Slightly South of Sanity

The Inspector Called...

2012-01-22T19:33:00.000Z

Hello People. I am here with you courtesy of the Inland Revenue.

I'm trying to do my annual tax return before they put in me in prison with hungry crocodiles or whatever they do these days but guess what? ONCE AGAIN I CAN'T LOG INTO THE BLOODY SYSTEM. Last year, such was the farce that ensued over my 'Unique Tax Reference Number' that I swore I would get it actually tattooed on my inner thigh. I'd never be separated from it (well unless I was the victim of even more horrible misfortune and lost the limb) and it would provide a unique and endlessly fun discussion point during foreplay. 'These numbers on your thigh, what is the story?'. I would smile mysteriously and hint at secret codes and passwords that could never be told. Obviously I'd leave out the bit about it being for Tax Returns as that's not generally known to excite men. Apart from perhaps Accountants. I don't really want to seduce an Accountant. Actually maybe I do. Maybe that's what I actually NEED to do? Anyway basically I never got the tattoo but I did write down all the relevant information and lock it in a filing cabinet under the heading TAX.

Simple.

So this year I was conned into believing I could simply put in this information and be done in minutes.

Sigh.

It does not recognise my password. The computer says no. I've reset the password and guess what? It does not recognise the new password that it sent. Great. It tells me to call the helpline. The helpline that is shut on a Sunday.

ARRRGGHHH.

So I'm blogging.

Last time I was here I was preparing for the Inspector to call and study my ways. Well she came, she saw and she ticked all the boxes and basically said 'you're awesome'. Well she didn't quite say that but she smiled a lot and was really nice and said it in a roundabout kind of way which frankly I'm quite deeply moved by. I don't like make a big thing about myself - thus all this on-line self deprecation - but doing a good enough job matter hugely to me and I'm very proud at what I've managed. Despite everything I've made a difference to people's lives. In a good way. And given them a good time along the way.

However - great big shining my halo aside - it's quite frankly a good job she came to that session and not the previous one.

Let me summarise the farce of the first session:

I raced to the hall after finishing my other job only to find...... it is FREEZING and I mean freezing. Call caretaker (the one in the stetson). He turns up, shrugs his shoulders and tells me the boiler pilot light is out and is being fixed at 10am tomorrow. I say something about that not really helping me now you mofo (but I say it really nicely as he wields the power in that place). He offers me the somehow warm skittle alley. Yes - a skittle alley.

It's about 6 foot wide and 60 foot long and quite dark and echoey. It's basically, erm, an alley after all. I decline. I mean how is that meant to work? Everyone sits in a big long row like they're on the bus and I stand at the front conducting!? ALL ABOARD, TICKETS PLEASE, HAS ANYONE SEEN MY CERVIX? No.

So he offers me the 'reading room' (I don't know why it is called this, nobody ever reads in it). It's also freezing cold but it's very small so if we get a plug in heater we can make it slightly warm. So I accept and cram a large number of people in a small space round a heater. On the plus side it's all very conducive to group bonding. On the negative side it's quite hard to find the reading room as it's hidden and while I'm helping a couple find the toilets a couple of the new clients go astray and walk into the main hall where some kind of a Killer Self Defence for Big Hard Men with Shiny Heads and Steely Eyes is taking place. This causes them fleeting panic as they wonder how the hell kicking the shit out of a guy in a dressing gown is conducive to getting a baby out of your body....... I have a lot of calming down to do.

So problem one solved. On to the next one....

The next one being I've forgotten my pelvis. Not MY actual pelvis - even I would have noticed the absence of my entire lower torso. No the model one that is absolutely key to explaining how things work and why x y and z may help things along. Shit. No pelvis no demo. I look around for things I could craft a substitute from but although I can do a lot with several dozen pint glasses, a pack of bendy straws, 24 custard creams and some tea bags - making a woman's pelvis isn't one of them. This leaves me the option of drawing one. Drawing. What what I thinking? I end up with a flipchart sheet with two oval slit on it and the words:

This is the way in

This is the way out

I give the clients a marker pen and ask them how they think they could get it through the slits. The answer is rotate it (the pen is the baby's shoulders - obviously) but you can imagine the result.....

In hindsight this was not the most well thought out teaching activity.

Once again though it was great for group bonding and there are worse ways to spend a Wednesday night than huddled round a heater with a group of strangers poking flip chart marker pens through slits whilst laughing hysterically.

So problem two kind of solved (I eventually found my lost pelvis in the airing cupboard and did the proper demo on the next session - thus hopefully undoing any kind of emotional scaring caused by the 'Game of Slits').

On to the third and final problem. And oh god this is cringeworthy - even for me.

OK - so I do this thing where you get loads of random props and you have to work out how they could be used to during early to labour to help you cope.

One of the items is a hot water bottle.

Whilst setting up I pulled out the hot water bottle and turned it over. In the next 2 seconds time slowed down to almost stand still and the following thought pattern went through my head.....

ARRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHH there's a dead fish stuck on the back of my hot water bottle oh god but it can't possibly be a dead fish because where would a fish have come from and anyway it would stink ARGGGHHHHH but it's all grey and furry and flat ARRRRGGGHHHHHH oh my god it's a dead rat, a deceased and suppurating rodent is squashed flat against my hot water bottle dead and rotting and in my box ARRRGHHHH but why doesn't it stink and where the hell did it come from ARRRGGHHHHH I think I'm actually going to cry and be sick SOB.......WHAT THE F'CK?

It's a..........

banana!

Yup.

The last time I taught this activity was October. Someone told me to add a banana to my box and that it was a good prompt to talk about eating small amounts to keep your body working at it's best. So I added a banana to my box....... I clearly put the banana back in the box..... I put the box back in the shed at the bottom of my garden......And for 3 long months the banana went through every stage of decomposition until it resembled a sheet of grey fur actually embedded in the rubber of the hot water bottle.

So, errr, obviously that little activity had to go by the wayside and the whole shebang had to go in the bin. I mean nowhere in the self help skills for childbirth manual would it mention scaring yourself witless with decomposed fruit that resemble a dead rodent.

As I said, it's a damn good job the Inspector called at the next session where there were no problems whatsoever and the group were so well bonded they were laughing their heads off and chatting like old mates.

Silver linings folks, silver linings.....

An Inspector Calls

2012-01-01T21:20:00.001Z

Well HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We made it folks - in one shape or another, here we are in 2012.

I would like to say a big good luck and hope it's a good one for you to all my lovely followers who keep me going and make it appear that I'm not just sitting here randomly warbling into cyberspace but people actually get something from all of this. Yay!

Anyway I'd like to think I could now have a nice quiet week 'post festivities' and take the tinsel off my enormous bush, wrestle it out the front door and restore some kind of order (what do I mean 'restore' - I would actually be establishing order for the very first time, but it's nice to dream).

But no.

I have potentially the most stressful week of the year, right here, right now, upon me.

I have to do 3 different jobs at once (other than parenting), one of which involves 12 hour shifts and one of which involves taking 18 strangers into 'that' village hall and saying 'Hello, my name is Stickhead, I'm here to talk about vaginas and how you can help them stretch' (OK that's paraphrasing you get the drift) 'and then we can talk about how you are about to enter years of broken sleep, the smell of poo and having malted milks ground into your Egyptian cotton bed sheets. Would anyone like a cup of tea and a fig roll?'.

This was all a case of 'bad planning' (well no planning actually) and in the middle of it all the kids go back to school (I don't think I've actually taken their PE kits, school bags etc out of the back of my car yet post break up for the holiday. Sigh).

This would all be bad enough but (and it's a big wide but) - every so often when you are teaching groups an assessor has to come round and watch you and mark you out of ten on various things and come up with a plan for you. This involves quite a bit of prep work and writing a 'reflective' piece blah blah blah. So that's how I spent New Year's Day - waffling on about goals and aims and learning outcome and holistic approaches and how I 'meet my own needs' (oh it was so so tempting to run amok with the answer to that one).

I kind of resent this. I wanted to just write in big huge bold type letter something like this:

'Dear Inspector,

I very much look forward to welcoming you to the crazy hall of doom. Please do not alarmed by 'Mary' the keeper of the keys or the caretaker in the Stetson. However if you see any very old people clutching packets of Orange Clubs or similar please check that they are actually for their ridiculous raffle and haven't been stolen from my supplies. Not that I buy Orange Clubs. I would also advise that you do not focus on the carpet for too long as the almost fractal like orange brown and red pattern has been known to induce vomiting. If any alarms go off, try not to shit yourself or scream. Focus on your breathing.

I know you want me to reflect deeply on the last year of teaching but frankly it's a miracle I'm still here and still doing this and you should just be grateful for that, because despite everything, I do a bloody good job.

Of course nobody is perfect and not all of the less than ideal moments in the last year have been the fault of dodgy alarm systems, mad line dancers or the people that stole the lead off the roof leaving me to teach amongst a sea of buckets and a ghostly howl.

No.

I mean it wasn't ideal that time when I was talking to the group about their baby's adjustment to the world outside the womb. I held the (fake) baby close, demonstrated the need for touch and nurturing. I laid the baby carefully down on a soft blanket explaining how a baby couldn't fall off the floor so it was a safe place to leave the baby..... I stepped forward to pick up a nappy..... I tripped over my own feet and put the heel of my boot directly through the (fake) babies face.

I shouted 'SHIT', did a move not unlike when Roadrunner goes over a cliff edge and fell on my side with an 'oomph'.

On the plus side the group laughed so long and so hard it probably gave them an endorphin rush for days.

Then there was the time I spent the day bouncing about on a ball in black leggings and a tunic top with my legs wide open...... Got a few funny looks.....Got home and went for a wee..... On closer inspection realised that the 'leggings' were footless tights. I was wearing white knickers with pink hearts on. Oh dear lord. I was torn between pretending it never happened or starting the next group with 'I am ever so sorry about last week and my knickers. I truly had no idea you were all staring at my gusset'. But I was advised just to leave it and pretend it never happened. Wise words.

More recently I have had issues with emailing groups from my iPhone and the darn autocorrect thing. On one occasion it 'corrected' my name to 'Cocky'. So I said something like 'I can't wait to see you all on Sunday - yours Cocky'. I noticed this just at the point it swooped out into the ether and I couldn't stop it. I promptly sent another email to apologise and explain. This time I noticed, just at the crucial 'it's too late now' moment that I was now renamed Bucky. So Cocky or Bucky take your pick - I sound equally deranged either way.

Even more cringe-worthy was the time I emailed someone to congratulate them on the birth of their twins. 'I'm so glad to hear that you and your tubs are doing so well' I jauntily replied.

Tubs.

Tubs?

However you interpret that it's not great is it?

But all the same, just tick the box and let me carry on hey? Because you know without me, it just wouldn't be quite the same kind of education, would it?

Yours,

Cocky

I mean Bucky

I mean, oh sod it, call me whatever you bleedin well like. But maybe not Tubs. Do you want a fig roll?

Decks the Hall with Boughs of Sorrow

2011-12-26T21:39:00.001Z

Well that's that over and done with.

It's Boxing Day and I'm still here. The children had a lovely time trying not choke on Ferraro Roche and tattooing me with stegosaurus ink stamps (they want me to get a large one tattooed across my butt. Well that would certainly be a talking point wouldn't it? But presumably only amongst those who ever saw me naked from behind which, lets be honest here, is currently somewhere around the 'zero' mark. Still- it could potentially put a whole new spin on the grand unveiling next time I go for a smear test).

Anyway Father Christmas came and he even found a tree under which he could put the presents (more on that next blog).

He also found some stockings but maybe the less said about those the better...... Oh ok I confess. I realised late on Christmas Eve - when I say late I mean at the point the children needed to hang them up - that I didn't actually have any stockings for Santa to fill. Gulp. I think in previous years I used a big woolly pair of over the knee walking socks but in the 'post break up I am going to throw most my life in a skip and start again' insanity, I think I must have looked at them, thought 'huh? When do I ever go on some kind of walk that involves actual WALKING SOCKS!?' and given them to the charity shop - forgetting they were actually my children's Christmas stockings.

Clearly this has 'parenting fail' written all over it BUT all was not lost! Having dismissed my son's offer of a school ankle sock (kind of limiting in terms of present volume) and my lace hold ups (they'd get laddered and cost more than a fiver) I stumbled upon.......... a pair of thick cable knit tights from Next. Luckily I'd drunk circa 3 litres of wine by this point so it instantly occurred to me to slash through the gusset with a pair of kitchen scissors and present each child with a severed tight leg. The tights were unfortunately a sort of flesh colour (thus why I never wore them - they were an ill judged purchase to go with a tea dress and look 'wholesome'. It didn't work). So basically on Christmas Eve it looked as if two withered limbs were hanging from my fire place and the children did keep asking 'but why are they torn?' but hey Santa still filled them! And anyway - surely that's what Christmas is all about? The memories? Even if they are of your mother's torn tights.

Hang on in there people - we are on the cusp of a New Year and I have no idea what it will be other than never ever dull.....

Catering for Zombies

2011-11-28T20:58:00.001Z

Ok so if you read this blog you are probably used to the surreal (and the downright ridiculous) but even I (after many years of living with 'this life') sometimes pause and look back at the day in hand and think 'huh? That's not for real right?'.

But it always bloomin well is.

Last week I had tickets to a gig to see two bands play quite a long way away. I was taking Badger Girl. She had her outfit sorted and everything (I have a feeling of loss that I will never see it).

