Helen Mead's weekly column from the Lancashire Telegraph

Blog: I break the rules and I don't feel guilty

1:35pm Monday 6th May 2013

My children went through a phase of telling me off. Going through traffic lights on amber, using charity bags as bin liners and swearing – all of which I know I shouldn't do – they picked me up on it.

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Blog: The fun has gone out of photobooths

2:33pm Monday 29th April 2013

MUM, can I please have another £5?’ I suspected this would happen, that my daughter wouldn’t be satisfied with the set of pictures she had just ordered from the instant photo booth.

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Blog: My filing habit is out of control

1:49pm Monday 15th April 2013

L AST week, my 14-year-old daughter asked me to add something to my supermarket shopping list.

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Blog: Lack of respect is universal

4:20pm Monday 8th April 2013

“I get no respect in this house.” That’s the phrase I use most when I’m repeatedly ignored and verbally insulted by my teenage daughters.

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Blog: It's all too depressing for words!

2:11pm Monday 25th March 2013

WHAT is happening to our language? Poor English, bad grammar and a flagrant disregard for correct use of the apostrophe seem to be part of 21st Century life.

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Blog: I'm an 'exploder', my husband's an 'imploder'

2:56pm Monday 18th March 2013

MY husband is always telling me I have an anger problem.

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Blog: Reasons to be disappointed that spring is here

1:18pm Monday 11th March 2013

There’s nothing like a spot of sunshine for throwing gloom on what should be a good day.

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Blog: Why I now put my feet first for comfort

1:23pm Monday 4th March 2013

Last year my eldest daughter bought her first pair of high-heeled shoes.

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Column: Children are so wasteful

11:15am Monday 25th February 2013

I couldn’t believe my youngest daughter’s reply when I told her to stop leaving the tap running at full power while she cleaned her teeth.

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Blog: No wonder we're all so stressed

2:03pm Monday 18th February 2013

Life was so much simpler in the old days, for example: The other night, my daughters fancied a take-away.

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Blog: I love my cat more than my husband

1:43pm Monday 11th February 2013

AS Valentine’s Day approaches, I’m going to confess: I love my cat more than my husband.

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Blog: The other half's most vexing habits

3:08pm Monday 4th February 2013

I was pleased to see the following words on a list of the ten things women find most annoying about their partners.

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Blog: Now I play the 'worse illness than you' game

11:23am Monday 28th January 2013

Catch it, Bin it, Kill it. That, we are told, is how we can keep coughs and colds to ourselves and prevent germs spreading to others.

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Blog: Blue Monday? I'm fed up all the time

1:38pm Monday 21st January 2013

If you woke up today in a pit of despair, don’t be too concerned. Today is Blue Monday — the most depressing day of the year, so-called due to a range of factors including the weather, post-Christmas debt and lack of motivation.

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Blog: The case for rationing modern life

2:14pm Monday 7th January 2013

I've had to hide the chocolates. This is nothing to do with diet-related new year resolutions. Now the schools are back, I can't possibly leave the house littered with boxes of confectionery given to us at Christmas. The place looks like the production line at Nestle and I don’t want the kids to come home while we are at work and chomp their way through seven boxes of Matchmakers, two chocolate oranges and a Toblerone the size of a telegraph pole.

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Blog: Fashion just becomes more absurd

1:12pm Monday 17th December 2012

WHEN teenage boys began wearing those trousers with the crotch around the knees I thought I’d seen it all.

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Buying presents for teenagers is hard work

11:40am Monday 10th December 2012

Christmas was so much easier when my children were younger.

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Regrets . . . where do I start?

1:48pm Monday 3rd December 2012

I WISH I hadn’t lost my temper with my teenage daughter last weekend.

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Secret agents aren't really like James Bond

2:23pm Monday 26th November 2012

“I’VE just has one of the most awful afternoons,” my neighbour told me after a visit to the cinema.

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Column: If you see me coming, just say hello!

3:20pm Monday 19th November 2012

ON a recent walk my husband and I had an argument. It centred around the fact that I smile at other walkers and say ‘hello’, while he remains grumpily silent.

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