The Dark Feeling

There are those days when not a thing would put me on a wrong stead, those ones where my smile will just sit happily on my face and a twinkle will make itself present in my eyes. Days when the whole world seems wonderful and all I can see is good in people no matter who they are. Days when I appreciate everything I have and love my children dearly.......

But, unfortunately for me, there are those dark days - the ones I fear, the ones I hope will never come round and surface their ugly head. I know when they are coming, I feel a dark presence that warps it's way into my mind, wrapping around me and suffocating my thoughts. I don't want it there but it just keeps coming.....I tell it to go away, that it won't win and that I am too strong - it doesn't care and just keeps creeping along the very lifelines of my body sucking the life out of me as it passes through, taking all my energy and goodness with it.
It makes my heart hurt and my body feel lifeless - I lie there some mornings and my mind is trapped inside a body that won't move, it refuses to do what I ask. I can hear my children asking me to get up and no matter how hard I try to move, I cannot.
"Teethy time" I will hear them say with tons of enthusiasm.
I can hear every word and try my very best to get up but nothing happens - can't be a dream because I can hear everything, just as clear as I would if I was fully awake - so where has my body gone? Why is it not responding?
Eventually, I come back to me but it takes time.

It is on these days that I go outdoors hoping to god that I don't bump into anyone, I don't want to talk, I don't want to see anyone. If I do I try to avoid seeing them which never goes down well, so many people I know often think I have fallen out with them but they don't understand what's going on. Whenever this awful feeling is there, I cannot talk to anyone, I cannot make eye contact for fear of them seeing the darkness in my eyes. Only bad can come of my conversing when the dark feeling is present within me - I say hurtful things, I can be very rude, comments explode from my mouth like a bullet from a gun and before I even have chance to catch up and stop them, the words have already been spoken.

I put on a brave face around my children, I fight it, I try to hide the frightful dark feeling, I hold it down and keep it there to protect my children from it. When my children are not there, I go to a room and lock the door and cry. I plead and beg for the darkness to leave and let me be, I get angry and ask "why me? I'm happy, what did I ever do to deserve this?"
I never get a reply....   sometimes it passes through for a couple of days....  other times weeks. I don't know where it comes from or what it wants, all I know is it crushes my soul and pushes me into a deep, dark well of loneliness, away from love, happiness and most importantly my family.

As I grow older, it tends not to bother me as much - I think the darkness has learned that I am strong and each time it surfaces its head from the dark depths of oblivion, it has learned that I will be there waiting, stronger than before, ready to fight it. It knows that my armour is made from the strongest and purest of love that I have for my children and nothing can defeat that, not even darkness itself. My heart holds a new strength and determination that to this day remains undefeated.
I see my old enemy 'the dark feeling' only now and again - he has grown weaker as I have grown stronger - he still wants my soul but I am holding onto it with my life.


This post is about depression and other similar issues that a person can suffer with, but because we can't see it we often don't realise how the people affected are suffering. We turn our backs on these people, maybe because we don't understand their behaviour when they are having a bad episode. I hear a lot of people say "people with depression just need to get over it". That is one of the worst and most horrid things you can say. The feeling is not something one can just get over, when it locks it's jaws onto you, it is extremely hard to shake off. 
It is a lonely and very isolated place to be and having experienced it first hand I can honestly say that if people tried to understand it more then it would be easier for sufferers to cope, as a little support can make a world of difference.
I am very lucky, my fiance has taken the time to understand me and we have learned between us how to deal with the issues when they arise. However, not everyone is as lucky as I am and they do not have the support that I do. If you know someone who suffers with depression, you don't have to do anything more than just simply try and understand them and don't judge when they are having a bad day - trust me, it's not their fault.
If you suffer with depression, just remember it is a feeling that will pass - it is like entering a dark tunnel, even though you cannot see and darkness is all around, just remember to keep walking forward until you see the light at the end of it - it is always there, you just have to keep moving towards it.

Chicken Noodle Doodle

Do you ever have one of those recipes that your mum used to make for you when you were little as a quick lunch or snack? The kind that stays with you forever and opens the flood gates of your childhood memories every time you place the first spoonful into your mouth?
I have one - Chicken Noodle - every time I make it for my children I pinch a cheeky spoonful and it pushes me back in time. Each time the chicken flavours and the melted butter start to dance with my taste buds my mind starts to walk back down memory lane to the days when my age contained only single digits.
It was always a Saturday after swimming lessons - I never wanted to go because I was a stubborn, awkward child who just wanted to rebel against everything I had to do - once I was doing it however, I just got on with it. After swimming I would arrive home and my Mum would always have a delicious bowl of chicken noodle prepared for lunch with wedges of bread that were spread with huge dollops of butter that would melt as the bread was dipped into the bowl of steamy hot chicken noodle.
It always tasted good, warmed me up and guaranteed a full tummy afterwards.

