I do feel sad about this, but relieved to have made a decision. I’ve been umming and ahhing about it for a while – basically hoping things would pick up without me doing much, which hasn’t been the case. That’s the other thing – I am massively short on time, what with my ‘real’ job, looking after the kids, doing up the new house, settling into our new life in the country, and trying to write. Life’s been completely insane these last few weeks. I’ve had no time for Peas & Love – and if you’re thinking of going into it, take it from me that retail requires a big commitment to make it work. A BIG commitment.

I’ve got so much going on at the moment that I’m going to take a short break from blogging too – until the end of the month. I’ve got LOADS to tell you, from my interior decorating plans to my take on a homemade Christmas – to the fact I’ve got a new puppy (or will have once she’s old enough to leave her mum), but it’ll have to wait until things have settled down a bit. Here’s a photo of my daughter Savannah with Lola though – talk about love at first sight, she’s only 17 months old (Savannah, I mean – Lola is only 3 weeks!) but she held the puppy so carefully and wouldn’t put her down!

I also need to sell off all my stock, so to help things along a bit, I’m offering a discount of 20% on the entire shopping basket until the end of the month. Just enter the coupon code November at checkout. Now I’m closing up, things are actually selling pretty well so you may need to be quick!

Anyway, thanks so much to all of you who’ve bought my stuff and read my blog for the last year or so. I really appreciate it. And stick with me – the shop may be going, but that will free up more time for me, and blog-wise, this is just the beginning….

It’s amazing. All you have to do is bung a cheap cut of meat in with a mugful of liquid of some description, cook it on low for 8 hours, and you end up with the most melt-in-your-mouth, falling-off-the-bone-tender meat imaginable. Now I work from home, it’s particularly enjoyable as my whole house smells delicious with the CrockPot doing its thing. I’ll probably turn into a right bloater soon, but never mind.

I’ve slow cooked pretty much every meal this week – we’ve had duck legs, venison stew, epic pork (which completely lived up to its title – I’m planning on serving that with some sour cream and tortillas as part of my Christmas Eve spread) and gammon in cola. That was tonight’s supper, with some sweet potato mash and green beans. It went down a storm. My son asked me to cook it again tomorrow – high praise as he can be a little fusspot. The cat went completely nuts until we gave her some – the kids had theirs earlier this evening, and she was trying to jump onto the breakfast bar to steal it off their plates. I hope it was the gammon rather than the cola that was exciting her so much – she’s only got about 6 teeth left as it is, poor little tramp kitty. (The vet says some cats just have weak teeth, and she was an abandoned kitten that we took in so may not have had enough milk as a baby. She’s actually a very good mouser but her victims never have a mark on them, so I assume she scares them to death.)

I am – naturally, darlings – bang on trend as apparently slow cooking is all the rage at the moment. I wouldn’t actually know first-hand as I rarely eat out these days, and when we do it tends to be Nandos or Pizza Express – somewhere quick where they don’t mind kids making a mess – but I’m obviously subconsciously tuned into the modern zeitgeist, doncha know? Or not – I read an article in The Times a couple of weeks ago about how you can tell if you’re middle class, and was slightly depressed to find I ticked most of the boxes, including the one about making your own chutney. It’s not that I didn’t think I was middle class – I’m a dentist’s daughter and I ride horses – it’s just annoying to discover I’m a bit of a cliche. Anyway, I’m pretty sure there was something about the slow cooking revival in there too. If not, it should have been.

Tomorrow I’ve got some oxtail to turn into casserole. I’m doing slow-cooked lamb shoulder on Sunday. And on Saturday…we’ll go out for a curry. Well, it’s important to ring the changes, don’t you think?

More articles:
Have you got a Noguchi coffee table or are you like Noguchiwhaaat?
The truth about camping. You read it here first.
Check out our gorgeous – well, passable if covered in icing sugar – recipe for blondies

Anyway, moving on from that scintillatingly brilliant piece of deductive reasoning, I can’t muster up my usual enthusiasm for Hallowe’en (which, by the way, is NOT an American custom that we’ve slavishly adopted, whatever the papers sneeringly make out. All Hallows Eve has pagan origins in the Celtic festival Sahmain, marking the end of harvest and beginning of winter, which existed for a good few centuries before anyone came  up with the idea of dressing as a zombie cheerleader.) I think I’m just really tired after the move, and a weekend at Centreparc in Longleat with my family, which consisted largely of swimming for hours, and clearing up toddler vomit.

