. The thought of having had to go through that without him there doesn’t even bear thinking about.

So I really don’t care if Mr Odent has been ‘involved for more than 50 years in childbirth’. He hasn’t been there. Or got the t-shirt, weakened bladder or stretch marks to prove it.  So with all due respect, he should butt out and stop trying to fix something that isn’t broken. Recommending that a woman should give birth with only a silent midwife in the room is like suggesting an operation should be done without the general anesthetic – just because it might speed up the recovery time. Would Mr Odent particularly like to be sliced and diced whilst awake I wonder?

Of course midwives do a great job – my last one was lovely, if my somewhat hazy memory serves me right – but they can’t give you what you need while your pelvis splits in half and your pain levels go off the Richter scale. At a time when all dignity has left the room and you’re freaked out and panicking, you don’t need polite chit-chat with a strange woman between your legs, as she grapples with a slippery crowning head. You need a familiar face and the reassurance of the person who got you into this painful bloody mess in the first place.

The other, even more laughable observation made by Mr Odent, is that watching your wife give birth can ultimately lead to divorce. I’m sorry. Is this man for real? What he’s really saying is if a man is subjected to seeing his wife laid out on a table like a birthing cow, then he will ultimately be put off having sex with her again, and as a result, have no choice but to throw in the towel and his wedding ring.

Now THAT is the saddest excuse in the history of marriages for a man being forced to leave his wife. It’s actually justifying why a man can jump ship and run off with a younger, un-stretched, child-free model. If there’s a Mrs Odent out there, you must be so proud – and so very paranoid.

Generally speaking, the man who gets you pregnant already knows (or should already know) you inside out. If, after the birth, he literally knows you inside out, then that, unfortunately, is one of the side effects of procreation.

To say that men can’t stomach the sight of their wife in labour or that they will ’stop feeling a sexual attraction towards them’, is an insult to husbands everywhere. It’s certainly an insult to woman to say that we’re no longer seen as anything other than a piece of reproducing meat after the birth.

If woman had their way, Mr Odent, we wouldn’t be forced to watch our husbands belch, scratch, itch and fart beside us on the sofa every night. None of these manly qualities really puts us ‘in the mood’ you know, but you don’t see us all rushing to file for divorce and citing these disgusting habits on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour.

Really, fancy telling us we should be giving birth in silence and on our own. Are you recruiting for the Church of Scientology by any chance? Next you’ll be saying that pain relief is illegal and Enya is no longer a suitable birthing artist.

For a father to be made to miss out on seeing his child born would be a terrible thing. Not only because he wouldn’t get to experience the incredible rush of euphoria when meeting your 5 second old offspring for the first time, but because for the rest of his life he would be forever reminded by his wife, that not only did she have to do all of the work, but that he wasn’t even there to hold her hand at the end.

And that, Mr Odent, is the part you seem to have forgotten. Woman want their men there with them at this time. Not just to offer them support and a back rub, but so that they can see first hand just how much pain childbirth involves. This way, regardless of how many bins are put out or paychecks earned, the man will always know that he owes something to his wife that can never be repaid.

Call it an unfair advantage in the guilt stakes, but childbirth is the one bit of power we woman still hold in this world. Don’t you dare try and take that away from us.

With the winter now behind us and my muffin top threatening to morph into a Brioche, this morning I took myself off to a spin class.

It’s been over a month since I last graced the gym with my presence – a chest infection and school holidays have kept me at home, and in a distinctly weakened state. It’s hard to say what caused my state to weaken more, the chest infection or the school holidays, but either way I haven’t been able to get within sniffing distance of my trainers for a while.

So there I was, back in the darkened room and safely impaled on the ‘cushioned’ seat. I have to say it took me a while to remember how high the seat should even be and which way the peddles were supposed to turn. As is always the case at the start of a class the room was completely silent, except that is for two women near me who were in the middle of a deeply depressing conversation. Seeing as I was already strapped on the bike and had nowhere to go, I naturally tuned in my ears to listen.

One of the women was recounting the tale of an incredibly unlucky friend whose husband had recently suffered a heart attack, and dropped down dead in front of her. To make matters worse, he had no insurance, and as a result, the family home now had to be sold.