It was a recipe passed on to my Mum from a friend of hers whose own Mother had passed it onto her. I will share it with you now, it may have altered somewhat from the original recipe but it is just as tasty all the same.

If you have any favourite recipes that your mum used to make for you as a child, do share them with us and tell us what memories they bring back for you.

My version of chicken noodle.

Ingredients:
teardrop pasta (or any other very small pasta like farfalline)
Chicken stock cubes (I prefer knorr but you can use your own preference)
Water
eggs
butter
Salt
Lots of chunky/rustic wedges of bread with a good spreading of butter

I never use measurements, I adjust accordingly depending on how many I am making for. It is such a simple recipe to make that you can't really go wrong.

Add your stock cubes to a pan of boiling water over a hob as per measurements indicated on the stock cube pack. Increase the quantity of stock cubes and water to increase servings.
Once your stock cubes have dissolved, add the recommended amount of pasta to water ratio as instructed on the pack of pasta. Add a quick shake of salt to the pan.
As your pasta starts to soften, add a knob of butter and a couple of beaten eggs.
Let the whole thing simmer, have a quick taste to make sure all the flavours have fused - then serve with the buttered wedges of bread.

A quick recap: water -> stock cubes -> pasta -> salt -> butter -> eggs -> serve

My lot love it and always ask for it on a cold day.

Ver simple, very quick and full tummies all round.

Don't forget to share your recipes and memories with us :)

Help stop Mexico City’s cruel bull fights right now

Help stop Mexico City’s cruel bull fights right now

Right now Mexico City’s Assembly is discussing a new law that could bring a permanent end to bullfighting in the district.

Currently at least 1,400 bulls die a year in Mexico*. Pitted against men and tormented with spears, swords and daggers, the bulls suffer extreme cruelty in the name of sport.

By signing this letter to Mexico City Assembly member Aleida Alavez, you are helping to bring about an end to bullfighting in Mexico City.

In 2010, the WSPA succeeded in helping to end bullfighting in Catalonia, Spain after 164,000 people around the world signed their online petition. Your voices were heard and it can happen again.

* According to a 2010 study by WSPA and the Tomy Foundation of Mexico

Above text and image courtesy of http://e-activist.com/ea-action/action WSPA

A Modern Day Witch Hunt

Have you ever been accused of something you haven't done or more to the point have your children been blamed for a mishap in the local community that they had absolutely nothing to do with?

That is exactly what happened yesterday (Easter Monday) and may I say I was ever so slightly vexed after the occurrence - vexed? Who am I kidding, I was furious and outraged at the fact that a complete stranger could march toward my front door and point the dreaded finger of accusation at my children.

He was a pompous looking man with a sour face and a definitive scowl, scruffy curly grey hair peeped out from under a black woolly hat that sat on the top of his head. He wore glasses that were perched on the end of his nose, they kind of reminded me of a demon head teacher. His clothes were typical of a farmer with his green wellingtons, shirt and body warmer, but he was more of a wannabe farmer than a genuine farmer, the genuine farmers of which I have encountered have all been fairly happy souls with a cheery disposition and this stranger at my door definitely did not fall into this mode.

In the first instance he had come to ask if my partner had been using the children's go-kart on his field, which had been true but not without permission, but instead a misunderstanding of what was intended by permission in the first place.
He had knocked on the door in a very policeman like manner. Upon answering the door my partner received an interrogation as to whether or not he had been using the go-kart in the field for which he admittedly said yes and apologised deeply, assuring the sour faced man that it would never happen again and that it was a misunderstanding on his own part for believing he was able to use the field for a child's go-kart. The man very childishly muttered under his breath has he headed towards the gate some 40 feet away "you'd better not!"

