“London. Implacable July weather. People everywhere. People swarming Trafalgar Square. People perched on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. People crowding the backstreets of the West End. Is this a Dickens novel? No, it’s the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2.” -   Time magazine

Me and Teen Ellie watched the live stream of the Harry Potter premier in tears. I am not really a Harry Potter fan, by this I mean I have never read any of the books, never stood in line endlessly to see one of the movies, and I have to admit (rather quietly) to not always completely understanding the story lines.  But I am far more than just a little fond of Harry Potter and his wizardy friends,  its a weird kind of feeling,  like the fondness you feel for your child’s oldest school friends. But before you cart me off to the funny farm, let me explain why…

 The first movie came out an astonishing eleven years ago and it has been the magical (pardon the pun)  backdrop to teen Ellie’s childhood ever since. Like cultural osmosis, its part of the fabric of her young life.  Her best friend at six was so obsessed with Harry,  that she slept with his picture underneath her pillow, and wrote “Mrs Harriot Potter” on all her books.

When the first Harry Potter computer game came out me and my friend,  spent 3 days solid trying to complete it. Baby Jack had his very own Harry dressing gown that looked like a hogwarts magic coat, which he wore  for his first primary school book day, he made a very cute, very blonde Harry.  Ellie had the Harry Potter jelly sweet maker, the Harry potter chocolate (it had fizzy popping candy in the center, which Ellie was SURE was actual magic ) , the harry potter bed sheets and the movies of course…we watched the movies to death.

  So I am ever so slightly in love with every one of  JK Rowling’s expertly crafted characters.  I also love the fact that the movies are just so, well,  British!

 I love all the scenes of sweeping London, the beautiful old buildings and grimy little cafés,  the glimpses into English suburbia and the beauty and sometimes barrenness of the countryside.

I love that  Harry and Co always  look like they haven’t seen the sun for more than three days a year (like most of us from Oct through to June!) either and  they all have “normal” clothes and none Hollywood  hair.  Something which I think is sadly missing from most other films and TV shows targeted at young people ( god I sound old, but its true) .

 As well as this, practically every good British actor from the past ten years has appeared in someway, filling it with a warm feeling of home and (dare I say it) it makes me a bit proud to be British.

So…  this is my sweet fair well to Harry, and my first baby’s childhood.

 Teen Ellie turns sixteen this October and dreams of being at Hogwarts and defeating  Mr no Nose (Lord Voldemort) will soon fade to nothing. Well maybe not nothing, maybe there will be a small space forever Harry, forever six and full of magic and wonder.   Maybe thats why Harry is so popular the world over,  maybe he gives us all a tiny excuse to believe in a little bit of magic! X

( Harry’s last stand is out this weekend, I’m off to see it on the big screen with Ellie, and a box of tissues! ) X

And just to properly celebrate the occasion I made cupcakes, magical  rainbow ones of course !

Rainbow cupcakes!

Ingredients-

2 eggs

40z 0f  self raising flour

4oz of butter

4oz of sugar

A teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of good vanilla essence

4 different colours of food colouring. I used red, blue, green and yellow.

Firstly cream the butter and sugar ( I do everything in a food mixer, but you can do it by hand too) . Then add the two eggs, and then the flour and baking powder, finally add the vanilla. If this mixture looks to think I add a little water or milk ( 1-2 tablespoons).

Separate the cake bater equally into four bowls. Add the food colouring to each bowl, a little at a time and mix. I found the red and the green quite strong, but the blue and yellow much weaker. 

Then line a muffin tin with six muffin cases. Spoon a little of the first colour into each case (use all the mixture) I used yellow first,  spread evenly.  Next, spoon in another colour ( I used green) gently over the top of the first. spread to the edges.

Continue this process until all the colors and mixture is used. Then take a wooden cocktail stick or something similar and swirl each cupcake very lightly.

Then put them in the oven for approx 25 mins, until they are lovely and golden.

Thats it ice them however you like, I made up a batch of butter cream icing, instructions are on the back of the icing packet. I added a teaspoon of vanilla at the end.

Thats it, easy and really, really fun! Milly had a great time helping me.