With this new and rather unsettling information sinking into my mind, and wishing I’d tuned my ears in the opposite direction, the class began.

For the next 45 minutes, as I sweated away like a beast and used all of my powers of self control to stop myself throwing up over the woman in front, part of me kept wondering why I had ever thought it a good idea to come to the gym this morning. The other part of me – the more dominant bit, that tends to mess around with my concentration – couldn’t stop thinking about this man. Or rather the widow that he’d left behind.

Like most people I suspect, the two things that I fear the most are the loss of my children and my husband – losing either would turn my world upside down. The very idea of some terrible happening to my family is something that doesn’t even bear thinking about. Yet I do. Probably far more than is considered rational or even remotely healthy.

For some unknown reason I have a tendency to keep living out these worse case scenarios in my head, and in doing so, making myself feel sick to the core. I wish I wouldn’t do it, but when my paranoia is triggered by distressing headlines or other people’s bad news, I can be like a woman possessed.

So as I’m peddling away, climbing imaginary hills and racing other stationary bikes, my brain is spiraling into a panic induced overdrive. What would I do if this happened to me? How would I deal with it? Where would I find the strength to get up in the morning and get through the day?

Several gears later and these questions are replaced by guilt – for not appreciating everything that my husband already does for me. Vowing to be an all round better wife, I peddle on with renewed vigour. Oh how my husband – who was at that time sitting in his office and as fit as a fiddle – would have laughed his coffee up at these irrational and melodramatic thoughts. He’s simply not enough of an emotional basket case to take it to these levels, and for that, and the fact that he has a truly proactive approach to death, I am incredibly grateful.

For what sets me apart from this other poor woman is that I know that even if I were to lose my husband, I would never lose my home. Being the ever practical man that he is (and working in the industry, which always helps), we are both insured up to the hairline, and worth far more dead than alive. Cheery thought that, but not terribly helpful it has to be said when it comes to paying the credit cards in life.

So now, whenever I get a bee in my bonnet about some hypothetical tragedy, he is always quick to point out that if he dies, whilst I may be alone, at least I will not be poor. And while I do of course protest that this will not make up for his absence, I know what a difference it would make. Of course I would still grieve and weep and wail, but at least I wouldn’t be forced to do it out on the street, or without a clue about how I was to house, feed, clothe and educate our kids.

That said, I still mutter loudly about the large amounts of money that leave our account every month to pay for the host of different insurance schemes, covering loss of life, limb and hubby’s income. It’s always galling to pay out for something that may never happen, but as my ever sensible husband would say, if you can’t afford to pay for your insurance every month, then you certainly can’t afford not to have any at all.

So to cut a long story short – the spin class ended, my heart rate returned to normal and I proceeded to extract the ‘cushioned’ saddle from my left Fallopian tube.

Somewhat short of breath and damp around the edges, I calculated that in the space of 45 minutes I had not only killed off my husband, mourned my loss and appreciated his knowledge of life insurance, but I had also lost just about enough calories to counter balance the Yorkie I wolfed down the night before. Quite an exhausting morning all in all, and one that I decided called for a Kit Kat to calm my shattered nerves.

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Any parent worth their weight in low sodium salt would probably agree, that children should be brought up knowing that it’s wrong to lie. Especially to their parents. But teaching this particular right from wrong can be tricky, especially when trying to push the message home to your child often entails telling a whole range of elaborate and complicated lies to begin with.

Believe it or not, the reason that we lie to our children in this way even has a name.  It’s called ‘Parenting by lying’.

So why do we even lie to begin with? Mainly to shield our children from the harsh reality of the world, and to protect their innocence for as long as humanly possible. Children already have quite enough on their plate, trying to get a grasp on their own tiny world, without also needing the complete low down on war, death, natural disasters and the wonders of childbirth.

We also lie to encourage their imagination; to teach them how to fabricate new worlds and interesting characters in their heads, so that they in turn will grow up to concoct intricate tales to tell their own kids.

And of course there are also those lies that we tell because we don’t know the answer to a question, or because we have already lied once, and have to carry on just cover our tracks. And those lies, that if the truth be told, just make our day-to-day life that little bit easier.

