Please Vote!

Tomorrow the UK has to make a very important decision, and although as a UK citizen I’ve always been affected by the result, due to a change in circumstances the result for me is now potentially life changing. I feel compelled to explain to you why in the hope this sways any of you who may still be undecided.

In 2015 my family situation changed, leaving me as a single parent with two young children. I have been self-employed since 2007 and fortunately my job allows me to work from home. I don’t however earn a great deal, so when my situation changed I investigated what my options were. I live in a privately rented flat in East London, and even though the government doesn’t set rent prices, they do decide how much they think they should be and set housing benefit accordingly. Where I live, the housing benefit cap is around two thirds of the average rental price, and that’s being generous. As I work I don’t receive the full benefit, so I get just over 50% of my actual rent due to the cap. I am extremely grateful for the support I get financially from the welfare system, and I am managing. But if my rent was to be put up, or my landlords decided they were going to sell, I would be absolutely fucked.

There is no social housing list anymore. For me to get housed, my children and I would have to become homeless. That’s it. Private landlords don’t favour single mothers and there is no social housing in which to be placed. So we would be put into temporary shelter indefinitely. And that can be anywhere in the borough, so not necessarily anywhere near my children’s school or nursery.

Housing benefit goes into the pockets of private landlords. How does that make sense? Social housing has been sold to people who now rent those properties out to tenants receiving housing benefit. Poor people aren’t getting benefits, rich people are.

I don’t want to be giving the income support I get to a private landlord. I want to be in social housing that I am secure and safe in, giving me the opportunity to retrain so I can work more and then eventually buy my own house for my family. All the current system is doing is lining private landlord’s pockets, and the whole time I’m on the edge of potential homelessness. And I am one of the lucky ones!

As a mother I also obviously worry about my children’s health, and if the NHS is privatised what will happen? I can’t afford monthly insurance payments, and even if I could, when have you ever known an insurance company to pay out without a fight? If the recent attacks that have happened in Manchester and London had happened in America, the families of the victims that had died would now be receiving the medical bills for them. The ambulance, surgeons, hospital costs. Can you even begin to imagine that? Healthcare is vital to us, why should anyone have to pay for it?

My daughter’s school has recently lost a number of staff due to the cuts. The classrooms are fit to burst and all the teachers look knackered. All the money we have in this country and they’re cutting funding to schools? These children are going to be the next generation of doctors, teachers, scientists and bankers so we need to invest in them.

I’m keeping this brief as to encourage more people to read it, but the bottom line is the Conservative Party have rich people’s interests at heart. They don’t care about me, or my children. They will happily squeeze everything they can out of those with nothing to ensure the rich stay rich. I do not believe this is right.

However you vote, please just vote to get them out. If you don’t we are going to lose the NHS, our schools are going to suffer, and many families like mine will face an uncertain future. Here is a website that tells you how your vote will best stop them, and links to the other main parties manifestos.

Please share this in the hope it makes some difference, and thank you for taking the time to listen to me.

Amy, Lola & Juno

 

http://www.stopthetori.es

http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/green-guarantee

http://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto

 

 

 

 

 

Raw Milk and Orange Chocolates

This is the first time I’ve experimented with making milk chocolate. I adapted the chocolate recipe from http://www.winklamiroy.com/ ‘s Instagram page and combined it with some of the ingredients of the Ombar Coco Mylk bar http://ombar.co.uk/

It is rather nutty, like a Ferrero Rocher almost in texture, so you may prefer not to add as many nuts. I believe you may need to substitute them though as the mixture needs firming up, but ground almonds may be an alternative. These ingredients are just a guide, you could add more or less sugar, orange or coconut etc. The key is to keep tasting. You could use milk powder in place of the creamed coconut, this may help thicken it also, I’ve not tried so I don’t know. I like the taste of coconut and the chocolate is really creamy with it. It is quite oily, be prepared, if you’ve ever melted chocolate you’ll know it is oily but this doesn’t have any stabilisers in it so will leave your fingers a little greasy. Lastly as it’s made from butter and oil you need to keep it in the fridge or eat it quickly once taken out.  

Ingredients: Makes around 46 truffle size portions

250g cacao butter

200g creamed coconut

95g cacao powder

200g ground hazel nuts (you can always grind whole hazelnuts in a food blender)

2 1/2 tsp vanilla paste

4 tbsp coconut palm sugar (or any sweetener of your choice)

Zest of 1 1/2 oranges

Method: 

Place a heatproof bowl over a small pan of simmering water ensuring the water doesn’t touch the bowl.

