Friction Burns

I have a large friction burn on my inner thigh and I can't close my legs.

Not, I'm afraid, quite as exciting as it first sounds (if it ever did sound exciting).

You see I have decided, in a moment of insania, to attempt (note the 'attempt') to run a Half Marathon. This is to raise money for the Hospice that took such wonderful care of my dad and it's not til next year so (I am assured) even I will be able to do it.

Lets just saying running is NOT my forte (those of you who were at school with me may recall me deliberately forgetting my PE kit in order to get out of Cross Country Running only to be forced to run barefoot. As if this was not shameful enough, I tried to cut short my humiliation by cutting across a compost heap and, tragically, sunk deeply into it).

I was going to keep this running part of my life secret (even I have to draw the line at some point with regards to public humiliation) but, hell, it seemed like a waste of a rich seam of comedy because, let's face it, me trying to cover 13 odd miles is going to have comedy elements.

Anyway the training has started and this morning I went to the gym to grind out a few meters on the treadmill......

That's right - I am now a gym bunny.

Well, less of a bunny, more of a Giant Lop.......


(No I don't know who the guy in the blue shirt is, no he's never had his hand between my legs and NO he is not the source of my friction burns).

Anyway I pounded the treadmill good and hard, leapt off, towelled down my sweat glistening body, chugged back the cool water from my sports bottle and......

...and noticed a searing agonising pain centered on my inner thigh. A pain not unlike many wasps stinging me or, in fact, a small localised fire breaking out.

I dropped my towel and water and, in full view of all the bods grinding away on the cross trainers, started to frantically inspect my crotch.

There I found, not a forest fire, but a large split in my left-leg legging . My thigh was poking out the hole and what with the fact that I don't have a gap between my thighs, for every step I'd taken, that bare thigh had ground against the nylon seam of the opposite legging. Again and again and again.... (and a few more agains as I managed more than 3 strides).

Ow.

At this point I realised I couldn't close my legs. At all. Now I'd stopped moving the pain had hit and I really could not let my legs touch eachother.

Like John Wayne after a hard 2 day ride I hobbled, legs akimbo down the stairs towards the safety of home, breathing heavily through the pain.

Everyone stared.

I got to the locker.

I realised I'd left my headphones plugged in to the running machine.

Struggled up the stairs again.

People were glancing nervously, clearly concerned I'd either suffered a horrendous muscle tear or wet myself (or given the heavy breathing, maybe a birth was imminent?).

I (eventually) made it to the car.

I then realised that I HAD to go to Asda. Not only did we have no milk or bread but also we were on our way, very shortly, to a child's birthday party and I had no card and no present.

I gritted my teeth and set off.

Resembling one of those lizards that runs very strangely on hot sand with it's legs sticking out at jaunty angles, I made it round Dairy Produce, Baked Goods and Plastic Tat for 4 year Old Girls (now there's a frightening aisle) and to the tills whilst not allowing my scorched flesh to meet it's nylon nemesis. I didn't get too many odd looks because, in Asda, walking like you've got a hedgehog in your pants doesn't get you special attention. This is a place where anything goes. Just the other day I saw a woman covered in random, very bad tattoos, including one of a man's Y-Fronts. I did ponder for some time why you'd want a pair of blokes' undercrackers forever ingrained on your left breast but, to be honest, my head started to hurt so I stopped.

I managed a shower (painful), a wee (yes, painful) and some clothes (yup, more pain) and went to the party where I sat very, very still for a very, very long time.

And now I'm sat here, with my PJs on, legs nicely spread, Savlon cooling on my thighs, wondering how the hell I'm going to come across in the school playground tomorrow and then later at work where I need to ask my boss for a character reference....

All this, and as yet, I can only run 1 mile.

This could be, erm, painful.

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We are the Champions...

Well actually, no, I am the champion.

WAAAAAAA!!!

Yup - thanks to you lot I only went to actually won the 'Funniest Blog' section in the 2010 MADS Awards.

I honestly can't thank you enough - in this dessert of despair (and cat poo) it has brought me an immense amount of good cheer and happiness.

Sadly I couldn't even attend the awards ceremony so I didn't get to have fun, eat nice food, get wasted, do my speech and sob all over the red carpet but if I could have said something it would probably gone something like this....

'When I had my first baby my Aunt (who had 3) said 'whatever you do, keep your sense of humour, you're gonna need it!' and how right she was.

That baby is 6 today and I had NO idea just where that journey into being a mother would take me, but all things considered, so far so good. I'm still alive and I'm not currently sectioned so that's two good things.....

This is not just all about me though - there are many people who I have to thank. First and foremost, my husband, without whom I really don't think I'd be here (and if I was I'd still be in the nuthouse, trying to explain to psych nurses that owning rather too much grey knitwear is NOT a sign of mania and no, I don't want to play pingpong. Ever).