Oh what a tangled web we do weave.

“I’ll know if you’re lying to me” is a classic parenting approach that I often use myself.

Of course I won’t know, so that’s a lie for starters. All I’ll actually be doing is fine-tuning my Mummy Radar, making an educated guess and relying heavily on the fact that my trusting daughter still believes that I know everything that she does, says, thinks and feels.

Like a lamb to the slaughter, I’ve seen the fleeting look of panic pass through her eyes when employing this rather underhand tactic. I can hear her brain frantically ticking over as she quickly tries to weigh up whether she’ll be in more trouble for having finished off all of the biscuits, or for pretending that she hasn’t even been near the tin.

Luckily for her on that particular occasion, as she stood there with the last biscuit hidden behind her back, good sense prevailed. She confessed, apologised and promptly offered to make me a cup of tea. To go along with the last surviving biscuit.

Good sense wasn’t even in the vicinity however the time that she blamed her baby brother for the cup of juice spilt all over the floor. The fact that the ‘accused’ was strapped into his bouncer on the other side of the room, and come to think of it, unable to do anything more than wobble, didn’t exactly help her case. As I watched her suddenly clock her serious lack of judgement, the part of me that wasn’t telling her off actually wanted to take pity and explain that there’s no point telling a porky in the first place, if your story doesn’t even stack up.

Maybe I felt sorry for her because I’m probably to blame in the first place. After all, I’ve already shaped her whole childhood with white lies, fiction and complete fantasy. It’s what parents do.

It starts straight out of the womb. As babies they howl and cry. So we jig them around, rub their backs and say “It’s OK, it’s OK” over and over again.

“No it’s not OK”, the babies are probably thinking. “My tummy’s sore, my nappy’s full and quite frankly I’m starting to feel sick from all this bloody rocking”.

From that moment on the lies come thick and fast, tripping off our tongues like seasoned politicians.

Firstly there are those lies that fall into the category of far fetched and thinly veiled threats – If you don’t eat your vegetables you won’t grow up to be big and strong. If you eat your carrots you’ll see in the dark.  If you eat your crusts your hair will go curly. If you don’t look after your toys I’ll throw them away. If you hear the ice cream van playing a tune, it’s run out of ice cream. If you say another word you won’t get dinner. If you don’t go to sleep you’ll never wake up tomorrow. If you don’t stop that now I’ll take you straight home. I won’t tell you again.

And my personal favourite – Mummy’s can’t hear when they’re sleeping.

Then there are the 5 main brush off lies that I’m sure most parents tell on average at least 10 times a day.

I’ll think about it – loosely translated to mean ‘It ain’t ever going to happen’
We’ll see – loosely translated to mean  ‘You’ll have forgotten in a few hours’
Maybe – loosely translated to mean  ‘Never, never, never going to happen’
I’m listening loosely translated to mean  ‘I’m not even remotely interested’
I’ll be there in a minute  – loosely translated to mean ‘I’ll be there in half an hour when I’ve finished whatever it is I’m doing’

And then there are the Mother of All Lies. The ones that involve a fairy collecting teeth, a bunny dropping off chocolate eggs and a large fat man squeezing himself down the chimney (regardless of whether you have one or not) and leaving a suspicious looking package at the end of your bed.

That last one is actually the stuff of nightmares, is you leave out the flying reindeer and the ‘Ho Ho Ho’. After all, we drill into our kids the danger of talking to strangers, particularly big, bad men. And then we tell them that if they are good, one will be coming into their bedroom late at night and watching them while they sleep. Probably the worst case of mixed messages if ever I heard one.

But of all the lies, the best one that we parents have up our sleeves must be the one regarding those clever little eyes we have in the back of head. This one works especially well when you have as many mirrors in your house as we do. In some parts of our home I really can see round corners, and that includes the fridge, the food cupboard and the biscuit tin.

A few years ago, quite out of the blue, the very existence of my second set of eyes was even confirmed.

