Mad English girl Down Under

Yesterday was Christmas day as I'm sure you all know and don't need telling. We have I guess you'd call it a tradition where no presents are put under the tree until late Christmas eve. This year is no exception, once the kids are in bed I go and get all the presents from their hiding place which I think is universal all over the world, from the wardrobe, right? The miraculous thing is that I, like every other mum I believe, seem to manage to hide all the presents into the smallest of hiding places. Feeling good and chuffed with myself and remembering (or so I thought) all of the hiding places I then can relax. List checked for the millionth time that yes everything I've bought is wrapped and I have bought enough presents. So Christmas morning comes along and the stocking are dragged in to our room by the children (yes I know they're now 14 and 18 but they still get a stocking) We then break from tradition and go straight to the tree to open presents. We agree ...

G'day everyone. It's that time of year again when 3 of the 4 of us go and have birthdays all within a week of each other. Crazy right, but the more people I talk to the more I hear other people are just as stupid! I could firstly tell you about the birthdays but in truth 2 of the 4 of us were poorly on 2 of the 3 birthdays. So that's not what I'm going to do. Instead I'm going to share with you my wonderful cake creations. In my head and I blame a lot if not all of this down to bake off, they make things look easy and when I'm watching it I sit and shout at the telly how hard can THAT be, (amongst other unprintable things) So the theme this year for Ob's cake was some weights. How hard can that be right? In my head as all my creations are, they are marvellous, fantastic and look exactly how they should do. Sadly in truth they end up with me getting the hump and turning the air blue. Like I said this year I made some cakes to look like weights. I was a...

So its that time again when I have a day off so can write about my adventures and yes first I have to go food shopping. Sigh, which results in my fear of will the trolley coin work this time (remember so far it hasn't) As I'm walking to the trolleys I see an abandoned one that's not chained to its siblings, so I do a little fist pump in the air and grab it from the clutches of the old man about to do the same. If he knew my battle with trolleys and Aldi in general I'm sure he would've been sympathetic. So off I trundle and grab all the bits I need, I timed it right, just before all the other annoying mums have got there after dropping off their children at school. So, at the till there is not my normal friendly person whom I chat to, instead it's this half wit, he looks about as impressed to be there as I do, he was NOT impressed when I couldn't remember my pin number and sighed louder than I do, so I told him there was no need for that (everything over he...

So last night I stopped off to Aldi to get some picnic food (more about this later) Struggle yet again with the trolley coin as I have done all the other times I go to Aldi (which fyi is one of 3 as you know supermarkets here in Canberra, Sigh.  Do miss Sainsbury, any how) So after struggling with the trolley coin (they don't have baskets here presumably so you buy more or don't pinch them? I managed to get the trolley with the worse wheels ever and just ever so slightly bumping into some poor person walking past (I had no control over this thing) I manage to get inside. Within seconds of me looking at all the rice cakes (remember the tuna episode ...... it was a bit like that but this time I just opted for barbecue flavour and not one of each) I hear a "miss, miss, miss" I turn around and there is a very small oriental man standing there beaming at me, I felt like a celebrity and thought yup, he's read my blog, he recognises me. In my head I'm mentally th...

G'day.  It's been a while I know. Due to working FULL TIME (have I mentioned that before?) I now have no time to shop, no time for coffee with the lovelies and worse no time to blog. Sob and sigh.  Any how... During my working weeks I have been been building A LOT. ...I am now a master and am pretty very awesome. I still hide in the wardrobes (see attached picture) this was taken this morning while I fitted the trouser pull out hanger to it.  After taking said photo I realised I was being watch by another co-worker so in true Maddi style I just shrugged and said "I'm British" he looked as confused as me trying to find my way around the store. (Getting lost is a daily thing for me). Sigh 😕😣  As you know this is my favourite phrase and excuses me for pretty much every thing (well in my head it does) A few blunders I either said or done over the last few weeks are... During the weekly store huddle (yes we have a weekly huddle, we also have a daily huddle... p...

Evening all. 6pm here and thought I'd spend the next hour writing to you. Sean is in the office / spare room doing spin on his road bike with trusty mac advising him what to do. I went to spin class this morning at 6 am and got shouted at what to do. Which I have to say did get easy then I didn't go for a week because of being in Sydney with work and now I feel like I'm back to square one. Hey ho. So my week last week was erm. ... OK.  The first 2 days I did nothing but pillow fluff which actually after 8 hours of doing I was glad by the 3rd day to be in the wardrobe part. I've found the answer to all the questions asked by customers is simply say "just follow the path and you'll see/get it" works a treat. Sean was not impressed when I told him this. But what does he know. The 4th day I was more prepared and took initiative and shut all the wardrobe doors that were open, even the ones customers had just opened and were looking in. This did actually ...

Hi everyone. I have just had a very amusing experience happen and only felt it right I should share with you lot. So, Sean came back last night (he's been in Sydney for 3 days) and we have a vodka & coke to start the weekend off with. This morning I have to follow him in our car to drop the hire car off. So we're pootling along and suddenly the cars all start to slow down. The police are ahead and they are waving EVERY single car to the side. I start to panic, I had 2 last night but any one that knows Sean, knows he pours his shots like they are going out of fashion. I'm watching Sean and thinking crap we're both for the high jump. He pulls up and then within seconds he's driving off. I'm now shaking and have gone all hot with fear. So... I drive up to the policeman that's waving me to pull up (very slowly I might add, oh and quite typically my hair is frantic as I didn't bother doing it this morning and I have my Willy Wonka sunglasses o...