Teenage Proof Your Bathroom.

There's lots of safety advice and guidance on baby and child proofing your bathroom online, but absolutely none at all on how to teenage proof that smallest of rooms yet it's a vitally important step to take. For the safety of your own sanity if nothing else.

Teenagers and bathrooms go together like monsters and swamps, which is presumably why they can't spend anytime in there without leaving towels squelching underfoot and Louisiana levels of humidity when they, eventually, emerge.

So, here's a few pointers on how to protect your bathroom from the dangers of teenagers ...

Silent Sunday ...

The Gallery: Colour ....

I'm joining in with The Gallery this week and the theme is Colour .... 

My colour is the colour of the sky at the seaside ...

 And all the colours of the sky at home...

 All...

the...

 colours ...

A rainbow's worth of colour.

This is my entry for The Gallery, check out 

everyone else's Colours at Sticky Fingers

Silent Sunday ...

If 9 Year Olds Had the Vote ...

I and The Boy have been discussing politics.

Or, to be a little more accurate, I was *cough* "discussing" politics, and The Boy happened to be listening.

Or, even more accurately, he couldn't help but listen because I was having the "discussion" really rather loudly. On my own. At the telly.

There may have been some swearing.

Alright, there was definitely swearing.

Because, well. Politics.

The Gallery: Spring ...

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I'm joining in with The Gallery this week and the theme is Spring ...

The winters seem longer and colder than they ever did these days, so the first signs of spring are like the glimpses of light at the end of a long, dark and unduly dank tunnel. And the best part about when spring has sprung is the blazes of bright colour that spring flowers bring to our parks, gardens and hedgerows ...

Check out everyone else's take on spring over at The Gallery

Silent Sunday ...

Photographing Squirrels, a Pictorial Guide ...

First. Find your squirrel

Birthdays, Better with Cake ..

The Boy's ninth birthday fell on Easter weekend this year, but frankly he wasn't too happy about that.

For the whole week before the big day his three elder sisters, like three elder sisters do, had maintained that for his birthday, he would get an Easter egg. Nothing else, just an Easter egg. One solitary Easter egg. It was the rules, they said. Because it was Easter, they said.

Now The Boy likes a chocolate egg as much as the next eight-nearly-nine-year-old but he'd put a whole year and a lot of thought into a wishlist of presents, and it wasn't looking too hopeful if his sisters were to be believed.

Grandma and Grandad also joined in the fun and pulled their highly hilarious: "Oh, is it your birthday? We'd forgotten" gag that they've played consistently since, well, forever.

Advice to Daughters Upon Choosing a Life Partner...

Once your teenage daughter starts dating, it's a knuckle clenching rollercoaster of emotions. And not just for her.

From the first moment your daughter starts to take an interest in the opposite sex, about the time you notice a boy's name recurring at least three or four times in every sentence they utter, you become little more than a helpless bystander.

There will be times when you despair at her choice of partner. There will be times when you'll be more broken-hearted over a break-up than she is. There will be times when you tell outrageous lies to a teenage boy just about to be stood up or let down. There will be times when you wonder what the hell she sees in him. There may be times when you end up wrestling an unusually persistent suitor out of your kitchen door.

But one thing is for sure, over the course of her active dating life, you will be told often and repeatedly: 'YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.' Though you do.

On Putting Away Childish Things...

Youngest child The Boy turned nine years old this weekend. That halfway age when he's not a small child anymore but not yet big enough to be a terrible tween either.

He no longer needs constant supervision; he can read all the words and the numbers, he can tell the time and tie his shoes. He can walk and run, ride a bike and swim a mile. He can run his own bath and wash his own hair and, though you'd never think it, brush his own teeth.

He knows left from right and up from down and back from front and, on a good day, right from wrong .

And I'm like a redundant holiday camp entertainer, because he doesn't need me to keep him entertained either.

Silent Sunday ...