My daughter and I went for our visa medical check up, and the doctor in question was giving my eyes the once over with a torch. “So how are my other set of eyes?” I asked him, with a straight face and a hidden smirk. “The ones in the back of your head?” he asked immediately “Oh those look fine too”.

My daughters face was a picture. A mixture of complete disbelief and total awe. “Would you like me to check your other eyes too? he asked my daughter. “But I don’t have any,” she said.”Oh but you do,” he replied “everyone has them, they just don’t work properly until you have your own children”.

He peered into her eyes. “Yes, yours are growing quite nicely.” he confirmed.

My daughter was practically buzzing with excitement when we left the surgery. “I never really believed you Mummy, but the doctor saw mine growing so it MUST be true.” God bless child friendly doctors, they earn every penny and more.

That was of course only a harmless little white lie, the sort which are sometimes said just to be kind. But where I wonder do you draw the line, and how can you teach kids to know the difference between those lies that are ‘OK’ and those that will be categorised as a ‘lifetime grounded to the bedroom’ type offense?

Like when Mummy asks how she looks in her new dress, obviously it’s best not to tell her that her bottom looks like the back end of a bus. Or that the dinner she spent hours cooking tasted horrible. Or that Daddy is definitely loved more because he shouts less.

Needless to say I’m dreading the day that my children find out Father Christmas is just Daddy, a red suit and 3 cushions. Or that the lost teeth that were supposed to become stars, ended up at the back of my jewelery box. Or worse still, that the Christmas Elf that follows them around and watches their every move from October onwards doesn’t actually exist.

Oh how my life isn’t going to be worth living, not least because my daughter (who always likes to state the obvious) will undoubtedly be very quick to point out that not only has her life been one long lie, but I’m the one that’s been telling them.

I feel my payback may be right around the corner, just about the time when the hormones kick in.

In the papers this week were two stories, which when read side by side, demonstrated that the world of law and order has indeed gone stark raving bonkers, and Mr Common Sense has obviously packed up his bags and left the police force.

First we have Miss Kausar, a farmer’s daughter in India. She went to her father’s aide when Pakistani militants broke into their home and started beating him with sticks. They had demanded food and beds for the night, and he had bravely (or stupidly, depending on which way you look at it) said no. Obviously having inherited the brave gene, Miss Kausar came out from under the bed and struck her father’s attacker with an axe. She then used his own AK47 to finish him off.

Next in the news we have Renate Bowling, a 71-year-old great-grandmother from Thornton Cleveleys in the UK. She went to her own aide, when an intellectually challenged member of the British youth threw stones at her window. Intending to give the yob a piece of her mind, she bravely (or stupidly, depending on which way you look at it) set off in hot pursuit and then prodded him in the chest as she told him what she thought of him.

In India, Miss Kausar was commended by the police for her act of bravery. She has been hailed a national hero and nominated for the President’s gallantry award.

In the UK, Mrs Bowling was arrested by police and charged with assault. She had to use her climbing frame to climb up into the dock and then plead guilty to the charges. She also had to pay £50 costs.

And the moron who threw the stones in the first place? Unbelievably, even though he left bruises on Mrs Bowling wrists, these were put down to ’self-defense’ and he got off scott free.

Seriously? What is scarier? That the police saw fit to believe the sniveling little oik, and then shoved Grandma into the back of the van. Or that the magistrates, who are supposed to be in possession of a fully functioning brain, laid the blame squarely at a pensioners stocking clad feet.

It seems the days of wearing pants on the outside of your trousers and trying to defend yourself or your property are obviously well and truly over.

I remember about 15 years ago when we were living in Zimbabwe, our family home was broken into. The local police came to see us, and, if memory serves me rightly, said that next time if we were to see the intruders, we were to shoot them, drag them inside the house and then call the police. To my knowledge we didn’t even own a gun at that time, but there was the nice police man not only giving us permission to have one, he was also telling us we should be using one.

In the UK these days however, it seems the police really do seem to be showing just how little the ‘victim’ actually matters anymore.

They failed to put a stop to the Simmons ‘family from hell’, before they drove Fiona Pilkington to such depths of despair that she saw no way out, other than to burn herself and her daughter to death in their own car.

