Author: Scottish Mum

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The Terms – Shelf Life of Different Types of Food Products

The shelf life of food is very important, but it’s even more important that we actually know what the different terms actually mean.

When we deal with fresh foods like meat, fish and poultry, we really need to look at the processes and our handling of it when we get it home.  Vegetables are a very visual purchase and we even tend to overlook tins and jars far too often.

The thing we usually struggle with is how to store foods at home and how long we should keep them for.

Source

Where you get your food is a major concern.  The freshest possible is the best bet, and with the scare from the horse meat crisis, a visit to your local butcher and greengrocer if you have one is a good way to go forward.

Remember that supermarkets may have your food stored in boxes or lorries for days before they go out onto the shelves.  You have to decide what is most important to you as a purchase.

sausagesfried

How does it look?

It might sound silly to say look at the products before you buy.  I know that in the past, I’ve been guilty of sometimes just picking something up with a short glance and throwing it in my trolley.  I’m more aware of what to look for now, and I expect better quality.

Leave bashed tins jars and cartons on the shelves.  If it’s not in fabulous condition, you shouldn’t take it home.  Any damage on the outside could have caused damage to the food inside.

Buying from an independent means there is more traceability in fresh food and although there may be less choice in fruit and vegetables, you would at least know where all your food is coming from.

Independents might well have the great tasting, but irregular looking fruit.  I remember well the pound boxes of strawberries I used to buy as a teenager on the way home from school.  Strawberries never taste like that from the supermarkets as they look perfect, they’re all matching sizes and colours which seems to be a the expense of the taste.

Taking food home.

A friend I know goes shopping in an afternoon, then waits for half an hour top pick up her kids from school and heads over to swimming before going home.  The food in her boot will be fine in the winter, but I often wonder just how many sore bellies they all have in the warmer months.

Go straight home with foods that need stored in the fridge or freezer and put them in to chill as soon as you get home.

 Keeping food at home.

It’s not easy for me to say how to store any one kind of food.  There are different times and ways to keep different things.  I keep my flour in the freezer and friends keep theirs in the kitchen cupboard.  I once ended up with flour weevils when I was 19, and I have no intention of ever having to do so again.

Fresh meat can usually be kept in the fridge for about 5 days before being cooke.  Once it’s cooked, you have around 2 – 3 days to eat it safely unless you freeze your cooked dishes.

Fish is much more difficult to keep on top of.  Like poultry, it needs to be cooked quite quickly after being bought, but will keep better once it has been cooked for up to 4 days.

I usually keep rice for only a day or two after being cooked so I was surprised to read that it was ok to eat up to 7 days after cooking.  I don’t think I would take that risk.

Tinned, packets and jars of food can happily live in the store cupboard, but once they are open, they need to be treated in the same way as their fresh cousins.

Expiry Sell By and Use By Dates

Expiry dates are really for things like packets, jars and tins, where it might say “best before”.  It means that foods can be used past that date, but the quality could well be reduced.

Use by dates tend to be used more for fresh foods and they are saying the exact date that the food should be eaten or cooked by.  To leave food longer  than the use by date is taking a risk with food poisoning or spoiling.

Sell by dates only indicate where the consumer should purchase food by.  It isn’t the same as the use by date as a product could contain both a sell by and a use by date.

princes3

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What Foods Can We Freeze?

Freezing a larger batch is the easiest way to spin out our food and make it last, but not everything freezes nor defrosts well.

Dairy

cheesecake

Most dairy products will struggle to defrost well.  I find that cream will separate and can spoil any food that it is combined with prior to freezing.   I have managed to freeze milk pretty well on its own, but it does have a slightly altered taste when I defrost it.  It is similar to the UHT taste, but just not quite as strong.

Cream, mayonnaise and soft cheeses like mascapone might well separate when defrosted, but they could be whipped back together into an emulsion with a bit of effort.   That really is a trial and error thing to see if you are prepared to do that on a frequent basis.  I stick to freezing milk and regular cheese from the dairy family, but I have been known to freeze yoghurt for the kids.