Throughout the cooking process check to see the water isn’t too hot and burning any contents. I find once boiled it can be kept on a low heat to do the cooking.

Cut the cacao butter in to chunks to melt, the smaller they are the quicker they’ll melt, but you can stick it in in one lump if you prefer.

Cut the creamed coconut into lumps and, once quite a lot of the butter has melted, place this in to melt with it. 

Once it’s all melted put in the cacao powder, you don’t need to sift it but it wouldn’t hurt, and stir to combine.

Now add the hazelnuts and stir to combine.

Next add the vanilla paste, and taste till you’re happy with the amount. I’d say you need at least 2 tsp’s but that’s to my taste.

Now add your sugar or preferred sweetener, tasting as you go, until you’re happy with the sweetness. 

Finally stir in the Orange zest.

Give it a good stir and check you’re happy with the final taste.

Now distribute between your chosen moulds and put in the fridge. I used my heart shaped ice cube trays, and bought some Easter Egg moulds from http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/. It usually takes an hour or so to set but is good to leave overnight. It should last a good while but I would suggest eating within a month just in case! I’ve just gone by the expiration dates on the ingredients but I’m unsure if the Orange zest will go off quicker?

Finally, I don’t know why the hearts are a different colour to the eggs, it has something to do with the moulds and nothing to do with me!

Poolgate

Friday 18^th July was an absolutely glorious day in London and I was fortunate enough to spend most of it in the paddling pool with my two daughters. I took a picture of 3 year old Lola and 9-month-old Juno, who were sitting in the pool, and shared it on Facebook. The picture got a lot of likes and comments from my friends, who enjoy seeing pictures of my children enjoying themselves. It is a lovely picture showing the two of them sitting in the water, smiling, with the sun glistening on the bright blue paddling pool.

Later that evening I got a notification on Facebook that someone had reported the photo for containing nudity. My 3 year old and 9 month old didn’t have clothes on that day. I wouldn’t have had any clothes on either if it were not for the fact our garden is overlooked and I appreciate the fact not everyone might want to look at my bottom. Kids are kids though right? That’s the wonderful thing about being a child; you don’t have any body image issues. I mean you’re not even aware of your body are you really? Apart from the fact it’s there and hurts occasionally when you fall over. Lola had asked if she could wear a swimming costume but I told her she would be less cold when she got out of the water if she were naked. More importantly; it’s nice to not have any clothes on. It’s nice to have that freedom, to just be a kid and run around naked in the sun, splashing around in the pool with your mum and sister. We had such a lovely day and the picture really captured that for me. I wanted to share that moment with my friends and family.

My Facebook profile is private but I do have quite a lot of ‘friends’. I’m connected with people I see regularly, people I only have contact with on Social Media, people I’ve dealt with in my previous jobs, people I went to school with and family. I couldn’t for the life of me think who would have found the picture offensive. More to the point though, why had they not contacted me before reporting it? It did make me think that I should be more careful with whom I share my family photos and I did go through and delete a number of people that I have no need for contact with anymore.

I posted that the photo had been taken down and received a number of comments of people’s disbelief and anger. I did ask that the person contact me, as I was upset that they hadn’t in the first place, but after the comments made I wasn’t surprised that no one did. I then reposted the photo, in the hope I may have deleted the culprit, or at least they would not report it again.

I awoke at 08:30 on Saturday morning and was notified that my photo had been reported half an hour earlier and was again removed. It had been suggested that an algorithm in Facebook may have picked up on the flesh colour in the photo, but I assume that if this were the case it wouldn’t have taken that long to pick it up, as the first time it was reported after a few hours. I had also tagged my partner in the first photo, but not the second, so that ruled out his friends.

I then changed my public profile picture to one of me when I was about 3 years old wearing just a Spurs cap and wellies. Shortly after that picture was also reported and removed. Although this time the notice I got was a little different so I think this may have just been the Facebook police – although this picture was public so could have been reported by anyone. Possibly an Arsenal fan.