Then I'd like to thank my friends - who have been there through all the shit and held me together. I'm sure some of them can remember things I can't (and it's best I never do) about the baddest, maddest days - but I haven't scared them off for good yet....... Amongst those friends I'd like to thank the countless internet friends and blog readers who really do feel part of my life and have given me SO much encouragement and so many positive vibes over the years. Big love - seriously - you have made such a difference.

I'd also like to the thank the world I live in for being so bloody random - the badgers that died for me, the balls that burst for me, the "people that lie on mattresses and cry" therapy group who made me feel more normal, the cockerels that turned gay, the guinea pigs that died and left a legacy (especially Satchmo who went to space - apparently), the kids for being rather eccentric and my friends for knowing people with really bad tattoos and running kinky clothing shops. While I'm at it, I may as well thank the county of Somerset for being a brilliantly random place full of brilliantly random people and surely the most eclectic (i.e nuts) selection of adult education classes in the country?

I dedicate this award to my dad - he would have been so bloody proud, even though he'd be rather cross about my mocking of his knife obsession at a National Level and deriding of Osborne's Big Man's Catalouge.... My dad always wanted to write a book but he died before he got the chance to even retire. I took my story telling skills from him so maybe I will finally get my arse in gear, take up his mantle, and do it..... Thank you and good bye. Until tomorrow....'.

See - good job I wasn't at the ceremony - everyone would have been asleep by the end of that!

I don't know what I'll spend my vouchers on - I always said bedroom curtains but that is TOO dull. I still don't have any bedroom curtains but I have fixed a fleece blanket over the window and that will do. It's Autumn now and dark outside anyway..... I want to get something I will keep forever and will help me remember that I held it together this year, despite everything, and still managed to make people laugh.

I just did a very brave thing and told my mum about this blog. It's always been a total secret (apart from anything - does my mum REALLY need to read about the incident of the pubic hair and the chemical burns?). I was worried what she'd say but she actually cried and said she was so proud (hell, she didn't even say that when I got my degree, or got married or had a baby!) and dad would have been even happier (not that she's actually read it yet) and that they should do a book and a documentary (at this point you need to bear in mind she was rather drunk and gushing somewhat, inbetween crying at some strangers getting married on BBC3 - it's a cultural whirlwind here).

Anyway - cheers folks - chin chin and here's to the next year of (almost) sanity.

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Pussy Problems

In my previous post I alluded to some difficulties involving pussies.

The situation is thus - some idiots (sorry 'young people') who live down the road from me bought 2 kittens, shut them outside all summer thus providing my kids with free entertainment from dawn til dusk, and then announced that they didn't want the cats anymore as they'd got a Staffie puppy. The cats would be going 'somewhere else' as the dog kept trying to kill them (I'm sure you will be hearing about this dog again - probably on the national news).

You can imagine the rest - begging, pleading, crying (and that was just from Husband with the Sad Face) and me eventually going 'oh OK then, we can keep them, but two things, 1. you pay for ANY expenses they occur and 2. you are totally responsible for ALL of their care. GOT IT?

I still bear the scars of previously owned 're-homed from neighbours' psychotic rabbits - the last thing I need are 2 malnourished kittens but hey, underneath all the shouting and threats, I must have a soft center.......

Roll the clock forward a bit and the kittens need to go the vets to ensure that the never reproduce (my friend Badger Girl has cats that birth in her bed. I might be fully OK with talking about placentas but I've no wish to roll over at 5am and rest my head on one, let alone one belonging to a cat).

Guess who has to take them to the vets?
Guess who has to round them up and shut them in a totally unsuitable cardboard box because 'the man supposedly in charge of the cats' hasn't actually arranged anything more substantial?
Guess who gets as far as the major roundabout in rush hour traffic only for the kids to screech 'waahhh mummmeeee there's a kitten on the parcel shelf! And ANOTHER one!'?
Guess who then has to negotiate the town with kittens pingponging round the car?

Muggins here.

After all that I was told the kittens were actually too small to neuter/spay and I'd have to take them home again...... In a more suitable container...... And pray they weren't sexual active before they reached 2kg in weight.

Sigh.

Never have I fed so much food to two kittens.

Anyway that episode was over and I'd almost forgotten about it until last Monday.

Last Monday I went back to a shift I do in the local hospital.

For this job I have to wear a uniform - a sort of tunic.

I keep the tunic in the boot of my car and put it on once I park (the tunic is pink and is channeling Discount Fashion Stores circa 1982 so I like to keep contact with it to a minimum, last of my street cred and all that).

Anyway on picking up my tunic and I was confused to see something brown attached, rather like a brooch, to the lapel of it.

'Hmmmm' I mused 'what is that? A fir cone? But why would a fir cone be stuck to my tunic??'.

I looked closer.

I blinked.

Could it be mud?

I looked again.

It looked, to be frank, not unlike a cat poo. A dried, adhered to fabric, cat poo.

I bent closer and nervously sniffed.

Noooo, how on earth would my work tunic get dried cat turd attached to it? It hadn't been out the boot of my car.....