High fat content cheese does freeze quite well.  I have much success in freezing grated cheddar and mozarella.   Some yoghurts do well, and make great ice lollies for kids.    Butter freezes beautifully and I always have some blocks in the freezer as a standby for making cakes, pastry and more.  I simply pop it into the microwave when I need it and it works really well.

Eggs can be frozen raw, but they need to be taken out of their shells.   Cooked egg yolks will freeze fine, but cooked egg whites tend to come out very rubbery and really not very nice at all. They would probably be ok when cooked in with other foods.

Fruit & Veg

watermelon1

Lots of fruit and veg don’t freeze well, although the root vegetables seem to do much better.  I’d love to freeze lettuce, grapes, strawberries, melon, oranges and more, but the textures they give when they are defrosted don’t sit well with me.  The water content is too high and the taste is very much affected when they are defrosted.  Similarly, radishes and cucumber are not good for freezing.  I do often buy a bag of frozen strawberries from Costo, but I tend to use those for smoothies and sometimes a small batch of jam making in the winter, but as a rule, I wouldn’t freeze them to eat afterwards.

Cooked potatoes freeze well, but I have not had any success with freezing raw ones.  Some websites will say potatoes are freezable, but not where I am concerned.   I have not tried freezing uncooked turnip or butternut squash, but I’m told they freeze well.   Pulses have a reputation for freezing well, but they don’t really matter to me as I use mine dried.  Meals cooked with all these ingredients will freeze and thaw well with very little change to taste or texture when they are reheated.

Big manufacturers have the technology to freeze some fruits and vegetables that we couldn’t do at home.  It can depend on where our fresh vegetables come from as to whether they really are of much nutritional benefit to us.

We have an allotment as well as our garden, and this year, we hope to have a lovely crop of fresh and home grown fruit and veg to eat over the warmer months.  I’m not a gardening fan, so I am looking forward to not having to go and water the plants and feed the tomatoes in the outdoor greenhouse this year as the man has taken that over.

Protein

Almost all protein sources will freeze well whether cooked or uncooked.  Meat, fish and poultry are all freezable.   You do have to stick to good freezing guidelines and clear out your freezer now and again.  I suspect there are more than a few of us with things in our freezers that are way past their freezer shelf life.   Pulses and lentils we’ve already discussed, but buying dried is so easy, that I’d not really see the need to freeze them unless they are cooked in something else.

Bread & Baked Goods

bread1

I freeze bread, softies, rolls, croissants and more.   I tend to do mine baked, but you can freeze the dough for using later.   We can keep our bread in the freezer for a few months, but if I leave it too long, I find that it can be better used in the toaster than for sandwiches.   I am told we can freeze cakes, but that is one thing I’ve not actually tried yet.

Cooked Foods

Soups, stews, casseroles and more are easily freezed as long as you keep out the cream, mayonnaise or soft cheese.

Tomato sauces freeze really well.  Soups and sauces that have been thickened with cornflour or plain flour have always come out really well for me, but I have seen reports where they have not been advised for freezing.   I tend to thicken soups with a few potatoes, so those are always easy for me to do.  I think some things are trial and error.  I have a fast freeze button, and thickened stews and sauces do just fine when they are cooked in with protein and vegetables.

Pasta / Rice / Cous Cous 

There is the argument that says not to bother freezing these starchy foods as they cook so quickly anyway.  I wouldn’t tend to freeze any of them on their own.  I do often freeze them where they are mixed in as part of a whole meal.

We all need to be careful of rice dishes as rice does tend to have problems if bacteria is allowed to grow.   Make sure that if you intend to freeze any rice dishes, that they are cooled quickly and possibly separated into shallow containers.  Get these dishes into the freezer in the shortest time frame possible after cooking.