But the day before she called me (just as I came off a 12 hour shift and was stood in the neon glow of the doorway of the only Chinese Takeaway in town open on a Tuesday night).

Badger Girl: 'Stick?'

Me: 'Who else?'

Badger Girl: 'Stick you OK?'

Me: 'Yeah I seem to be losing my voice but it's OK - the world will rejoice'.

Badger Girl: 'Stick, I'm really sorry - there's something I've got to tell you.....'

Me: 'It's Ok, don't worry, whatever it is it doesn't matter' (I already know she can't come and it's fine, I'm really not worried, it's no big thing).

Badger Girl: 'I can't come to the gig because we've got to do the catering for a Hollywood Zombie Film being filmed somewhere in the countryside near Shepton Mallet. It's got Corey Feldman in. COREY FELDMAN! Though I've looked him up on the internet and he's gone downhill since I had him on my wall. I think it must have been drugs. It said he'd been through 'difficult times' - that'll be drugs right? I think he's demanding too. That's probably also the drugs. I think he actually will be demanding. Oh and also there is the kid in it who was the kid in Terminator. You know the one out of Terminator 2? The film with Arnie? Well anyway he's gonna be there. In Shepton Mallet!! Only he's a grown up now. Obviously.

Me: 'Hmmm (whilst eyeing the Chinese menu through the window and trying to work out whether chow mein or special rice is better value) that is kind of crazy'.

Badger Girl: 'Anyway we've got to do all of them breakfast, lunch and dinner and it's nuts and we have to get up at 3am every day and go to bed at midnight and it's a lot of sausages to prep....;

Door opens - anxious looking man asks if he can help me. I tell him I'll let him know.

Me: Erm, it's Ok. Really it is OK (thinking to myself - I love Badger Girl. I really do love her. For all she brings to my life and making me feel sane. Every single week. And who knew? Really who knew that Zombie's were running wild outside Shepton Mallet but still need 3 meals a day and prefer paella to human blood).

We hang up.

I go into the Chinese. Strangely drawn by the Formica and odd photographic calendars and pictures of pandas and bamboo and wipe clean plastic and the way it all attaches itself to several decades of 'life as we have known it'. Despite being supposedly foreign it's about as familiar to parts of life as you can get it. And it's not about to change. I appreciate that. The lack of change. When everything else changes, your bog standard local Chinese tends not to.

I order two random dishes and sit down to try and glean something interesting from the local free paper (a past time which we all know is fruitless).

And then I wonder what I'm going to do about the gig. I text my brother but he's busy with work. I deduce that the best thing to do is write it off and not go. Not much lost.

But then the next day - hours before my supposed departure I wonder what my dad would have done and realise he would have said 'book a last minute hotel, get on the bloody train and enjoy yourself'.

And so I do.

I stay in a rather odd hotel with curtains that appear made from the pelts of Teddy Bears and a 7th storey toilet with a floor to ceiling window looking over the city (which is great until you realise, mid-flow, all the other buildings are several storeys taller and people can, literally, look down on you as you go about your business).

I go to the gig and sing along and don't even get squashed or hit or molested or covered in Carling. This is a first. Clearly I should travel alone more often.

But then I wake up in the night and discover 3 things:

1. The Teddy Bear Pelt/Panoromic Poo View hotel room has no actual heating. Yup NO heating and it's COLD. Beyond cold. I'm shaking all over.

2. My throat has swollen shut and there is drool running down my chin because I can't swallow.

3. My throat really has swollen shut and I can only emit a feint 'eek eeek' noise - not unlike a hungry guinea pig. I can not talk. At all.

By the morning the situation had worsened. I check out via a series of clicks and eeks - like a Killer Whale informing his brotherhood to destroy a seal pup.

The receptionist looks highly alarmed and draws me a map to the nearest pharmacy whilst frantically pointing at EXIT.

And thus - quite some walk later - I find myself in a BOILING hot branch of Boots in a foreign city carrying a heavy bag and wearing a heavy coat and holding two bottles of coke and queuing at the pharmacy. There are a dozen very old and very frail people ahead of me and one pharmacist...... The wait goes on.....Sweat is running down my brown...... My head is fizzing.......People are talking about the weather..... I need to take my coat off but I can't work out how.... I need to put down my bag and this coke....but I can't seem to get there.....Wooo hhhhhhh oooooo aaaaa....

BANG.

I hear a bang and see my coke bouncing across the floor. At eye level. Hmm I am on the floor. It appears I've fainted.

I try to get up, quickly, but hordes of otherwise bored and quite ill people have found their new distraction And the problem is - I can't speak. I can't just say 'oohh sorry folks! Oh how embarrassing! Let me get up a minute!!'.

No.

So as I'm asked 'are you OK?'....'do you want us to call anyone....?' 'can you get up?'.... all I can do is 'eek'.

Gesticulating wildly I flap whilst people recoil in horror. 'Do you need an ambulance?' one of them carefully mouths.

It is by now clear that I am not just on the floor. I am obviously on the floor and have bigger problems than even that. And I might even be drunk. Or on drugs. Or foreign. OR a drunk, drugged up foreigner! Whatever it is I need to be spoken to VERY VERY SLOWLY WITH BIG MOUTHS. Coz that always helps. Doesn't it?

Sigh.

Anyway by sheer brute force I finally managed to make enough sense to say I'd got too hot and after an enforced 'time out' on a chair I'm allowed to skip the queue and purchase some throat medicine.

And a few hours later I'm home with one child watching freight trains on the internet and the other one sporting a face like raw meat where he's 'fallen over' at school to the point where he's had to be collected. Again.

And I sit there and think 'huh? Did that all really just happen? The Zombie Film? The chow mein? The curtains? The throat? The floor in Boots? The being stuck at a signal light somewhere outside Weston Super Mare?'.

But it did.

And if you see the grown up kid out of Terminator in a Zombie film any time soon you can at least say that you know someone, off the internet like, who knows the person who served him his bacon butty and that the friend (not the one who served the bacon butty) fainted the very same day.

Fame at last......but I think I'd rather stay at home with the freight trains.

Strand Tests are for Wimps

2011-11-11T13:26:00.001Z

Many years ago this blog started with me searching the internet for ways to save cream coloured cushions from a tsunami of red wine - I think I ended up soaking them in litres of milk - so it seems quite fitting that several years later history was pretty much repeating itself, only this time I wasn't scouring the internet for red wine/stain solutions but red hair/stain/I look like Sharon Osbourne solutions.

Some people get their thrills by partaking in adrenaline pumping sports. Some people escape via the X Box. Some people get drunk and start fights (please, don't mention Birmingham). Some people leap off tall buildings attached to parachutes or plunge from cranes attached to pieces of elastic. Women like me stuck at home with small children on a damp cold evening seek out that illusive thrill, that sense of 'what if?', that stepping into the void by.......

... well by dying their hair without doing the strand test.

Apparently 98% of callers to 'Hair Dye Manufacturer's Help Lines' answer 'no' to the 'but did you do a strand test question?'. The other 2% are either lying or gaining background history for their 'My Hair Dye Caused My Face to Explode Like a Pumpkin' story in Take a Break.

Anyway needless to say I've never done a strand test in my life. Just as I never read instructions properly or terms and conditions or put the butter in the fridge or put my driving glasses on until it's dark. And hey, you know, it's only hair! It's not like it really matters....

My hair first got dyed when I was about 14. It was Badger Girl that did it (Quelle Surpise). I was having a sleep over at her house (only they weren't called sleep over then - it was just 'staying at your mate's house') and she'd bought a box of dye and between her and another girl they bullied me into it, killed themselves laughing as they refused to let me wash it off for about three hours and then - when her rather cross mother rescued me - insisted on washing out over the kitchen sink with jugs of warm milk (she lived on a dairy farm). It was downhill from there. Before you knew it was I was stealing fabric dye from Textiles lessons and turning bits red (it came out in the rain) and then it was Jiff Lemons to 'lighten' it and then, before you know it, I'd started on the Sun-In.

I'm not really sure what happened next. I know when I was 16 I let a budding hairdressing student perm it in the college common room. I say 'budding' - she never actually reached the blooming bit...... I've still got the photos of me grinning like a loon with the rollers in. I'm sat on a gas heater and she's leering over me with a fag in her mouth. I'm not quite sure what my mother thought when she picked me up at the end of the day with rampantly curly hair but I think by that point she'd stopped asking too many questions. The perm fell out in about a week so we did it all again 'for a laugh' and then I think my hair started to fall out so we stopped.

On to University and I wanted 'highlights' (once perms are old school you go for highlights because their more grown up and 'posher') but highlights done by a proper trained professional (rather than some student who leaves you like a gloriously stripped autumnal badger) cost about the same as an entire term's cider budget so we did them ourselves. With a shower cap we poked holes in and a needle to pull the hair through. This could potentially have worked if I'd had short hair and wanted that fabulous '80s retro Michelle Fowler off of Eastenders' look but sadly my long hair was soon being ripped from it's roots by my well meaning friend so we took the cap off and just put bleach through 'some random bits'.

And then I got a job and had more exciting things to do than mess about with my hair.

And then I had kids and didn't have a well paid job and didn't have anywhere to go in the evening so the fiddling came back.

But despite my lack of strand tests I have never had a disaster. I've always used permanent 'potential for disaster is immense' dye and never ever felt any sense of regret. In the summer I went bright copper and have been happy with it ever since.

Until last week.

Last week I decided to be 'sensible' and refresh the 'copper tones' with a non-permanent 'more healthy for your hair' type of dye. A gentle, non risky, Amber glow so I would look nice and shiny like a well nourished dog, for the reunion I'm going to with Badger Girl on Saturday and my graduation photos next week......

Tra la la la la - dye on - wash off - dry hair........

ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Amber my arse.

More like Puddle of Mud.

It was BROWN. With this awful type of artificial old lady reddy sheen.

It certainly got my heart racing. Racing with the fear of having to go out with hair like Sharon Osbourne.

But it's OK right because this is NOT permanent. Yeah? So I just have to wash it out as quick as I can.

So I searched the internet for ideas.

1. Fairy Liquid - washed it twice in this - no freaking difference. Other than I'm covered in bubbles.

2. Bicarb of soda - washed it twice in this - guess what? No difference. Other than I'm covered in white powder.

3. Warm olive oil - bunged it in the microwave for a minute and poured it on my head. Ow. Turns out 15 seconds is all you need. No difference other than a burnt scalp, rivers of oil running down my body and all over the floor.

4. White wine vinegar - I don't have this, only cider vinegar - but guess what!? NO FREAKING DIFFERENCE. Only now I'm covered in olive oil AND vinegar and stink like a Greek salad. Chuck some croutons and a few olives into the mix and dinner is served.

By this point it's 1am. The adrenaline is starting to leave my body so I go to bed only to be woken at 4am by a howling child and lie there in a confused state wondering why all I can smell is salad dressing and where all the white powder came from.

6am get up and hope the hair has 'grown on me' or magically gone back to copper.

Nope. It's Dawn of the Freakin Dead looking back at me.

Take children to my mums. She comments my hair is 'very shiny'. Yes mum that will be all the olive oil I can't wash out of it.

Decide it's too oily for work but can not face one more minute of hair washing (having washed it about 19 times in 24 hours) so put talc in it to soak up the olive oil.

I now have volume to die for but on the other hand you could turn me upside down and deep fry my hair as Tempura batter.

TRY to live with the hair for 2 more days. Someone at the hospital compliments me on the way I've matched my hair to my BROWN top. It still looks like Puddle of Mud with 'berry' tones and then I see Janet Street Porter on TV and realise I'm potentially channelling her look and freak. Borrow my mum's Vosense (possible the harshest shampoo in the world) and wash it twice more...... Nope - I've had tattoos less permanent than this hair dye.

So after a whole week of excitement I give up and strip it with proper stuff from a shop rather than ideas off the internet. This involves spending an entire afternoon walking round in a bin bag and shower cap smelling of rotten eggs only to then have to spend 30 minutes under running water. I never want to wash my hair again. Ever. Some people will do ANYTHING to avoid housework......

And after all that my hair is.....exactly the same colour it was before all this ridiculous carry on. Back to a sort of Auburn blonde. Like my Scottish grandma.

My mother was right all along - I should never have messed with it in the first place. But since when did anyone ever listen to their mother?

Maybe I need to take up Base Jumping?

Time Out

2011-10-24T00:18:00.000+01:00

So we wanted a weekend away – having funand forgetting about our responsibilities.

So we went to Birmingham.

Don’t ask – I don’t even really knowwhy. We started out looking at cheapTravelodge deals and settled on Manchester, then decided we couldn’t afford thepetrol. So we decided on Brighton but of course Brighton takes about 30 yearsto get to from Somerset. So we decidedon Bournemouth but then, and I don’t really know how, booked Birmingham.

That well known destination for people forlooking rest, relaxation and getting away from it all.

Basically what happened in Birmingham,stays in Birmingham and there was exceedingly appalling and embarrassing behaviour(I think) but we took in the kind of sights and sounds all good holiday makersshould…. The inside of a Travelodge (by nightand day in my case as on the Sunday I was unable to get dressed until 5pm), theinside of a minicab or two, a very very dubious ‘night club’, a kebab shop, a Chinese‘all you can eat buffet’ (which appeared to be inside a village hall), severallayers of a multi-story car park several times, Primark, Wetherspoons, a pub whichFacebook informed us was ‘for lesbians ‘ (but was actually filled only with oldmen – maybe hoping for lesbians?) and a tattoo parlour.

