I did try the whole immaculate house concept and started spring cleaning my house last week. It all began with the realisation that three years worth of Christmas photos were still in my camera and the overdue tax return had found its way into the children’s art box.

Seventeen years into the same relationship and I just know the 14th February will pass without a commercialised, materialistic gesture between us.

Today, my lovely eight year-old daughter is off sick from school. She feels sick and is very pale and shivery. Once upon a time ago, that would’ve set me off in a panic – work, work, schedules, food, missing school, rearranging, oh help!

Forget goal setting - read on for a realistic mum's guide to news years' resolutions. Part one....

The school christmas disco date came and went last week with a heap of over-excited yelps from my young, eight-year old daughter. I spent more time deliberating over her outfit than I did over my own dress for a corporate ball the same night.