They also advised a mother in Warwickshire NOT to report a thug who had kicked in the front door and attacked her in her own home. Why? Because it might ‘inflame the situation’. Okay then. And there was us all being led to believe that the police were there to take the reports and then do something about them. Is that not why they get to waste tax payers money on their overpriced designer sunglasses and flashy top of the range cars in the first place?

It just wasn’t like that back in the days of Juliet Bravo – they got the job done. As did Cagney and Lacey, Starsky and Hutch and good old Edward Woodward in The Equalizer. And as for The A Team. Well, they could bring down an entire army with nothing more than a tractor, a sling shot and a basket of cabbages.

The police force today, it seems, can no longer even bring down the person who’s actually on the wrong side of the law.

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So, finally a doctor in the UK has been brave enough to speak out and voice what many people already think  – that instead of pandering to the needs of the morbidly and super morbidly obese with free mobility scooters and Disability Living Allowance, they should be made to contribute towards the massive strain they are placing on the health system, by paying more tax. And in turn, those who work hard to remain fit and healthy should be financially rewarded for their effort.

With obesity related issues draining every last penny out of the already overstretched NHS budget and £6.3 billion being spent fighting fat, this scheme sounds about on the mark to me. No doubt it’ll be met with cries of “You can’t say that”, but it has nothing to do with being judgmental or ‘fattist’, it’s just common sense. As is Dr Chand’s proposal to add tax to the type of fattening food that offers little or no nutritional value, yet guarantees maximum ‘junk in your trunk’.

Such a tax would of course cause outrage amongst the loyal Happy Meal brigade, all of whom would shriek loudly that it’s unfair to target those on lower incomes, who consider fast food a cheaper alternative. Quite frankly, tough. Tobacco and alcohol are already taxed in an effort to target smoking related illnesses and binge drinking, so why shouldn’t unhealthy food be too?

And as for the argument that junk food is the cheaper alternative, what a load of rubbish. It’s the easier alternative. With every supermarket offering cut prices bargains and more BOGOF offers than you can shake a stick at, it’s far cheaper to cook simple healthy food that it is to buy in a round of up-sized burgers, chips and coke. Even if you do have limited funds and an army of hungry mouths at home to feed. People who choose takeaways every night over cooking are just lazy, and parents who feed their kid’s junk for breakfast, lunch and tea should be done for child abuse. (see related post).

Strangely enough, many of these parents who claim they can’t afford to buy healthy food for their kids just so happen to smoke and drink. They think nothing of puffing £5 into thin air or pouring it down their throat, but they can’t stretch the family budget enough to incorporate something that hasn’t been regurgitated out of a deep fat fryer and into a styrofoam box. For £5 you can buy an entire chicken. So do you spend your money on 20 cigarettes, or a whole birds worth of protein to feed the kids? There’s the difficult decision of the week.

The argument that fast food is even fast is the biggest myth of all. At tea time it takes less time to scramble an egg, microwave a potato or even cook some pasta than it does to climb into the car, drive to the nearest nugget dispensing outlet, queue up, order, collect and scoff. Of course most children would probably prefer the nugget option, and as such be more likely to eat it up without a moan or a struggle, but since when was feeding them meant to be about taking the path of least resistance?

Children are just that, children. They should be eating what’s right for them, not what’s easiest for the parent, no matter how much money they have, how brain dead they are in the kitchen or whether by the end of the day they’ve simply lost the will to live. God knows I could well do without the constant battles about how many vegetables are lurking on my kid’s dinner plates, but I’d rather deal with the fuss they sometimes make than watch them both turn into Weebles, and wobble right off their Trip Trap chairs.

So is the idea of taxing the morbidly obese ever going to work? Nope, not a chance in hell. Why? Because many of those who fall into this category probably aren’t able to work in the first place. Their size, and the associated health problems that comes along with it, prevent them from carrying out even the simplest day-to-day tasks, never mind holding down paid employment. So if they were forced to pay more tax, they would no doubt need to be awarded more disability allowance to afford it.