Reheating Foods from the Freezer

Food might taste much stronger as the herbs and flavours become stronger.   It might be a good idea to leave strong seasoning out until you are ready to reheat.  I don’t usually do this and there are times where I add a little milk or water to the reheating process to give food a slightly more diluted taste.

Some sauces, soups, stews and pasta dishes my seem very thick when you defrost it.  Simply add some water or milk to the reheating process to think down the mix.  It’s all a matter of personal preference.

It’s important to ensure that food from the freezer is thoroughly reheated.

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£200 Trusted Food Luxury Meat Pack Giveaway – Closes 31st March 2013

AGB Comp Image

Winner Graeme McMillan announced via Rafflecopter.

This is a fabulous opportunity to get away from the processed food that we really seem to be mistrusting as a nation these past few weeks.  With the advent of the horse meat scandal, we seem to be enjoying a return to real meat from real butchers in the UK.

Shop local is on the lips of many a Tweeter and Facebooker, so to help you along, Andrew Gordon Butchery and Fine Foods is THE butcher in Aberdeen to have released a Trusted Food Luxury Meat Pack for me to give away.   He recently launched meat packs for sale online to the whole of the UK, with more products going online soon.  Ever popular with the fitness communities, Andrews butchery meat is gaining a reputation as second to none.

Anyone wanting to make up a bespoke meat pack just has to phone the shop and they will arrange your purchase and delivery.

With beef that is traced back to prized Aberdeen Angus and aged for maximum taste, the quality is out of this world.

In the whopping meat pack, there will be centre cut fillets, Aberdeen Angus sirloin steaks, rib eye steaks, family sized roasts and much more.

Don’t forget to enter and check back to see if you won the £200 meat pack.

Entry is by rafflecopter.   If the form doesn’t show up here, just click on the link to go to it.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms and Conditions

  1. Open to UK Mainland Entrants only.
  2. The prize will be delivered and you must give us your address to send it to you.
  3. Winners will be notified within 3 days of giveaway end. If the winner does not respond within 7 days, a new winner will be drawn.
  4. The winner will be chosen by Rafflecopter random generator.
  5. Andrew Gordon Buchery reserves the right to amend, add or withdraw this giveaway at any time.
  6. Each entry method entitles you to one entry into the draw.
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Spinning Chicken – Ekeing out Quality Meat to avoid buying Mechanically Processed Meat – Part 2

From the mango chicken I made in my first post about ekeing out quality meat, the second half of the batch went straight into being a Chicken and Mango Tikka Masala.

I think the very real after effect of the horsemeat scandal is that we really don’t know what’s in processed food, even if it tells us the ingredients on the wrapper.

This was the second half of my intention to feed a family of 6 twice with each half of the batch.  One portion for eating, and one for freezing for another day.

Step two. Chicken and Mango Tikka Masala.  Again, accessories spun out the meat, with a filling pasta and nan bread accompaniment.

Chicken and Mango Tikka Masala Pasta

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Servings: 6 -12
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • HalfMango Chicken Batch http://scottishmum.com/mango-chicken-wrap/
  • 1 Clove Garlic
  • 0.5 Jar Pataks Tikka Masala Paste
  • 1 Teaspoon Sugar
  • 500 g Pasta Tubes
  • 250 g Tub Mascapone or fresh cream (You will need 250g more when you defrost the portion destined for the freezer.)
  • 500 g Carton or Jar of Tomato Passata
  • 100 ml Water
  • 1 Teaspoon of Mixed Herbs
  • 2 Onions

