Welcome Back to My Life

Which is as normal as ever.  (Laughs bitterly but wouldn't have it any other way. Probably).

Sorry I've been gone so long - I'm fine, I've just had loads and loads on, been very exhausted, had to have the MMR vaccine which, joy of joys, made my arm swell up like I'd been bitten by a venomous snake and made me feel awful.  The kind of awful where you have to sleep on the sofa because if you roll over in bed and the duvet touches your arm, you cry..... Needless to say I wasn't allowed the next instalment, with medical opinion being it would probably result in my arm dropping off (maybe), so that particular whole exercise of pain was somewhat pointless. And... well and I've just felt quite odd.  I don't mean like depressed or anything - far from it (I say as someone with an all too up close and personal relationship with depression) but just kind of 'weird'.  Like even more in a parallel universe that normal.  Like my life was/is so kind of surreal I couldn't find the energy to talk about it.  As someone who normally loves to share it this was quite odd and not very welcome.

But last night, again, my kids had me roaring with laughter and shaking my head at the same time and I thought 'get back in the ring girl, you gotta share this insanity!'.

So here is the last 17 or so hours in my life for your digestion:

So yesterday I broke up for Christmas (well I didn't really but today I've made the 'informed decision' not to attend what I'm supposed to attend today).  I'd been struggling with a migraine all day and was kindly dealt some prescription strength codeine by a fellow sufferer.

If I felt other worldly and somewhat messed up before I took the codeine....Well afterwards I was flying.  My eyes were kind of half shut and I kept forgetting what I saying half way through words.

And it was in this state I rocked up to collect my little darlings.

As we emerged from the school gates, me clutching a Darth Vader lunch box and screeching 'carry your own coat if you're not gonna wear it' I noticed that, bad timing or what, a funeral was taking place in the church right next door.   They were in fact, right at that moment, unloading the coffin.

Right on cue, eldest child (the train nut Aspergers one) stops and announces...


'Oh wow LOOK - one of those extraordinary vehicles they use to carry those special wardrobes they put dead people in'.

GROUND. SWALLOW ME NOW (and what's with the wardrobe analogy son??).

'It's called a hearse, a hearse, now COME ON' (dragging his curious brain away from scene of mourning).

Youngest child (lunatic, doesn't have Aspergers, does have obsession with dead things/death etc etc) pipes up...

 'WHAT!?  WHAT!? There is a REAL LIFE DEAD PERSON in there!? For like actual real life!? DEAD!!?'.

Me:  MOVE, NOW (drag children down street in an un-gentle manner).

Get home.  Answer a lot of questions about death and wardrobes.  Go to my friend's house for 'Sausage Wednesday' (this is what happens when it's Wednesday and we all have sausages).  Eat enough almond thins to kill a man.  She burns chips and desiccates sausages.  We laugh. Children describe food as gross (well my eldest describes it as 'somewhat over-done') and sate their nutritional needs with icecream and Haribo (well it's nearly Christmas - apparently).

Get home from friend's house.  On journey purchase a scratch card (I don't know why - blame the codeine giving me a feeling of being intensely blessed)  and win £5. Spend £4 of this on a 4 pack of Stella.

Truly believe I AM intensely blessed.

Get home and decide  that as it's the end of term (for me) and I've feeling jolly to crack open the Stella.

Find out that if codeine messes you up, codeine and Stella is a whole new planetary plane.

Have row with eldest about TV viewing.  I do not want to spend my evening watching 'The Great Trains of Europe' or indeed a documentary about the history of lawnmower development.

Youngest child announces I have to take chocolate cakes to school tomorrow for their party day, as my name is on a list somewhere, but whatever I do I mustn't put nuts in them or 'somebody will die' (this is ever since my kids joined the school after everyone else and the school forgot to inform me they have a serious nut allergy problem.....  I sent the younger one in with peanut butter sandwiches causing a mass panic and exclusion zone situation.  What can I say - you live and learn).

I get kids to bed (somehow) and end up making (non-nutty) Rocky Road whilst dancing round the kitchen to old-skool Prodigy wearing fluffy boots and flying on a codeine-Stella Christmas trip.

The cakes turn out surprisingly well.

Decide to take today off to recover from migraine (and, erm, Stella) as it will do me the power of good....

Wake up to find....

1. 5 year old asleep next to me having somehow entered my domain and stolen an entire King-size duvet

2. A 3 foot stuffed Iggle Piggle staring into my eyes.  If you've never experienced this - it will shit you right up.

3. A cat ON MY ARSE kneading it as if it's its furry cat mother's milky bosom (this says rather too much about the pillow like qualities of my arse, although I can assure you it is NOT furry).

4. A naked 8 year old, sat cross legged next to the bed, holding my charging i-phone and muttering sweet nothings to You Tube videos of freight trains leaving Crewe.

5. The crumbs of some Rocky Road all over the pillow.

Immediately regret deciding to take day off.

Somehow get everyone downstairs and whilst making lunch boxes, cutting up cake, putting on make up la la la etc etc etc, eldest child decides to build a frickin German Autobahn the ENTIRE WAY through the ground floor of my house.

This will be the house I need to drag a Christmas tree through as some point and, err, live in.

He solemnly declares that the road system absolutely 100% MUST still be there on Christmas Eve for Father Christmas to see.

I can assure 100% that is won't be but, for today, it lives.

You think I exaggerate?

Here it is sweeping across the lounge floor (see that bay window - that's where the sodding tree needs to be erected)....

And into the dining room (excuse the woodworm)......

And into the kitchen......

It then enters the bathroom but I don't think you need to see any more (or my dirty smalls all over the floor) to know what it looks like.  

These three pictures do quite a good job of summarising the dichotomy of my life.  The kind of chaos that comes from obsessive order.  Sigh.  

I then have to get the buggers out the house, during which youngest child drags his goddam coat, THROUGH the autobahn.    The obsessively ordered autobahn.

ARGGGGHHHH.

Eldest child can not physically leave house until it's all put back exactly as it was.

Youngest child can not physically leave house because he's been slam dunked into the shoe cupboard with a roar of primal 'you've just fucked up my motorway' rage.