Obesity is a problem that will carry on for many, many years to come. In part this is because many of those individuals who are contributing to the problem, simply refuse to accept any responsibility for their own actions. Instead they prefer to blame the government for its lack of support in helping them to lose weight. They complain about the shortage of free local sports centres and wide open spaces in which to jog. They claim that a bunch of carrots are exorbitantly priced and no one ever taught them how to cook.

In answer to that. It’s not up to the government (who lets face it can’t even run the country properly never mind a weight loss club) to prise the fork out of each and every chubby little hand across the land. There are 1000’s of miles of free pavements in the UK, go walk on them. If you can afford to upsize your £4.50 McDonalds meal you can afford a bunch of carrots. Go buy a cook book, or cheaper still, turn on the TV and listen to Jamie Oliver.

It seems incredible that so many people simply refuse to put two and two together and start addressing the problem, instead of comfort feeding and making it even worse. Even with all the fat fighting campaigns, health lectures and awareness raising TV programmes out there, all trying to ram the obvious message home, it’s hard to see what the solution will be.

Perhaps if those who need to shed the weight actually climbed out of their complimentary buggies and used their feet, they might be surprised to find the weight starting to drop off. Obviously there’s no miracle cure to losing this amount of weight, unless you see stomach stapling as a viable option, but it has been done, and is therefore not impossible.

I’m not even going to pretend to have a clue about the horrible vicious circle of a situation that you’d find yourself in, when you reach this sort of size. Or how demoralising and depressing it  could be to live with everyday.

I’m pretty sure that getting the weight loss ball rolling would indeed be painful, and a tremendous struggle of mind over matter to say the least. But any type of exercise was never designed to be easy, it was designed to be exercise. And anyone who’s ever tried a step class (and failed miserably) will know that exercise can be painful, complicated and downright humiliating whatever size you are.

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Lots of people heading over to live from the UK want to know, what’s life in Perth really like? Is it all blue skies, suntan cream and sandy beaches? Is it better than the UK in every way? Is everyone as ‘happy as Bruce’ and do the kangaroos all smile and wave you on your way as you speed off to work your 5 hour day?

In a word, and a very short one at that, NO.

Despite popular misconception, it does get cold here as well – Perth has long winters with not much sun and a lot of rain. Just like the UK, everyone isn’t happy all of the time, and kangaroos don’t really smile. I’d say if anything they smirk.

Some people, understandably, given how many burning hoops they have to leap through to get a visa, want to believe that Perth is the answer to all problems on earth – and the very opposite of evil old England. Yes, without a doubt it’s a lovely place to live and the lifestyle is so laid back that many have trouble getting upright again. But like every country it’s far from perfect.

Houses are still expensive and the cost of living high. Jobs are often hard to come by, and the working hours and commutes long. Older kids are often tempted by the huge drug scene on offer. Gang crime, knife crime and gun crime still fills up the news. Politicians still fail to deliver and continue to talk out of their backsides… So Perth may be many things to many people, but if you’ve built it up in your mind to be ‘perfection’,  then you might just be shocked to find it’s not the answer to all of your prayers.

Those migrants fresh from the plane and still marveling at the vastness of the sky, the millions of stars on view at night and the wide open beaches will tell you that ‘Perth is as good as it gets’. And that, I think can be very misleading to those trying to decide whether to make the move over. Firstly because the reality of life overseas (once the initial excitement has worn off, whether that takes a week, a month or ever a year) can sometimes be very different to what people expect, and secondly peoples idea of ‘as good as it gets’ can vary greatly.

Many people move over from the UK for a better lifestyle and a house in the sun, a chance to escape a country that is spinning out of control. But despite this, a massive 40% of those who move over from the UK still decide to go back again. That’s an awful lot of people making an extremely costly and difficult decision to return – a decision no one would ever take lightly, or do without good reason. Moving your life around the world is a big enough upheaval in the first place, moving back and starting again is an even bigger one.

Everyone has their own different reasons for not wanting to stay. Some find the distance from friends and family too great. Some feel too cut off from the rest of the world. Some realise that problems faced in the UK are also faced over here. Perhaps some just didn’t want to spend their weekends surfing, hiking, fishing, camping and drinking beer around a BBQ. Or maybe once they’d had a year of cooking sausages in Kings Park, eating fish & chips at Hillarys and trying to spot animals at Perth Zoo the novelty of it all simply wore off. Who knows, maybe the reality of life here simply never lived up to the hype.

