The perfect family soup for a cold South African winter’s day. This very easy to make healthy, hearty and tasty soup is a great hit with everyone, especially the kids.

A nice hearty warm soup with a slight spicy tinge, suitable for all. My kids love it and its is a great hit with all my guests. It can be frozen and taken out the night before to defrost for the next day.

When I faced my own divorce two years ago, my ex and I vowed then that our toddler (two yrs at the time) would come first, putting aside our own sadness and occasional pain and anger.

My son didn’t ask for two homes, or to have his little family separated and new partners brought in, so my aim is to carve the smoothest road that I can out of a hard-impacting event. Here’s how we have done it:

What a great film. The film is interesting, engaging, moving and thought provoking, all without being self-consciously arty and off-the-beaten-track. It’s an easy watch that’s really worth watching.

It’s Iron Man. It’s good solid super-hero fun. It’s what Thor wishes it was and what The Avengers couldn’t have existed without. Go see it, you know you want to, and you won’t be disappointed. Just a bit befuddled.

Take the 13+ kids, but be careful, you’ll enjoy it as much as they will.

It is hard to believe 20 years have passed since the block buster, Jurassic Park, hit our screens in 1993. Based on the novel by Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park was a Universal Studios/Steven Spielberg sci-fi triumph.

The computer generated animation was so incredible that one almost believed that the dinosaurs were real. In fact, this movie was a real trip back to the Jurassic age.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

I have a precious friend who lost her daughter 10 days before her due date. She spent seven minutes with her baby, total. But I believe she would have been a 100% mommy. An absolute natural. She was born for motherhood.

Having a child shifts your life priorities drastically and with babies comes tons of lessons, fun and immeasurable love that you could not even have come close to fathoming prior to motherhood. However, let’s all admit it without feeling guilty, there are some things we wish we hadn’t taken for granted.

Becoming a mother is one of the most intense and life changing events that can occur in a lifetime: It usually comes with your first real taste of unconditional love, but also with a host of stressors and challenges that most of us are simply not prepared for.

I have been thinking recently about how my relationship with my mother has changed over the years.

As a little girl she was my everything, she played the role of both mom and dad and with a lot of love and encouragement from my Gran.