I'm just standing outside trying not to beat my head off the wheelie bin by this point, shouting 'MOVE, JUST MOVE OUT OF THE FRONT DOOR, NOW, OR I WILL RUN AWAY AND LEAVE YOU ALL' (well not the last bit - don't want the neighbours to get false hope....).

Get to school wild eyed and wishing I was sat in rush hour traffic somewhere near Bristol.

Eldest child remembers it's Talent Show Day (I'm informed that in honour of Jesus's birth a number of children will be performing 'Gangman Style').

The one thing he hates more than choirs and church is talent shows.  Even though he will not even be watching the darn thing (he will be sat reading a book about trains I imagine) it sends him into a frenzied fit of anxiety.  I think the very thought of organised 'fun' is enough to finish him off.

I walk back from the school making a promise to buy all those who work with my children a bottle of wine for Christmas and to get back to blogging......

AND BREATHE ;-)

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What 30-Something Women Do in Bed

Yay - first blog post from SHINY NEW FULLY WORKING LAP TOP (from which children are banned and thus it will never be graced by endless You Tube videos of freight diesels leaving Crewe Junction or be forced to simulate a Welsh Mountain Railway climbing from a perilous valley - and for that I am sure it will be eternally grateful).

Now that I have a lap top which doesn't take most of the morning to fire up and keys which don't crunch on crisp crumbs and small fragments of custard creams, I shall be with you more frequently.  Promise.

Anyway - I need to confess something.

I need to talk to you about what I do in bed when I've had one to many drinks and have no company.

Ok here goes.

I end up on Ebay and bid on random crap essential bargains.

This habit started during a very lonely bored period quite some time ago and the realisation that with the Ebay app on a smartphone you were only 3 CLICKS AWAY from mountains of 99p tops which would smell of someone else's life and not fit arrive in the post like a gift from someone that loved you and add cheer to your day.

You can imagine my surprise when I confessed this to a close friend, who we shall call Emma (because it's her name) and found out SHE DOES EXACTLY THE SAME THING.  We'd probably been bidding on the same slightly mishapen stripy jumper from New Look, hearts racing as we topped the £2.40 mark.

I felt reassured that others shared my secret shame - I used her behaviour to normalise my addiction.

We became co-dependants.

Sucking each other down into 99p used clothing hell.

And then, when dark night I went to far and everything changed for ever.

 It was Christmas and I got extremely drunk and woke up to an Ebay alert informing me that I had been 'Outbid on the Leopard Print Velour Suit'.

The WHAT!?

WHHHHAAATTTTT!!?

I don't know what surprised me more - that I'd bid on it or that someone else had.

Imagine if I hadn't have been.

Imagine if I had just torn open a parcel one day to find myself face to face with Jonathan Ross channelling Patsy Stone crossed with velour roadkill.

It could have done permanent damage.

Anyway since 'Velour-Ville' things have calmed down and I broke the habit (you know, went so close to the Ebay edge and pulled back before things spiralled into something Peter Stringfellow might wear).

When I went to see Emma recently I asked her how habit was these days.  Under control?

Errr no she said, through a glaze of pure shame.  And then she pointed at her kitchen worktop.

There, on the kitchen worktop amongst the normal paraphernalia of a life raising 4 small boys (i.e tonnes of crap) was a large stack of silver foil catering containers.  You know - like the ones your Pork Balls come from the Chinese in.

'Huh?' I said, thinking I'd missed something.

I hadn't.

In her 'wisdom' Emma had bid on and 'won' a large amount of silver foil takeaway containers on Ebay.

Why?

Your guess is as good as mine which as good as hers.

WE HAVE NO FREAKIN IDEA.

I suggested she open a 'One Night Only' takeaway before rolling around laughing and being quite mean about her container collection for the next week.

But my gloating smug laughter was misplaced.

Oh yes sireee.  

Less than a week later I received the following email:

'Your 2013 Scottish Deerhound Calendar has been dispatched'.

What?! WHAT!!!?

And, lo, so it came.  A large photographic calendar of very big dogs standing around in desolate Highland landscapes and, during some months, accompanied by big hairy men in kilts and maybe a large weapon or two.

And I will have to gaze at it for an entire year.

A constant reminder of my impulsive, spontaneous proper batshit crazy moments in the bedroom.


Sometimes I even scare myself.  

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LET'S GET COOKING!

Well it's Monday morning and it's pouring with rain and I am supposed to be doing housework as I have a day off (for this read 'I am planning to carry the laundry upstairs and then get the Hoover out and inevitably suck up about 400 Lego men's head)....therefore I am blogging.

It occurred to me earlier that we haven't talked about cake for a while. The Great British Bake Off is back on BBC2 and currently provides me with my highlight of the working week when it comes to evening entertainment.  I'm saying nothing about the fact I get over-excited about whether or not someones creme brulee resembles a pool of snot other than 'oh my god I'm turning into my Mother'.

Some of you long time followers may recall my adventures in baking Iggle Piggle - which bizarrely ended up on the first page of Google if you searched for 'how to make an Iggle Piggle cake even though it emphatically told you how NOT to make one.  Go figure.  If you need to explore this adventure in food dye, icing that resembled a placenta and Lambrini it's here: http://slightlysouthofsanity.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/how-not-to-make-iggle-piggle-birthday.html

Anyway several birthday's have passed since then and thus several cakes.

Last year I made the younger child a cat cake - this became known as the Psychotic Pussy.  I don't have a picture (I can't think why) but I seem to remember him crying when he saw it and people looking awkward.  The cat looked angry.  VERY angry.  And it was covered in silver balls and jelly tots.  My ex was still living in the house at this point and I think the cake, in retrospect, may have kind of channelled my inner feelings. And no doubt I decorated it after drinking 4 cans of Stella.  This was the same birthday that I realised late the night before I had no wrapping paper and had to wrap his presents in wallpaper samples.  First and last jigsaw puzzle he'll ever get wrapped in Laura Ashley's 'Kimono Duck Egg'.

This year his dad made him a Russian tank.  It was far less alarming.

For the older child last year I had the idea of baking a volcano. As you do.  If you want to make a volcano cake here are your instructions:

1. Get a jug (kind of dome shaped) and cook a sponge cake in it.  By a jug I mean a Pyrex type one.  If you use a plastic one you will end up with a smell akin to the one I once experienced when a friend's younger brother put a Lego mat under the lit grill pan......