Method
 

  1. Lightly fry your two chopped onions in the oil, add the garlic and don't allow the onions to brown. You want them to be a lovely soft texture.
  2. Mix the Mango Chicken with the cooked onions and garlic.
  3. Add half a jar of the Tikka Masala Paste, the tub of passata and sugar and mixed herbs. Bring to a very low simmer for 5 minutes. Your chicken is already cooked, so it is just a case of combining the ingredients and flavours until they are mixed in. Add water slowly until it becomes a texture similar to a very thick pasta sauce.
  4. Split your batch into half. Put the half for freezing to one side to cool. With the batch you will be eating, add the cream or mascapone and finish the meal. If you freeze the portion for another day with the cream or cheese in, it may separate on defrosting. Leave adding the dairy to that portion until you are ready to eat it.
  5. Cook between 500g and 1kg of pasta, depending on whether you plan to freeze cooked pasta with your Chicken and Mango Tikka Masala. If you do plan to freeze some pasta, I would be tempted to combine the pasta and Mango Chicken Tikka Masala. I prefer defrosting cooked pasta that has been combined with a sauce, but it would be just as simple to use rice, or cous cous when you eat your frozen batch.
  6. Add your cream or mascapone to your Tikka Masala. If you want your sauce thinner, simply add a little more water until it reaches the right consistency.

 

 

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Spinning Chicken – Ekeing out Quality Meat to avoid buying Mechanically Processed Meat – Part 1

My challenge for a lot of this year is to find ways to make quality meat affordable and a good purchase for everyone.

Bearing in mind that my family would wolf down a big pack of chicken nuggets in one go, it would work out about a fiver a meal just for those, which is likely to have e-numbers, additives, sugar, added salt and much more depending on the manufacturers.

I think the very real after effect of the horsemeat scandal is that we really don’t know what’s in processed food, even if it tells us the ingredients on the wrapper.

I get chicken from the Andrew Gordon Butchery in Aberdeen.  It costs on average £25 for 10 very large chicken breasts.

To buy the same in a supermarket, I’d probably have to get 15 – 20 breasts weight wise, and at todays prices, that seems to work out quite high to me.   I live happier knowing that the meat I eat has had a good life before it hit my plate.

I used all 10 chicken breasts to make mango chicken for wraps, with the intention of splitting the batch down the middle as soon as it was cooked.  To spin it out even further, a cook could add vegetables, lentils, noodles or much more to the cooking process.

The intention was to feed a family of 6 twice with each half of the batch.  One portion for eating, and one for freezing for another day.

That would give me the equivalent of a full belly x 24 for the £25 worth of good meat by adding cheap and healthy ingredients to bulk it out.

I cooked the second half of the batch on the same day, with one portion in the fridge for the next night, and another one in the freezer for another day.

Come back tomorrow to see what I turned the Mango Chicken into.

First step, the Mango Chicken.  I added salad vegetables, wraps and sauces to make the meat spin out.

[gmc_recipe 10534]

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Review: Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon

Thanks to Warner Bros. for the review copy of “Scooby Doo Mask of the Blue Falcon.” It’s a whole new original movie for Scooby Doo fans old and new for 2013.

Scooby Doo Mask of the Blue Falcon

The Mega Mondo Pop Cartoon-a-con is in sunny California for a mystery adventure.

There are Herculoids, frankenstein Jr. and Space Gosh with a megabucks movie premier starring Scooby-Doo and Shaggy’s all-time favourite super heroes, Blue Falcon and Dynomutt.

The movie also features Ultraviolet, the fabulous ability to download the films onto many tablets and mobile phones to take with us and amuse our kids. We are also allowed to share our move with up to 5 friends or family members.

The film is a PG as it features some scenes that may be unsuitable for very young children, buy a quick viewing by parents would make it easy to decide if it was suitable for yours or not. It’s 73 minutes of non-stop Scooby-Doo capers and includes some Bonus Vintage Cartoons as part of the package.

I don’t think anyone is too old for Scooby-Doo. Thanks again Warner Bros.

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Review – Nintendo DS Puzzler World 2013 Game

Being asked to review this game was no hardship for my boys.   The game arrived swiftly in January and my boys have rattled through the puzzles with great gusto.

They have absolutely loved the ability to have lots of things to do on it, and it’s kept them entertained for a fair while on car journeys.  I didn’t want to jump in and review too quickly as quite often the telling of a game is how quickly it is discarded in favour of other things.