So if you’re leaving England and heading south in search of perfection, then it might be wise to really get the lay of the land before your feet touch down on the dusty ground. This way you cut then risk of being surprised, disappointed or disillusioned  by what you find. Because if you arrive ready to start your new life Down Under with your eyes wide open, then you will probably love it all and never look back.

To quickly go back to the original question of what’s it like to live in Perth, here’s my answer:

Today I got woken up early by the radio. It was grey, wet and cold outside and the drone of irritating DJ’s put me back to sleep – until the dog barked millimetres away from my ear. I dragged two children from their beds and fed them breakfast. I made my own breakfast and then watched it conceal into concrete as I hunted for last nights homework sheet. I stepped on the dogs tail as he rushed past me to the backdoor. It was still pouring with rain, so as the school bell went in the distance I threw the kids into the car.

I returned from the school run, cleared up breakfast, emptied the dishwasher, put on the washing machine, swept half the garden off the kitchen floor. I then rounded up my son, his water cup and potty and headed out to the supermarket. We navigated the aisles with a renegade trolley while I fed him pancakes to keep him quiet and contained. I loaded the car, filled up with petrol and unloaded the car – all in the rain.

Next came lunch, as requested by my son. I watched him push it around his plate for so long that I gave up, ate it myself and then cleared up. He got all his toys out just to see what would take his fancy – we played with Lego, blocks and trains. The school bell sounded, so we set off with the dog in tow. We ran to the park so the dog could wear himself out while we all stood under a tree in the downpour. I supervised homework, cleared up the house, cooked dinner for the kids and remembered the washing in the machine from this morning. I shoved it all in the tumble drier as it was still raining.

Fed both kids their dinner – felt my blood pressure rise. Cleared up the mess. Supervised their bath time – felt my blood pressure rise further. Overcame a toddler meltdown when Tellytubbies said ‘Goodbye’. Shoehorned two kids into bed and then cleared up the house. Again. Started dinner. Again. Husband arrived home. We both collapsed in front of TV – exhausted. The dog barked at next doors cat and woke me up at 1am. I lay there staring at the clock and waiting to go back to sleep again. I started to panic when I couldn’t fall asleep. Then I suddenly remembered I’d forgotten to turn the tumble drier on. I went to sleep convinced I could already smell the washing going mouldy.

I got woken up early by the radio….

Point made? Living in Perth is like living in many other countries around the world – 5% sunshine and light, 95% reality of your day-to-day life. So whether you choose to live at the top of the world or down here at the bottom, your bills will still mount up and your funds sometimes run low, your children will still squabble, bicker and sulk, and the contents of your ironing basket will still have doubled in size everytime you walk past.

That, as they say, is life.

Paris, NY, London and Milan – the fashion capitals of the world. Exciting hubs of cutting edge design and stylish good taste. Where the beautiful flock to see and be seen, and designers fight to outdo each other, sending one unwearable outfit after another down the catwalk.

Perth on the other hand – not so much a hub as a gaping hole. The universal dumping ground for the last 3 decades worth of dodgy trends. A place that shops everywhere send their unwanted stock to, and the fashion police earn more in a weeks overtime than your average divorce lawyer would in a year.

Lord only knows why some of the clothes shops are so bad here, it’s not like there isn’t online access to the rest of the world and a constant supply of current fashion magazines. Perhaps it’s because the city is so isolated that it’s inhabitants just don’t care, or because the over zealous customs officials are rooting out all the best stuff and selling it off on Ebay. Whatever the reason, I’d have to say trends here seem to be at least a good 20 years behind the rest of the world.

Think ‘Hillbilly Chic’. A sort of trucker meets 80’s Chav meets unwashed backpacker.

Of course the limited choice of shops really don’t help. They are enough to turn even the most fashion conscious into the worst sort of fashion victim – or phobic. The options range from the likes of Kmart, Target and BigW for your cheap and cheerful basics – with basic being the operative word. Most garments seem to fall apart in the wash, beg for mercy under the heat of a gentle iron or change several dress sizes hours after being removed from the hanger. You get what you pay for of course, so for kids clothes, which have a shorter life span than the average family camera, these shops are great.

