.... when we haven't had any snow right through the winter up till now? There's one in the eye for the global warming brigade!

We had a very quiet time at home - not really wanting to venture outside in the (extremely changeable) weather conditions. I had a bit of a lucky escape on Sunday when I realised that my DD was expecting the Easter Bunny to do a bit of a Santa thing and leave her Easter egg by surprise where she could find it.

I don't remember instructing her in that particular ritual and we've never done it before, but she must have picked it up from school or somewhere. However I managed to sneak it out past her and put it somewhere she hadn't been already where she duly discovered it five minutes later.

Belief in mystical beings restored for one more time - phew!

Sometimes I find it quite exhausting and also a bit sad being the parent of an extremely bright little girl. She is deeply suspicious about the existence of Santa and we had to concoct ever more complicated webs of stories to suspend her disbelief. She's in danger of losing faith in the tooth fairy before she even loses her first tooth. And when I tried the House Fairy programme (www.housefairy.org - premise is that you aka 'House Fairy' leave gifts and letters in the child's room when they keep it tidy0 she saw through it straight away and I had to admit that yes it was me - pretending to be a fairy - although that didn't mean that there are no fairies......

We are also starting to have deep religious discussions. We are bringing the children up as practising Catholics and she attends a Catholic school, but she treats the more miraculous elements of the New Testament with the same healthy scepticism she has for the other mythical beings mentioned above.

Is it just rose-tinted specs on my part? I'm sure I remained innocent, truting and childlike till 9 or 10 at least? I'm not prepared to let go of the childhood fantasies yet - she's only five.....

I didn't believe I was so shallow to believe all the hype when I did my solo on Saturday and everybody was going on about how wonderful I was.

I know realistically that I sing in a small provincial choir, to an audience of maybe 150 people (most of whom were relatives of the choir & so pressganged to be there). Maybe I am one of the better singers in that group, but so what? At the end of the day it was nothing special and does not in any way make me a professional singer nor any hope to become one.

But I'm amazed at how flat I feel, coming back down to mummydom, and how desperate that the choir is now taking its Easter break and I don't even get to go to a rehearsal for two whole weeks....

Clearly the few weeks of feeling special, from when I first sang my bit in front of the choir in rehearsals, to when I finally did the real concert have had a more powerful effect on me than I expected. I can't wait to get back & do some more. This is turning from a hobby into a compulsion.

It's no wonder celebrities become so weird and so detatched from reality. Being the centre of attention can be addictive, I never realised how much....

Well not so much any more. Tonight I came out.

Yes, since I was on here blogging regularly last year, I finally decided to carve out some me time & went back to my favourite thing - which is singing in a choir.

Now I know choral music isn't to everyone's tastes but I honestly love it. I find it really moving and beautiful and love to be in the middle of beautiful music as it is being created. There was a time when I used to be a bit embarrassed about this in front of my friends - after all amateur classical singing is generally an old person's hobby - I might have said that I'd taken up bowls.

But now I hold my head up high and I'm proud. I've been singing in my local choir for nearly eight months now and its doing my soul a heck of a lot of good. And in tonight's concert I got to sing a small solo, which was even better. I put more make up on than usual tonight, made a fuss of my hair, wore a skirt & high shoes. I had to stand at the front & be seen and I have to say I really enjoyed it.

At the end all the little old ladies said how wonderful it was & they presented me with a box of chocs. I just lapped up all the praise and adulation - I know realistically my performance was nothing special but its nice to be made to feel good.

This is about as far from mum-of-toddler world as its possible to get. It's what I've been needing for so long....

And so I'm back, from outer space - well back to blogland from real life anyway.

I know I've been gone a while again - two reasons mainly...

Firstly that life at the moment is almost too boring and mundane to blog. Secondly that the plan which got me started blogging in the first place (the diet & fitness quest) has stalled again, & so I feel a bit bad coming on here knowing that I'm failing.

I thought I'd be able to get rid of that feeling by moving the fitness blog onto the other site, leaving me free to blog the rest of my life here, but somehow the enthusiasm just hasn't been there for a while, although I have been lurking and keeping in touch with my friends' blogs.

But I thought I'd pop on tonight and just let people know I'm still here. And what do I find amongst my messages, but Gilraen's great meme saying that I'm the blogger she most misses. That's really touched me. i really must make more of an effort if there are people out there who are missing me. And maybe I should try & get out to the next blogmeet too and connect up properly with everyone.

I'll try and sort ouyt my attitude & come back & blog properly soon.

..... is a very special day for me.

Tomorrow I shall wake (or rather be woken) by a very excited new five-year old. She wants presents, parties, cake, fuss and hurly-burly. Tomorrow is her princess day and Dad and I will be just mere accessories to her fun.

So I have my private celebration all to myself on the night of February 16th - the last night I went to sleep as a childless woman. This time five years ago I didn't yet know that I was within 26 hours of becoming a mother. I was hoping and praying that it would be soon, as she was already late, being due on Valentine's Day, but I was getting ready to wait another week or more as she showed no signs of coming.

It was the last true peace and quiet of my life, before I stepped over the threshold into motherhood and found my true self. I had no idea from that side of the divide exactly how much joy and inner peace Anne-Sophie, and later her brother would bring to my life and to my relationship with their dad.