Oh yeah – I missed out Tesco Express. But we didn’t buy anything so does it count?

My biggest error was claiming on the Saturdaynight that I didn’t feel like drinking much…Yeah that old chestnut. They catch you when your guard is low.

All I had consumed in the entire day was 2migraine tablets and a prawn wrap. Atsomething like 7pm I poured a cider. Just the first of the two I intended tohave. 2 litres as it turned out. Then Istarted on the vodka. Later I let ayoung man (and I mean young) who claimed to have ‘many much money and house inDubai’ and was very angry at his (ex) girlfiend who ‘invested many years in butwas a cheating bitch’ buy me tequila slammers. I think most of them went downmy dress but I bitterly remember swallowing way too much lemon.

To be frank it was downhill fromthere. We had to flee a dubious ‘nitespot’ and I promptly fell over a crash barrier and got shouted at (yes shoutedat) by the police. On trying to pick thecrash barrier up I fell on top of it and couldn’t get up. Somewhere on the street was a camera crew soif you are watching Police Interpectorssometime in the coming weeks and see a 30 something mother of two face down ona crash barrier with her bottom in the air and knickers on show whilst thenarrator gives a somber speech about the demise of society you can at least impressyour friends by ‘knowing’ me. In a vaguekind of relieved your life hasn’t turned out like that way.

On getting back to the hotel I struck up aconversation with a highly camp man standing outside his bedroom. Having given him a dose of my rapier wit hecame back with……

‘OH MY GOD – honey? WHAT is THAT all overyour face?’.

On closer inspection it was lipstick.

I’d gone out wearing bright crimsonlipstick. It was now covering the entirelower half and some of the upper parts of my face. I lookedlike a 5 year old clown who’d gone wild with the Crayola. A drunk 5 year old clown at that.

Cutting a stylish dash as ever.

I then passed out in the double bed next tomy friend (there were no twin rooms available) and, having made a big sceneabout personal space and pillow barricades, woke up with my leg wrapped roundmy friend’s torso, holding her tightly to my bosom.

Sigh.

I then decided I needed breakfast and forreasons I can only put down to ‘still being drunk’ entered the dining hallwearing my pyjamas (which didn’t even match and the bottoms had shrunk on an accidentalboil wash and were wafting around half way up my legs – though frankly that wasthe least of the onlookers concerns) and a pair of leopard print highheels. I promptly proceeded tomiscalculate the amount of leverage needed to spoon scrambled egg from thebuffet serving platter on to my plate and with one deft move, transferred theentire congealed eggy mass from the platter, through the air and onto the shoesof the man stood next to me.

Time stopped.

We both stared at his shoes (what we couldsee of them through the egg).

I said ‘oh’.

I lamely attempted to kick some of the eggaway from his shoes, managing to simply kick him in the ankle.

Through all of this he remained utterlystill and utterly silent – presumablyfearing I was a deranged crack addict who had escaped from the local secure accommodationin search of scrambled eggs and half atomato. In leopard print heels.

I then went back to bed and remained thereuntil 5pm. My friend managed to go outbut had to take the electronic swipe card with her so of course I had no powerand spent several sweaty hours lying in a semi dark room with no clock, no tv,no kettle and no idea really what the hell was going on or where I was. On the plus side – at least I was only inBirmingham and it wasn’t as if I was missing out on a day next to the azure blueocean or trip to swim with dolphins.

I’d like to claim none of it was my faultand my drink was clearly spiked but frankly, it was entirely my fault and Ishall aim not to repeat the experience. Again.

Especially the bit with the scrambled egg……

On returning to work my boss enquired whatI got up to on my mini-break.

A bit of a shopping I said.

And lets just leave it at that.

Here Cometh the Silence

2011-10-23T11:19:00.000+01:00

I have a bit of a blog block. I barely seem able to get on the lap top these days and I can only blog from the lap top (I do have access to computers in two of my three jobs but there is no way on this earth I could blog from them - one is in a hospital and I don't have time to urinate most shifts, let alone blog, and the other is lets just say 'carefully monitored') so on rare occasions like this where I get to a real life keyboard with free internet access I feel a bit confuddled about where to start.

I mean seriously where do you start? There is so much stuff and it's all just mashing about in my head. Birthday cake catastrophes, accidently writing to people under the name of Bucky, wardrobe disasters x 2, a trip to Birmingham etc etc etc. It's all in there fighting to come out.

Not to mention this weekend is the anniversary of the weekend last year where my marriage exploded. I was of course, in the style of all great Soap Operas, at my mother in laws house (also knows as the Tropical Biome - long time fans may recall it as the one with those really special ornaments. Like the Banjo Playing Bunny and the Satanic Shepard Boy).

About this time on the Sunday I was shaking like a leaf, throwing up down a toilet, packing my bags and children into a hire car (my car had of course been hit by a 4x4 that week and was broken) and heading off into the wilderness... single. I seem to recall the journey took 7.5 hours but this included 4 stops:

1. Grantham train station - I think I took the children there to make them happy and once again try and cover up the fact I was loopy. Something like that. I remember we couldn't get on the platform without a ticket so I stood at the barriers looking wild and desperate and shouting something like 'here comes a GNER!' with false mania - even though GNERs no longer exist (can you tell just how much You Tube footage of the railway era I have sat through?). It felt somehow suitable dramatic.

2. Being sick in a lay-by off a dual carriageway somewhere near Melton Mowbray. This felt rather less dramatic. More desperate. And then I needed a wee. The children peered out of the window in bemused horror.

3. A service station where I bought (and I still don't know why) a loaf of seeded bread for the children. I think I deemed actual pre-prepared food as too complicated and too expensive. I threw it in the back - the whole sliced loaf - as if they were pigeons or ducks on a pond - and left them to it. When I 'came to' about a week later I realised the back of my brand new coupe hire car was entirely coated with stale bread crumbs. You could have deep fried the upholstery and served it a turkey escalopes. When I handed it back to the hire firm they asked if I'd had rats in the vehicle......

4. An empty Asda car park in Burnham on Sea where I ended up because the motorway was jammed and I got lost and confused. I think drove around in circles for a while whilst simultaneous texting my friends, playing the Prodigy at full volume and shouting at the children. I think I then stopped the car and cried. Large numbers of local skater boys who were using the car park for stunts stared on somewhat bewildered.

It would have made great documentary footage. In fact maybe I should just sellotape a camera to my forehead and stream my life life in the web? That might solve a few of my problems.

So anyway after that everyone said things could only get better. They lied.

But I'm still here and I'm Ok and so are my children and that's the main thing.

The children are sat here now. The eldest one (who appears to have messed up my lap top with his Trainz Railway Simulator CD-ROM which a very kind blog follower actually sent him! How's that for kind!) is watching a DVD entitled 'Dave's Railway Films - Freight Trains Around Crewe'. This is a somewhat amateur yet entirely genuine production. It makes the previous favourite 'Florida Freight Trains' look like an Oscar winner, yet I must confess I prefer it to 'A Lineside Look at Model Railways' which features an enthusiast crafting the spokes for a miniature bicycle with...... HIS OWN HAIR. We also have a new, yet to be watched, DVD called 'A Busy Day at Watford Junction, 2011'. This sounds like it could potentially be a seedy 1970's documentary about a Watford massage parlour but no.... It is an hour of footage of trains arriving and leaving....you've guessed it...... Watford Junction.

Seriously.

The younger child is basically that Crazy Frog ('Very Annoying Thing') that was around a few years ago with that horrendous, repetitive, loud loud noise coming out of his mouth.

This child will ensure that, even if I had the time and lack of chaos to enable it, no man will EVER immerse himself in my life again. I mean I have a lot to offer but not enough to compensate for being dragged from bed at 6am on a Sunday morning by a small child bellowing 'Hello BIG FAT BOBBY HEAD' out the bedroom window (hopefully at our cat - not at, god forbid, a man with a big fat head) followed by the lovely song 'ogi ogi ogi OG OG OG' followed by the 'stomp stomp STOMP' dinosaur song with actions (i.e. stamping so hard the floorboards reverberate through the entire terrace). This is of course all punctuated by me shouting 'stop it! STOP IT, STOP IT NOOOOOWWWWW!!'. I look at internet dating profiles (purely for comedy reasons) and see 'successful 30/40 somethings' talk about how they are SO successful that they would now like to meet a woman for travelling, romantic walks on the beach, meals out and maybe one day a family. None of them say they want to meet a women so they can get out of bed at 6am every single day, be deafened by a hideous noise being emitted by a small person wearing no clothes but possibly clutching a flea ridden cat, peel congealed banana and melted chocolate of their smart phone and have to wait at least a decade for a romantic walk.

Now if I could just find a partially deaf railway enthusiast I 'might' be on to a winner but maybe we best not go there.

I love him more than life itself but my god he is LOUD. As his brother said to him earlier 'could you just try and be a bit less irritating? Please?'.

His answer was..... NO I CAN'T STOP THIS.

But never mind - their dad is taking them away for the first part of half term - back to the Tropical Biome/House of the Banjo Bunny.

What am I going to so with all this SILENCE!?!

Bumfit

2011-10-07T22:26:00.000+01:00

So my life continues to fall apart around my ears. Yawn yawn yawn. You don't need to hear all this (although it is all actually quite fascinating from a bystanders point of view).

But the good thing is that the kids are oblivious to it all - I think they are so used to the constant chaos by now that it's basically business as usual.

In fact my eldest, on the afternoon where he saw fit to fire EVERY SINGLE piece of small Lego he owns (that would be something like 3,000 pieces) around the ENTIRE downstairs of the house, on a day where I'd been pushed to the edge and was already quietly crying (after the Lego Incident I was loudly howling) explained to me very patiently 'mummy - you really don't need to sit in the toilet and cry - that's crazy! Just do it in the front room like we do. A toilet isn't for crying into'.

Good point son. Good point.

By the way - the Lego? 2 hours of 3 of us picking it up and I'm still picking miniature policeman's helmets out of my bum cheeks every time I sit down in my nightie. Either them or those teeny weeny clear plastic bits that represent headlights. Love beads they ain't.......

Anyway so the kids are alright. Or at least I hope they are.

And their constant, deadpan, innocent humour is like a tonic to my soul. So this post is dedicated to them - Original Son (OS) and Last Every Son (LES) - this one's for you.... For all the times you make me think and smile in 24 hours...

Last night:

OS: 'Mummy?'
Me: 'Yes?'
OS: 'There's something I've got to tell you...'
Me: 'Err what?'.
OS: 'It's about your phone....'
Me: 'WHAT?!' (prickles of fear creeping up my spine).
OS: 'It's really bad'.
Me: 'Tell me, tell me NOW!' (having palpitations about what I'll do if it's gone down the toilet pan and I need to Google chutney recipes/expensive frocks I have nowhere to wear/directions to somewhere I don't need to go at 2am because I'm awake and don't want to think about reality).
OS: 'Weeeeeellll mummy, that man, the one who put the apple in it? I'm afraid to tell you - he's dead'.

This morning:

LES: 'Grandma? Who is ACTUALLY in charge of the whole world? Jesus or my teacher?
Grandma: 'Ask your mother!'.

At bath time:

OS: 'Mummy? Have you ever had leprosy?'.
Me: 'Err no. No, leprosy - like earthquakes, tsunamis, killer bees, volcanoes, alien abduction and all that, isn't a particularly big problem in England'.
OS: 'Oh OK. Well you need to send money in to save a leper and today we did Street Dance and saved one leper and I thought it might be you - from before we were born'.
Me: ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? (hurries to mirror to check complexion).

At bed time:

Reading the incredibly moving book 'Cold Paws Warm Heart' where a little girl reaches out to an icy cold polar bear that everyone else has shut out and gradually warms him up before finally warming his heart with a hug.....I'm sniffing back tears of emotion as I gaze upon the beautiful illustrations and moving prose....I finish and pause - allowing a moment for the true meaning of the story to sink in.....

LES: 'So the polar bear is dead now, yes?'.
Me: 'NO! He's sleeping, all happy and warmed by love!'.
LES: 'Did the little girl shoot him? BANG!'.
Me: 'Sigh'.
OS: 'Can we have that poem with bumfit in it....'

Endless peels of laughter...... (this is actually a real poem - it comes from a book given out by the Government in the Bookstart programme. It's something to do with counting sheep in Cumbrian and also includes the words dick and whore. Actually no - I don't think there's any whores in it. Just dicks and bumfits. So that's OK).

Bless their crazy souls.....

Be Careful What You Wish For...

2011-09-19T23:29:00.001+01:00

So - as you all know I have had some 'issues' with the hall I use for my teaching. Issues including fig-roll stealing-Orange Club raffling-line hopping-chain smoking ancients, a roof that leaks because some scumbag stole all the lead, a toilet a heavily pregnant lady got locked in, a man in a Stetson who subtly threatened me over my mis-use of dishwasher detergent and that's before we get to being serenaded by faulty fire alarms and an intruder alarm that seems to wait for me to relax before causing my near collapse. And so it was with some joy that I found out that for one of my recent sessions a different hall had been booked! A much newer posher generally all round 'lovelier' venue. Wooo hooo! Good bye ancients, good bye handwritten threats on Sarah Lee Gateaux, good bye local youths peering in the the windows while I hold up placards of vaginas. From now on everything will go swimmingly.....