Nintendo DS Puzzler 2013

All the games start off quite easily and they get more and more difficult as the game goes on.  There are hints that you can use by token to help if you are so stuck that you can’t get any further with it.  Once you complete the easier levels, you unlock more difficult ones, so you just keep getting challenged more and more.

Puzzler World 2013 is a huge collection of puzzles in one little cartridge.

– There are over 1200 puzzles and bonus games.
– There are a whopping 27 different puzzle types.
– Play is through Challenge Mode to unlock brain-bending Master Mode puzzles.

There are Crosswords, Wordsearches, Sudoku, Fitword, Codewords, Link-a-Pix, Pathfinder and new puzzles such as Loko, Number Jig and Maze-a-Pix.

The bonus games happen after each Challenge Mode and include Missing Piece, Symbols, Chain Letters and Hangman.
Puzzler World is a game for the family to enjoy, and offers a huge variety of puzzles which could well keep you entertained for months!  The games become more challenging as you progress so it’s easy for younger players to get stare, while the advanced Master mode provides renewed interest for more seasoned puzzlers.

What did we think?

I think the game is actually really good for grown ups who like puzzles.  I found myself pottering with it one morning and the time just sped past as I was determined to win a game of Sudoku.  I think very young children might struggle with it alone, so it would be a good game for kids and parents to play together.

I really like that if I only have a few minutes, the game can be picked up and played without having to worry about long drawn out puzzle sessions.  It has also saved a fortune on the word search books that my eldest insisted on buying every week to keep him busy.

I’m not sure how long the novelty will last, but it has been a good game for my boys.

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Using Images on Your Blog and Social Media

This blog post is my opinion only and does not constitute legal advice.  Please consult a solicitor if you need to know more or feel you have been affected by copyright law.

We’re all uploading images to our websites, blogs and social media profiles, but are we all doing it legally?  So many people seem to think it’s okay to take someone else’s picture and use it.

What image thieves don’t seem to know, is that as our technology and software improves, people find more and more ways of finding the images and being able to do something about it.

What is Legal in the UK?

Pictures are valuable, there is no denying that.   Everyone who has a website wants to have highly visual content as it makes our pages look unique, fresh, interesting and draws readers in.

I’ll talk from the blogging point of view since this website is a blog.

If I need a picture, could I just use one I find online?

No – any image is copyright to the owner.  What that means is that any photo that you took yourself, belongs to you.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a photo or a picture you’ve drawn, nobody is allowed to copy it without asking and getting your permission first.

When Can I Use Someone Else’s Images?

  1. You took the picture yourself and it doesn’t belong to an employer, or you bought the copyright.
  2. The License terms specify that you can use it.
  3. Fair Dealing.

What is a License?

In terms of images, a license gives the rights to use images.  If in doubt about an image don’t use it.  Creative commons is a type of license that depends on what the owner wishes to share and how.  If the creative commons license gives you conditions of using an image, follow them.   There are stock photo libraries where you can buy images or use them free with a credit and link back to the author and the website you received it from.  Some licenses might just state for use in news, editorial or non-commercial.

Fair Dealing

As far as our blogs and commercial businesses go, it’s probably safe to presume that fair dealing won’t apply.   These tend to be non-commercial use for research, criticism and review.   The image must be credited to the owner and can’t be used in current event reporting.  As a general rule, I stay away from this type of image use as it’s just too easy to get it wrong.

Privacy

Photographers can argue all they like about being able to take photos of anyone, anywhere, but in reality, we all need to consider who is in our images.  I only post images I have taken myself, bought, credited, or asked the permission of the people who own them.  We don’t have an automatic right to display all content.  Famous people may be able to sue, but just because Joe the public will find a harder time proving intrusion of privacy, it isn’t an excuse to go free rein and use images of anyone you feel like taking pictures of.

Search Engine Images

Google is a popular image search tool.  You can’t just automatically take an image and use it.  It has to fall within the categories of use.    Where you are allowed to use an image, the owner will usually expect their work to be credited on every page it is used, and on the same page as it appears.