At the other end of the rather abysmal spectrum is Myers and David Jones. Both shops are supposedly the ‘Creme de la creme’ of Aussie shopping. Say no more. I’ve been into each a few times, but have never seen anything either particularly special or stylish, let alone affordable. I had a voucher to use up for David Jones recently, and it took me several visits to try and find anything that I even wanted to buy. In the end I settled for a pyjamas top. I only managed half an outfit as the top alone came to more than the voucher, and I was loathed to fork out even more for something I didn’t actually need.

Several washes later and the stitching on the top had all but unravelled. The fabric had also stretched so much on the sides that if I’d leapt off our roof, I could probably have coasted all the way out to Rottnest on a wind current.

Funnily enough a set of pyjamas I bought from Big W 3 winters ago are still going strong.

When talking to other POMS here, the one shop that most seem to miss is NEXT. If I had a decent pair of well fitted jeans for every time someone asked why they can’t open a store in Perth, my wardrobe would be overflowing with denim.

Clothes aside, there also seems to be an underlying scruffiness ingrained into the WA culture. The mullet for instance is incredibly popular over here, and it’s not uncommon to see an entire family out and about, all sporting matching scraggly rats tails down their backs. I think that like the fashion, photos in mens barbers over here must be somewhat outdated.

The other trend, one that never ceases to amaze me, is the notion that footwear is entirely optional. Now I’m not talking about going barefoot to the park or the beach – that would be understandable. I’m referring to those I’ve seen without shoes in IKEA, the city centre, restaurants, supermarkets, the cinema and the most dangerous of all, or so you’d think, Bunnings.

Revolting, dirty looking feet aside,  surely there have to be some serious health and hygiene laws being broken as kids run across the urine soaked floors of the public toilets and straight down the fresh produce aisle of the neighbouring supermarket.

And needless to say, if such people don’t ever wash their feet, it’s highly unlikely they’d wash their hands..

I followed one such woman and her snot encrusted child around Coles last week, and snapped her for with my phone for proof. Given that she looked like she was probably capable of beating me to death with one of those blocks of cheese, I’ve airbrushed her features slightly. But to be honest, I very much doubt she’d ever stumble across my blog, or be able to read this post.

This shoeless woman I have to say was certainly not alone. I spotted several others, overgrown toe nails and all, hot footing it through the freezer section.

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Perhaps people in WA feel there’s no point bothering with their appearance, because there’s really nowhere to dress up and go. I can relate to this, and know from experience it’s a very easy and highly dangerous trap to fall into. Before you know what’s happened, you can find that you’ve metamorphosed into a homeless bag lady, wearing the same old tracksuit for 6 days in a row and have forgotten to change out of your PJs on Sunday.

Now I’ve never been one for making a huge effort with clothes, or really caring that much about how I look, but a while back I realised I was starting to stoop to such a level. This was around the time I arrived at the school to collect my daughter and realised, as I went to get out the car, that I’d left the house in my slippers.

So the following weekend, when heading out to Coles to do the weekly shop, I dug around in the back of my wardrobe and put on a jacket, a scarf and my high-heeled boots – the sort of clothes I’d have once worn in the UK when popping out to fill the car up with petrol. Taking it one daring stop further, I took my hair out of a pony tail and dusted off my mascara,  pumping the tube vigorously to break the old clumps off the brush.

My son walked straight past me in the hallway, and then did a double take as he disappeared around the corner. I don’t think he actually recognised me. How sad is that.

“Oh you do look pretty Mummy” my daughter said as I appeared from the bedroom, clearly impressed with my ‘Extreme Makeover’. I loosely translated this compliment to mean that I normally didn’t.

“So where are you off to then, seeing as you’re all dressed up?” enquired my slightly suspicious husband.

With that I realised that I had better start making more of an effort, before I reached the day where I would think nothing of going to the shops still wrapped in my duvet, or end up with skin as thick as a rhinos hide on a pair of black and scaly feet.