It all started well.

I had to pick up the fob - yes FOB, electronic automatic device thing - from a highly ordered awfully polite lady called Margaret. Nobody was smoking a roll up or wearing a Stetson or warning about local rituals. All I had to be aware of was that the lights would come on automatically when I swiped my fob. Imagine that!! From the darkest depths of a 1970s pub carpet and flickering strip lights to AUTOMATIC ILLUMINATION.

WOW.

And then I got there.

And it was all incredibly well kept and incredibly clean and errr incredibly ordered. Everywhere I looked there were signs and signs and well more signs. And orders and instructions. I began to feel that I had been overtaken by some kind or higher order. The Order of Margaret and her Kin.

It started at the door......

And continued inside.....where we were helpfully shown just exactly where the light switch was (but sadly not how to operate it - personally I think 'press here for illumination' is needed you know, just in case). We were also shown just exactly what doors not to go out of, unless the place set ablaze (god forbid).

And the feeling of being in quite another universe just grew and grew..... I mean I understand the dangers of over stacking chairs, many halls have a sign saying 'MAX 6 CHAIRS IN EACH STACK' but here we have quite a different level of order. We have chairs segregated on grounds of whether or not they have arms. We have numbers both as numerical symbols and as written words. We have a picture of a chair just in case you were previously unsure as to what one looked like. And of course best of all we have an arrow showing you just exactly where the corner is. Because corners of rooms, you know what? They can be illusive.

At this point I decided I needed a cup of tea but on entering the kitchen I was relieved I was not classified as a 'weekend user' (although I will confess that in past I have used many things to get through the weekend - particularly if it involves rain and small children) but was fascinated to find there was an entire drawer dedicated to 'teaspoons'. That's a whole lotta teaspoons.

On turning round in the kitchen I was alarmed to find that there are apparently mysterious people out there who go round adding random tubes of Savlon to other people's First Aid kits. You have been warned.....

So with that in mind, I went to set up my refreshments on the tea trolley but then decided maybe not.... I did not want to risk anyone moving it...

Groping for the kettle I kept clear of all other switches....

And then went looking for the mugs. Ironically I could not find any mugs for quite some time, but I sure knew where everything else was. Seriously this is just a SMALL selection of the labelling of the kitchen. I was worried I'd wear my phone battery out if I took the full portfolio. It was like someone's John Lewis wedding list got cut up and laminated. Boy do they love sealing things up in wipe proof plastic sheaths.....

These aren't just platters - these are OVAL platters...

Woah! The photo below stopped me short mid-photoshoot...... Hmm so if it looks like a cupboard but it is NOT a cupboard what is it? And if it's not just a pretend cupboard that isn't a cupboard so doesn't open why can't you try to open it and merely fail and think 'oh it's one of those silly pretend cupboards they put in to make it look neater'?? Now clearly I could have answered this by disobeying the sign and just trying to open it. But I didn't. I actually got scared by all the signs. I felt a sort of creeping dread. A dread that I would uncover something I really shouldn't. That curiosity really could kill the cat (or in fact me). I feared I might find the body parts of someone from the Bridge club or some kind of equipment that gets used when everyone else things it's the over 70's Short Mat Bowls. Or maybe, just maybe, another really angry sign saying 'we told you not to open this cupboard and now the curse of a thousand years shall descend on your family'. Actually I think maybe I already must have opened that cupboard.....Anyway - I started thinking about Ancient Egypt and tombs and those scary beetle things in that Mummy film and I left the cupboard that isn't a cupboard well alone but have annoyingly pondered on it ever since.....

You think I'd use your dishwasher?? No offence but on the evidence presented I think I'd like to speak to my Lawyer first and you know, get a kind of pre-nuptial drawn up before I enter into that kind of usage of your facilities.....

See I told you it would get complicated.....

Okay okay.....

Yeah probably while you scan my retinas and close down the CCTV file....

You know what I said about the dishwasher? Well it counts for the heating system too. At the other place - the crazy hall - you just simply turn the radiator up. Reach down. Grab a knob. Turn it. End of story. Unless you get too hot. Then you turn it back again. Simple.

Sorry? You want me to take a blue mop for a walk? Okay okay... Does it get a biscuit afterwards if it behaves?

If only I was making this up....

By this point I had reached the stage of rash rebellion. When I heaved those goddam heavy tables back into that cupboard do you know what? I let them fall in what ever direction they wanted to and there may - I say MAY have not been 8 to the left and 7 to the right. It could have been 7 to the left and 8 to the right. Am I bovvered? No. I have risen from my oppression and am now rebelling.

And thus it continued.

The couples arrived and sat in a kind of frightened silence. Nobody even wanted to make a cup of tea. It was then that I knew. However insane things were back at the other hall, however weird and crazy and 'not like you might have hoped' do you know what? It was where I belonged. The chaos suited me. I was born to cope with it. Born to catch drips in buckets or shout at Panto groups to shut up or confront old people about their smoking and biscuit theft. So thank you Margaret and Co - you keep a truly lovely hall - you really do - but you are BLOWING MY MIND WITH YOUR SIGNS. I'm outta here.

And so it was a week later I was back where I belonged..... standing next to a man in a Stetson who warned me about the Christening party coming in at 1pm and the left over food from the 'gone wrong wedding' the night before that was cluttering up the kitchen area and reminded me about the dishwasher fluid....

I never thought I'd say it but I was glad to be back.....

The Dog Days Really ARE Over

2011-09-08T21:49:00.006+01:00

So, as I hinted in my last post, my mum's other dog died. This post will therefore contain potentially offensive subject matter about dead dogs. Again. You have been warned.

Now the poor thing was about 110 years old and had already survived cancer and a stroke which left it lying under a garden shrub for days on end and walking sideways evermore cannoning of furniture like a staggering drunk (but yet always daftly happy) so it wasn't ENTIRELY unexpected, but all the same for someone as bereaved as my mum to basically lose the last thing she lives with, it was pretty sad all round.

The dog of course chose to die on my birthday.

Well done dog.

Bravo.

I shall toast you every time I get another bloody year older and remember the time you ate one of my best 'going out shoes' when you were a puppy and I nearly killed my brother for leaving my bedroom door open.

Luckily I didn't know about the dog dying because I was on a windy cliff top with my ex-husband and two children out of mobile phone range for the entire week.

I can't say I'm entirely unhappy about this coincidence as it did mean my brother was the one who got the 7am phone call informing him of the dog's demise which is probably fair as I had to get the previous dog actually killed which is like SO much worse surely (stamp foot, toss hair and sulk in true sibling fashion). All he had to do was turn up once it this one was already dead and sort it out.....

I asked him to guest spot on here and tell it how it was but he declined so I'll have to do it for him and try to do his Services to Deceased Dogs proud.

So anyway he dragged his wife - his poor long suffering wife (god love her, her family are so erm normal compared to ours, just nice lovely people. Since being with my brother there are things she has been exposed to by our family that NO woman should have to suffer including my dad's testicles, a horse trying to die under a fence, various people's arses, way too many funerals and now THIS) and baby out of bed and went to bury the dog.

On arrival the dog was lying in the doorway between the kitchen and lounge.

'Right mum, you best call Jonny to come and dig the hole'.

'Oh I have, he's gone away, he's not back today'.

'Argh'.

'Can't you just leave her there? You know for a few days? JUST LEAVE HER' (mother starts up a somewhat theatrical wail a bit like they do in the Middle East).

My brother nervously exchanges glances with his wife.

'Err mum, you can't actually LEAVE the dog there for like DAYS. What are we meant to do? Step over it every time we want to move rooms? Let the children use it as a climbing frame? 'Come on kids! Who needs a teddy when you've got a real life dog - and it's guaranteed safe to play with! And yes that is real life poo coming out of it's butt'. NO NO NO NO NO. I'll dig the bloody hole - like NOW'.

And thus my brother found himself in a small corner of Somerset trying to dig a big hole for a big dead dog. On rock hard summer baked soil.

A few hours (yes hours) in he was in despair and needing further guidance. Where can one turn to on the matter of dog burial? It's not like you can call up one of your many friends who specialise in grave digging during their leisure times. Or get a book out the library. Or call a charitable helpline (and even if you could, like most charitable helplines it would probably say 'thank you for your call, you really must be desperate, however due to lack of funding our offices are currently closed, we are open between the hours of 10.30 and 11 every other Tuesday if the month starts with an M when we would be happy to take your call. You can not leave a message. If it's that bad there's always The Samaritans. Goodbye').

Nope - in a situation like this there can be no answer but Google. And thus he found himself locked in the toilet, Googling 'how to bury a dead dog' on his phone.....

Interesting facts which I can pass on to you all, should you be in a similar situation soon and not able to Google, is that the dog should be placed 4 foot down and about 5 inches below the surface you should place a layer of chicken wire to deter scavengers. Lets be frank here - the last thing my mother needed was the dead dog's head turning up on her garden bench 'Godfather stylee' several weeks later.

And so back he went, with the help of an axe and some wire (god knows where he got the wire from) and dug and dug and dug...

Three hours (yes three hours) later he was looking at this:

(Note: the white fluffy at the base of the picture is NOT the dead dog. That would be sick. It's my brother's live dog, Mildred, who came to inspect proceedings and probably left with more questions than answers).

So he now had a hole big enough for the dog. Actually looking again at that picture even I will admit that's pretty impressive work. It looks the work of a frantic and desperate man. A man driven by the desire to stop his mother turning a decaying dog into a piece of interior design.

He went to retrieve the dog.

By this time his poor wife had given up trying to restrain their 18 month old son and had had to put him down on the floor and for 3 solid hours dissuade him from climbing aboard the dead dog for a ride (remember the dog is lying in the doorway between the two rooms which make up the downstairs of my mum's house - it's not like you could shut the door.....).

Time had ticked on and rigamortis had set in.

This was not just a big dead dog. It was a big stiff dead dog.

And thus my poor sister-in-law found herself having to assist in making a shroud and wrestling the great big stiff dog into a wheelbarrow. I'm sure she's had better days. They then had to get the dog in the hole which posed several more logistical problems due to it's inflexibility.

But bravo - the dog is now buried beneath the apple trees and my mum is happy about that (well clearly she's not overly happy - she'd rather the dog wasn't dead but you get the idea).

I was informed of this when I returned from my holiday whilst standing on a damp recently washed patch of carpet.....

So that's it then - no more dogs. No more dog related fun and games. I for one will be glad of the rest.

Except tomorrow my mum is getting a puppy.....

ARRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

The Dying Days

2011-08-26T21:26:00.005+01:00

And so here we are in the dying days of August.

August - the month of dying.

This is a kind of catch up blog post and I warn you now - it's not all laughs. There are wry laughs in it and feel free to chuckle away - I do. But it's also a bit deep. Just to kind of warn you.

August wasn't always this way for me. After all August is the month of my birthday and it's summer and it's all fun fun fun...

Well, once upon a time it was.

It was GSCE results' day yesterday and as I watched many a carefree, tousle haired teen walking round the town holding their fluttering results sheets, it took me back to the August's of my childhood. They seemed to be filled with endless summer days and as the holidays began to ebb away and the shadows started to lengthen, we would sit outside under apple trees, sharing bottles of mixed spirits we'd stolen from our parents' drink cabinets (top tip learned from this: Baileys doesn't mix well with fruit based alcopops - it's like drinking vomit) and we'd watch the shooting stars and life seemed to be so free. So 'ours'.

My major worries could probably be listed as: 1. my spots 2. the fact I never tanned and 3. how could I get to a particular party or my life would probably BE LIKE TOTALLY OVER.

I whirled through life a hurricane. I leapt from triumph to disaster and always bounced. I felt I had the world at my feet. I felt safe. I felt I was on the brink of something big. The script told me everything was going to be wonderful.

Not long after that things began to change. Some people hurt me very badly and then a friend was killed in an accident. Life began to take on darker tones. Echoes and shadows. But that's what growing up is all about. I still felt I had it all at my feet and would just keep on tearing through it, dancing to my own tune.

Any now, here we are in my 'grown up' August. An August so filled with echoes and shadows that at times it feels almost like my winter.

So I haven't blogged because I've been too busy dealing with it all. Notable events have included:

- a week in a caravan with my ex-husband. People always look slightly torn between wonderment and horror when I tell them that but it's not like it was just me and him staring at the kitchenette and politely asking whose turn it was to grill the sausages. We took the children. And it was fine. Nice even. There's nothing even really blog worthy about it (well if you skip the bit where I accidentally ended up on the clubhouse stage in an anorak and couldn't get down before the compere noticed and shouted 'steady on love! It's not the X-Factor). I flew a stunt kite, ran along a beach, supervised a duff BBQ, lost at crazy golf, poured my life savings into the 2p slot machines and danced the 'waddle' with a woman in a giant seagull costume.

- my mum's 'other' dog dying. On my birthday of all days! Well done dog. Marvelous effort. Nothing like a stiff dog in the doorway to bring on that birthday cheer. There is a somewhat darkly comic blog post in this which I will save for another day.

