It’s fair to say that I’m not a domestic goddess. I burn dinner as often as I serve it successfully, and my lunchtime repertoire tends to extend as far as toast and, erm, more toast.
The world of PR has, to be fair, made some sterling efforts to get me cooking over recent months.
First up, Morphy Richards sent me a slow cooker, along with some cooking sauces from Schwartz. It was not a resounding success. The sauces were a bit too synthetic for my tastes and when you have a child who doesn’t “do” sauces, then cooking for one in a slow cooker is a bit of a challenge. I have to say, in my experience, cooked casseroles don’t come out of the freezer looking good.
I’ve received George Foreman grills (very useful for toasted sandwiches) and two air fryers, along with a very lovely selection of cheeses.
But I still can’t cook.
Mostly, I’ve come to terms with this lack of culinary ability.
But one area where I’m uniformly awful is breakfast.
We Whittle women love our beds, and my usual morning looks a bit like this:
8am: alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
8.00am: See above
8.10am: See above
8.20am: Alarm goes off. Daily call of, “Flea? Flea? Time to get dressed.” Doze off.
8.30am: Wake up to find small child, standing, Midwich Cuckoo style, 2 inches from the bed.
Haul ass out of bed. Put on jeans and jumper. Find boots.
8.35am: Stumble downstairs, pour cereal into cup, give to small child. Brush child’s hair at back door.
8.40am: Get into car.
8.50am: Arrive at school, usually 1 minute late.
9am: Stop at Caffe Nero to pick up large coffee.
9.10am: Home from school, look at email.
9.15: Have a super quick look at Twitter.
9.20: Check Facebook
9.30: Ooh, should probably check email again. Repeat last three steps 50 times.
11am: Realise I haven’t yet had breakfast. Just send a quick email first.
11.45am: Realise still haven’t had breakfast. Decide it’s probably better to just wait for lunch.
The net result of this is that, 90% of the time, I don’t eat breakfast. Which is rubbish, I know. It’s bad for my metabolism and energy levels – I’m permanently exhausted in the morning, partly because I go to bed far too late, but also because I’m not consuming much apart from caffeine before 1pm.
Anyway, once again the World of PR is shouting at me to pull my socks up with a ‘Breakfast Week Challenge’ which seems to involve a lot of cereal-based items. This weekend a hamper filled with breakfast products was delivered from the people at Farmhouse Breakfast, and I’ve committed to trying to have breakfast every day for a week.
Now, if I can just work out which one is the porridge and which one is the muesli, I’ll be all set.
[You can win £1,000 of holiday vouchers over on the Breakfast Challenge Facebook page, by taking your own week-long breakfast challenge]
I wanted to cry when I saw that your alarm is set for 8am! 😉
I make the children have breakfast but I usually forget to have any myself too. Good luck with the challenge.
Of course I had to watch the video – LOL at soft cheese and yeast extract when she means dairylea and marmite on toast. Still gets very posh with those seeds on top. Good luck with your challenge.
Breakfast is hugely overrated! And yeah, 8am??? You jammy dodger. I would like a toaster. That would help my cooking skills which are, I fear, possibly even more atrophied than yours. 🙂
I thought everyone got up at 8am? They don’t?
We are going to try seeds and I will feel v posh.
Toaster and Foreman grill – cooking for the non-cook, sorted.
What time do you get up then? Is 8am too late?
I can’t live without breakfast. Even if I’m late for school or I don’t have time to give myself breakfast, I have something as soon as possible.
However, with you on the 8am wake ups. The kids alarm goes off at 7.30 and I’m now having to set my phone alarm for 8.20 to ensure I don’t fall back to sleep when I’m tired.
Mind you, I told a story to my friend with kids of similar ages about my recent oversleeping episode and she couldn’t believe that my kids get themselves dressed and go downstairs without me. Obviously, we are lucky with our children. 😉
I get up at…. 4.50am. No blinking idea why, there is no alarm, I just wake up and can’t get back off. Over the last few years I’ve given up tossing and turning and just get up and crack on. Thankfully the children stay in bed much longer else I might break my “no breakfast” run by eating them instead.
As for breakfast, I just don’t get it. If I eat it, I am starving hungry by 10am. A bucket of coffee and a straw does me. I’ll be curious to see how you get on, you might convince me to give brekky another go.
Flea’s been getting herself dressed for ages and certainly on the weekends she gets her own cereal, or a brioche. I think this is positive parenting, as I am fostering her independence. cough.
I’m most interested to see if it impacts on my energy levels – I do REALLY struggle with tiredness at the moment.
I have a George Foreman grill – but I don’t have an oven – and haven’t had for 2 years so it does EVERYTHING for me!
I don’t eat breakfast – but I am intrigued as to how you get in !
Don’t let them bully you! As long as you’re not feeding them ice cream and cake EVERY day then I wouldn’t worry about it. Of course, I don’t have any children and I don’t cook…