I posted the naked childhood picture of me to annoy the person who reported my original picture. I wanted to poke fun at them and had other friends post naked childhood photos of themselves in comments below. I wanted to highlight just how ridiculous they were being. These are babies, why the hell can’t they be naked? Why do they need to be sexulised? Why can’t we just look at a beautiful picture of two children enjoying the sunshine and think ‘isn’t that nice’ rather then ‘that’s indecent’. As a clever man once wrote ‘Thou shalt not think any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a pedophile. Some people are just nice.’*

The next morning I filmed Lola singing ‘Happy Birthday’ for one of my friends, as I regularly do, and posted it on Facebook. Lola was just in her knickers, as it’s very hot at the moment, so there was not a need for clothing. I hesitated before filming it and wondered if I should put a Top on her. I wondered if I should cover the chest of a 3 year old girl for risk of it being indecent. I thought like the person who reported the picture of my girls in the paddling pool. I do not want to think of my children as sexual beings. They’re 3 years and 9 months old. I want them to be free and innocent for as long as they can be.

It has been suggested to me that the person that reported the photo may have done so with the best intentions. I am sure they did, I am sure that for whatever reason they were worried about my naked children being exposed to the wrong eyes. If that person had contacted me, I would have explained that I have chosen the people allowed to see that picture and that it is not accessible by all. Yes, there is the possibility that it may fall in to the wrong hands, but should we stop taking pictures of children altogether? I mean, if someone were to look at my children with bad intention, surely they would whether they were clothed or not? They are babies; I don’t want to worry about what I choose to dress them in just in case someone looks at them in the street.

Pedophilia is not something to ignore; we are in a time where it is prevalent in our news as atrocities of the past and present are exposed. I find this all deeply disturbing and cannot imagine how awful those experiences are and were for those involved. I do not want to live under a cloud of fear. Fear that if I share a picture with my family and friends, a pedophile might see it. I take the risk of a pedophile seeing my children every time I walk out of my front door, but I’m not going to stop doing that. I would never knowingly put my children in any danger of being hurt, but if I want to share a picture of my children enjoying a glorious sunny day, why should I not be able to? Surely destroying the innocence of childhood is what we want to prevent?

*Quote taken from Thou Shalt always Kill by Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

Being a mother IS the most important job in the world

Written in response to Catherine Deveny’s piece:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/18/sorry-but-being-a-mother-is-not-the-most-important-job-in-the-world

After reading your article on motherhood, published on the 18^th November, I had an immediate and overwhelming need to reply to it.  Frustratingly, as I am a mother of a 2 year old and a 1 month old, this is the first opportunity I have had to do so.

Firstly, I would like to congratulate you on how well you have coped at being a mother. I have not yet come across any mothers who have not found the role the hardest thing they have ever done.  I do not, however, know anyone who works in a clothing factory in Bangladesh, or any Chinese minors. I am fortunate enough to be a white, lower middle class, British Londoner, and cannot begin to comprehend how hard life is for those who are on the other side of our consumerist existence. I do, however, believe that the mothers in those factories will be having a harder time of it.

Sadly, we live in a society where your worth is judged on the ‘job’ you do.  Men cannot give birth to children, and they cannot produce milk to feed them.  We live in a world where men rule, and as they cannot grow and give birth to children, there is no worth attached to it. Being a ‘stay at home mum’ is not a revered role. It is not something people aspire to, and that is because its worth has been played down as it is ‘women’s work’.

In the consumerist world we live in, women are encouraged to bottle feed and return to work as soon as possible. Children are given to other people to look after, and a hefty price is paid for this both financially and emotionally.  I am fortunate that I did not have that decision to make, but that would never have been a decision I would have made, as I want to raise the children I have, myself.

I hold this opinion, as I believe the development of children is influenced by how much love and attention they get. Research shows that the more a child is loved, and by this I mean the more positive interaction it has, the more their brains develop (Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain, by Sue Gerhardt). The cost to a society of people that are not shown enough positive interaction as children is great. I believe people should be paid to stay at home and look after their children themselves, rather than being given free childcare.

Raising the future generation, those people that are going to make and contribute to our society, the brain surgeons, scientists, carer’s, teachers, artists, that is the most important job in the world. Making the person who is going to do that job, is more important than the job itself.  

Women are mothers; this is the one thing we have that men cannot do. Obviously there are circumstances where other people need to step in to that ‘mother’ role, and they can fulfill it perfectly well. I don’t think that by bigging up the mums we are in turn delegitimising the role of any other primary care giver. I think we are just recognising how amazing women are, and why the hell shouldn’t we?