Commissioning a Photographer

When you commission someone to take images for you, they keep the copyright unless they have signed over the rights to you as part of the contract.  That means you do not have automatic right of ownership and it means  they can use the images for you for other things.   Typical functions like weddings, parties and special occasions with a photographer are regularly copyright stamped.  That means you have no right to copy the images, even if you are in them.

Employing a Photographer

If the photographer works directly for you and taking the image is part of their job, then you can keep the rights to those images.

Hotlinking

If you link directly to the image on someone else’s website, it is known as hotlinking.   What happens is that you use a link which showcases the image on your website  but you don’t upload it to your server.  The direct link for it means that the image is pulled to your blog from their website directly.    In this case, you are using their bandwidth to load their image on your website.  As well as being against the law, you could also find that the owner replaces the image with something unsavoury to teach you a lesson.

What Could Go Wrong, Who Would Know?

It’s all subjective.  The value of an image can make the deciding factor in any copyright case.  The potential fallout could cover damage to reputation as well as fines.   Damages awards could be quite high depending on the situation, and photographers are very sensitive of their work being stolen by others.  There are plenty free sites which have reasonable costs, so there is no need to steal pictures from other people.

Some software is now able to pick up the copies of an image on other websites, and there are some companies who WILL go after people using their images.  Be warned, they can afford to sue.

 

 

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Man of the Match

Footballers 400

Littlest was proud as punch yesterday. Despite being in the school reject football team, and only being there for half the match, he managed to score the winning goal and be awarded the man of the match card.

The man of the match cards are a big thing for kids playing football. What made it so much better was that they actually won a game – and that is unheard of.  The team they played yesterday is about the same level as they are, and they have drawn against them twice before.

man of the match

His team is the team that wouldn’t usually get to play in the school leagues, but with their being so many children wanting to play football in his year, there are already two teams that have been cherry picked to be the best potential winners.

Their coaches know as much about football as I do, which isn’t a lot.  The kids get little to no help with how to play the game or learn skills at training.  They more or less just kick a ball about and the kids sometimes look at the coaches for some advice, only to find them gossiping and not looking at them.

Saying that, the coaches do turn up each week and the kids do get to have a game of football.  It is frustrating it is for some parents to watch them get almost zero help at all with it, but there’s also nothing that can be done about it.

It was nice to see them actually win for a change, and for littlest to actually get something AND score the winning goal is MASSIVE for him.

His little chest has been puffed out ever since, and he’s been walking with a little bit of a swagger.  He’s one of the kids who never wins anything, never gets to the top of the list, and never gets picked first.

School has not been terribly positive for him this past few weeks, so what a difference a teensy bit of self-esteen gives a child who spends a lot of his life living under the shadow and threat of his elder brothers disabilities.

I am thankful that he has had the experience of success and he has a light in his eyes that I’ve not seen for a couple of years.

I’d love for it to stay there.

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Funky Foodies February 2013

STAR RECIPE WINNER – for January was : The Boy and Me with Slow Cooker Rice Pudding. It made me want to go and try some out.

Funky Foodies took a break in December, and is now open for February 2013.   Only 10 days to add your recipes, so get clicking.

THIS MONTHS FUNKY FOODIES LINKY IS OPEN AND THERE MUST BE LOADS OF RECIPES TO CHOOSE FROM.  

  • Is a monthly linkie, which will close on the last day of the month.
  • A medal will be awarded for the Star Recipe every month, and the fabulous trophy in the blog badge will be awarded at the end of a whole year of the Funky Foodies. If you want to find out more about it, read here.
  • All you have to do is share as many recipes from your own blog a month as you’d like. If you struggle to add your recipe, send me your link and I’ll add it for you.
  • Try to pop around and share the comment love with other funky foodies. We all like a little love and might come across some fabulous recipes.
If you want to host the linkie on your own blog as a blog hop, get the code here :

Simply add the link to your recipe on your own blog, and share your latest recipe with everyone taking part. If you don’t want to miss the linkie being opened, subscribe to RSS or by email in the blog header.

