La Dolce Vita – When in Rome…..
This past weekend was spent NOT celebrating my 40th birthday on a surprise weekend break to Rome, organised, planned and paid for by my amazing British husband! He knew I’d wanted to re-visit Italy after having studied and lived there 18 years ago. It was truly a wonderful surprise and a fantastic weekend. It was […]
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating Thanksgiving in the UK. And Happy Thanksgiving to friends and family in the USA! Thanksgiving is the best American holiday in terms of time off work and food and family spirit. It’s a day when family and friends gather together around lots, and I mean, LOTS, of homemade traditional food […]
Don Key. Who’s Don Key? No, Don-key – the animal like a horse. OH! Donkey! %!%!
Something very funny happened today when we were at the Vet having our kitten jabbed. All 3 kids were with me and while I was trying to stop Jonah from breaking the cat toys and my older son (who should know better) from causing bodily harm to his younger brother, I noticed a flyer for […]
My day at Eden Hall
Last weekend I went up to Eden Hall and spent a VERY relaxing day with a good friend from Nottingham. It was an amazing day and very unusual for me to not have my children around me. My wonderful husband looked after all the kids for the whole weekend! A first and truly a real […]
Daily Mail petition to stop foreigners coming to the UK
The Daily Mail launched a petition to stop non British people moving to the UK. So far over 100,000 have signed this e-petition in the first week. “A Downing Street ‘e-petition’ calling for action to restore Britain’s battered border controls has smashed through the 100,000-name barrier in less than one week.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058804/Immigration-petition-Pressure-action-grows-100k-sign-e-petition.html?ito=feeds-newsxml Sir Andrew Green claims immigration […]
I have a fag burn on my jacket
I was shocked, horrified and offended by this casual remark from my British boyfriend 17 years ago. I thought – “What?? How can he say that!” Well, I have come a long long way since then and am no longer shocked, horrified or offended by sentences like this. I would still never say something like […]
Top Ten Best Things About Raising Children in Britain
Celebrate Britain – there are some things that I think are absolutely wonderful about living and raising my children here. I’ve got a top ten! This list has been compiled from my book Bringing Up Brits and also from my own personal experience. 1. NHS and free meds for children 2. Acceptance of other cultures […]
Halloween overseas
Many of my childhood memories are of Halloween parties, making costumes and decorations, carving pumpkins, making pumpkin pie, bobbing for apples, haunted houses (I was actually so terrified in one that they had to shut it down to get me out!), and counting our candy at the end of spooky fun night of trick-or-treating. We always […]
Baby names!
I remember my husband and I really struggled when it came to naming our babies. I suppose Samuel was the easiest and least controversial. There are certain American names that you NEVER hear of over here. And there were lots of names I had never of heard of before or thought were not very popular, […]
American driver in Britain
A reader commented recently on how I didn’t put anything in Bringing Up Brits about driving in Britain. I think perhaps by the time I wrote my book, I felt I had mastered the art of driving on the other side of the road and parking in unimaginably tight spaces. But looking back, it was […]
Tanith Carey and Anita Naik
I just ordered some fantastic books by two British mothers and writers. Very excited! I’ve been meaning to get this book for a while now and i’m so looking forward to reading it. My daughter is 8 and already acts like a teenager sometimes – everything is a drama!! It’s very different parenting boys – my […]
Expat women, Expat-blog, Twitter and ….. CHER
Since starting Bringing Up Brits blog, I have come across some great resources for expats in the UK and actually – for expats all over the world. Some I discovered when I was writing Bringing Up Brits and others I’ve found more recently. I will tell you about a few. Expat women. This is a beautiful […]
Stephen Fry is on my wavelength
“Our attachment to our language is about emotion, not about intellect. Our identity is all about feelings” -Stephen Fry on Planet Word On the BBC program Planet Word, Stephen Fry argues that the way we speak defines us above all – be it a national language, a regional dialect or even class variation. The program […]
Jennifer’s story
Jennifer came to my Worthing Mumpreneurs Networking Club event, joined up and then eventually became the Shoreham Mumpreneurs Networking Club manager. She is a Canadian expat and this is her story: “I have recently moved to England (July 2010) from Canada. As Canada is a commonwealth country and we still have in place a lot […]
The Gruffalo meets Goodnight Moon
I and my family absolutely love children’s books – our house is full to bursting with the likes of Judith Kerr, John Burningham, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and C.S Lewis. And we wouldn’t be truly alive if we didn’t ritually read and recite The Gruffalo, The Tiger who Came to Tea, Albie and the Space […]