2. When the cake is cooked take it out the oven (always helps) and cut out a cone from the middle. This is to make the bit the lava rises up through and spills out of.  The 'vent'.

You will note from this photo that the part removed from the cake has an unfortunate resemblance to a sponge penis.  But this is the shape you are looking for.  You can do as you wish with it - it isn't needed for a grander plan.  I ate it.

3.  Decorate the cake so it resembles a huge pile of dog vomit after a dog ate some ball bearings and mustard and bled internally an erupting volcano (and yes that IS icing, it is NOT ketchup and mustard).

4. Realise that unless you do something bloody quick nobody is going to have a clue what the bloody thing is other than a tragedy in carbohydrate form

5. Stick a plastic Jurassic looking tree and a surprisingly camp dinosaur (tragically out of scale) on it and VOILA - A VOLCANO CAKE!! Or dinosaur standing over a fresh kill...

This year, not to wanting to turn away from a seemingly winning formula, I cooked another cake in a jug and made this......

What do you mean you don't know what it is!?!

It's a tornado.

Obviously.

There were originally more chocolate fingers 'whirling' round it to symbolise the winds but some, erm, went missing.  Down my throat.

By the time I served it there was 4 left.

The only warning I'll give you on this recipe is that if you stick small things in the cake to resemble storm damage be careful of accidentally swallowing something like a Playmobil guinea pig.  Nobody wants that coming out in their poo.  Least of all Mary Berry.

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Back to Reality

I'm baaaaack.

Sorry - as usual never a dull moment. 

I had a lovely holiday with both kids - it can be summed up by hot, funny, amazing food and drink which means I can't  do my bra up properly....(presumably due to weight gain rather than smuggling large amounts of pastries home down my cleavage), kids acquired an inflatable boat and spent large tracts of time 'taking the bridge', met someone from the Internet in ACTUAL REAL LIFE WHO READS THIS BLOG (woah!!) and was staying in same hotel, may have ended up drunk on stage lying down and showing my knickers to a 50 year old man from Guildford (sadly they were the neon pink Anne Summers ones), small child enjoyed fresh tuna and olives, bigger child enjoyed, erm, chips and icecream, one child got heatstroke and I had to borrow a buggy from reception so we could still go the harbour and drink cider sight see - sadly the buggy was pink.  Well that was a debate I'm surprised hasn't made it onto the Trip Advisor reviews (as in 'holiday ruined by screaming child in lobby being forced into pink buggy by aggressive rough looking woman who we'd earlier seen on stage showing her vile knickers)......but I got him in it (by telling him all children in Spain have pink buggies).   Anyway all went well apart from: 

- getting locked on my own balcony whilst both kids were in the swimming pool.  I'd only nipped up there to get a towel (which stank of piss anyway as one of the children wet the bed and kindly got up and padded it all out with our beach towels.....). I know I know - I think too much Rose at lunch affected my judgement. This lead to me hanging off the balcony in my bikini shouting at my eldest 'DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THE  RECEPTION IS? NO? ITS THE PLACE WITH A DESK AND A LADY.  YOU NEED TO GO THERE AND TELL THEM YOUR MUMMY IS STUCK IN ON HER BALCONY. DO YOU KNOW OUR ROOM NUMBER BECAUSE I DON'T? OH GOOD WELL DONE (thank god for amazing visual memory).  AND TAKE YOUR BROTHER AS HE CAN'T ACTUALLY SWIM'.   

- the 9 hour flight delay on the way home.  With no money left.  I have never been so relieved to get on a plane and see a steward who would accept credit  cards.  'What would you like madam?'.....'well first things first 2 cans of Magners'....(he laughed knowingly).  Youngest child promptly knocked can of Magners over himself....so  he was stinking of cider with matted accidentally dreadlocked hair and as soon as the seatbelt signs were off standing on the seat shouting at the kid behind 'you are ACTUALLY a nutter'.  To be fair he had a darn good point.  At one point this child  had been threatening to punch his mother because she wouldn't buy him a KitKat.  She looked at  me with pleading eyes and said 'I  don't know how you do this on your own'.  I smiled whilst thinking 'well maybe because my kids don't threaten to punch me over shit confectionary' but she looked somewhere past breaking point so I left my thoughts unsaid.  

This wonderful  journey peaked when I got to Luton (as it naturally would). Eldest child began to cry (as you would if it was midnight and you felt sick and found yourself in Luton) and promptly collapsed on the floor in the arrivals bit and fell asleep on a rucksack whilst clutching a stuffed guinea pig (as in a soft toy - not an actual product of taxidermy).   Of course at this point younger child began hopping from one foot to the other shouting 'I need a wee, it's coming now'.   Now I'm pretty chilled but even I baulk at leaving a small sleeping sickly child alone in the middle of the floor while I go to a toilet in a completely different part of the building. I stood there thinking 'help' when a graceful lady swept upon me and said 'I  have been watching you....'.  Oh great I thought....but she guarded the guinea pig clutcher whilst I took the other one to the toilet.  Thank you - whoever you are - thank you. 

Some time later my friend turned up and I went to try and find the bags.  Of course at  this point eldest woke up, sat up, and rained forth vomit across the guinea pig, bag and a large portion of the floor.   

Is it wrong that my first thought was 'shit - whose going to tow the other suitcase now?'.  

When we got to the taxi youngest child refused to get in due to the booster seat being pink... at this point I 'may' have screamed 'do you want me to pull down your pants right here right now and spank your butt IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE? NO. Well GET IN THE CAR THEN' (I don't smack him - I just reached the point of being 'that' mother people glance at then go home and write outraged Internet threads about).  And he got in the car and fell asleep within 3 minutes.  

So now I'm back and it did me the power of good getting away and the very next day my children started a new school which touchwood is so far FANTASTIC and they embrace my lovely, interesting, mind blowing older son as an individual who has different learning needs to the majority and does not have (quote old teacher) 'an attitude problem' which 'makes life very hard for himself'. 

He's only been there 2 weeks and already the difference in him is amazing.  He's even broken his lifelong 'huge routine to say goodbye that if it's broken results in total panic and inability to do anything all day'.  Walks in with his amazing Support Worker smiling and laughing!!   MIRACLES DO HAPPEN PEOPLE! If you kick enough arse and befriend other arse kickers......  Don't get me wrong a lot of shit still happens but we need to celebrate the victories.  