So that was that, a mistake had been made and a sincere apology given. Just as we had already started to feel bad for the errors of our ways there was another policeman's knock. My partner answered the door and I followed right behind him to see what this nonsense was all about.
It was the sour faced man again, this time his face redder than before. He held a plastic bag full of little things that he waved about in front of us.
"What on earth is this all about?" I demanded to know.
"What are your children's names?" he demanded to know in return.
"Why do you need to know that?" I questioned, now ever so slightly confused as to what he was getting at.

We quickly learned what his problem was, he had had a beehive destroyed and some branches sawn off a tree on his land and assumed that because my partner had been in one of his fields with the go kart he immediately assumed it was our children that had done it.
I replied to him "Our children are aged one, three & ten, they do not have the ability to cause the damage you are accusing them of"
He continued to wave a bag in front of us which he said contained evidence such as baby wipes, a note written by a child of about eight and nothing much else really.
He believed that the baby wipes pointed the finger at us because we had young children.....    we must be the only people in the village that use baby wipes I suppose based on his theory.
When he learned the age of our children and realised they were not able to have done the destructions he had accused them of he then implied that there must have been an adult with them and truly believed that we were capable of such behaviour. Talk about judgemental, this horrid man had already made his mind up that we were the guilty party and nothing we said made any difference to alter his judgment.
After trying to defend us, my partner later managed to delve deeper into this jumped up jockey's reason for thought. The green wellied man commented that we were the new people in the village and that we were city folk so it must have been us - "I have lived in this village five and twenty years" he grumbled "and I know everyone in it".
Oh so that must make him an expert at solving vandalism cases.
I was disgusted to learn that people use their thoughts in this manner, that they can give birth to such an opinion. We are from the northwest that does not mean we are automatically city folk as some people would seem to have assumed not that there is anything wrong with city folk but his opinion somewhat differed and thought otherwise - it is fact that we came from a village and lived right by the beautiful hills of the Peak District - if that makes us, as so rudely pointed out, vandalising city folk in this mad man's mind then surely there is nothing more we can do to change his opinion.

He threatened us with the police and confirmed he would be taking fingerprints from the vandalised area on his land - an area bear in mind that we had never even been to, didn't even know it was there let alone cause damage to it.



I have never been so disgusted with a grown man's behaviour, his stereotyping and judgement was highly offencive. His wife was not of this country and I would never have stereotyped her, which would have been surely so by some due to her nationality, but yet they both feel it acceptable to point the finger at a completely innocent party and behave in a very un-neighbourly manner towards us.

I was hoping the police would turn up so this man's foolish pride could have been dented by his false accusations and offencive assumptions about the kind of people we are.
I'm glad he never became a police man himself otherwise an awful lot of innocent people would be in jail now just because he thought ill of them and their circumstances gave him reason to believe they were bad people.

Don't ever judge or accuse an individual when you have no reason or right to. How would you feel if the shoe was on the other foot? Would you like to be subject to witch-hunt-like behaviour? I'm sure not.
If a person has less than you or lives differently to you, it does not make them bad in any way. Everybody has faults and this is not a fair reason to point an unsure finger of accusation. Next time your finger of accusation starts to tingle just hold on for a moment and think about your reasons before acting out. 

Georges First Steps Update

As you may have already read in my previous posts, George is a little boy who lives in Devon who needs to fly out to America to undergo a life changing operation.

After visiting George's fundraising page it is lovely to see that his Parents have managed to raise £20,243.53 so far.

Please support George's parents and help them to raise the money George needs for his operation by visiting George's fundraising page and make a donation.

Ask friends and family to show their support too and let's help George meet his target.

Thank you

Amor UK - www.amoruk.co.uk: Pebble Octopus Rattle Giveaway

Amor UK - www.amoruk.co.uk: Pebble Octopus Rattle Giveaway: It's easy at Easter time to buy for your children - an easter egg or two and they are happy. It's not quite so easy to buy for little babie...

Pebble Octopus Rattle Giveaway

It's easy at Easter time to buy for your children - an easter egg or two and they are happy.

It's not quite so easy to buy for little babies.....  that's why Amor Uk have decided to lend a helping hand by hosting an easter giveaway.

We have two gorgeous handmade Pebble octopus rattles to give away absolutely free - all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is follow us in one or all of the following ways.

On Facebook 


On Twitter


Follow Amor's Blog


Two winners will be selected at random from all of our followers on Wednesday 11th April. Winners will receive a beautifully hand made octopus rattle. 


(suitable from birth. 100% natural. Machine washable and can be tumble dried on a low setting).


To view Amor UK's shop visit www.amoruk.co.uk