- my youngest son's 4th birthday. This is not only a big day because my 'baby' is growing up and I feel like I haven't even really started his childhood yet but it's also the anniversary of the day I nearly died. For those of you that don't know the history I really did nearly die. I nearly died in my living room and in an ambulance and on a hospital trolley and finally in a high dependency bed. It was a jolly poor show all round. I'm as over it as I'll ever be. It seems 4 years is something of a watershed in grief. It really does feel like 'history' and I've already had the breakdown and the special counselling where a lady jiggles her finger in your eyes and re-sets your brain so you don't feel the need to sit in lay-bys crying every time you see an ambulance BUT (and it's quite a big but) there are still those ripples out there, rushing through the universe. At this time of year I notice everything feels that bit more 'current'. I hold my wrists more so nobody can hurt them. I drink more than I should. I sense the cooler edge in the days and feel a kind of tremble. A little bit of dread. I think that tremble is grief. Either that or I really HAVE been drinking too much..... I have that line running through my head....'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes'. I wake up at 4am and don't now why but that line is there, whirling round like a stuck loop of tape.

And of course, there's another, funnier, blog post in the whole birthday shebang. The making of the cake. I have surpassed my previous Iggle Piggle legend with 'The Sad Pussy' but more on that another time (with pictures).

- Two days later was the first anniversary of my dad's death. Which conveniently enough was also his birthday. Bravo. Two birds with one stone and all that. I don't really know what to say about this. I feel like it all kind of happened in a dream (or nightmare) but now I'm starting to wake up and realise it wasn't just a bad dream. There are so many boxes of ridiculous horribleness that if I even stop to think they're real then WHAM - I shut the lid as quick as I can. The passing of this date also means I am now on the countdown to the bit where my marriage went KABOOM. I've never talked in detail about what really happened there - for that you'll need to buy the book. No seriously - much as I air MY dirty linen I don't air other people's but needless to say - I feel a bit odd about the thing. The tick tock of waiting for yet another 'significant date' (although once again conveniently it pretty much ties in the anniversary of the date I was sent off to a psychiatric unit four years back, so hey - look on the bright side - I've kept whole chunks of my annual calendar free of terror!).

- pressing on with the divorce. Never much fun I should imagine although it could be worse. In the middle of all of the above I had to invite three estate agents round to value the house. They arrived on a rainy day where both children were climbing the walls and all my wet laundry was trapped in the downstairs bathroom. I showed the first one in and welcomed him to chaos. We sat at the table talking about market values but he kept looking increasingly distracted.

'I there something bothering you?' I asked. I hoped he would say 'no just your amazing eyes/smile/hair (although it's unlikely to be the hair as, in a effort to stop tramps stroking my legs and wide-boys asking if I was up for it, I dyed it from blonde blonde to bright red. The juries still out on whether it worked but a drugged hippy did fondle my poncho last weekend. I'm not sure if this is a step or step down the ladder of attraction?).

'Err it's just your children' he said 'and what they're doing to that cat'.

Oh.

You see for his birthday the youngest got a doctor's kit. Operation Cat in now fully in swing and the cat undergoes about 3 pretend major surgeries a day.

'Nevermind that!' I shrugged 'let me show your round! Now here's the downstairs bathroom - sorry but this is where I have to take you on a tour of my knickers'.

This was supposed to be an apology for all the wet laundry but it came out not quite in the way I had hoped. I'm sure he feared he'd walked straight into the den of a deranged housewife trying to lure him into some kind of blackmail/live porn-stream sex chat. Although in hindsight it could have been worse. I could have said 'wet knickers'.

'Your hilarious!' he said.

'Yes' I replied 'but in all honestly you wouldn't live with me would you?'.

'No' he said 'in all honestly I wouldn't and to be frank you look like a woman on the edge'.

Astute observation there young man. Say it like it is.

- migraines. For reasons I can not begin to fathom (ha ha) I've been waking up to crushing migraines which mean I have to hide under a duvet, take drugs which border on 'amazingly trippy' and sob at small children to leave me alone/stop dragging my covers off/stop playing the duck whistle/stop BLOODY MOVING AND TALKING until I feel semi-alive. This is not a whole lot of fun.

- and then of course all the usual things of having young children on summer holidays and going to work and trying to keep a house (ha bloody ha).

So you see August has been kind of busy. And sometimes I look at other families going to stay with granny or having lots of days in the park (oh yes, I did have a day at the park. I got locked in the temporary toilet block whilst my children were locked in the car...... There was a quite a kerfuffle with that one I can tell thee.....) and I think 'when's that going to start for me? When am I just going to have a normal life?' but I know, deep down, in truth, for many people August - just like Christmas - in not a barrel of laughs. Very few people have 'normal' lives. Granted not all of them are quite as weird as this one but lots are a damn site harder.

Very few people get to adulthood and parenthood without having echoes and shadows and ghosts - and those that don't? Well they probably fall over and think the sky is caving when they get to 66 and mis-place their bus pass or crack a garden gnome (or something).

So it's OK.

I'm almost out of August.

And I've realised something else. There are two things that help to keep me vaguely sane (apart from my amazing friends who I never seem to have enough time for). Those are running and writing. They let the pressure blow from the boiling pot, without it the crack start widen the steam starts to blow. And of course in a month like this, especially when you are either working or caring for small children with no let up (bar the weekend with Badger Girl and the poncho - more on that later - but it was magnificent) there is just no physical opportunity whatsoever to run and no time to write.

But that must change.

So from tomorrow running and writing go to the top of the priority list - even if it means I have to run up and down the stairs and write very short blog posts (I'm not sure if I'm actually capable of this - but we'll see).

So thank you people, for sticking by me through all of the journey so far. Who knows what's next? But even though life has not quite been how I could ever have imagined and those teenage days seem like they belong in another universe, I'm still dancing to my own tune and despite all the triumphs and disasters, I'm still bouncing (just).

xxx

And With These Cakes I Blind You....

2011-07-30T15:39:00.006+01:00

So I'm back in the den of the Fig Rolls stealing, 'you wear pretty clothes, for a big girl', Line Dance stomping ancients. And their wrath.

Yes, back in their hallowed village hall to try and prepare people for pushing something the size of a bowling ball out of their bodies (or even better watching it) and then being kept awake by aforementioned bowling ball for the next 6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years or until you crawl out of the other side feeling like you've spent a sizeable chunk of your life somewhere in the jungle being hunted by the Viet Cong whilst listening to CBeebies on a psychotic head loop.

Simple.

Anyway I arrived on Tuesday night somewhat flustered because I've mis-located (i.e. totally lost) all the plugs that go in my balls. And you can't keep your balls up if you haven't got anything to keep the air in them. No matter how hard you pump, at the end of the day your sitting on a pile of baggy rubber. And no one wants to be sitting on that.

As I contemplated my sad limp balls, the hall caretaker appeared. He wears a cowboy hat and has a roll up permanently attached to his lower lip. I have a feeling he models himself on Clint Eastwood and the village hall is his 'Wild West'. He needs to defend it against reprobates like me who upset the line dancers and don't put the chairs back in the exact same spot they moved them from.

You think I exaggerate?

Take a look at this. Item one of 6 laminated photographic 'cheat sheets' that aim to ensure that each chair leg is relocated to the exact same spot of grotty carpet from which it came:

Fail this task at your peril.

However, for once, it wasn't chair leg dis-location that I had failed at.

No.

Caretaker: I need a word (lowers peak of hat and inhales on rollie in what a body language expert would call an 'assertive' manner).

Me: Oh, right yes?

Caretaker: The dishwasher .

Me: Yes?

Caretaker: It has instructions. Laminated. Stuck to the front of it.

Me: Yes?

Caretaker: Follow them.

Me: Why? To find peace, enlightenment and the secret of the afterlife ?(no I didn't really say that - I just mumbled 'I do' and stared at the floor knowing that full well that when I last used the dishwasher A MONTH AGO I hadn't quite waited the full 15 minutes for it to 'warm up' before pressing the big red GO button).

Caretaker: SOMEONE used it without putting the drain plug back in the hole. The system was entirely drained. ENTIRELY. £15 of cleaning straight down the drain.

Me: Oh.

Caretaker: The drain plug is a long PLUG. It is clearly pictured and labeled on the instructions. Failing to follow those instructions has cost £15.

Me: Oh. I seem to having troubles with my plugs tonight.....

Caretaker: I will let it go. This time. But only this time.

Me: Oh.

And with that he walked into the sunset casting a long shadow, kicking up dust from baked soil and leaving a trail of tobacco smoke and air of threat.

10 minutes into my class all the fire alarms went off. And then the intruder alarms. I ended up demonstrating a baby's journey through the pelvis in the middle of a playing field with the local youths looking on and the alarms serenading me from the mid-distance.

I felt a shiver of bad Karma. The ancients were surely sending me vibes from their world of raffles for Club biscuits and multi-packs of fig rolls. I had deprived them of an entire gallon of dishwashing fluid. It was the modern equivalent of opening King Tut's tomb. A curse was freed.

Sometime later, when all the clients had left, I went into the kitchen to make sure no mugs were left on the draining board or tea towels left unfolded. It was then I noticed a sign. THE sign.

A prophecy was written.

'Cake for the over 50's Pop In Centre. Do not touch or you will be blind'.

Dear god. They clearly had darker spirits than even I had ever imagined on their side.

As potential 'blinding' activities go, stealing a Sarah Lee Frozen Gateaux wasn't up there on my list of 'possibles' but clearly I was wrong.

I guess if you touch their tea bags you get stoned and nicking the sugar results in the pox?

On closer inspection it said 'billed' not blind....but all the same - I'm not taking any chances.

The Voices

2011-07-05T22:15:00.007+01:00

Not long ago I was standing out the back of Badger Girl's shop, which happens to be a rather beautiful church yard (if you can see past the over flowing bins, people hanging around waiting for their methadone scrips and rats as big as, err, badgers) while she smoked a roll up (I'm painting a none too beautiful picture here but bear with me) and the sun was beating down, the sky was blue and I just felt this deep sense of inner peace. It was a wonderful feeling. A sea of calm amidst a raging storm of emotions. I took it to be a sign. Perhaps only of the powers of passive nicotine inhalation but a good sign all the same.

Anyhow - feeling rather jolly about it - I told my mum.

'Ohh' she said 'that's interesting'.

'Yes!' I said enthusiastically 'I think it's a sign that I'm at peace with myself'.

'Ohh well perhaps but maybe it was the Lord. You know 'speaking' to you!'.

Stunned silence.

'What?'.

'Well you were in a church yard. It could have been a sign. You know from The Lord'.

'Mum, have you been on the Jacobs Creek already?'.

'Well stranger things have happened'.

'Mum I think me finding God amidst the bins out the back of a Rave shop would probably be just about the strangest thing EVER to have happened. Even too strange for me. OK?'.

And I left wondering just what was going on in my mum's head. I mean don't get me wrong -she loves the Harvest Festival as much as the next person and like a good old rendition of Lord of the Dance but she's never been one to believe in dramatic convertions. Or miracles.

Two weeks later I was back in the same church yard.

As I walked through the sunshine dappling the ancient path I heard a noise.

It started as a low moan and then started to rise.

Glancing around me I saw no one.

The moaning built in tempo and took on a sort of beautiful resonance.

Om ah ah om. Om ah ah om. Aaaa haaaa. Ommmmm. Ommmm......

Ok there was no denying this. I really could hear some kind of voice and it sounded sort of heavenly.

I shudder of alarm ran through me.

My mum's words rang in my head.... 'The Lord is speaking to you'.....

I mean even during the worst of times I never actually heard full on mysterious voices or felt like I was ascending to heaven or being 'touched'. And now this?

Shit.

Panic began to rise within me as logical explanations fell away.

No one else seemed to be able to hear the noise and it was clearly very local to me.

So local that it seemed to be coming from the bum pocket of my jeans.....

Pulling my phone out of my pocket I realised that my butt cheek had activated the You Tube button on the screen and replayed the last video I watched..... Some Tibetan chanting I'd downloaded to see if lying on the bed listening to it would help transform me into a tranquil being (I'll let you judge as to whether it worked....).

So it wasn't God reaching out to me at all. I was just talking out of my arse....

I'm just relieved I didn't actually go for help and arrive at A&E asking for help. There are things you really don't need on your medical records and the belief you are being haunted by Buddhist mantras is one of them.

Beaver Feaver

2011-06-29T22:12:00.003+01:00

So tonight I bust my Beaver virginity and attended my first ever meeting of 'The Colony'.

Seriously.

They call it 'The Colony'.

I had had no previous experience with Beavers, what with being a girl and all that. I'd done Brownies and had a short experience with Guides (before my dad removed me amidst mutterings about the women running it - something to do with lace gloves, Madonna and rumours of prostitution - totally unfounded I'm sure but who knows, odder things happen in village halls regularly. I should know). But never Beavers.

My eldest son is now 6 so he can join and as another boy from his class was doing it and as I think it involves things that he might enjoy (like maps and using Mento mints to explode bottles of coke) I decided to give it a go.

So I phoned the lady in charge up (The Beaver Master so to speak) and she said 'sure, bring him along to the Colony!'.

Seriously? A Colony? Wow - it's like proper Beaver-tastic.

So I took him along but for the first night you have to stay. And as I was staying it meant his younger brother was staying.

Oh dear god. A wanton mini-Beaver.

Things started well although I was quite alarmed by the Rules written out on the wall. From where I was sat I could read 'Beaver's DON'T spit, bite, hit, kick or swear'. Part of me wanted to grab the chalk and add 'or growl' but I was too scared of the ladies in charge. However boredom soon set in and whilst the older one behaved meticulously the younger one set up a chant of 'Stinks like a Beaver, Stinks like a Beaver'.