So new start, new school and on Monday I start a new career...... wish me luck people....it's gonna be a hell of a ride.  

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My Head Hurts

Woo - blogging fail. Managed to get through the whole of July without posting.  

Sorry. 

Will do better. Promise. 

It's not a case of nothing happening - it's a case of too much happening.  I wrote it all down for someone the other day and nearly blew their mind. So I'll give you it bit by bit.  The words 'you couldn't make it up' tend to some up my daily existence. But anyway I am back and it hit me today that it's: 

a. August 

and

b. I only have a matter of days left until I hit my mid-thirties.  Gulp.  

Obviously as soon as I hit my 'mid-thirties' I will magically transform into a mature and sensible adult woman who doesn't forget she's stored the cat food in the oven and accidentally ignite it (true story - don't ever do it.  The smell is something nobody living in a world with refrigerators and far far removed from apocalyptic genocide should ever have to suffer). 

I will also be able to source matching bed linen and keep socks together.  And remember to send people birthday cards.  And not have a car interior that resembles the bottom of a budgerigar's cage.  

But don't hold your breath or anything.  Just in case you know, it takes another year or something to properly grow up....

Anyway, so it's August which mean school's out for the summer.  It also means I'm mainly home with my kids because I walked out one of my jobs (the very dull one involving 2000 pieces of paper a day) in order to spend 'quality time' with them before I go off on my new venture in September.  Conveniently enough for them I also acquired some kind of throat problem which limits my shouting abilities.  Which is probably how I ended up in bed with a migraine for the last two days....  

Yesterday was the pinnacle of the pain so I lay in a darkened room going in and out of sleep while they came and went informing me of gem like facts such as... 'I've done a giant poo' or 'my brother keeps looking at me'.  I was highly grateful for this information.  

No really.  I was.  

I'm not sure what they did all day other than fight over whether to watch Kung Fu Panda or 'Freight Trains Around Crewe' (a real DVD - one of many supplied by Dave's Railway Films http://railwayfilms.co.uk/ - I note his top seller is "A cab ride from Hull to Leeds". Get it while you still can.....) and recreate Narnia using rice crispies but full credit to them for not drawing blood or setting fire to anything.  

Anyway after making them suffer the kind of school holiday Monday I remember (being shut in a living room for long periods of time watching strange daytime TV which always seemed to include Saved by the Bell and something involving Jacque Cousteau's underwater world - with maybe a touch of Colombo post lunch) I  promised that today I would take them out. 

I am frankly in no fit condition to even face daylight - let alone drive a car - so the only activity I could consider needed to involve being seated and being in the dark - so that meant the cinema. 

So this morning I managed to get dressed and get them in the car.  For reasons only known to me (and actually not even known to me) I decided to forgo my standard flip flops and put on a really high pair of heels.  I can't fathom why? Maybe because I looked so shocking I thought raising myself up to the height of Lily Savage and staggering slightly would stop people clutching their children to their chests as I approached.   

Anyway, somehow we got to the Odeon and found ourselves waiting in the foyer with several dozen other families.  Only they all looked kind of 'subdued' -  my children NEVER look subdued.  Particularly in large open spaces.  They rolled up and down the disabled ramp and ran around shrieking whilst I  slumped against a pillar with bed hair and stupid shoes on pretending they weren't mine. 

Then the small one stopped and proclaimed, loudly, 'When I grow up I'm going to find David Cameron and kill him'. 

Oh.

Oh god. 

Now I need to put this into context. He's not actually plotting an assassination and I don't want to find the police at my door arresting me for 'hate blogging' or whatever.  It's like this... There's a place near here that they used to like to go and play and it's been shut and they are building houses, more bloody houses, all over  it.  Houses that will be 4 bed executive homes - so not actually do anything for the people that are trying to bring up families in tiny little flats or still having to live with their mums until they are 48 even though they work hard etc etc.  Anyway the kids were pretty peed off about this and asked why it was allowed to happen so we had this big conversation about councils and back handers and how the economy works and growth and all that kind of stuff and I said the government likes to keep houses being built as it provides jobs yadda yadda yadda and he asked who is in charge of the government. So I said David Cameron. And now he wants to kill him. 

Simple. 

He's 4. 

He might grow out of it. 

He might not.  

Up the revolution.  

But I digress.  Anyway I told him not to say that (quite so loudly) and gave him a ball of blu-tac that was in my pocket. 

He promptly stuck it on his forehead and proclaimed 'I AM IN AN INDIAN LADY'. 

I confiscated the blu-tac and turned his attention back to over-throwing the government. 

Then we went to watch the film - which for the record was The Lorax.  Which there is no point in me reviewing because: 

a) I have a severe aversion to Dr Seuss and all that sail with him.  Ever since I was a small child The Cat in the Hat et al have given me 'The Fear'.  This is no doubt a vastly unpopular school of thought but there we go. I remember hiding Green Eggs and Ham at nursery school in an attempt to remove it from my psyche.  I preferred those stories about a dirty dog called Harry who did stuff like dug holes.  He was the real deal.  

b) I have an even more severe aversion to musicals (with the exception of West Side Story - which is dramatic and involves passion, drama and people getting stabbed).  

This turned out to be a Dr Seuss musical.  

But anyway I got to sit in the dark for two hours - it was shame to have to  pay £18 to sit in the dark for two hours (EIGHTEEN QUID!!) and cringe but there you go.  At least nobody is trying to build a housing estate on me. 

And then I suffered the ironic torture of having to take both kids to Sainsbury's in order to purchase more migraine medication from the pharmacy.  

As I queued at the counter one child hung to the underside of the trolley emitting a high pitched beeping noise and the other swooped a large pack of Canesten Combi Thrush Treatment from the end-of-aisle discount display (that's right ladies! Suffering the joy of a summer time vaginal yeast explosion? Well you can pay slightly less for the joy of having soggy chalk in your knickers for the next few days if you get down to Sainsbury's!) and shouted to anyone who would listen 'LOOK THIS IS SECURITY PROTECTED! SO DON'T STEAL IT'.  He's very into security protection at the moment. Sadly.  

The pharmacist handed me the brain-pain pills and chuckled 'and I wonder why you need these?'.  