I’ll add recipes of mine to share, although I don’t count in the recipe challenge.

Feel free to copy the badge to use on your own blog, but you don’t have to.

Funky Foodies

If you want to add the blog hop to your own website,  get the InLinkz code

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Tesco Charitable Mum of the Year 2013 – Ann Maxwell

Ann-Maxwell-Blog-hero-
Photo Credit “Tesco Magazine”.

As a parent of special needs children, I know just how tiring and demanding filling the needs of our children, earning some money, and doing a spot of volunteering here and there can be.

Ann Maxwell took that to an entirely new level.

Ann’s son, Muir, was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome which is a very rare form of epilepsy that causes profound learning difficulties, behaviour problems and severe developmental delay.

Muir was 10 before he was fully diagnosed and in special needs terms, that is late.  I can empathise with the difficulties of late diagnosis on the potential outcomes for children, but there is usually very little that we can do about it.

Instead of focussing on her own situation, Ann got out there and decided that she was going to help other families get the diagnosis and help that they needed.

Nothing was going to stop Ann, and she set up the Muir Maxwell Trust in 2003.   By using DNA testing with results run by the NHS, children are tested and diagnosed in 40 days.  No more waiting for years to get treatment.

Ann did all of this while also being diagnosed with bone cancer in her skull in 2006.  After several operations, she kept going with her work and up to now, the trust has raised an amazing £7 million.

I’ll let her describe what she’s done in her own words:

‘Every project that we’ve launched has been based on the experience of raising Muir. We’ve recognised where there is a need and launched a project to meet that need. Then we find someone to continue with the project so that it has a permanent place in terms of delivery but is not one that we have to fund indefinitely. We’ve found all sorts of partners, from the NHS and government to other charities. The point of the trust is to provide practical support to try and make the lives of families dealing with epilepsy better.’

I can understand how Ann feels when she talks about waving a magic wand that would allow Muir to be a normal child.  I think it’s something that most special needs parents wish and why we often go looking for ways we can make a difference to their lives.

The Tesco Mum of the Year awards celebrate women who have made a real difference to the lives of others.  As the winner or Charitable Mum of the Year 2013, Anne’s sheer determination to improve lives of other children in the UK while dealing with her own family issues is an inspiration, and makes her a very deserving winner for the official ceremony in March..

Find out more about Ann on the website, and make a note to nominate an extraordinary mum next year.

This year, for the first time, the Tesco Mum of the Year Awards Ceremony will be broadcast on Channel 5.   The Mum of the Year winners will be at the Savoy in London on the 3rd of March with many celebrity guests.  On Mother’s day, Sunday the 10th of March, we can all tune in to watch their stories.

Being asked to be an official blogger for the Tesco Mum of the Year Awards 2013 has been an honour and I hope they all have a wonderful time at the Awards Ceremony.  

 

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You’re a “gobby shite.”

With hindsight I could have avoided being the epic parental fail that comes from having too much confidence after one successful outing.

With middler in asentia on Tuesday, visiting a play frame went really well.  Being exceptionally cocky and suffering a mini brain impediment, I went back with a friend and our kids after after taking them for an unusually pleasant swim.

Still basking in the success of Tuesday, my brain conveniently forgot middler wasn’t there.  Mindful of the meddlers who keep telling me that I need to give middler a little bit of freedom and saying things like “aww, you’re really big enough do “this” or “that” on your own, I accepted the inevitable disapproval of the smothering mother brigade who think he is just overprotected and needs to get some freedom from adults, and threw caution to the wind.

BIG, BIG mistake.

Congratulating ourselves on possibly finally reaching the hallowed stage of play frame parents in absentia, we sat outside the play room at our table.  Freedom is one thing, but this 11 year old of mine still needed to be kept close.  It seemed to be going well, so I gritted my teeth, let them get on with it and we ordered lunch for the kids.