Sigh.

How can two children born from the same womb be so, erm, bloody different? The older one is quaking in his boots in case he gets anything wrong and the younger one is already aiming to tick off everything on the 'Beaver's DON'T!' list before he even starts.

There is an innocent explanation to his 'phrasing' - it just sounds bad. He is a big fan of the film 'Cars' and of all the dialogue in that film he's taken the joke phrase 'stings like a Beaver' and misheard it into something even worse.....thus 'stinks like a Beaver'. His current 'phrase of the day!'.

He must know it's not a great thing to say because he even asked me 'is Stinks Like a Beaver a bad word? Like when Grandma says bloody?'. Yes I told him. Hmmm he said, with a smile. And thus the game began.....

In an act of great kindness (or desperation - I'm never sure where the line falls myself) the Beaver Master said he could join in with the crafts - and thus I found myself supervising a table full of small boys painting bits of egg box. At this point I was deeply regretting still wearing my work trousers. But not as much as I was several minutes later when, in act of over excited glee,' Stinks Like a Beaver' child ran behind me, stuck his head up my top and yanked my trousers down hard.

Don't ask me why. I don't know why. Like I don't know why he Sudocremed the cat or hid my mum's car aerial in a hedge or shouts 'Boobies' 99 times a day. Just because he can I guess.

Now I've had a stomach bug since Sunday night and after 3 days of living off boiled sweets (with one brave foray into Super Noodles) my trousers are rather on the lose side.

Whoosh.

Down they came.

And in a moment we had a whole new spin on the meaning of a Beaver meeting.

The small boys fell about laughing. I gave a brave ho ho ho and tried to redirect their egg box painting efforts. I don't think the Beaver Master and the Vice Beaver Master noticed. Well maybe they did but they felt it wise not to point out the obvious and inform the rest of the room that I was half undressed. I don't think they do a badge in 'Looking at Half Undressed Ladies'. Yet.

At this point I should probably point out that the Beaver Master and her Deputy aren't actually called that. No. They are in fact called 'Sunshine' and 'Snowflake'. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. They are clearly lovely women very very good at their job but they'd be equally at home on the door outside the local nightclub strong arming drunk men into wheelie bins. If you're going to control a room full of 6-7 year old boys you need a bit of steel in your veins (I found this out when I went to wash my hands and within minutes witnessed an arm wrestle, a deliberate attempt to flood a sink and way too many farting noises). Calling them 'Sunshine' and 'Snowflake' just doesn't fit. I think it might be ironic. Or maybe it's just to mess with the kids' heads and help control them? There's something kind of extra powerful about saying 'sit down, keep your hands to yourself and STOP TALKING or Snowflake here will have to take points off you'.......

Very clever.

Anyway gradually the egg boxes gained antennae and became caterpillars. The boys then had to stretch out sheets of cotton wool and stick them to the painted backs of their caterpillars.

My son had painted his caterpillar red. Blood red. As he sealed a sheet of cotton wool on top of it I was reminded of something. Pondering it for a moment more I was hit by the shock realisaion that my son had made a rather too realistic model of a sanitary towel. A used sanitary towel.

Oh god no!

And then they covered them in cress seeds.....

From one unspeakable sight to another.

Both children have brought their caterpillars home, expect they haven't quite made it into the house. They have displayed them artfully on the dashboard of my car, lodged up against the window.

Other people have bonnet trophies of Jaguars or leaping stallions or soaring stags. I get the 'Bodyform Ultra Cress Covered Two' (without wings).

So if you see a harassed woman driving around wearing tightly belted trousers (or better still a jump suit) with two 'sanitary-protection-like' objects wedged on her dashboard, don't worry, it's only me.

And don't tell Sunshine or Snowflake what I said because I'm actually really scared.....

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

2011-06-18T16:21:00.003+01:00

Now let me start this post by saying that I am immensely grateful for EVERY moment of childcare my mother ever provides me with. Having done years and years with no babysitters or 'childcare' or help other than (now ex) Husband With the Sad Face, well I know what it's like, hard - so I know how lucky I am. But, at the same time, lets face facts here - my mum's 'childcare' services are somewhat eccentric. Well they'd have to be wouldn't they? I mean her years of nurturing produced me. And my brother. He doesn't blog but he's a Geography teacher. Which probably says enough.

So I'm grateful but, let's put it this way, if OFSTED were inspecting my mum she wouldn't just be on Special Measures. She'd be shut down with a big leading article and mug shot in the local paper. She'd then become some kind of cult figure defended by women who wear odd hats and lots of navy blue across the land and, eventually, she'd probably be debated on the This Morning! sofa by Philip Schofield and whichever blonde he's currently sat with.

Anyway I think it's good for my children to have 'input' from sources even more eccentric than myself. It makes me look better. However there are times when she makes even me a bit, err, nervy.

Let's start with the concept of benign neglect (as in hands-off let them get on with it parenting). This is the type of parenting I think is a terribly good plan. But my mum takes it to whole new levels. I got back from my Saturday morning cup of tea with the nice Relate lady to find my mum sat on my sofa doing the Suduko.

'Mum where are the children?'.

'Oh upstairs I think'.

'You think? Ok and err what do you think they're doing up there?'.

'Oh they've taken the cats up there. They said they were building a cat trap and now they've put them in it'.

'Oh'.

'But they've been every so good. I haven't seen them for at least an hour'.

'Oh'.

The less said about the 'cat trap' the better. I don't want women in howling-wolf-fleeces waving placards outside the front door. The cats are fine though. One of the children has quite a few 'tribal scars' and there's blood on my carpet but no one was crying so fair play mum. I think.

Next look at language. I'm not the most clean mouthed of people but I do try very hard not to swear in front of my children. I've managed this pretty well for about 6 years. Two weeks with dear old Grandma picking them up from school twice a week?

The 3 year old opens the back door and exclaims 'Good morning bloody cats!'.

Ah.

'Mummy this bloody truck is stuck again'.

etc etc.

As the youngest one said to me the other day whilst watching the next 'thrilling' installment of 'Trucks and Trailers' (Channel 5's 'fly on the wall' documentary about Eddie Stobart' lorries) 'mummy, this programme has bloody in it, like Grandma'.

Busted.

Then lets look at 'games we play with Grandma'. Trying to drive the car I can cope with. Eating raw jelly until you go green is a rite of passage. But how did I genuinely feel the day they walked into her kitchen and said 'Grandma, can we have the scissors please, we're going to go and cut down some more nettles'. Scissors? Not just any scissors. Kitchen shears you use to cut up meat (or small children). And off they went. With these shears. Into the nettle beds. 'It doesn't matter if we get stung mummy, Grandma sprays us with the Wasp-Eze'.

So that's fine then. I'm not sure what she does if you lop off a digit but hey, time will maybe tell?

And then we have my mum's special take on the passing of life. There was no avoiding death when I was growing up. We were constantly surrounded by small birds and mammals she had rescued from cats, window panes, ponds or water butts and put into a shoe box.

To die.

Small children luckily provide you with a lot of shoe boxes and great stretches of my childhood were spent peaking into green Clarks boxes and praying for baby voles/frogs/bullfinches/whatever to live and go back into the hands of nature.

They were inevitably on a one way trip to a shallow grave but I never gave up hope.

And so the cycle is now reignited. Most women who dream of becoming Grandma's probably hope to go and feed the ducks or pick blackberries or play Pooh Sticks. My mum clearly had other plans. Like letting small children see damaged birds die.

We got there on Wednesday morning for her to exclaim 'look children, LOOK! A baby robin!'. And there, thrust upon, us was indeed a baby robin. It was lying on it's back with it's legs in the air inside a little cardboard easter nest box the smallest child made at pre-school to celebrate Easter.

Easter might be all about resurrection but I think it would have taken more than a miracle for this robin to rise again.

'Grandma, is it dead?'.

'Mum why are you showing my children a dead bird? They've not even had breakfast'.

'It's not dead darlings. It's STUNNED! It flew into the window! I'm going to leave it in this box in the sunlight and see if it comes back to health'.

The kids give me a look as if to say 'Ok we might only be 3 and 6 respectively but WHAT THE F@CK IS SHE ON?'.

I give them a look as if to say 'god knows but if you find out, tell me. It'll help'.

At this point the smallest child realises his carefully crafted Easter Nest has been commandeered as a Robin coffin.

'Waaaaa - I want my box back!'.

I decide to let her sort that one out and quickly go to work.

When I return at the end of the day she confirms the Robin actually died. Woah - what a shocker. But not to worry she then entertained the children by letting them watch a fox try to dig out a nest of baby rabbits. It was a thrill a minute - every time he went down the hole they looked to see if he came up with any in his mouth. Luckily he didn't but no doubt if he had, she'd have run out, clutched their injured form from his jaws and put them in a shoe
box. Before arming the kids with kitchen shears, stinging nettles and raw jelly.

As the great woman herself would say - Thank God for Grandmas BUT Bloody Hell!

But Bumble Bees Don't Wear Thongs....

2011-05-30T14:15:00.006+01:00

It's 5pm on a Friday afternoon and whereas in a far distant parallel Universe called 'When I Had a Normal(ish) Life' I would have been hitting the pub for a few post work Strongbows, I'm now trying to shovel as Asda Smartprice Pizza into the oven with one hand whilst talking to the 'relationship counsellor' on my mobile with the other.

Small children are running in an out (not all of them mine), some of them carrying kittens (not all of them mine) and it's all a bit surreal even for my liking.

Relate lady: 'Well I think you should feel immensely proud Stickhead (she doesn't really call me Stickhead, that would be 'odd'), the way you have managed to process and handle these very powerful emotions and move forward in such a positive way in the mere 48 hours since you left that desperate and crazed sounding message on our answermachine (OK she didn't quite put it like that but I'm quite used to cutting through the fluff and figuring out what counsellors really mean. I've had enough practice at it. My favourite ever was the Community Psychiatic Nurse who became obsessed with the fact I seemed to have a lot of black jumpers. She seemed to think this was linked to some kind of obsessive compulsion for buying idential black jumpers and would ask cryptic questions about my 'needs' and 'desires'. What it actually linked to was having a small baby and living in one jumper and one pair of jeans for longer than would normally be appropriate.....but as she never asked me direct questions I kept her guessing for weeks)'.

Me: 'Yeah, I guess, PUT THE CAT DOWN!'.

Relate lady: 'Sorry?'.

Me: 'Sorry I'm trying to stop the kids killing anything. Can I just put the phone down a minute, I can't get the wrapper off the pizza?'.

(Small kerfuffle)

Relate lady: 'So how are you feeling right now?' (I'm thinking 'is this the bit where they have to tick a box to say that I wasn't sounding like I was about to have 48 paracetomal and a bottle of vodka for tea?).

Me: 'Err, hungry? Yeah fine really. Like I could do with a bottle of wine and a week in a sleepbag (brittle laugh). Just another week in paradise and all that......'

Relate lady: 'And you're coping? With everything?' (This is the bit where they're ticking a box to say that they checked I wasn't about to tell the kids they were the Sons of God before building a large crucifix out of Lego and nailing them to it).

Me: 'Well yeah, that's what you do isn't it? Just get on with it? TOUCH THOSE BAMBOO CANES AGAIN AND YOU'LL REGRET IT. THEY'RE TO STAY IN THE GRO-BAGS GOT IT!'

Relate lady: 'So you are really OK? I think we need to focus in our next session on next steps, moving this forward....'.

Me: 'Yeah so do I. PUT THE STICKS DOOOOOWWWWNNNN!' (and with that the gas in the oven finally lights with an almighty BOOM and I emit a small squeal), 'Look,I think I'd better go but thank you so much for your time, I didn't really know what to do you see, I thought if I didn't talk to someone I might do something a bit, errrr, 'unhelpful to future positive relations' so that's why I left that message but 48 hours is a long time in my life and I feel differently now. Sometimes, when you're getting sucked down the rabbit hole you've just got to fight it and rise above it. Act with dignity and all that. But I really appreciate you calling me but I've really got to go. They're doing something with cat biscuits. And it doesn't involve actual cats'.

Relate lady: 'Ok but I think you should feel proud of yourself'.

Put phone down.

Put pizza in.

Phone rings.

Fear it's Relate lady with another question she needs to ask in order to tick another box. Maybe this one's to do with the safety of pets?

But no.

'Hello EX-BEST FRIEND!'.

'Oh, hello Badger Girl!'

'3 foot hair extensions? Spray tans? Shop that sells clothes to people on drugs or for sex acts or both?'.

'Ah'.

'Yes. Ah'.

'Eeeee'.

'Yes. Eeeee'.

'You found my blog then?'.

'Well my shop assistant found it. I found him with tears of hysterical laughter rolling down his face. I thought he was having a fit but it turns out he was reading about Badger Girl'.

'Well you've got nothing to moan about. Firstly I've made you world famous and secondly it's all true'.

'I'm not speaking to you anymore because you'll probably just making a note of it to put it on the internet'.

'Errr. Yeah. Probably'.

'But don't worry I'm going to get my revenge. I've got a job for you (this comment is followed by wicked peels of laughter)'.

'Errr what job? I've got enough jobs thanks'.

'We're running the cloakroom at a rave in July'.

'Errr exactly how many people wear a coat to a rave in July?'.

'Well not many but we're selling stuff too. Like fluffies and glo-sticks'.

'Riiiighhht'.