I stared back with glassy eyes filled with echoing depths of agony. 

Another lady came over and said 'this is the hardest job in the world and nobody ever says well done - now  YOU BOYS GET OFF THE FLOOR AND LISTEN TO WHAT YOUR MUM SAYS'. 

And that's not a migraine hallucination, she really did exist and she really did say that. 

Jeez. I really must look like shit......

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We're All Going on a Summer Holiday

Hello People.

Cripes - what started as a debrief about my daily random life, for the entertainment of my local friends, has now had over 80,000 hits.  God. All those people knowing about the time I weed in the turn-ups of my jeans and my chemically burnt public hair. Gulp. But thank you  - all of you. I love that my life doesn't just make me laugh.

Anyway best I get on with the blogging show. I've been somewhat absent recently for two reasons....

1. Firstly I had to calm down a bit.  All is fine but I found myself having to restrain myself from strangling a woman in Halfords and had to go to the doctor before I ended up in local paper for assaulting someone with cheesestring in Asda.  More of this in another blog post.  But I'm fine. HONESTLY. Better than fine. It's just you don't ride this rollercoaster life without, eventually, needing to rest up and walk on mental crutches for a while.  

2. Secondly I am drowning, yes DROWNING, in paperwork.  Every hour I'm not at work I seem to be filling in forms.  I have more forms on my table than I've had hot dinners.  Granted I seem to live off slices of ham, pickled eggs and Hula Hoops but you get the idea... One of these forms is FORTY TWO PAGES LONG.  It's the MacDaddy of forms.  Every time I start it I have to open a box of chocolates or a bottle of Strongbow. And then I have to go to bed before I finish it.  Maybe I'll tell you all about it one day.  Long story.  It's not a happy form.

But anyway two of these forms were applications for my children's first ever passports.  Yes folks - MY CHILDREN ARE GOING TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY.  With me of course.  This means that, for the first time since my honeymoon, which was something like 9 years ago, I am going on a foreign holiday.  Woo hoo!

I'm going with a friend I met in a psychiatric hospital.  Seriously. She's awesome. She was in there with her twins the same time I was and we bonded over a million tears shed over not being allowed anymore little blue pills (Lorazepam not Viagra), dusty stacks of out of date copies of Heat magazine and the fact we weren't allowed hair straighteners less we tonged ourselves to death.

After my marriage breakdown she booked a holiday (not sure how that works!?) and told me to come with her.  So I said yes.  I haven't paid for this yet and at this rate probably will sometimes around retirement age but you know what, sod it.  It's time to take my children on that big old bird in the sky.  I think the original plan of hers was that I'd also experience some kind of holiday romance but there was a rather obvious flaw (or two) in this plan. Not to mention we are going to a very much 'family' complex (I have a feeling we are going to alter the tone slightly - I didn't say lower - just alter).  And anyway I don't need a holiday romance now because I'm too tired for any of that business.  And yes, for those of you wondering, still happily rolling around with a long distance lorry driver.   Never a dull moment......

The thing is, when I tell people this (the bit about taking my kids abroad, not the pashing a lorry driver thing), they frequently seem to recoil with horror 'what? You are taking them ON YOUR OWN!?'.  Well yes.   I live with the buggers ON MY OWN don't I? How much harder can it be in a hotel environment where the (pre-paid) alcohol starts being served at 10am? DURRRR'.

 'What?' they proclaim 'even the younger one!?'.  Yup - he's coming too.  'But what about the flight!?' they say with bulging eyes.   Err it's like 3 hours - I'll take huge amounts of sweets and tell him that if he makes too much noise the pilot will get distracted and the plane will fall out the sky leading to us all dying in blazing fireball.

Simple.

Like the time he threw a tantrum on an intercity train because he wanted to consume an entire multi-pack of crisps and I said no.  'Look mate'  I said 'do you actually WANT to turn into a huge obese critter that could potentially explode? No? Well there we are then. That's why you can't have 6 bags of crisps. Here have a boiled egg'.   Two business men stared in awe/horror at the little scene.  One burst out laughing. The other shook his head (though that might just have been about the presence of a boiled egg in a confined space).  I'd like to think the one laughing was the one who had children.

In reality it's actually the older one who will find it harder.  Because, it struck me the other day, I'm taking him to an island with:

- no railways

- no motorways

- no impressive industrial zones

I broke the news to him gently.  His lip quivered.  'But but but!' I interjected with my big smiley happy face on 'it's ok BECAUSE the electrics will be different! Different plugs, different sockets, even the telegraph poles will be different!'.

He contemplated this news in silence for a few moments then smiled and nodded.  And then asked a lot of questions about the electrics I couldn't actually answer.  And then proclaimed how tragic it must be for the local not to have any motorways.

So there we have it.  Most children will be looking forward to ice cream and swimming and sun and dancing in dodgy discos.  He's looking forward to examining the plug sockets.   Best I don't ever take him on a camping holiday without electrical points then.....Or anything wilderness focussed.

However to do all this I will need children's passport - and more on that farce tomorrow.  

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A River Runs Through It

So, those of you residing in the UK, may have notice that the rain finally stopped and kind of overnight we went from 'thermal vest and potentially ear muffs' to 't-shirts and flip flops' weather.  

For those, like me, originating from very northerly climes, this may have come upon you rather rapidly in terms of revealing flesh - the colour of which is naturally a couple of shades cooler than skimmed milk and you 'may' have been tempted to enlist the help of chemicals in order to stop yourself turning any onlookers snow blind.  If so let this be a cautionary tale.... (though perhaps not quite as cautionary as the one where I burnt most of my muff and denuded a shag pile carpet with that dubious hair removing foam). 

As a teenager the tone of my skin caused me immense grief. I remember temping in a factory where they christened me Snow White and wouldn't call me anything else.  Friends would mercilessly taunt my near transparent nature.  One fateful day I found a bottle of fake tan in the back of my mum's bathroom cabinet (the same bathroom cabinet that still holds 'miniature soaps and shower caps collected from the World's Holiday Inns, 1980 - 1994 inclusive'.  It's like a shrine to the Glory Years of International Business Travel).  

My heart pumped hard, surely this miracle product was my new holy grail? SAVED FROM FOREVER LOOKING LIKE I'D DIED A WEEK PREVIOUSLY! Baywatch here we come....

