Why you should have your cake and eat it! – Hayley Matthews

I’m sitting here writing this at 7am whilst drinking coffee and eating cake – but with good reason though as I have a big birthday tomorrow.

I did start to freak a little and give myself the usual hard time that I tend to do for not achieving everything on my list of things I wanted to accomplish before 40.

Then I thought, stuff this, I’ve actually done all right. I suppose a lot of us put too much pressure on ourselves to have an amazing career, make a family, buy a big house, shed some weight, be happy, save money, blah blah blah so to be honest, we should celebrate ourselves more instead of looking back on what we haven’t done (that’s how I’m getting through a birthday in lockdown anyways).

With the “be kind” chat everywhere why don’t we start on ourselves? I’m not beating myself up for not being beach body ready at 40, nor am I giving myself a hard time about not publishing a book yet, or anything else because I am enough and I’ve done great, we all have!

I’ll celebrate what I’ve achieved and hug the little people that I’ve made with the man I love and say “you’ve done well hen”.

So be kinder to yourself, regardless of age, because we are all doing a fantastic job and it’s time we told ourselves that instead of wasting time tearing each other down (leave that to the bitchy school mums).

So if you have a big birthday coming up whilst we’re still in lockdown, don’t be hard on yourself, you’ve done an incredible job so far! Eat the cake!

I’ll need to wait to spend a few pounds until I can spend a penny

I was listening to BBC Radio Scotland during the week on the day that the shops had officially reopened and there was much excitement from the listeners.

With all the chat of being able to go back up to M&S to pick up some new togs, it made me want to go take a trip on the 26 up the town.

However, I have to admit that with two small children in tow a trip to the shops is never an easy experience and, to be honest, I’m lucky if I get time to pick up a new pair of knickers!

I end up having to bribe my eight-year-old with a hot chocolate, some pens, a McDonalds and various other treats to get him round a marathon shopping trip that would see the most hardy shoppers pushed to their limits.

He does well to be honest – but so would anyone who gets a treat for every shop that we go in because that’s the only way we can do it.

But if he’s not moaning about being up the town, the little one cries at the sight of a shop and seriously kicks off every time I try to go in somewhere. So, I’ll hold off on heading up the town just now, plus there’s always one factor that stops me from going anywhere just now and that’s “there’s nae toilets open up the toon”.

So I‘ll wait until I can spend a penny before I go out to spend a few pounds.

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