The Argus, news, sport, events, jobs, homes for Brighton, Hove and Sussex

Alice, 38, lives in Hove with her husband, young son and dog. Our Reluctant Housewife will try anything once, even if it’s only to get her out of the house!

It's The Little Things

Finding time for yourself in such a busy world, cramped by work, childcare, family responsibilities and household chores is hard. It can be impossible, which makes those rare moments of quiet and stillness absolutely precious. Precious enough to fight for...

TOP TEN: The Absolute Truth

Here are some things I have learnt in my 37 years on this planet. It’s not my guide to life, just ten things that I know about myself and life-experience to be the absolute truth. You might not agree with them, but for me every single one of them is a fact, the veracity of which I cannot escape...

Sing Out Sister! Making the most of my Fringe Benefits

So we’ve just had the Children’s Festival and the inaugural Brighton Marathon, what’s next? Brighton is wonderful in that is seems to reel from one event to the next so that there is always something to look forward to. May sees the return of the famous Brighton Festival and its infamous Fringe, and I am in it!

A Pox On Our House

I hesitate to write about the minutiae of my life or indeed something as common as the cold, but sickness has had such an impact on our household this week it cannot be ignored!

Ghostly Goings On In Brighton...

This week I was lucky enough to go on the famous Ghost Walk of The Lanes with Husband and two good friends. There was a buzz of adrenalin about us as we awaited our fate, (our anticipation however, was part spooky fun and part worry about any audience participation).

Happy Blog Birthday to Me!

On Tuesday this week I will have been blogging for a whole year. A whole year of writing about what I have been up to. And I have loved it so much that I plan to do it for another year – if you’ll keep reading?

You wouldn’t like me when I am angry!

I have had cause recently to think about my behaviour. During a trip to a local busy Supermarket and after driving for ages in pointless circles I found myself raging at a woman who parked in ‘my’ space in the car park. Of course it wasn’t really ‘my’ space but I felt I had earned it...

My Own Private Book Club

I collect books by an author called Richmal Crompton. She is well known for her Just William stories, but I collect her grown-up fiction. This is a not so well known collection of out-of-print novels and short stories that can be quite hard to track down. But it’s exciting and is now a life-long quest that I really don’t want to end.

Me, my son and I: Why I'm only having the one!

With a toddler nearing two years old I find that I am being asked more and more when will I be having my second child. Why? Why is it assumed absolutely that I will be having another? I don’t say I am stopping at one to get a kick out of seeing the shock on people’s faces, I say it because I mean it!

To Absent Friends...

In the last six months I have been able to catch up personally with nearly every one of my oldest and best friends. Six months you may say is far too long a time to not see friends, but I find that I see them on rarer and rarer occasions as time goes by.

TOP TEN: Toys Ahoy!

At Christmas time your thoughts do turn to toys, we’ve just bought a lot and cleared a lot out. Buying toys for your own child is difficult, you try to coerce them into enjoying the traditional toys you used to love or classic wooden toys you think they should love. Usually however, you end up buying some plastic things that light up and make noises. With this in mind we took Baby to the Brighton Toy and Model Museum this week so he could get a peek of what children from history had to play with. Inspired by this visit I am also including a top ten of toys – not bestselling toys you understand, just toys I like!