'Yeah and you have to wear whatever I put you in - for 'promotional purposes' (que more hysterical wicked laughter)'.

'Riiiggghtt'.

'We might have a Bumble Bee outfit for you'.

'I've seen the size of your fancy dress outfits. They wouldn't fit round my thigh. Do they do a special 'curvaceous bumble bee range'?'.

'No (more cackling laughter) and whatsmore you'll have to wear a thong'.

'A thong? I have a never seen a Bumble Bee in a thong. Ever. Or anything even approaching a thong'.

'Yes. A thong. And we're going to write 'House of Fashion' across your bum cheeks in glitter paint'.

'House of Fashion? More like House of Horror......'.

The only image that flashes before me is of the sad girl from the Blind Melon 'No Rain' video:

I click the phone off, go to retrieve my bamboo canes from being used as cat torture devices, and ponder quite what the Relate Lady would make of all this and whether or not this counts as 'moving forward with dignity'?

It's a question I can't really answer but, for the record, whatever I wear, it won't be a thong....

You Gotta Roll with It....

2011-05-26T18:50:00.006+01:00

Wow - sorry about the rather large blogging gap there people. Don't worry I haven't been to rehab (yet), sectioned (yet) or in fact even had my hernia fixed. No I was busy picking up the crumbs of my disintegrating marriage and feeding them to the birds. It's kind of all encompassing taking apart 15 years and putting it back together in a different way. And sad (very sad) and funny (in a bittersweet 'aren't human beings odd' kind of way) and heartbreaking and mundane and tragic and crazy and boring and exhilarating and unreal and real and, yes, it needs a book all of it's own.

Hey at this rate, by the time I get round to even writing the first book I'm going to have the complete box set waiting in the wings.

But anyway, lets not look at the bigger picture, or all our heads might explode.

Lets just look at the last 24 hours. Just so you know, you get a bit of the picture.....

5pm - finish work, race out the door...

5.20pm - whilst walking home see a familiar figure crossing the road. Automatic thought - yipee it's my husband! He's off to catch the train to London, how lucky I caught him! Slam. About turn. Damn. It's my (ex) husband. He's off to London and I didn't want to see him go..... (there then ensues a brief slightly awkward conversation basically saying 'hello, goodbye, ho ho ho' but drowned out by traffic noise and the stench of pigeon shit coming from the road bridge. Brief Encounter it ain't....).

5.30pm - get into house and rapidly pack for a night at my mum's house. Take off work shoes and wonder how I ever wore such things 5 days a week without going permanently lame. Stuff various Iggle Piggles, socks and toothbrushes in a bag and get in car.

5.40pm - swing round corner on Dual Carriageway only to find a barefooted man who looks like ZZ Topp walking towards me swinging a bamboo cane. Narrowly miss squashing him flat. Briefly marvel at the diversity of life.

5.50pm - get to my mums to be greeted by ecstatic children. Well no actually. One is on the lap top watching freight trains on You Tube and barely acknowledges me. The other is lying underneath a coffee table covered in tomato ketchup making a small groaning noise.

6pm - accept a glass of wine and announce the children are going in the bath.

6.15pm - accept another glass of wine and announce the children are going in the bath.

6.30pm - accept another glass of wine and announce the children are going in the bath....

7pm - get children in bath. Watch a fight break out over a Pyrex Jug and the insides of a food processor. Get another glass of wine.

7.15pm - try to end bathtime but just end up dripping wet and shouting. Again.

7.20pm - have to get physical. Bathroom now looks like an Ibiza foam party where I'm the only one dressed and not crying.

7.30pm - break up fight over alleged difference in the size of toothbrushes.

7.31pm - allow brief demonstration of what shaving foam looks like if you squirt it down the toilet.

7.32pm - realise shaving foam must have been my dads..... Weird.

7.35pm - read pointless book about trucks. Well I'm sure it's not pointless if you're a small boy but it doesn't really do it for me.

7.40pm - (thankfully it's a very short book) say goodnight. Receive requests for: a drink, a wee, a torch, a stuffed dog and a honey sandwich. There is no honey in bed. Rules is rules.

7.45pm - stave of a dozen concerned questions about the volcanic ash cloud (no it won't make the world go dark, no it's not over our heads, no it's not going in our insides, yes it is over Scotland, no it doesn't affect trains running, only planes.....)

8pm - give up and go downstairs. Both kids in bed but one is off on a rant because apparently his Scooby Doo colouring book doesn't containing any 'rupturing volcanoes' and this omission is entirely my fault and entirely in my control....... just like everything else that's wrong in the world....and the other one is throwing a fit because he wants me to sit with him and study the ENTIRE road map of the British Isles (as in follow every road to every destination) and I'm sat downstairs with a glass of wine trying to tax the car.

8.05pm - both kids still going off on one. Glass empty. Glass refilled.

8.06pm - turns out I can't tax the car as it hasn't got an MOT. Computer says no. Oh. Make this my Facebook status (see, it really is a thrill a minute). My friend whose husband very nearly went to jail over something to do with a dodgy MOT reassures me that if I go down she'll teach me a few Restraint Holds she uses at work so I can defend myself against my cell mates.

8.07pm - kids threatened with something hideous if they don't go to sleep.

8.08pm - my mum is off on one about the joys of the Chelsea Flower Show but too much Alan Titchmarsh sends me into such a pit of despair that I start playing 'post apocalyptic hardcore metal' on the computer in an attempt to balance him out.

8.09pm - my mum and Alan Titchmarsh carry on oblivious.

8.10pm - my mum starts cooing over someone's Alliums. I give up, turn off the din and submiss to Alan, purple flowers and stroking small children's hair until they fall asleep. Sometimes it's best to give up the fight.

9pm - drunk at least a bottle of wine but no food has appeared yet.

9.30pm - ah here comes some aspagarus.

9.35pm...and some carrots....

9.45pm...and something 'Extra Special' from Asda. Bingo!

10pm - say I'm going to bed as I feel that tired.

10.10pm - start on massive rant about what the f'ck has happened to my life, where it's going and what I'm going to do about it.

11.55pm - go to bed.

12am - try to calm down with a gentle book about a couple with teenage kids having a bit of a marriage crisis whilst trying to cope with elderly relatives..... Decide that at least I'll never have to get divorced AND cope with teenage kids all at the same time, and my dad's already dead so when it comes to aging relatives I'm one short of the full load already. See how lucky I am!

12.05am - decide I must sleep.

12.10am - MY.MIND.IS.FLIPPING.OUT. I am having whole conversations with people who aren't even in the room. People who aren't even in the county. In some cases people that aren't even on this planet.

I re-write history and a hundred different futures over the next two hours.

It hasn't been like this for months.

Why now?

Why here?

Why me?

Why us?

WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

Somewhere round 2.15am fall asleep.

Somewhere round 2.30am a child falls out of bed.

Somewhere round 3am fall asleep.

Somewhere round 3.30am aforementioned child starts demanding someone draws him a 'rupturing volcano'... a scene then ensues which, if I was being filmed as part of a Super Nanny type programme, would be used as the 'bait' during advert breaks on Channel 4 to make sure that all the mother's of the nation tuned in to see just how much better they were doing than they through they were....

Somewhere around 4am fall asleep again.

5.40am - 'MUMMY - THERE IS NO RUPTURING VOLCANOES IN THIS SCOOBY DOO BOOK' WAAAAAA.

WAAAA indeed.

Next two hours - I'm not really sure. I know I drank a lot of tea and eventually had a shower and at some point my eldest son was forced to read another 4 pages of a 1978 'Ginn Reading' book about a tortoise ( (a 20 odd page book which could have been para-phrased with the sentence 'tortoises are small and like to hide') whilst the youngest one made a freight train out of the recycling my mum seems to endlessly accumulate.

8am - start phoning garages trying to get an MOT.

8.40am - find one that will do it. Cheer.

8.50am - take kids to school. It's raining hard.

9.30am - race into own home to grab car details.

9.40am - drop car off for MOT and walk home in rain.

9.45am - find that I have locked myself out of own home. Oh. The only other person with keys is my ex and he's in London until late Friday night. Before me flashes two more nights sleeping at my mum's....... in dirty knickers......with colouring books that don't feature rupturing volcanoes.....and Alan Titchmarsh......ARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

9.50pm - sit on back step in rain with only the cats (who hate me anyway ) for company. They stare at me like robots filled with abject disgust.. I try to play with my phone and try not to think about anything but the signal has disappeared. The rain gets harder.

9.55am - I need a wee. Badly.

10am - I need a wee REALLY badly.

10.05am - I have to wee. But my garden backs onto a major railway and busy bridge. Hmm. I will have to go in the shed (the old falling down one, not the nice new fancy one. I wouldn't wee in that!).

10.06am - open shed door. A shed-load (boom boom) of wasps fly out......ARGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Run round the garden screeching whilst flapping at my hair. I'm not a 'girly girl' but when it comes to wasps - WAAAAAAAA......

No way am I weeing in the wasp factory. Sod it - wee on the patio and hope none of the neighbours walk past. My last neighbours got to see it all when I had my second son. This lot (might) just think I'm normal (so far). The last think I want them to witness is me urinating in my own back yard......

10.10am - cold.

10.15am - colder.

10.30am - frozen.

10.40am - go back to garage now envisaging a never-ending sea of sleeplessness, Alan Titchmarsh and having to walk around in my mother's knickers and Doreen bras until I can get back into my own home (I know about the Doreen bras because there was a time, not so long ago, where for complex reasons I had to adorn one. My boobs went like Madonnas. All cone-ified. It was an odd experience. I am sure there is a fetish market out there for women in Doreen bras, after all I once came across a pornographic magazine called 'Fireside Bottoms', but I won't be taking my Doreen experience any further).

10.42am - find I accidentally gave my house keys to one of the mechanics. And the car passed the MOT. Relief all round.

10.45am - sit in car only to realise that I'd left a pair of knickers in the glove box (this was entirely innocent - they fell out a bag when I was coming back from sleeping at my friends). Oh what fun they must have had looking for my log book...... On the brightside - it could have been worse - it could have been a Doreen. Now that WOULD have been embarrassing.

11am - race to my mums and manage to tax the car.

12pm - pick up 'I wanna rupturing volcano' child from pre-school and, for my sins, take him shopping all afternoon. Take him to Badger Girls 'ladieswear' shop where he picks out a PVC fairy outfit for me and demands I put it on. I decline this request. He stamps his feet and roars. I stick him behind the till with my phone, 30 felt tip pens and a Scooby Doo colouring book (still without volcanoes) and drink 4 cups of tea in quick succession in order to try and keep functioning..... Back it all up with 2 Diet Cokes and a pack of Hula Hoops just to make sure and hit the road.

And then off we go with school pick ups, lunch boxes, story time, fights over colouring books (apparently, now, it's all my fault there's no hot air balloons in the picture of the steam train....of course) and I'm sat here now almost nodding off thinking 'oh yipee, tomorrow I get to do it all again'.

But, please this time, with more sleep.

And no Alan Titchmarsh.

Night night.

Easter (the continutation )

2011-04-21T09:00:00.005+01:00

As you may recall, I was giving you some suggestions as to what to do with small children should you find yourself responsible for them at any point of the Easter Celebrations (or in fact during the Royal Wedding - these ideas are for life, not just for Easter).

The first 5 are in my previous post (just in case you wonder why I start with a 6).

6.GOING TO THE SUPERMARKET

Well you've got to do it anyway so you may as well turn into the 'Trip of the Day' and upsell it. If your children are as erm 'uncontainable' as mine you may need to cage them within a trolley (or take leads) but this can prove a veritable adventure, especially if you arm them with a baguette each.

I would however warn against trying this in Sainsburys which it appears is where 'people go to lose their sense of humour' (or practice the dark art of 'the look'). When approached by a high speed trolley with two small boys wielding seeded batons and shrieking 'MACARONI MACARONI CHEESE PLEASE' (I have no idea why) they tend to wither and tutt.

For variation you can let the children hang off the sides of the trolley and pretend they are on the footplate commanding a steam train. However this will mean making regular stops for 'stations', refuelling and, inevitably, some kind of crash. It also means you can't get down aisles featuring cages, mobility buggies or more than small slim person with a basket but there's a price to pay for everything.

After all this (plus trying to get their small digits removed from the checkout conveyor belt) don't forget the fun of the car park! Hidden in all those there low shrubby bushes are boxes marked 'POISON!' together with a skull (or similar fearful image). Much time can be spent spotting poison boxes and, if you're really lucky, rats (dead or alive). I like to combine this activity with me sitting in the car, eating some sort of satisfying snack and reading Take a Break. But it's up to you.

7. PLAYING WITH A HOSEPIPE

Make the most of it while we haven't got a hosepipe ban (and I say this as somebody with an environmental/ecology type background who shudders at the waste of water - however this is yet another reminder of how far I've fallen since the days I became a mother....).

Just be careful of open windows, small caged pets and your neighbour's washing.

Actually that reminds me of something my brother and I did as small children, involving our hated neighbours and their upstairs bedroom window but I'd better stop there, what with my brother now being a man of senior responsibility in charge of the minds of a generation and all that....

8. FARMING DANDELIONS

My kids got this idea from a book about a guinea pig who saves the fate of dandelions by nurturing the last ever one and blowing it's 'clock' (that's clock) across the land.....

In reality dandelions do not appear to be in rapid decline. Especially in my garden. And the children are making sure they stay that way by devoting hours to picking them and blowing their seeds EVERYWHERE.