I do not feel that by being a stay at home mum I am going against my feminist beliefs. Being a mother has made me more of a feminist as I can really appreciate how hard it is, and has always been for women, and how completely unappreciated the role of a mother is.

I have 2 children and run a small, part time business from home. I do not know how I would cope without the support of my sister and parents. My eldest daughter has had the input of 5 adults in her immediate upbringing, and she exhausts us all. Raising a child is an unrelenting, emotional, physical whirlwind of everything. It is the most amazing and fulfilling thing I have ever done, and it is without doubt the hardest. Sacrificing you, and your identity is a constant, frustrating battle, as it is both something rewarding and punishing.

Being a mother is not a job, you are right. There is no start or end to your day, there are no breaks or holidays, and even though you can have a drink or two, there are no office parties with photocopies of your bum to show for it.

However, in order for mothers to be recognised in our society, it has to be given the title of job to have any worth.

Mothers, women, have a hard enough time of it as it is. We do an absolutely amazing job making people, giving birth to them, battling the anti breastfeeding consumerist culture, having to get ‘back to work’ as soon as possible to prove we are not ‘weak women’, going through the heartache of leaving our babies with strangers, or the guilt of enjoying the break from them and the desire to return back to our pre baby lives.

I am grateful I can raise my children myself, but there is not a day that goes past where I am not aware of the enormity of the role. I am responsible for creating two human beings; everything I do is going to effect who they become. How is that not the most important and difficult job a person can do?

 

 

14 stone in a day!

Caaaaaaaaake!

I am back on Weight Watchers. After a year’s break, I’ve decided I need some order back in my life. In September I reached 9 stone 9lbs, which was 1lb off my 3 stone target, since joining Weight Watchers, and 2lb off my 5 stone target, since before I gave birth to Lola, (which will be 2 years ago this Sunday!)

Since September I put on 10lbs during my holiday in America and over Christmas. So the week before last, when I weighed in at 10 stone 5lb, I decided I had gone in the wrong direction for long enough, and got back on the WW Wagon. I lost 5lbs in a week! And that included eating a ridiculously calorific lemon tart, and drinking champagne. So all in all, I was well chuffed!

The last of far too many excessive nights out…

Let’s talk about that lemon tart. Heston ‘doesn’t everyone have access to dry ice and a blow torch?’ Blumenthal is not my favourite person. A while ago we got a Heston recipe card from Waitrose for a lemon tart, which I made and it was very nice. For Warren’s birthday last year he was bought a Heston cookbook, and in it was a recipe for Lemon Tart. This recipe differed from that on the card. This pastry had egg, sugar, lemon and vanilla in it, and had to put in and out of the freezer in between rolling’s. As I had already made a similar tart, and it had turned out well, I thought this couldn’t be much harder.

It all started going wrong with the pastry. I didn’t think it felt right once I’d mixed it all together, but the book said nothing about the texture it should be, so I didn’t want to add any water to make it less crumbly, just in case. I didn’t trust my instincts. I trusted the recipe, which had no troubleshooting pointers, or number to call in case of emergency, just a picture of a perfect slice of lemon tart and a specky twat. Anyway, an hour after sitting in the fridge (the pastry, not me) I took it out to roll it. It fell apart. So I added more water and flour, and got it to a texture I was happy with and rolled it again. This time I was successful, I rolled it out to the correct height and width and then realised it was too big to fit in the freezer, as instructed. You see I don’t have a chest freezer; I have a normal sized freezer with draws, that can’t fit a large round, thin object. I juggled it around a bit and wrapped it in newspaper to keep it flat (it was in baking paper already) and shoved it in the freezer for 30 minutes as instructed.

The problem with putting anything in the freezer is, it freezes. On taking the pastry out of the freezer and trying to place it over my tart tin, it broke in to pieces, BECAUSE IT WAS FROZEN! What a load of bollocks. So, when the pastry had warmed I re rolled it and stuck it in the tin. The ends that were hanging over broke off, so I didn’t have room for shrinkage. I knew it didn’t look too good, but I’d gone too far to go back. I called my mum as I didn’t have any baking beans, and didn’t really want to put coins in the over, and she told me not to worry. So I didn’t.

