Coffee mornings – that’s all we mums do, isn’t it? According to outsiders, that is. But, there is a grain of truth in it – coffee mornings are the backbone of inter-mum congress, the fabric that binds us breeders together. They can be daunting, especially the first with a new group. But it’s OK – there is a code. The code of sugary goodness. A packet of biscuits is the Masonic handshake of the Mummy World. Coffee Mornings Are The New Dinner Party Prior to motherhood, a coffee meant catching up at the work coffee point, or sneaking out to Starbucks at lunchtime. But once you have a baby, you realise that the coffee morning is the dinner party of your new world. Except instead of house prices, we talk about whether our baby slept through, school applications and the pros and cons of (hypothetical) post-breastfeeding boob jobs. It is where you forge new friendships, exchange repartee (witty, ranting and /or sympathetic), and enjoy good food and drink. Instead of bringing flowers, you bring biscuits – much cheaper and tastier. Biscuitage – Some Do’s and Don’ts In the early days of a group, coffee mornings are like a Biscuit Fayre. The spread is incredible. Your biscuit choice says a lot about you, before your group knows anything more than that you have a kid of similar age. Turning up with a pack of Rich Teas* is like turning up to a dinner party with the bottle of rosé you won off the tombola last Christmas. It’s not done. There is a protocol to biscuitage, and I’ve observed some basic rules: 1) The less well you know your hostess, the more lavish the biscuit. 2) Never bring an open pack of biscuits,even if you only opened them in the car. They may need eating up, but this is not the place for them. 3) If in doubt, bring two packs. Take advantage of 3 for 2 offers and make yourself look generous while squirreling a packet away at home. Win win! 4) Don’t sh*t on your own doorstep. I.e. Don’t buy the favourites you have at home. Coffee mornings are all about new experiences in sugar – don’t hold yourself back. 5) Don’t re-biscuit. Like re-gifting, be careful not to re-biscuit the person who gave you the original packet. It looks like you don’t eat biscuits at home (weird!), or can’t be bothered to shop for a nice packet of your own – heinous! In the unlikely event you are left with biscuits after hosting a coffee morning, it’s best just to eat them at once, to avoid the pitfalls. 6) Don’t bring Jaffa Cakes. Is it a cake, is it a biscuit? Who cares – they told us to eat them in labour, so they are off the menu for a good five years. 7) Buy seasonal. An Easter chocolate crispy nest with mini eggs on top? Yes, please! A Christmas selection box – ooh, you spoil me, mummies. 8) Don’t bring homemade. Other mums will be suspicious of you – how do you have time for that? – and feel inferior, even hateful, depending on how much sleep they’ve had. If you do bring homemade, do it only occasionally and apologise profusely. I find the biscuit algorithm goes in a predictable pattern. At your first coffee morning with new mummy friends, like my NCT one after we all had our babies, there is no limit to the biscuitage. None of us can get enough sugar. We are knackered, we barely know each other, many are breastfeeding, we have a new human being to look after – pass the plate, lady! After a few months, we are all feeling a bit lardy, and the biscuit offering reflects that. So, less of the quadruple chocolate cookies, and more of the almond thins. Still no Rich Teas, though. Then when we all start going back to work, the biscuits ramp up. We are juggling work AND babies! We hardly ever have coffee, let alone biscuits – we need that hit! The greatest oxymoron of coffee mornings is that we mummies discuss our bodies not being the same, our poor/ nascent exercise regimes and our general dissatisfaction with our appearance…while eating lots of biscuits. But, I think you’ll agree, there is no contradiction in this. Biscuits are the Ying to the Yang of Buggy Fit. Without biscuits, we are nothing. I once tried to institute a fresh fruit theme to our coffee mornings, and it went down like a prune smoothie. No one wants to be reminded of the real world, our real challenges, while sitting on some nice mummy’s floor eating biscuits. We are building a wall against reality, one Extra Chocolate Round at a time. Beware the Coffee Morning Relay One fine day, I had three coffee mornings on the trot. Obviously, the latter two were edging towards the afternoon, but the name is generic. The point is, I had nine biscuits in one day. NINE! It was a wonderful day – but not to be repeated. I love my biscuits, but even I found that a little excessive. Turn Up Empty-Handed at Your Own Risk The only acceptable reasons you would turn up for a coffee morning without any biscuits at all are: a) you broke your leg on the way to the house; b) you ate them all on the way over as you’d had such a bad night; c) you know the group well enough to have a bye, just this once (abuse this at your peril; you will be ousted if you always turn up empty-handed). Happy Christmas Biscuits! *Disclaimer: I do actually like Rich Teas. They are just the least exciting of the McVities stable. They are good for kids as relatively low in sugar; for this reason, they are bad for mums, though.