During pudding, a member of staff came over with an older woman whose jacket matched her flushed cheeks, and the two boys she was with.  Instantly eyeing up the kids at the table, I thought I knew who was in the firing line and was prepared to read the riot act and not allow mine back in.

She had the misfortune of going on the attack.

“Your kids, yada yada yada.”

The kids said she called them “gobby shites.”  She denied that at first, but had to back down and admit it when eldest backed up the two youngest in the spotlight for that.

Pointing the finger at a group of kids and then rattling off to them in front of me isn’t going to get my support either.

“You told me my mum must be proud of me.” said friends son.

“That’s right.” said angry woman.  “She must be really proud of you, your behaviour is terrible.”  It’s clear she thinks friends son is my son and I don’t bother saying he isn’t.  It’s clear she also thinks our kids are badly brought up hooligans.  Our wild air dried swimming pool hair, slap free faces and casual clothes do nothing to correct the impression that we are anything but minky tinks.

“Oh” says I,”you’re being sarcastic to them too then?”

She’s getting annoyed by this time, stuttering, shaking her head, voice cracking, pointing her fingers at the kids and arguing with them.

She pointed at friends fostered son with visible special needs and included him in it.

“He’s got special needs.”  She looked at his face and realised how disabled he was and backed down.

She then included middler.  I was bored of her by this point, so although I was quite sure middler was no innocent, I calmly tell her that he was disabled.

That left three possible culprits at the table.

Eldest held his hands up and said “don’t look at me, I didn’t get involved.”

Then she was left with 2 kids who had a falling out with her 2 kids.  All 4 kids seem about the same size.  It all really boiled down to boys having an argument.

I wasn’t prepared to rise to the bait or get into an argument as she came over spoiling for a fight and determined to prove to herself how badly raised our kids were.  I had no intention of getting into an argument but I did say that if she had wanted to talk calmly about it, I would have been prepared to listen.  She stormed off in a huff, still in high dudgeon and I would guess family at home will have been regaled by tales of horrific children with devil horns and forked tongues.

I’m always prepared to listen to someone (and act) if any of my kids have been OTT, but coming over ready to rumble isn’t going to get my sympathy.

On the way home, eldest decided to tell me the two boys  had been making fun of middlers hand actions when he gets excited.  Our two kids who got into a brawl with hers had been annoyed.  When middler is happy or excited, his hands go up to his face, he clenches his fists and he makes involuntary noises that sometimes embarrass him.  Apparently this woman had also been mimicking his hand actions when she was annoyed with him, instead of coming to get me.

I don’t know exactly what happened as I never saw any of it, so there is little I can really say.

If she’d come up calmly to talk to us, I could have dealt with it, removed kids and sorted things out.  I am actually quite reasonable and prepared to sort out kid disputes.  As it was, I couldn’t listen to someone so hyped up in anger that they just wanted to argue with a group of kids.  The whole point of behaviour modification is not getting angry with angry kids.  That gets nobody anywhere.  Since middler didn’t seem to be directly involved, I let them back to play.

Another BIG, BIG mistake.

Forgetting we were reaching the stage of medicine wearing off, I kept my fingers crossed while I enjoyed a chat and a soft drink.  Staff approached again.  This time it was middler himself.

A younger girl had thrown something which had landed on middler and he then went after the girl, completely inappropriately.  So much for giving him a bit of freedom.

It’s the first and very LAST time it will happen until he leaves my home.

AND, I am officially the shitty parent who let her kids run riot and am thoroughly disgusted with myself for even bothering to try it.

I tried to find the parents of the girl he went after to make him apologise, but I couldn’t find them.

I doubt we’ll be back to that play frame with middler, it’s just too much hassle.  Even if we stayed inside the room, most of the play frame is out of sight so you can’t see what they are doing anyway.

What on earth were we thinking to let two disabled kids go into a play frame with their brothers ??