Now what we need to bear in mind here is that this must have been one of the first ever fake tans.  People complain now that they smell and look orange.... FOLKS! You ain't seen NOTHING.  In a covert 'using things that don't belong to me' operation I covered my legs in it and quite rapidly smelt like a properly rotten egg and my legs developed intensely bright orange stripes - think the tone of Iron Bru.  

Busted.  

I was forced to spend a very hot period of my teenage summer in black woolly tights and pass it off as a flirtation with Goth-lite.  

But, luckily, times have changed and there are now much better fake tans and for ultra-pale people those moisturisers with a HINT of fake tan. You know, to take the blinding reflective qualities of your skin down a notch.  

And thus it was I purchased Superdrug's So Soft body lotion with a hint, note HINT, of self tanner.   I slapped it all over and went to sleep...... By the morning? Well by the morning the Cuprinol Man Cometh.  

This is by FAR the most full on and orange fake tan I've experienced since stealing my mum's prototype job.  

And a WEEK LATER - I still had huge dark orange patches.  

Hint? HINT? Hint of tanner my flaming arse. I would recommend this product to NOBODY.  Unless Oompaloompa Orange really gets you off.  

So by Thursday night I was getting really quite peed off about this situation, a week looking like you tried and failed to join the cast of TOWIE is not my desired look, and decided it was kill or cure so covered my whole body in what ever other fake tan products were lying around.  The idea was I'd go to bed, and wake up probably looking like a sepia patchwork quilt but at least I'd done 'something'. 

So products went on.  I lay down naked and started drifting off to sleep.... I heard a wail.  

Hmmm. 

Youngest child was muttering and sobbing. 

'Wee wee?' I asked, standing him over in a zombie-like naked pose (not wanting to chaff off the tan you see). No doubt such memories will come out in some kind of regressional therapy at a later date but, all the same, he sleepily nodded... 

I picked him up, put his little arms around my neck, pressed his little body against mine, nuzzled his soft blonde hair and took a step forward.....

The next thing I was aware of was a very hot very wet sensation....

And then brain engaged and I realised he was pissing.  Like a horse. 

I set off at high speed but the whole way out of his room, down the corridor and into the bathroom it just kept on jettisoning out and as he was squashed against me, his willy was pointing directly skyward and wee was issuing forth in something of a torrent, right up to the height of my chin, and then running back down my body, down legs - frankly down everywhere.  

By the time I had him positioned over the toilet I was literally dripping in piss.  

I put him back to bed and surveyed the damage. There was a lot of damage. 

Smelling like a tramp is bad enough but of course the rivulets of urine meant great streaks of my body were now stripped of fake tan.  I knew that I'd wake up looking the delta of the Nile in negative and I'm sure some people would have now taken a full shower and painstakingly re-applied the fake tan but frankly once you get past midnight life is far too short for such concerns.  So I towelled the worst of the wee off and fell asleep.  

There are worse things in life than visually representing a great river basin.  

In the morning I did take a shower (I'm not 'that' bad) but whilst drying my face and towelling my hair I noted the towel smelt particularly fusty.  

Great.  You've guessed it.  It was the wee towel.  

So I got to look like I was suffering a rare skin disease AND smell slightly of urine.  Wow. 

So the moral of my tale is - if you are vain enough to care what tone your skin is, be sensible enough to put clothes on before entering into any situation which could involve getting pissed on.  

Got it? 

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Strange Love

Sorry slacking again.....but all is good so let's get on with it. 

We haven't talked about Badger Girl for a while so lets.  For once lets not talk about me.  Badger Girl is alive and well but no longer selling kinky ladybird outfits or asking me to sell glo-sticks dressed in a tutu and thong.  No. Although she is currently trying to claim she had a surfeit of dead/dying badgers inhabiting her property. Seriously. 

She's now, mainly, teaching young people to handle stallions (or something).  She's back in the arena with a whip and her boots on and her hair extensions under a riding hat and, it appears, for this new job she requires a character reference.....

So who she's gonna ask? 

Me. 

Well the first thing that shocked me, other than the fact she asked ME, was that, when I sat down and figured it out she's been part of my life for 22 years. TWENTY TWO.  Gulp.  That makes me feel like I should actually be a grown up.   

And then? Well the temptation was to run free and tell the whole story but you know, not many future employers are ready to hear that, so I just told them the bits that make her a fab employee. The fact she's the most hardworking person I ever met.  The fact she's got a great sense of humour, she's trustworthy, she never judges people, she can get on with anyone and she's honest.  Hell I trusted her to mind my children when I went to funeral.  I think she took them out in the dark to help her catch dangerous unbroken ponies before feeding them sweets and putting on Scooby Doo - but hell the kids loved it and are used to being cared for by my mother (latest update: 'Mummy - grandma has been teaching us about doing scratchcards!'..... oh hell how far have we fallen now?!) so it was a step up. But you know, there is an unwritten character reference itching to get out....so here it is..... Badger Girl this one's for you.....may we still be calling havoc in the Sunset Retirement Home....

"To Whom it May Concern, 

I have known Badger Girl for 22 years.  Yes TWENTY TWO YEARS.  I must need help because looking back our relationship has looked something like this.... 

It started innocently enough on the back of some ponies but it wasn't long before she'd got me carrying her cigarettes so her mum wouldn't catch her, put me in a shopping trolley at the carnival and let it go down a rather steep hill. In front of the police.   I should have known to get out of the relationship right then but something made me stay (fear?).

This was a mistake because not long after she informed me she had a box of hair dye and needed to use it. On me.  I was adamant this was a NO but somehow she bullied me into 'just 10 minutes'. Several hours later my sobs of protest (and her cackling witch-like laughter) brought her mother to the table and she was ordered to stop before my entire scalp getting burnt off and wash it out. Which she did.  With milk.  She lived on a dairy farm.  There was plenty of milk around.  Warm milk.

On our relationship went.  Memorable moments include her putting me on a trailer and revving a quad bike up so I resembled a swamp creature and throwing me onto the back of an (unsaddled) horse so I flew straight off the other side and landed arse first on a breeze block.   Oh how her laughter still rattles through my brain.  