I’ve tried to get into the spirit of the season. Yesterday, I made toffee apples. It took me three goes – turns out you can’t just make a small amount of the toffee, enough for say, two or three apples, you have to make a ton of the stuff or the pan boils dry before the toffee reaches the requisite ‘hard crack’ setting point. I now have a huge plateful of toffee apples that nobody can eat because my husband doesn’t like them, Savannah’s seven teeth wouldn’t be able to cope, and I’ve totally gone off them because I’ve caught some vile lurgy off the kids and spent most of the early part of this morning staring mournfully into a toilet bowl.

They look good, though, don’t they? The recipe was pretty simple – just boil up 400g caster sugar with 350g golden syrup, 350ml water and 8 drops of red food colouring. Heat at a medium temperature for about 45 mins, until the sugar thermometer (I have one, get me) reaches 140 degrees centigrade, or alternatively, if you drop a little into cold water it forms a very hard ball. Then dip your be-sticked apples in the goo, coat (carefully, boiling sugar syrup is not to be messed with) and leave on a piece of greaseproof paper to set.

Savannah and I also made ghost biscuits yesterday. Here she is, rolling away. Most of the dough ended up either on the floor, or in her mouth. I used a very simple biscuit dough – 150g sugar combined with 150g butter, an egg and 250g flour and 50g cocoa powder – but I think I used self-raising flour as the biscuits are a bit puffy. This is what happens when you cook while going down with a lurgy; you get all erratic. Plus I now have a tin full of biccies I can’t touch either. And Sam wants me to make him a zombie-skeleton costume for the little party we’re going to tomorrow. That should really help with the nausea!

Happy Hallowe’en! Bah humbug.

More articles:
Have you got a Noguchi coffee table or are you like Noguchiwhaaat?
The truth about camping. You read it here first.
Check out our gorgeous – well, passable if covered in icing sugar – recipe for blondies

I’ve tried to stay away from politics recently – on my blog and on Facebook/Twitter, anyway. This is partly because I’ve been too busy to argue, and partly because if you suddenly find a close friend wants to bring back hanging or massacre thousands of badgers, you find yourself looking at them askance. Some things it’s best just not to know.

Also, you’re a woman talking about politics, even if you’ve got a PhD and a top job and are raising five children single-handed, you’ll still find you are open to massive levels of patronisation and condescension. Politics, it seems, is a man’s game. Take, for example, the way Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour leader and former minister for women, is referred to (largely by right-wing males on politics forums) as Harriet ‘Harm-man’ or Harriet ‘Hate Men.’ Hilarious. Or the massive focus on Conservative MP Louise Mensch’s looks – and the abuse she received on Twitter as a result of it. Or even the way Anne Widdecombe is constantly held up as an example of ugliness, despite the fact they regularly have to replace the mirrors in the entire House of Lords because they keep spontaneously smashing. In all three cases, whatever you think of their politics, the women’s sexuality has been used as a tool to denigrate and devalue their opinions and credibility. Nobody thinks Zac Goldsmith, Conservative MP for Richmond, must be a moron because he has the looks of a Greek god. It’s totally one-sided.

But I didn’t really want to talk about that – I’ve kind of veered off message a bit. What I wanted to say is that, as a left-leaning woman with strong environmental interests, I have deep concerns about what’s going on with this government, and I just want to put them out there. I read this this morning – don’t be put off by the dodgy spelling, it makes some interesting points about how the Conservatives massively over-stated the damage Labour did to the economy while in power, which has proved to be something of an own goal as now the markets don’t take us seriously, leading to sluggish growth (as apparently we’ve had some, even if it’s invisible to the naked eye.)

Environment-wise, it’s not just the woolly-headed thinking over the badger culls, or that nonsense about selling off the forests, or the failure to introduce legislation to protect our declining bee population, or the fact that the Conservative’s pre-election promise of being ‘the greenest government ever’ was really just a massive great lie. What’s going on in the energy sector is particularly alarming. Today, it was announced that Peter Lilley MP, climate change sceptic and oil company director, has been appointed to the House of Commons energy and climate change select committee. Christ. That’s like sticking a fox in charge of a hen house – and, together with Osborne’s attempt to slash funding to wind farms while offering tax breaks to companies engaging in the high-risk, environmentally damaging activity of drilling for gas in the pristine waters off Scotland – indicates that the government is in the pockets of the multi-trillion pound non-renewable energy industry.