I will just add, I know there are some scary health opinions about food colouring, there is lots of info online about it,  and I will let you guys make you own mind up about that.   But personally I feel as long as your not making these everyday, you wont get cancer or ADHD or grow another head  .. but that of course,  is just my personal opinion kids! … other opinions may vary �   XXXX

First here’s a pic of my oldest, she is 15 and is probably in fairness a good 2 sizes bigger than most of her tiny teeny  peers, as well as being at least 2 foot taller too! She stared getting very nasty comments on her blog, formspring and tumblr accounts about her weight ages ago, all stupid stuff, but I could tell it hurt.  Then just before Christmas it got really nasty. These “people” started saying they they hoped she’d die, that she was a fat, ugly, nothing basically. It got kind of out of control, like things often do online. Everything is anonymous and it turned into  mob bulling, although, she did have some  nice strangers leaving kind messages too. I wanted her to give it all up for a while but being a teenager she ignored me, swore at them a bit and then came up with the idea of a new blog. One where she found drop dead gorgeous pictures of models the same size or bigger than herself, she linked it to her other social networking sites and soon had lots of people following it, a truly great big f**ck you to all the evil folk I think, and hopefully a good inspiration to others in the same boat. I don’t know how long she will post to it, it might end up as Aidan Grimshaw’s hottest looks blog or something by next week, but I am very proud of her both inside and out.

The whole thing has also made me quite ashamed of my own weight issues. I have been a ample bottomed and big boobied size twelve since having baba Milly, and I have really struggled with it. I have always been slim, its part of  who I thought I was, and somehow (I am ashamed to say) I felt like less of a person for not being that way.Reading posts and tweets as well as listening to my pals talk, I think  this is what allot of  other girls think too. Its all about seemingly *being in control* of weight, of life, of everything.

 But where did these disgusting people on Ellie’s blog,  (and me, shame face) get their screwed up image of perfection from? I started googling what beauty means to me.  And this is what I honestly though I wanted, I mean maybe not to the extreme of some of these pics but close to it,  super skinny bronzed limbs say control, success, youth, everything. Don’t they?….  

I started to be quite disgusted by it all when I really looked at it, not the people you understand, I know some people are just naturally super thin or have their own body image issues and also often have youth on their side. What really bothered me was  that I actually “believed” I could look like this, and what lengths I would probably go to to get it. I think the diet and fashion industry often set us “normal” folk up to crash and burn,  “just drink this shake”, ” follow this meal plan,”  “wear these £300 jeans,” and you too can look like this. Which of course, when you really think about it, is never gonna happen. Lets face it, most of them don’t even look like they do in the magazines anyhow!

Anyway, I am probably  rambling a bit now, (jumps off soap box). But what I did find also, happily, amongst this sea of skinny folk was some kick ass women with fully loaded curves. Who would gladly eat a burger AND fries and don’t want to apologise for it. In fact I found so many that I can’t include them all here, so this is part one, of the curves ahead  girl crush blog post.

Soak it up girlies, and join me in not beating yourself up anymore, it really is quite freeing you know, honest ! And  I have to say thank you to teen Ellie for showing me the way, its a surprising thing that happens (if your lucky) when your children begin  to grow up, they start teaching you stuff too, Bonus!

First up, Christina Hendricks . The actress from TV series  Mad Men Won Esquire’s “Sexiest Woman Alive”  tittle last year, she beat out  Victoria secret model Adriana Lima and Megan Fox for the title . Go GIRL!

Hendricks said in a past interview. “In the beginning, it was odd to have so much attention brought to my body type,”  “I thought, ‘Uh-oh, brace yourself.’ But everyone has been so positive,” she says. And so they should be, you rock misses!  Humana humana ;D

Second up is Emily Towner. She  is a 17 year-old plus model from Georgia, and this year she was featured in  Italian Vogue. The tide is a changing!  (maybe..fingers and toes crossed)

Lastly, for now anyway, the totally rocking Kate Dillon-

She started out as a fashion model at 17 as a underwieght model, but as she grew up, and put on weight she began to loose jobs. After a break away and some eating disorder issues she started plus size modeling  and  became one of the most famous faces in the industry. She has also been named one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” multiple times. Gawd she is gorgeous!

Tiny _note_ : I feel I should  just add, I am not saying I am going to stop trying to be healthy, I got a cross trainer machine for crimbo and everything! I am just going to try and stop slimming down to Cheryl Cole size. To be honest, if I only ate an apple core once a day for the next 3 months i am pretty sure I still wouldn’t look like her. And I do *so* love a good steak and chips, and blue cheese, and red wine, and chicken Cesar salad, and cream and butter and bread and chocolate….