Then, for some reason, I asked her to be my one and only bridesmaid.  This meant she organised my hen do.   Her first move was to take me, her, my mum and her mum to a comedy club.  The first joke was about epileptics giving blow jobs.  My mum worked her entire live with the disabled. Unfazed by oral sex she was rather cross that people were making jokes at the expense of those with serious health problems.    

Gulp.  

Or maybe she'd rather not swallow.

Several hours of 'oh my god my MUM can't sit next to me hearing this' later we escaped and the next day she took me raft building on Exmoor.  In November.  The water temperate was so cold we weren't allowed to build rafts as if we fell in it would kill us.  Potentially. So they put us in canoes instead with inflatable crocodiles.  Go figure.  We got very wet and nearly died.    Then we raced quad bikes. Then we went to a very bad nightclub in Exeter where I got mistaken for a Transvestite and asked to leave the ladies toilets. We then got in a taxi and the driver asked if I was on my stag do.  Nope - you really couldn't make it up.  

She's stuck with me through all my dramas.  I can be sat there saying 'oh my god, I don't know how to go on, I mean you know, it's all too much....' and she'll say 'shift it Stickhead, I need you to tell me if this badger is dead or not'. 

And if fact it was her that christened me Stickhead. A name so well known down here I once had a cheque written to 'Stickhead'.   I couldn't cash it.  Sadly.

She collects ponies like shoes and she has a million kittens that get born in her sock draw and piss all over her floors.  She's the only person that can keep up with my tea intake.  She's not been seen without copious fake tan on since about 1999.  Like me she will die with mascara on.   She's recently tried to give up smoking.  When I asked her how long she'd lasted after her counselling session she looked chuffed and told me '4 hours. But then it got stressful. And anyway, I was in the vets the other day and there was a Labrador in there which had eaten 24 packs of Nicorette gum and was REALLY ill. Which just proves all that stuff is bad for you.....'.  

She's the only person who has nearly got me killed in a mosh pit.  In a poncho.  She's scared of nothing yet she's terrified of stiff badgers.  I had to teach her how to text and even now it's easier to write her a letter.  

There are some people who never have a friend like Badger Girl and you know what, despite the bruises, the ruined hair, the laughter at my expense, the fact she nearly killed me several times, the fact she's the only living person still drinking Snowballs and has a corner bath which used to hold ducklings - before Rod the Emu came to live with her (don't ask what happened to Rod - DON'T), the fact there is an actual real 'beast' (like a panther or something) living on her farm and she once paid me to spend a night painting the torsos of teenage boys with luminous body paint - I bloody love her.  And if you're lucky enough to have her in your workforce just hang on and go with the ride.....

Yours - forever Stickhead"

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It's been a long time coming but I know a change is gonna come...

Well I've been getting complaints.

Complaints that I'm not blogging often enough.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Although I'm also very flattered and love ya all.  Well maybe not ALL of you - maybe not the man who formally complained about me talking about female urination or the guy who pumps his testicles up on the family work-top - but most of the rest of you - you rock.

Anyway, I  am alive and kicking and back with you all and have a long series of posts lined up (in my head, got to commit them to cyber space yet) so I shall be coming on strong in the next month and keeping you (hopefully) semi-fulfilled.  

The reasons for my absence are, for once, not disaster filled.    Nope - for once my life is filled with a sense of Golden Wonder (as in hope - rather than deep fried potatoes) - and some VERY GOOD THINGS have happened.   And they don't even involve cider.  But they are things I can't really blog (much) about.  Much as I am very open about ME on here, I am very guarded when it comes to other people.  I also can't blog about professional stuff AND I can't blog about anything which I wouldn't be fine with my (one day grown up-ish) children reading.  They never gave informed consent for me writing this.  Hell - they never gave informed consent to be my children.... but that's what they're stuck with.   I don't mind them reading about me accidentally overdosing on dog hormone tablets or weeing in the turn up of my jeans or that they once stranded their Nana on her stair lift with a Lego booby trap or that cockerels can and do have homosexual leanings and naming them after religious icons doesn't send you straight to hell...... but, well something's are private.

Last time I posted here my phone had just been stolen but with every loss comes a gain and the weird gain I got from a boyfriend.  

At the time the phone was stolen I had to report it to the police for insurance reasons. I'm not sure what these reasons were  as it wasn't insured but at least I got a crime reference number to stuff in a draw and forget about.  

Not long after that I had a phonecall from a man called Frank who said he was a policeman....

Frank: Could you describe yourself madam? 

Me: (all eager) 5ft 10'', blonde, curvy.... 

Frank: And what exactly were you wearing?

Me: Erm a short silk dress that just covered my.... (oh.  Oh dear.  Feeling slightly less eager). 

Frank: OK well I'm going to watch all the CCTV footage of you that night and get back to you.....

Me: Do you want a photo?  (why am I saying this?) 

Frank: Yes. I want a photo.  

So I sent Frank a photo and later on he turned up with his truncheon and handcuffs and the rest his history.  

No. 

That  is (thank god) not what happened.  Frank was (I believe) a genuine copper (he had a  pin number and all that) and having reviewed the CCTV footage he informed me that sadly they couldn't see the bit where my phone got stolen but at least I could relax as 'nothing he had witnessed me doing could actually be classed as a criminal act'. 

Phew. 

So my dancing's not 'that' bad.   

So I didn't run off with Frank but somewhere around that time I did meet someone else.  In the middle of a roundabout.   He was on the roundabout.  I was running across several lanes of traffic.   And we did all the things you're not meant to do on a first date....drank pints, never shut up, broke into a municipal park....and since then it's been one long fairytale....well as long as your fairytales feature people as off the wall as you with a touch of the loon about them who laugh like drains, industrial parks, lorry depots, McDonald's, lay-bys, Wickes, Asda (twice!) and his mum's kitchen.  Which, luckily, mine do.  I wasn't looking for a relationship - it was the last thing on my list after putting the laundry away (for once), fixing the kitchen cupboard doors back on, emptying 300 coke cans out the car and doing my tax return but...well, as usual, 'other stuff happened'. And yes he knows about this blog and has consented to being mentioned and all that jazz.   