I look at the new buds of spring at this time of year with much more attention than I used to. Anne-Sophie chose to join us on earth just at that crucial point in 2003 - when I went into hospital it was still winter - when I came out six days later spring had broken out all over. Now I see a very smart sassy young girl, and I marvel at what can happen in five very short years.

I realise I'm ranting - trying to share a very personal private thing - a wonderful emotion. Maybe I shouldn't try to put words to it - maybe I should just sit quietly and experience it. But I shall take my moment of quietness, my small private celebration, and let it carry me with a secret smile through the chaos of a small child's birthday party. She will have her day of being cherished, of awe and wonder, and I shall continue to marvel at how God and DH and me managed to create such a perfect creature....

My wave of positivity and my latest diet/exercise programme have lasted a whole week.

I'm still loving all the spring flowers and even the recent icy blast hasn't dented my enthusiasm for the world.

As I sit here I love my 2 children and think they are the loveliest beings on the planet.

They've broken up for half term today - just how long do you think this good feeling is going to last?

Just to let you all know, my other blog, healthworx, is moving house today.

It doesn't have that many readers, but just in case any of you are interested, you can now find it at www.healthworx.co.uk/wordpress

I really love this time of year.

Daffodils are beginning to pop up all over the place - crocuses, snowdrops, and all the little tiny buds on the trees.

Although its cold outside, its sunny today, and you just know that the warm sunny days are just around the corner. The nights are beginning to get noticeably shorter - yesterday we noticed that we were coming home from my daughter's swimming lesson in daylight for the first time.

I can see why the Chinese chose this time of the year to be New Year - January always seems so cold and miserable and gloomy - it does feel more like the tired and sad tail end of the old thing than the beginning of the new. People talk about new starts on January 1st and all I ever want to do is crawl back under the duvet and sleep off the excesses of Christmas.

Whereas now I can really feel the New Year, I have new life in me, new enthusiasm and new joie de vivre. I'm going to make my New Year's resolutions now and march on merrily into the springtime.

I have no idea what the Year of the Rat is supposed to herald. But I for one have got a really good feeling about 2008.

Today, for the first time in ages, everyone's well, everyone went back to work and school, and I bumbled about doing normal housewifey stuff, then went back to my old gym for a workout in the afternoon, did my hair, picked up kids and went home and cooked some roast pork for the family.

It's a shame I haven't found space to blog these last few months, because only then would you realise what a complete breath of fresh air that is after all the stress and illnesses of the last 2 months.

In a nutshell, since the beginning of October:

- my hubby has been on a special project working 60 hour weeks minimum plus weekends, such that I've been essentially a single mother.

- when he comes home he is tired grumpy and miserable, so we have had a succession of stupid little rows

- my stepfather took ill and died suddenly, so I had to pull my daughter out of school and go and sort my mum out for a few weeks (I'm the only child). That was my first brush with close family bereavement and with organising a funeral and it's really taken its toll.

- Every one of us has had stomach flu over the month of November - some of us have had it 2 or 3 times.

- For the last 2 weeks the children have had a lovely cough, and last night was the first unbroken night's sleep in ages.

On top of this I've been struggling to finish the last few bits of written work for my Personal Trainer and Nutrition course and I'm also trying to potty train my son, with hit and miss results.

Strangely enough my diet has gone to heck and I haven't managed to get to the gym much. I wonder why?

looking back over my blog, November was a completely crap month last year as well. Maybe I'll take my daughter's advice and hibernate from when the clocks go back until Christmas. SOunds good to me....

This is scary after 5 years of being a stay at home mum. I picked up my local paper, saw a job that I could do, and decided , on a whim to apply for it. I just thought that maybe I could do a few hours paid work and treat myself to a cleaner.

I was invited to a 10-minute interview, offered the job on the spot and I start next Wednesday. This is a bit of a turnaround for the girl who proudly proclaimed herself 'retired' and vowed never to set foot in an office again, but there you go. Follow your instincts, I say....

So today I had various cleaning firms come round to look at my house.

Most of them were in the same ballpark - most would do as much or as little as I wanted with or without ironing etc. and were happy to make the specification and frequency of the cleaning fit my budget, and find someone to come at the hours I specified.

However, one of the agencies was so far removed from reality that I nearly laughed in his face and spat my coffee at him.

I should have guessed from his tone on the phone - "we don't quote an hourly rate - we come and do an inspection of the property then give a total quote, based on what we anticipate is needed to clean the house to our specifications". It's a shame for him he doesn't quote an hourly rate - I could have saved him a journey.

After looking at my wreck of a house (with 2 sick children running around causing havoc), he pronounced that I would need somewhere between 5-6 man hours per week minimum which would cost me (sit down if you're not already)

£98 PER WEEK

I'm only going to work 2 hours a week, and it would have to be a special job to finance that sort of cleaning. Plus the going rate for this area, based on what I've seen from all the others is about £10 per hour - so wrong on all counts...

Then just as I was picking myself off the floor came the funniest bit of all "Of course we start with a detailed first clean - in order to get the house up to our standards so that we can then maintain it for you. We would need a team of 3 people in for a day - cost £390."

I could if I choose be insulted by that - but I don't suppose he meant that my house was particularly disgusting - I imagine all his houses get a similar prognosis. I can't believe there are people out there willing to part with that amount of money for house cleaning.