As consumers, this is likely to impact negatively, not just on our environment, but on our wallets. With oil getting more and more scarce, but few resources invested in any of the credible alternatives (of which there are many) our increasing dependence on non-renewable resources will see energy prices soaring sky-high in years to come. They’ll have us over an (oil) barrel. In the meantime, my blood is boiling – a bit like the North Sea when the drilling starts.

That said, there is a (slight) upside to the government’s failure to turn the flagging economy around. In times of recession, when people are looking to make savings at home, they turn the central heating down. Helped by mild weather and the insane prices of fuel, this has led to the UK making the biggest savings in greenhouse gases in the EU over the last year. Austerity has an upside environmentally, but that’s probably not much consolation to the pensioners shivering in their unheated homes. The sensible thing is for the Powers That Be to start investing in renewable energy that will make it affordable to heat our homes without tearing the environment a new bumhole at the same time. Come on, Conservatives – or Lib Demmers, where the hell are you in all this? Sort it out.

This is because – ta-da-daaaah! I am doing Christmas this year. This is a biiiiiig deal – my parents have hosted Christmas since, well, since I was born. Although my sister and I are married now, and my brother is in a serious relationship, we still hoik our arses (which is no way to refer to the husband and kids now, is it? Hee hee) down to Devon to spend the festive season arguing like teenagers over what to watch on TV and who ate the last mince pie, while Mum tells us all off for drinking too much as Dad simultaneously tops up all our glasses. Brilliant times!

But now I have a big new house, and room to put everyone up, and – coming soon –  a new kitchen with a huge range oven, I am taking over the Christmas mantle, for this year, anyway. I absolutely adore cooking, and hosting dinner parties (yes, yes, I know I am painfully middle class, but I’m a dentist’s daughter, what do you expect?) I’m also pretty fond of my family. They’re alright, as families go. I’ve got Mum and Dad, my bro and his girlfriend, and my sis and her hubby and two kidlets all coming for Christmas and Boxing Day, plus I’ve invited the inlaws and my lovely brother-in-law for Christmas Eve lunch.

So that’s quite a lot of cooking! And organising…I have a few niggles – mainly that we’re extending the kitchen next month, so the building work will need to be done on time. I’ve never had any serious building work done before, and I’ve heard rumours that builders can be a wee bit vague about details such as timings. But if Sarah Beeny can crack the whip, so can I. At the moment, a week after the move, the house is still in total chaos. I can’t find anything – my shoes, my bank card reader, the cat. She’s taken to sleeping in one of the many half-unpacked boxes, just popping out when she wants feeding.

But hey, I am sure it will be fiiiiiiine. In the meantime, I am already planning my menu. I’m thinking: Spanish tapas-y type feast for Christmas Eve, boiled ham and coronation turkey on Boxing Day, and on the big day itself, a traditional Christmas lunch but with a boozy chocolate cake (recipe supplied by my friend Mark) as well as a Christmas pudding. Nobody in my family actually likes Christmas pudding, but I’m pretty sure there’ll be complaints if I leave if off the menu. Breaking with tradition is a big thing, you see. Particularly in my family. I’ve got some big boots to fill – and I don’t dare get this wrong!

Which is why I’ll be ordering the turkey later today! How’s that for organised?

More articles:
Have you got a Noguchi coffee table or are you like Noguchiwhaaat?
The truth about camping. You read it here first.
Check out our gorgeous – well, passable if covered in icing sugar – recipe for blondies

I don’t feel good about this – but (I hasten to say) it’s only temporary. Moving house – and taking my children out of childcare while that happens – has coincided with a busy time in my professional life, particularly as we’ve got so much to pay for right now that I don’t feel like I can turn down extra work. I normally work three days a week, but for the last couple of weeks, it’s been full-time. I work from home, which is great – but you still need childcare, or you just end up feeling like you’re being pulled in lots of different directions, and not really doing any of them justice.

What I normally do is blitz a few hours of work, then take the kids out for a couple of hours to softplay or a playground – somewhere I am totally focused on them – then catch up on what else needs doing once they’re in bed. It’s far from perfect, but luckily they’re doing their settling-in days at their new nursery now, and hopefully we’ll soon get back to a routine that suits all of us.