Ah.

Yes. One of those delightful kittens - THAT BELONG TO MY HUSBAND - had shat all over my work uniform during its 'trip to the vets' escapade.

Oh what to do?

My first thought was 'nevermind, hopefully it's on the inside so the stain won't show and I'm sure I've got a can of Impulse somewhere in the car' but that was quickly followed by an attack of conscious. I mean what's the point in alcohol gelling your hands 20 times a day and being 'naked from the elbow down' if you are going to sport 'essence de cat shite' inside your uniform and spread some kind of feline bacterium from Ward to Ward?

I can see the local paper now. Just below the story about someone's Glorious Cock being bothered by local youths and above an article inviting you to pop along to the library to see a demonstration on the dangers of chip pan fires, it will read 'Mystery Bug Rampages Through Hospital - Infected Pussy Sought' and I shall never sleep easy again.

I threw it back in the boot, pretended I'd forgotten it, and boil washed it when I got home.

And that, I hope, is that.

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Back to School...

...back to, even more, insanity.

First of all a huge thank you for everyone's kind wishes and words about my dad. I will tell you about the funeral another time but it went as well as it possibly could, although I never again want to kiss that many people in one day and I certainly don't want to be felt up by any more men of a pensionable age (it wasn't just me, my mum had her fair share of 'over jealous hugs' too) and, in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have drunk so much I couldn't actually see by tea time, but hey, it was as a good a tribute as we could have possibly given him and in some ways, was very healing (though my liver would probably disagree).

Anyway, rather surreally, here we are back on the school run after a summer that seemed to stretch a thousand years.

In other words I'm back standing in the street screeching like Peggy Mitchell at 8.32am (I'm doing this because if we leave any later than 8.30am EXACTLY we will be late). It doesn't matter how organised you are, how laid out everything is, how 'on time' you seem to be, someone will always need to run back inside to look for some ridiculous item or do a wee or stroke a cat (more on the cats in my next post - I have a pussy problem) and then they will take an inordinate amount of time doing this task and I, thus, end up shouting.

Yesterday I had one child 200 yards down the road (the younger one) and one child back in the house searching for a train that was vital to his daily existence and I had to bellow 'FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, HURRY UP!' at full volume, only for the bin men (right at the other end of the street) to shout back 'alright love, we're going as fast as we can' before collapsing in hysterics. Such was my shame I had to take the long way out of the street in order to avoid them.

Anyway now the kids are off my hands now and again I can do other, more cerebral activities and it was thus I found myself today, back at the home of Badger Girl (as in the one with the stiff badger I had to toss) testing her for her next big horse exam.

Her knowledge is outstanding but her pronunciation of some of the more technical terms needs work.

She has a particular problem with sphincters.

When she pronounced the cardiac sphincter was a cardiac spinster we had to conduct an emergency elocution lesson.

It was like the West Country version of My Fair Lady....'the spinster in my sphincter is like the una in my ulna and the far-inks in my pharynx' (i.e. wrong and potential confusing for the examiner).

Unfortunately our tea drinking and equine anatomy session was interrupted by the arrival of a pigeon with his wing hanging off (who knows where he came from, perhaps he was sent from wherever the badger ended up to avenge his death? But such is the random nature of life at her house).

We managed to catch the pigeon with a bath towel (as you do) but then couldn't work out where to put it. My suggestion of 'in a large cooking pot' didn't go down very well and it ended up in special cage with fresh oats, water and a nest of hay. It has also been named - Percy. Apparently it will be as good as new in 2 days. And if it's not it will 'go to live with Wendy'. I'm not quite sure who Wendy is and if she is ready and willing to take on a damaged pigeon but there we go. Or maybe Wendy is actually a euphemism for 'the place the badger went to'? You know as in 'mummy, what's happened to my hamster?', 'not to worry darling, he's just gone to live with Wendy....'.

Wendy has never seemed more sinister.

Anyway pigeon dealt with (sort of), pronunciation of difficult anatomy dealt with (vaguely) we moved on to my friend's other current project. When not training horses and catering for large functions, she is actually opening a shop selling very skimpy clothes and suchlike for young party animals (as I've said before, she's my special mate because if she could type ,her blog would leave mine standing in the sidelines - her life takes it to a whole new level of randomness).

It appears I will be working in this shop on the opening day. I've been instructed I will need fake tan, fake nails, fake eyelashes and possibly fake hair. I'm tempted to go the whole hog and just send a mannequin to take my place, but at some point someone would probably notice I was unusually quiet and not asking for a drink and my (plastic) cover would be blown.

Anyway amidst all the stock of funfur boots, dresses that I can just about get round one thigh, tops that don't appear to have a back OR a front and skirts that wouldn't cover my 'lady garden', let alone my arse, I found a box of whips and whistles.

VOILA! No more standing in the street screeching like a fishwife! I can just go crack my whip, blow my whistle, herd my children and entertain the bin men in a whole new way.......

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