Sophie's Voice

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Child 1 wins a prize... (part 2)

Child 1 wins a prize… (part 2)

Today I wrote an email to Laura’s teacher because I was feeling emotional and verbose. I’m not sure what she’ll make of it but it read like this… [pictures added to illustrate my badly made points] Heading: Laura’s Prize for Progress Hi Miss B, I just wanted to let you know how happy we are about Laura actually winning something! Honestly (and this is no reflection on Laura’s abilities – it’s…

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Child 1 wins a prize... (part 1)

Child 1 wins a prize… (part 1)

This afternoon, after a truly epic – but in the Towering Inferno sense of the word – scholastic year, Laura (this post will probably be too heartfelt for me to maintain the Child 1 moniker) came home from school for the first time with a proper award. Not ‘tried hardest this week’, ‘best behaved’ (which, strangely, her kid sister’s won three times), ‘trip from the Tooth Fairy’ or the like… Nope,…

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It's Mother's Day tomorrow - get your shiz together!

It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow – get your shiz together!

Every year I write a version of this post. Obviously 2021 is a complete wildcard so you may have to work around my advice this time! …So have you planned your Mother’s Day celebrations? If not, good luck with getting it together – although, luckily, I am here to help. To start, do something that I rarely advise – listen to Miss Vogue and buy your mother a luxurious present that isn’t related to…

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January Instagram challenge 

I started doing the FMS Instagram Challenge on the first day of 2017. I used to be religious about keeping up, keeping relevant, keeping brand aware and just trying to keep it together at all really. I beat myself up if I missed a day – bear in mind that my daughters were 5 and just 3 years old when I started the project – and I was relentless. I fussed over everything. I kept up for a while but…

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What people forget about the Farrow / Allen Court battle

In 1992, a Vanity Fair writer called Maureen Orth wrote what is still considered to be the most succinct account of the legal facts of the prosecution of Woody Allen by the state of Connecticut. You can read the original article here and I’ll link to a couple of others throughout this post. There are 10 important points to take from the trial and the preceding brouhaha. Because Vanity Fair…

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Mulled wine - not just for Christmas

Mulled wine – not just for Christmas

Plus a variation for those of you who want something lighter and more refreshing.

I love mulled wine. I drink it a lot during the autumn. It’s great if you have company because you can leave it on the stove and let guests help themselves. Halloween and Bonfire night are great times to kick off mulling season.

People think it has to take ages to cook. It doesn’t – and you don’t need to fiddle…

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Blogtober 2020 - the prompts...

Blogtober 2020 – the prompts…

This year Mandi Morrison at Big Family Organised Chaos is, once again, organising a Blogtober challenge. Corralling bloggers is not an easy job but she’s bravely taken it on – although, if anyone can do it, it’s got to be a woman who can deal with 7 children daily.

(more…)

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Stanning on Generation Z - spoiler alert: they're lovely...

Stanning on Generation Z – spoiler alert: they’re lovely…

By now lots of you have probably already tasted a flavour of Twins The New Trend via the viral video of them discovering Phil Collins (if you haven’t I promise it’s better than it sounds) but all their content is worth checking out.

Image shows cover for In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Click image to listen on Spotify.

Imagine three brothers – yes, there are three, although usually only two…

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How Liverpool copes with tragedy...

How Liverpool copes with tragedy…

The anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy is always a pensive, reflective time in Liverpool.

The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal human crush during the semi-final football match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield on the 15th of April, 1989.

With 96 fatalities and 766 injuries, it remains the worst disaster in British sporting history. It was caused…

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A quick review of my Coronavirus beauty regime...

A quick review of my Coronavirus beauty regime…

After a few enquiries, here’s a quick look at my beauty essentials during lockdown – nothing very exciting, I’m afraid.

I have been wearing precisely no makeup – until this week’s Instagram takeovers. I’m not one of those people who gets a nice warm feeling when I’ve got my face on. If anything I’m a bit of a clean freak.

I like to use two cleansers and lots of nurturing serums. I’m trying to…

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What to do during lockdown... Part 1 - Podcasts

What to do during lockdown… Part 1 – Podcasts

I always associate podcasts with smart people. Smarter than me people, anyway. I’m lucky – somehow a lot of smarter than me people are generous enough to be my friends. I’m glad. They’re really helpful in expanding my gaze at the world.

They are fonts of wisdom when it comes to what’s big, what’s new, what’s topical, what’s going to hit the zeitgeist and what will challenge you.

That’s wonderful…

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What Coronavirus will mean for Gen-Xers and our younger siblings - the much preferred (by our parents, anyway) Xennials...

What Coronavirus will mean for Gen-Xers and our younger siblings – the much preferred (by our parents, anyway) Xennials…

Yesterday a lovely colleague texted ‘hahahahaha oh my god that’s so dramatic’ in reply to one of my Coronavirus related messages.

She was totally right, to be fair. However, I’ve just been to the post-school ‘break up’ adhoc park play session with a load of the mothers who keep me sane a lot of the time. We talked plans for the next few weeks and discussed the implications of these times for our…

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Here comes the sun… A Sophie's Voice tradition - the annual commemoration of Child 2's arrival.

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'Happy Holidays' is just good manners...

‘Happy Holidays’ is just good manners…

I served a Muslim woman and her daughter at work today. They come in a lot so we know them well – the daughter’s kids are always gutted that our gummy sweets aren’t halal… But we just got new vegan ones so I let them know and they were so excited. It was such a Christmas moment. I felt like an elf.

Anyway they bought all the flavours because they’ve never eaten them before and I said ‘Happy…

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A quick word about holiday sweaters...

A quick word about holiday sweaters…

Occasionally I suffer from depression. That’s enough about that – I’m British so I don’t dwell whilst the dark passenger isn’t riding my coattails. Anyway, it tends to make me rather zealous about holidays. All holidays – I don’t discriminate. They all have a meaning and a purpose so they’re all equally important.

I’m not a total zealot – I don’t celebrate them all. I am, however, infused with a…

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Blogmas begins with my likes and dislikes 4 years ago I was much better organised around the holiday season and I was a regular Blogmas contributor.

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Celebrate 60 years of NORAD’s Santa Tracker As some of you will have gleaned over the course of the last year, my children are still devoted believers in some of the more magical characters from everyone's childhood - since Child 1 lost her first tooth aged 7 she is yet to become jaded and cynical about the existence of the Tooth Fairy.