Well, most of us. My three-year-old has got very used to being at home with Mummy all the time. Today, during his settling-in day, he had a massive meltdown when I tried to leave, hiding under my coat and wiping snot all over my jeans’ arse. It wasn’t the proudest Mummy moment, but I kind of feel I have myself to blame for inflicting the upheaval of not just moving house, but staying with relatives while we were between houses. Admittedly, he absolutely adored staying with both sets of grandparents, and being the complete centre of attention. That might be another reason why he’s so reluctant for things to go back to ‘normal.’

‘You enjoyed nursery, though?’ I said earlier, knowing full well he’d stopped howling the moment I was out of earshot.

‘Yes. They let me do cutting, with scissors! You don’t let me do cutting.’

‘No, because you tried to cut up your sister’s clothes. So, as it was really good fun and you made some new friends, you’re not going to cry next time I take you to nursery, are you?’

‘Oh yes I am. I’m going to do this as soon as you try and leave.’ And he did a really quite good impersonation of himself having a temper tantrum, only this time he stopped when I told him to.

Great. On the bright side, his sister toddled off without so much as a backwards glance at me. She’s a mummy’s girl, but not clingy if there’s fun to be had. Yet. She’s learning at the feet of the manipulative Machiavelli though.

Still, all this CBeebies means I’m well-placed to join in the most important debating issue of the moment: is Mr Bloom super-hot, or what? He looks too much like one of my exes for my taste, but I get the appeal. I just prefer Andy. He looks like he’d be a right…laugh. Ahem.

Hey, hey, and I’m back in the roooooooom! By which I mean I am finally back online after a few days in the broadband-free wilderness that is/was our new house, and the contents of my shop are no longer boxed up in a warehouse in High Wycombe, but all packaged up and lovely in the next room. So visit the shop, buy nappies or CJ’s stuff – and look out for the fantastic new lines we’ve got coming later in the week. I’m going to be stocking one-of-a-kind (well, to be strictly honest, two-of-a-kind) change bags made by the fabulous Stephanie of Stickytarts, and ta-da-daaah, more awesome Star Wars and kilt nappies courtesy of the wonderful Panda Pants! They’ll be online later in the week and are sure to sell out quickly, so keep an eye on the Facebook page for updates.

I won’t keep you long as I’ve just finished off a load of freelance work and am now sitting down with a cuppa and watching Switch, that new thing about witches in Camden, with Stacey out of Eastenders on ITV2. The Craft is one of my favourite films so I have high expectations – although so far, hmmmmm. It’s like a kid’s show, with swearing. I keep expecting Mr Tumble to pop out.

Anyway, on a more sombre note, just in case you weren’t aware, October 15th – today – is Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I’ve never experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth myself, but I know those who have, or who’ve had no choice but to terminate a much wanted pregnancy. It’s always desperately hard to know what to say to someone in that situation. If we say nothing, it’s usually because we’re too scared of blurting out something incredibly trite and unhelpful to open our mouths. But it doesn’t mean we don’t care, and today we’re thinking about you, and the ones you’ve loved and lost. Lots of love to you all.

More articles:
Have you got a Noguchi coffee table or are you like Noguchiwhaaat?
The truth about camping. You read it here first.
Check out our gorgeous – well, passable if covered in icing sugar – recipe for blondies

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More articles:
Have you got a Noguchi coffee table or are you like Noguchiwhaaat?
The truth about camping. You read it here first.
Check out our gorgeous – well, passable if covered in icing sugar – recipe for blondies

Although its got to be said, I do still have a nice comfy bed to sleep in, even out in the wilds of, erm, a Welsh campsite. Our T25 has a double ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ bed in the back. That’s pretty much why I agreed to get a camper van in the first place.

Ah, beds. I miss sleep. I don’t think I’ve had a full night’s sleep in over a year now – since Savannah was born, basically. She’s always been a terrible sleeper – and she doesn’t nap! I’m lucky if I get 15 minutes peace a day. She’ll sleep in the buggy or the car, but as soon as it stops moving, those beady little eyes flick open and she’s off. My 3-year old has always been a good sleeper – as a baby, I’d just put him down in his cot and he’d nod off without making a fuss – but he’s up a couple of times a night at the moment. I think he’s more unsettled by the move/state of limbo we’re in at the moment than he seems.

