After a rather successful hen weekend in Manchester with five of my best buddies, I’m being greedy and having a second local one this Saturday.

This time it’s for all the female (well, those old enough to drink!) wedding guests. We’re going to M’s beauty in Burbage which a favourite of ours. Not only do you get a half hour beauty treatment, but you also get a four course, home cooked meal. It’s great value for money and we always have a great time.

I am a bit worried though about what they might make me dress up in. I just hope it’s not a playboy bunny outfit!

It’s flippin hard work running a business (or two). On top of which I look after 5 kids including one stepdaughter and one foreign student and to top it all we’re getting married in less than six weeks!

I’ve decided that if I ever went back to working for ‘The Man’, I should look for project manager jobs. I think I may even be over qualified!

My kids do a minimal amount of activities outside of school. The reason being, is it starts to get very expensive!

My OH’s ex-wife has recently started to ask for more money as she says the money we give her doesn’t even cover my step-daughters activities!! We then found out she takes part in an activity every day except for the weekends we have her. Is that too much?

My boys have to pick and choose what they do so that it falls within our budget. Once middle has played football, youngest has taken his spanish class and eldest has had his pocket-money there isn’t much left to go around.

Middle has been thinking about going horse riding but just to buy the speciality equestrian clothing is going to cost a fortune before the riding lessons even start!

OH bought himself some golf clubs for his last birthday and yet still they sit in the garage, brand spanking new and never taken out of the bag! Sigh!! Think I might sell them to pay for riding lessons!

A couple of years ago we had a new kitchen fitted. It’s a lovely kitchen with high cupboards that reach to the ceiling.

Lovely, until I want to get something from the back of the top cupboard! I’m not a shorty, in fact at 5ft inches I’m classed as above average height and with heels on I could stretch to 5ft 9! Even so I just cannot reach to get things at the back. Up until now, dining rooms chairs have been dragged along the floor and back or I’ve asked OH who at 6ft 3 can just about reach on his tip toes!

So, yesterday I finally invested in a couple of two step stools and my life has suddenly improved! I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago!!

I have one downstairs and one upstairs to reach into the top of the wardrobe. I am officially a  very happy bunny!

In exactly five days time, eldest will be breaking up from school…again.

Nothing breaks up a year like the long, school holidays.

Last year I booked up several camping trips and the holidays simply flew by! But not this year…oh no….I’ve managed to organise absolutely nothing. Zip…zilch…nowt…you got it….nil!!

Now that my bakery business is taking off, I’ve had time to think of little else…except of course the wedding.

Eldest is being whisked away to Italy by his mostly absent father, so that is obviously great for him, but as for the other two horrors!! Plus we’ve got my soon to be step daughter staying for a couple of week and if mum don’t organise anything, nobody organises anything!

I wonder if Aldi still have that speacial offer on Gin!

Here’s a question for you.

Anybody ever taken out wedding insurance?  Supposedly, the average wedding now costs just under £20,000! Really? Are couples seriously spending that kind of money on one day? I find it hard to believe, especially when they can do it for 12 grand on Don’t Tell the Bride!

I think our wedding will ultimately cost somewhere in the region of £6,ooo to £7,000 which is still a fair old chunk of money and I suppose it pays to cover all the ‘what ifs’.

‘What if’ my dress gets ruined. ‘What if’  the venue goes up in flames the day before. ‘What if’ he doesn’t turn up?!

But, they are all just ‘What ifs’! ‘What if’ it all goes to plan and nothing goes wrong and we end up out-of-pocket because we took out wedding insurance?

Our tent overlooking Filey

Summer is upon us once more and that means we’ll be getting the tent out again soon!

I went camping for the first time last year and loved it despite saying for years that I would never, ever go camping, and yet I’m really looking forward to it this year.

We invested in a decent eight man tent and bought all the basics. We went on 4 camping trips in total last year and at every campsite I would spend some time wandering around, gawping at other tents and the type of equipment that people had. I found it fascinating, almost like living in a miniature home. Some people were really inventive and had TV’s, fridges and wardrobes set up. Many of the tents were amazing too, like these Sierra Designs Tents which look like they would make camping on a mountain safe and comfortable!

Now that we have the basics, this year I want to step it up a notch and have my sights set on a carpet, a blow up sofa and a cooker with a grill. My favourite place to wander around is Go Outdoors. I could spend hours in that place, drooling over all stuff you can take with you.

I’ve gone so mad, I  think our next purchase is going to be a trailer so that we can take it all with us!

Did you know I was getting married? Oh you did!!

It’s all very exciting and things have moved up a notch or two. I’ve chosen, paid for and bought home my dress. It’s GORGEOUS!! Wish I could describe it to you but OH does have a tendancy to read my blog.

Actually he has SEEN my dress!! He was with me when I first spotted it a couple of months ago, but can he remember what it’s like? I doubt it.

On Tuesday I found a gorgeous pair of shoes in the sale, a perfect match for my dress. I bought them home and pointed out to him that the bag next to the sofa must NOT be looked in under any circumstances.

‘Why?’ he asked

‘Because it has my wedding shoes in!’  I squealed

‘Well, shouldn’t you put it away somewhere safe then?’ He sensibly suggested

‘Why….do you think you’ll be overcome with curiosity?’ I smiled

‘No, but the kids might get them out and use them as a weapon on each other.’

Oh!

So that’s my outfit all sorted, onto the important job of organising the hen do.

I feel I’m a bit long in the tooth now to go to Blackpool for the weekend, or end up in some trashy nightclub three sheets to the wind. No….it’s time to do something grown up and sophisticated.

My friends are very keen on a spa day or weekend spa break.

How I imagine myself at a spa

I think these are fantastic ideas because we can still get a bit merry the night before and then detox ourselves the next day and I do absolutely love spa’s.

It’s a great opportunity to get some good girlie friends together, leave the kids with our OH’s and spend a weekend gossiping, shopping and having a few glasses of the fizzy stuff.

Ooooh…I’m really excited. Think I’ll go and book it up straight away!