The pastry was burnt round the top, but nice on the bottom, so I was happy. Next, the filling. I had read through the recipe briefly before cooking, and knew he had spoken about using a temperature gauge. What I had failed to realise was he didn’t give you any other instructions. There was no ‘cook the filling till it resembles a curd’ or ‘don’t cook for too long, just until it starts to thicken.’ All it said was to heat it until it reaches 65 degrees.

I don’t happen to own a temperature gauge to cook with. I’ve always just followed instructions, which either tell you how long something needs to cook for, or lets you know how it should look. As I had neither of these, or a phone number to call so I could ask someone, I relied on the old ‘stick your finger in till you think it’s got to about double the temperature that you sunbathe in’ method. This isn’t one I’ve used before, nor one I intend to use again, but I think it did the trick.

So once my filling was of a temperature that I believed was about 65 degrees, I set about pouring it into my tart tin. My pastry had shrunk, so it wasn’t deep enough to hold all the liquid. So I stuck some of my left over pastry on top of the cooked pastry, thinking I could just cut it off once the tart was cooked. This seemed to work, and the tart cooked in the oven for the time stated and came out with a nice wobble.

As this whole experience had taken 5 ½ hours (I shit you not) I was in need of a large glass of something, which thankfully was very close to hand. We had friends over for dinner and it did take me a little while to get over the whole tart experience, but I did in the end. It was only when I went to serve it that I realised I had left the cream out of the filling. The cream was a main ingredient in the tart. It’s cream and lemons and sugar, oh and about 57 eggs, seriously, what is with all the eggs?! Obviously there was nothing I could now do, and it smelt all right, so we just tucked in.

Considering I’d left out a main ingredient, burnt the pastry and had my fingers stuck in it, it did taste very nice. The one good thing was that a normal tart would have been 16 points a slice, and when I say slice I meant slither. My ‘no cream’ version however was only 13 points a slice! Win. So yes, the moral of the story is if you have pastry with lemons and lots of sugar, you can’t go wrong really.

I had a rant on Facebook the following day and a friend told me that they also had a Heston cookbook and one of the recipes called for you to smoke your own beef in a squirrel trap with hay. I’m going to buy a squirrel trap, fill it with hay and burn that cookbook in it. Screw you Heston; Delia and Jamie don’t need all these fancy gadgets. Twat.

Lola Winehouse

So we have Lola’s 2^nd birthday this weekend. Two years old. She does not shut up.  She sings constantly, and when she’s not singing she’s jabbering away. She is funny. She is also a little bit of the devil. I think it’s her age.  Either that or she’s gonna be like Amy Winehouse. Tonight she wanted to take her drink in to the bath and she was sitting on the floor in the kitchen reaching towards the table, which is on the other side of the room, crying ‘orange juice, oooorrraange juice’.  I mean can you imagine what she’ll be like at 14? Hormones!

Anyway, I’m off to watch a movie! Keep warm!

Snow fun!

Weight Watchers Review – Sicilian Lemon & Elderflower Cordial

Sicilian Lemon & Elderflower Cordial – 0 points

I’m partial to an Elderflower Martini, or Champagne Cocktail with elderflower in it. I like elderflower. I like lemon. I like drinking. I like this cordial. If you like any of the above, and don’t dislike lemons or elderflower, I would suggest you try this.

Weight Watchers Review – Oaty Chocolate Chip mini Cookies

Oaty Chocolate Chip mini Cookies – 2 points a bag

Everyone likes cookies, everyone likes chocolate. There is little not to like here, other than the fact you can have a packet of cookies for just 2 points! I would buy these, I love the cookies.

Weight Watchers Review – Fruit Crumble Biscuits

Fruit Crumble Biscuits – 2 points each

I’m not a fan of jammy biscuity things, so these weren’t a hit for me. They were nice enough, but I wouldn’t buy them. If you do like jammy biscuity things, I’d say give them a go!

Weight Watchers Review – Jaffa Mini Rolls

Jaffa Mini Rolls – 2 points each

These, I like! Mmmm Jaffa cakes. These are great for a quick fix, just like Jaffa cakes but 2 points each! Win.

Weight Watchers review – Blueberry Slices

Blueberry Slice – 2 points each

I’m not a cake lover. I prefer it more now than I used to but I’m not an obsessive. If I were I’d think these were a decent low point option. I’d probably want to eat 3, but 6 points is not too bad for a generous slab of cake. Again, I do prefer to have a little of something high in points, but if you’re the other way inclined, I’d give these a go!