Oops, drifting off topic! Back to camping, and beds. The one problem with camping (OK, one of the problems) is that the kids are often too excited to go to sleep, and it doesn’t help that they have to lie on a roll mat – which really isn’t all that different to just lying on the floor. Comfy it ain’t. (My son usually sleeps under the poptop, but sometimes he just won’t. Kids are contrary creatures aren’t they?) We were sent a toddler ReadyBed to test and I’ve got to say, it’s a  brilliant solution. It consists of a blow-up mattress, pillow and cover and comes with a simple-to-use pump, which inflates the bed in minutes, plus a cover that can be easily removed for washing, and a carry case. It takes up no space when deflated, but once inflated, it never actually seems to deflate, unlike nearly every inflatable bed I’ve ever used before. (I usually wake up with my arse dragging against the ground. Like a baboon. Nice.)

The one we’ve got is a Gruffalo ReadyBed, which is even cooler. My son’s nuts about the Gruffalo, unsurprisingly, as it’s awesome.

The beds are sized at 18 months plus for toddlers, then 4 plus for bigger kids. Apparently you can get adult ReadyBeds too – probably not Gruffalo ones though. Shame!

So for happy camping, I recommend. They’d be great for sleepovers too. Ah, sleeeeeeppppp……..

My first ReadyBed costs £36.99 – for stockist details call 0800 389 8591 or visit www.worldsapart.com

More articles:
Have you got a Noguchi coffee table or are you like Noguchiwhaaat?
The truth about camping. You read it here first.
Check out our gorgeous – well, passable if covered in icing sugar – recipe for blondies

We’re just back from a family wedding near Penrith in Cumbria. Very lovely it was too. The wedding itself took place at the stunning Greystoke Castle – although I must admit a tiny part of me was disappointed when I realised it wasn’t actually Castle Greyskull. Yeah, yeah, I know Eternia doesn’t actually exist and He-Man is probably married by now anyway – whevs – but you’ve got to admit it would be a cool venue for a wedding.

Me and Mr Peas opted out of the whole wedding shebang ourselves by sloping off on our own to Las Vegas to get married four years ago (something I’d always wanted to do, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat) but I do love a wedding. My favourite part is the speeches. I’ve experienced some classics – my stepdad being a significant contributor to the genre. At my sister’s wedding, he went down the traditional route of ‘ribbing the bride and groom.’ His speech went something like this. “Tim turned to me with a serious face and said, ‘I need to ask you something. Can I marry Pippa?’ ‘Thank god!’ I replied. ‘I thought you were going to ask to borrow some money!’” Mr Peas thought this was hilarious. I booked the tickets to Vegas as soon as we got home.

Another favourite was at a good mate’s wedding, at which an old family friend (the groom’s family, not mine) gave a speech. He was from rural Northern Ireland, whereas my friend had been living in London and working in magazines for years, so most of the wedding guests were media types – but we weren’t so much a sophisticated crowd as incredibly immature. The speech was in verse, but also contained the immortal line ‘he’s been trying for ages to get his ring on her finger.’ The family friend looked completely baffled at the sniggers and snorts that erupted all over the room.

I always end up getting hammered at weddings. I mean to have two or three glasses of wine, tops, but by the time my glass has been topped up a few times during the speeches, I’ve completely lost count and can usually only tell by the banging headache and slight sense of shame  - and my husband’s insistence that I rocked up back at the rental cottage at 12.30am when I could have sworn I was tucked up next to him by 10.30pm – that I probably went over my limit. A looooong way over my limit. I remain eternally grateful that I am too cack-handed with technology to be able to work my phone and/or computer when drunk (I can barely do it sober.) God knows what embarrassing nonsense I’d come out with on social media. What might seem like a witty comment after 2 bottles of Lambrini is probably the kind of thing that gets you fired – or arrested, or just looking like a major twat, which is nearly as bad –  in the sober light of day. Drunk Tweeters, I salute your bravery. Or stupidity. Whatever.

More articles:
Have you got a Noguchi coffee table or are you like Noguchiwhaaat?
The truth about camping. You read it here first.
Check out our gorgeous – well, passable if covered in icing sugar – recipe for blondies