And that, for the moment, is all I can say on that - but you know, whatever happens, whether it all goes bang tomorrow or it's from here to eternity, all good people deserve to feel like this and be this happy.  Even if it's just for a little bit.  And people like me who have spent years waking up happy and then one minute later thinking 'oh.  Oh yeah, all that stuff in your life you'd managed to put in the file marked: must be a bad dream....it's actually TRUE! Oh, oh shit..... ', well people like me deserve to wake up happy and then, one minute later, think 'YEEEE HAAA' and feel even happier.  Even if it's just a gap in the storm.  To anyone still in the storm, or back in the storm or watching the storm roll in (or out) never give up.  Never lose hope.  Hope is what makes us human. The better bits of human.  

Anyway moving on from my love life, and before I get all deep on you, I've also had some massive huge big exciting news when it comes to my professional life.  But (for now) for complicated reasons to do with the semi-public nature of my life via this blog, I can't say much else but, lets just say, I worked very hard at this and will now be rewarded by spending much more time than is normal in close proximity to female genitalia.  And no, I'm not becoming a lesbian porn star.  On top of getting to know my way round ladies bits, I'll have even less time than I do now, be even more pushed to the edge of my sanity, get very tired and probably cry quite a lot inbetween marvelling at stuff and laughing manically.....

You all along for the ride?    

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Wiggle It Just a Little Bit

Well this blog post WAS going to be backed up with a photo of me semi-dressed but  those of you hoping for flesh shots will be disappointed to hear  that the phone the photo was on was stolen last night by some £*$&£ in a nightclub  in Weston-Super-Mare.  

This says a lot about nightclubs in Weston-Super-Mare but it also means that I am somewhat massively gutted  today and have lost over a 1,000 photos, mainly of my children, that my laptop refused to back up. 

However, lets not dwell on this matter and move on to the lighter topic of how I came to posses the photo in the first place. 

On Friday I went to Asda to buy bread, milk and cheese and, of course, came out about £80 poorer with 3  pointless nighties, a bottle of vodka and no bread.   

Whilst browsing the clothing I spotted a really cute blue summer dress with white hearts on it and a pencil skirt. Quite retro.  I think they call them wiggle dresses - but that makes me feel slightly unsettled for some reason so I will just call it 'the dress'.  

So I took the dress  into the changing room and put it on.

Or tried to.  

The top half slipped on easily but the bottom part was totally and utterly wedged on my hips.  I checked the label concerned I'd picked up some kind of micro size. 

Nope.  

Right size.  

OK so  that means I HAVE to get it on or my self-esteem for the day will be destroyed by the knowledge my thighs are 4 sizes bigger than my bust (which would be going some) and I am officially, in the eyes of Asda pattern cutters, a mutant.  

15 minutes of grunting, heaving, panting and yeah, wriggling, later the dress was on.  

Yipee!  Ok the skirt was so tight I couldn't move - let alone walk - but I had made the point that I was that size and the dress was actually really nice.  Although for anyone to see this you'd need to be mounted on wheels and pushed about the place like a one of those toy dogs.  

What I couldn't work out was why there was an extra flap of material hanging from the waist.  A kind of loop with an open  end which if you held it up you could see right down to my knickers.  I figured it was some kind of wrap part that should be under the top part of the dress round the bust area but couldn't make it worked it out so shuffled, with 2mm footsteps, out to the changing room assistant......

Me: Excuse me - you don't know where this part of this dress is meant to be do you? 

Changing room assistant (woman in her 50's with a weatherworn expression clearly thinking 'What Fresh Nut is This?'): Yes love - it's for your other leg.  

Bravo - I'd spent 15 minutes of  my life inserting my entire body into the right hand leg of a playsuit.  

And then I had to get the bugger off again.........

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I Gotta Little Something For Ya.......

Ok Ok you need to know what happened to the ladybird. 

Well - after much deliberation it was decided (by the look of it's legs - allegedly) that it was the BAD ladybird. 

The dreaded Harlequin (if, as is probable, you haven't got a chuffing clue what I'm on about Google Harlequin Ladybird and I'm sure all will be revealed - I'd do it and post you a pic but I'm 'that' tired I can't be arsed).  

Anyway so they were pretty sure it was the bad one (but bear in mind at this point they didn't realise there was a very incredibly rare 'breaking the laws of extinction' variant potentially out there) but they still couldn't kill it - even via the total immersion method. So what did they do? 

They laid it's brightly coloured body on the bird table and 'left  it in the hands of nature'. 

Or beak of nature presumably. 

And what happened then people? We will never know.  

Gulp.

I, on the other hand, have been wondering at what age you become just like 'totally and utterly OVER' to your children.  You know, at  what point do they stop hanging off your thigh screeching 'but MUMMEEEE it was MY packet of Hula Hoops' and keep sticking their head up your skirt and start walking 20 steps behind you in town with their hood up and fringe over their eyes (a look I still specialise in on days I just don't want to be here). 

The idea of this seems currently impossible to me.  But, then again, once upon a time in the mists of early motherhood, it seemed to me impossible I'd be able to walk down a street without holding myself upright via a pram and guess what folks, it finally happened!

My neighbour's have a 13 year old son and I think I can safely say HE wouldn't walk down the street with me. In fact,when I go  to the door to collect parcels he visibly quakes.  

This 'may' have something to do with the fact that every night at around 7pm he  hears me scream 'IF YOU ARE NOT NAKED BY THE TIME I COUNT TO THREE THEN YOU WON'T GET ANY PYJAMA TIME' (anyone with small riotous  children will empathise with just how hard it is to get them dressed for bed) but there have been several other occasions where I have caused him considerable fear.  

Just last week, as Spring crept  ever closer and the hint of the sun's warmth edged across my face and a surge of wild ecstatic 'woo hoo' coursed through my veins, I went out  to feed the guinea pigs - a carrot in each hand.  

Standing by their hutch, carrots aloft, I suddenly (and to my own surprise) launched into a rousing rendition of MN8's 1990's classic 'I gotta little something for you'....

For those of you unable to recall this pinnacle of music magnificence, here we go.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBDb6wIEcIQ&noredirect=1 

And I'll give you just three guesses to figure out what happened next.....

Sigh.

Yup  - just as I roared.. 'Coz the gift I got ain't going back', I spun round, armed with carrots and there was next door's 13 year old standing on their patio open mouthed.  

Scarred for life I presume.

Sorry kid but you had to realise at some point that the gift I got ain't going back.......

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