As I wandered about my neighbourhood with the stroller the other day I was stopped in my tracks with palpable excitement.  Outside the fence of a picturesque two storey Victorian house was a large box with magazines being given away for free.  The sign said, “please take, I’m too busy working”.

I thought ha – how wonderful maternity leave is and I eyed the large stack of magazines with lust.  I do love reading magazines but I hate paying for them!  A visit home to Mum & Dad’s always meant me stealing Mum’s mags, plonking myself down in the lounge, and having a read.  I do occasionally buy a magazine, and when I do it always makes me think of her.

So my greedy little mind eyed up the space beneath the stroller and the magazines. A thought whipped across my mind, could I carry my little girl and stack more in the stroller?!  But then reality hit.  I am a keen reader, but I stood there knowing that I have yet to make it through Cecelia Ahern’s The Time of My Life, the first book I have endeavoured to read since motherhood commenced.  This is a book I would have ploughed through in two hours BC (before child!); I have already renewed this book twice.

So I wound back my avarice and took just two magazines – but I did manage to get a December 2012 issue – for free!