Harry Potter, eat your heart out. Blogging’s where the magic’s at. The alchemy of words and readers, stories and reactions, pictures and beholders. A magical world awaits when you take the leap of faith on (WordPress) platform 9 ¾ and embark on your first year at Blogwarts. It may not be an actual giant castle surrounded by an enchanted lake, but the blogging community is a fantastical place to be, where pictures speak to you, doors open onto unimagined experiences and there is magic in the virtual air. Do your friends read your blog? Does your partner? Does any non-blogger? Muggles – we love ’em dearly, but they just don’t understand us. I know – I used to be one. The Muggles could quite happily remain unaware that Blogwarts even exists. But ain’t they adorable? Everyone has their own Professor Dumbledore – that revered pinnacle of wisdom and magic, who understands the private struggles of the Blogwarts students, for s/he was one once, but has the big picture and the highest power at the tip of his or her wand. Someone to respect, to admire and to emulate as much as one is able. Are you a Harry, a Hermione or a Ron? Some bloggers are so clued-up, it’s breathtaking. For the Hermiones, the acquisition of knowledge is a pleasure not a technological nightmare – the rest of us can only admire their brilliant endeavours. And try to copy their every move. Then you have the Rons who bumble and wisecrack their way through their Blogwarts adventures, offering some light relief from the main action. I count myself among these affable jokers. And of course, then there are the Harrys. Heroic, brave, funny in parts, effortlessly brilliant at everything but totally self-deprecating. Just pure magic. Some bloggers are incredibly brave and magical, but are completely unassuming. Like Neville Longbottom, they surprise us and themselves with their own abilities and can be relied on to save the day when Harry’s off showboating. He Who Shall Not Be Named Who is your Voldemort? Trolls are the obvious answer, and to them I say: EXPELLIARMUS! But I’d also add self-doubt – the bloggers’ main enemy. But you must believe in your own magic – or take a few nights off watching Celebrity Masterchef till the spark comes back. Are You A Gryffindor or a Slytherin? The Sorting Hat of Blogwarts is a marvellous thing. Unlike at its namesake, Hogwarts, you are not immediately placed into a house. After a few months, you find blogs you enjoy and value and your blog finds a place in a mini-community. But the beauty of Blogwarts is that nothing is set in stone – you can flit between the house common rooms with a click of your wand. Chasing The Golden Snitch 
Why do we blog? What is our Golden Snitch? It is something that appears out of nowhere in the midst of the blogging game and just as suddenly disappears. Others beat us to it, or knock us off our brooms as we seek it. It changes every day. For your first post, it might be one pageview, other than your own, checking it’s really there, live on the web. Then it flickers and transmogrifies: the Snitch could become receiving a nice comment, being featured on one of the networks, going viral on Facebook, being retweeted by a minor celebrity, hitting 700 Twitter followers, winning an award, being shared by a blogger you admire. For me, and just call me Mother Theresa here, the Golden Snitch has gone through all these (aspirational) phases and more, but at the end of my first year, I conclude that it is just this: finishing a piece and being pleased with it. The Quidditch match can be just as fun and exciting when the Snitch is nowhere to be seen, whether you’re playing or watching from the stands. Every blogger needs a Hagrid, someone who gives them virtual tea when they’re down, fills in the back story when they’re confused and gives them a share when no one else has read their post. Without Hagrid, the story would lose its big heart. What’s your experience of Blogwarts? What’s it like in the upper years? Are you a Harry or a Hagrid? What’s your Golden Snitch? Could You Give Up Blogging For Lent? Picture sources: Universal Studios, Wikipedia
April 26, 2022
The A to Z of Me – Wry Mummy
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