A Modern Mother

Ladies, may I present the rowers of the regatta

I made it down to the today for my annual trip on behalf of women worldwide. Below are the photos. Enjoy!

Check your child's head. NOW!

This is a message to all parents:

It has come to our attention that head lice are active in the school. Please get off your friggin' arse and check your child's head. Do not just take a quick look; this can be misleading, especially in blond or light brown hair. Go out and spend £1.80 on a proper nit comb, slather in some conditioner (you can pick some up at Tesco for £1) and comb through every inch of your darlings' locks. IF YOU SEE LITTLE BLACK THINGS THAT LOOK LIKE SAND IT IS MOST LIKELY BABY HEAD LICE. Now treat it. If you refrain from doing this, the children whose parent's treat this condition properly will be re-infested.

We appreciate your immediate attention to this matter.

The Staff

Photo credit: gipukan 

Hello my name is...

There are two great posts going on about CyberMummy ... Tara's Gallery and Carly's Meet and Greet.

I could not resist entering this photo for Tara's special version of the Gallery that will be presented at CyberMummy. Her brief was Motherhood. Do you think this photo captures it?

And Carly has invited us all over to her place for a CyberMummy pre-drinks meet and greet. So here goes...

Vital stats

• Name: Susanna Scott
• Blog: A Modern Mother
• Founder: British Mummy Bloggers
• Partner: CyberMummy Conferences
• Twitter ID: @amodernmother
• Height: 5ft 8
• Hair: Erm, not sure what the original colour is, but now it's mousy with highlights 
• Eyes: Bloodshot from no sleep (worrying about CyberMummy) 
• Likes: Children that behave, chocolate, sunshine

See you at CyberMummy!

Recipe: Annabel's Sweet and Sour Meatballs. Yum.

The modern family is a pasta crazy household. I think we could live on pasta and water alone  -- OK, and some wine for the adults ;-)  Annabel Karmel knows this, and we've been testing some of the recipes from her new cookbook Top 100 Pasta Dishes.

Last time we tried Annabel's escallops with tomatoes and basil sauce with much success. This time I let my pickiest eater choose a recipe (the one that swears she is allergic to vegetables).  She found this pic of sweet and sour meatballs and asked if I could make it "without the green stuff". I immediately took her cue; meatballs are an excellent vehicle to "hide" nutritious things like vegetables. Annabel adds grated apple to hers to give more flavour and keep them moist.

The amazing Pup-o-matic competition

This is a sponsored post

Andrex is running a special competition on their Facebook page next week: Pup-o-Matic!

There are £20,000 worth of prizes, including Nintendo Wii Consoles, X-Box 360s, Sony Cybershot Digital Cameras, Nintendo DSi consoles, Sony Playstation 3s, gift vouchers up to the value of £150 from a number of retailers including Next, M&S and Tesco and much much more. 

To enter, all fans have to do is play the new ‘Pup-o-matic’ game. It's like a slot machine, the fruit symbols have been replaced with the Andrex Puppy and his ‘Soft’, ‘Strong’ and ‘Long’ friends that feature in the new Andrex advertising campaign – a chihuahua, a bulldog and a sausage dog. Matching dogs means prizes. 

The competition runs from 15th June to 5th July 2010. 

Good luck!

 

Holiday pics from Normandy

 

We spent halfterm in France, in the Calvados region in Normandy, near the D-Day landing beaches. This is Gold beach at Arromanches, one of the British landing beaches. The structures you see in the distance are the remains of a Mulberry Harbour, which was a temporary harbour constructed during the allied invasions. 

Review: The Citroen C4 Picasso Does Normandy!

This is a sponsored post

The PR folks over at Citroen asked if the modern family would try out one of their cars for a week. What serendipity! Driving a French car on our halfterm holiday in France might actually get us more street cred. We needed a vehicle that could accommodate six people, so we picked the Citroen Grand C4 Picasso, a 7-seater MPV. This sleek black version arrived on our doorstep. Don't you just want to pet her?

Review: Keycamp Houlgate

This is a sponsored post

 
About a year ago, the lovely PR folks over at Keycamp asked if we might like to try out one of their caravans in France. As most of our holidays are at my parents house in California, we gladly accepted. Then came the long process of picking a destination! We finally settled on Houlgate, on the coast in Normandy near the D-Day beaches. With the girls still on the young side (5, 6 and 8) we didn't want to spend the entire holiday driving south. Houlgate is just a 3 hour drive from Calais, or 40 minutes from Caen.

First impressions:

Houlgate is a lovely beachside town, and the La Vallee campsite is not too far from the town centre (a 20-minute walk). The facilities are squeaky clean and include four swimming pools, a games room, laundry room, and playparks. We had never stayed in a caravan previously, and while space is tight, it is functional. If you think of it as high end camping, it's downright luxurious.