This idea has a clear and obvious downside but we'll worry about that another time.... Alternatively you get them to blow them elsewhere - like the sacred turf of somebody you don't really like that much.

9. LEAVE THEM WITH A KINDLY YET SLIGHTLY MAD RELATIVE/NEIGHBOUR/FRIEND

For years I never had this opportunity and it was just me doing the holiday entertaining but if you have the chance to use others, particularly rather eccentric ones, DO. They let the children do things you'd never dream of and unless the kids dob them in you'll never know so hey, everyone's a winner!

However, mum, if you're reading this, the kids have told me everything so could you kind of lay off letting them eat raw cubes of jelly for their mid-morning snack, 'pretending' to drive the Land Rover (with keys in the ignition) and it's only one chocolate flake in a 99. Got it?

10. THROWING TOYS DOWN THE STAIRS

Nah not really. This is utterly banned in my house but as it's been banned since children began and I STILL seem to find myself with a sore throat from screeching 'NO NO NO NO NO, THAT'S IT, I'M GETTING MY BIN BAG....' maybe I should just give up, let them do it for hours on end and watch day time tele instead? After all, it's free....

So there we are. Don't say your stuck for ideas.

As for me. Well I'm off out with Badger Girl tonight to see a band... Not any old band. Not even a women with an accordian and a lament about dog piss. No - The Wurzels.

She's got us on the guest list courtesy of something to do with set related supply of straw.

Words already fail me and to add to the issues surrounding this event I tried to spray tan myself last night (because you know, it pays to be extra orange when going to see several pensionable men sing about their combine harvesters) and missed huge patches of my body. I look like a skewbald pony. I've tried to spray the white bits this morning but I have a feeling this is only going to add to my problems.....

I'll come back and let you know ALL about it.

Top 10 Things to do with your Kids this Easter!

2011-04-19T09:38:00.003+01:00

Well we are in the midst of the Easter Holidays.

Which if you have small children probably means you have heard the words 'I'm bored' or 'where are we going?' more than once. Or twice. And it probably also means you are desperate to find things to do that don't cost the earth. Physically or emotionally.

You see you will find 'lifestyle magazines' and 'supplements' full of ideas about what to do with children this Easter (other than stick them in front of Scooby Doo with their own body weight of egg shaped chocolate) but many of these ideas involve rather too much emotional investment - i.e. they sound amazing, the stuff of fairytale childhoods and sepia tinged photo albums... You get all 'this is going to be amazing!' emotion and then get there to find 400 other people in the car park, spend 2 hours trying to interest them in lambs/wooden eggs/the story of how the donkey got his cross/tulips (whereas they're more interested in running round in circles very fast whilst asking questions about dog poo) and, finally, leave to the sound of a 10 minute tantrum because their Mr Whippy's only got one flake in it and they've seen one on the poster with two...

The bigger the sense of the anticipation, the harder the 'forward sell', the bigger the fall....

Well don't worry!

I am here to help.

Here are my top 10 Easter Activities to keep small children entertained (or at least relatively quiet) with minimal risk of you feeling emotionally disappointed. You might not be savoring the idea of any of these but that's the point - if you end up finding them even a tiny bit fun (or least 'restful') then you've only gained. It's a win win situation all round...

1. SPEED BUMPS

Find your local estate full of speed bumps, tell the kids your going to pretend the police our chasing you/pretend your chasing baddies (which ever side of the law they find most thrilling) and then see how quickly you can take the bumps (at an angle tends to work best). Obviously stay within the law. Those speed bumps were put there for a reason and you don't actually need to go very fast at all.

The obvious downsides to this are that it will knacker your suspension, tracking and bits might fall off the car but it's still cheaper than a day out at the local 'fun park' and there's no chance of being dragged through a Gift Shop. Also driving round certain estates again and again might get you noticed in all the wrong ways and your fantasy could very well turn into reality.... That and the price of petrol means this idea is not without it's downsides.

I should add to this that those of you with more dubious pelvic floors may need to take the necessary precautions.

2. TAKE THE KIDS TO THE NEAREST ELECTRICIY SUB-STATION

Small boys in particular are fascinated by electricity, danger and barbed wire. This is your chance to give voice to all those Childhood Safety films you sat through at school (you know, like the one where the boy climbs up a pylon to get his frisby back and KAPOW.... nothing but smoke....or the one where grandad goes fishing and doesn't watch where the end of his rod is heading....), not to mention the warning posters that littered our youth.

Stand the children near the wire and terrify them with tales of an explosive nature. This will also stand them in good educational stead.

However if your kids, like mine, are very curious you might need to take a book out from the library about how the National Grid works as there are going to be a lot of questions you probably can't answer quite yet....

If you haven't got a sub-station to hand, you could opt for a Weir, level crossing or introduce them to the terrifying concept of rabies and spend the rest of the holidays trying to spot dogs that excessively drool (it's either that, nuclear war or the Colorado Beetle and I don't think todays kids are ready for THAT kind of terror).

3. B&Q (or other similar stores)

Small children are obsessed by toilets. Where could you possibly find more? And unused! Hours of fun pretending to do things.. (just make sure it IS only pretend). Plus wide aisles, power tools and those flat bed trolley things they can lie on while the other one crashes them into piles of compost. You can even pick up some bedding plants on the way out. Why pay more for Alton Towers?

4. LOOKING FOR THINGS THAT DON'T EXIST

Send them to search for something you know no longer exists with a prize for whoever finds it first....When, an hour of blessed peace later, they still haven't found it, console them and give them both a packet of crisps/small chocolate bar/whatever. I did this the other day with the pump we need for the paddling pool - even though I know it's a hundred miles away.

They need to learn at some point that you don't always find what you're looking for but hey, it's not the end of the world....

5. GARDEN CENTRES

Many of these have outdoor play areas which you can indulge in freely as long as you stay away from the 'gift' area inside filled with Swarkovski Hedgehogs and porcelain puppies and the Cafe which will no doubt feature £7 jacket potatoes and a certain type of older person who can kill small children with a certain type of stare before writing to the Daily Express about the state of today's families and how it's all gone down hill since they had to start putting their rubbish in different coloured bins....

Well there's your first 5.

The rest comes tomorrow.....brace yourselves.....

Fun at the, erm, Beach....

2011-04-16T15:58:00.001+01:00

Ahh here we are again - the new dawn of Easter. A very fine time of year indeed.

Sorry for my rather scatty blogging of late - I have started yet another part-time job and have found myself so utterly exhausted by the end of the day that the thought of even plugging in the laptop (because of course it doesn't have a functioning battery...) is beyond me. So my life, workwise now looks something like this:

1. Main job - trying to stay sane whilst raising 2 boys (currently aged 3 and 6) and dealing with the daily insanity around me (and that's before we start on my mother and various others within my daily orbit).

2. Job that is actually a career and I love but doesn't pay me enough - Antenatal Teaching (basically trying to prepare people for the unpreparable without scaring them sh1tless....) Maybe I should just spend several hours drinking tea with them before directing them to this blog with the moto 'you are going to need to keep your sense of humour, or you will go mad'? Having said that I went mad twice despite keeping my sense of humour, so what do I know?

3. Part-time job - in the hospital doing admin stuff.

4. Other part-time job - for a charity doing, errr, admin stuff! If you need postcodes inputting - I'm your woman.....

Anyway this: a) doesn't leave much time for blogging let alone writing that damn book (or infact script for a sit-com which I'd secretly like to do...). b) confuses the Inland Revenue.

Greatly.

I have spent approximately an hour on the phone to them this morning, trying to stop them from taxing me like I'm an Investment Banker when I earn about the same amount of money per week as you'd pay for a round of drinks in Soho. It was a long and painful process and, as I have this old fashioned phone that's tied to a wall and doesn't let me move round the house, I firstly found this very hard on the bladder and secondly the kids had a field day....

The younger one covered his ENTIRE body (and I do mean entire, as in every single part of him...) in large green spots with a flipchart marker pen. He's still sporting them but they are at least fading. I am beyond being concerned by such minor matters these days. I just hope they fade by the time her returns to pre-school. Or starts big school for that matter.

He then covered the cat in Sudocream. You know that thick white paste intended for babies bums? The one that what with it being a barrier cream is waterproof..... Sigh.

What is more, knowing I was tied to a wall and really stressed, him and his brother kept coming in and whining and making unreasonable requests.

Man in tax office: Could you confirm your National Insurance Number?

Son 1: MUMMEEEEE, I'M HUNGRY, WAAAAA

Me: Just take some Hula Hoops out the cupboard

Man in tax office: Pardon?

Son 1: WHAT?

Me: Sorry, it.....

Son 1: MUMMMEEEEEEEEEEEE

Me: I said just EAT SOME HULA HOOPS, JUST TAKE THEM!

Man: Erm....

Me: It's JP....

Son 1: Where are they? WHERE ARE THEY!?

Me: IN THE TOILET (we have a large downstairs sort of ' utility room' and in there is a big storage cupboard where I keep the crisps - I don't actually feed my kids from the toilet bowl).

Man: Pardon?

Son 1: BUT I WANT AN EASTER NEST! I WANT AN EASTER NEST! I HAVEN'T HAD ONE ALL DAY (said in a way which indicates going 12 hours without an Easter Nest is somehow life threatening. Which I very much doubt it is).

Me: Sorry it's.....

Son 1: CAN I HAVE AN EASTER NEST INSTEAD!

Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. What have I said about Easter Nests? NO NO NO NO NO.

And so on.

I finally finished this farce and decided to put the kids in the car and go to my mums. Basically so I could leave them in her loving care for 30 minutes and go for a run before I punched something.

Get to my mums.

'Darling'.

'Yes?' (slightly concerned already).

'I think I'm going to have to impose a rule' (wowzers - my mum doesn't do rules. When my dad died she should have gone to live in a Peace Camp somewhere on Greenham Common instead of becoming lost in the world of SuDuko and trying to knit a jumper for my nephew - who, by the time it's finished, will have Graduated).

'Errr yes'.

'When the children take all the packets and jars out the cupboard to make freight trains, they can only take the sealed ones'.

'OK fine. Dare I ask why?'.

So she leads me through to the living room. And then asks me to look behind the television.

Ah.

It appears the children have taken several dozen sachets of my dead father's Fybogel (if you don't know what Fybogel is you are lucky - it's a this weird gritty powder made from 'husks' - allegedly of old plant bits but probably from old people, and you put it in a drink so it makes this sort of 'gloop' and then you drink it. Its texture reminds me of something but I dare not say what. Anyway, it helps you go for a poo more easily. If you haven't tried it yet a) you're not missing much b) you're lucky c) I don't think it will ever catch on as part of a cocktail and d) if you get old it WILL come your way).

Anyway they'd raided deceased Grandad's Fybogel, opened the lot and used it to make a 'beach' behind the tele..... The 'beach' was littered with cod liver oil tablets ('golden eggs' apparently) and several thousand Hundreds and Thousands. There was also some white powder which I'm going to have to presume was Bicarbonate of Soda.

For once word's failed me. And they still do. But hey, at least they are forcing my mum to clean out the cupboards... Which as we all know is a very rare thing indeed.

Laugh and the World Laughs with You - but not if they're listening to songs about Asda

2011-04-03T12:19:00.004+01:00

So Badger Girl (my friend...the one who gets me to remove dead badgers from her buildings, test her on the anatomy of stallions and runs a 'ladieswear shop' full of clothes that leave your bits highly vulnerable to changes in the weather) took me on a night out.

The conversation went something like this:

'There's a band playing in town and so many people have come in the shop and said they are great to jump around to so I reckon we should go!'.

'Err no offence but most of the people in your shop are either on drugs, have taken so many drugs they may as well still be on them or need to be on drugs'.

'Yeah but it'll be a laugh'.

'Oh go on then.....'

I should have known then and there things would not quite go as we both imagined.

I mean last time Badger Girl took me 'out for the night' we drove to some obscure seaside town to attend this 'amazing' clubnight she'd found out about.......Pulling up on a deserted strip of dimly lit scruffy seaside buildings amidst barren sand dunes, things didn't look all that much 'banging' or 'happening'. Pulling down my gladrags we made something of entrance into the 'multipurpose recreational use' building' where this supposed 'clubnight' was occurring.....

70 rheumy eyed pensioners raised their heads from their Bingo games and generous portions of 'chicken in a basket'. Confusion was rife.

Wrong night, wrong venue, probably the wrong town - we never did quite get to the bottom of that one.

Anyhow - I should have been wary.

So on Friday night I got dressed up and picked up my friend - who was kitted out in 3 foot long hair extensions, cherry red patent stack heeled boots and a white top slashed to the waist. She looked 'noticeable'.

We arrived at the 'venue' (you know what's coming here don't you? You know its not going to be good.......).

We stumbled up the stairs.

Past the stair-lift.

Seriously.

The stair-lift.

Past the table with an old man in a hat who was either meditating, taking a nap or had gone to meet The Reaper. Either way - he wasn't having a whole lot of fun.

We entered the room.

We were greeted by flashing strobe lights, pounding music and a throng of sweating pulsing humanity united in the rapturous appreciation of what music can do to your soul.

No. Not really.

We were greeted by a lot of people that's for sure but nobody was in any kind of rapturous state. Or in fact even moving much.

Some were sat on plastic garden chairs looking very serious. Some were sat on the floor, perhaps fondling someone else, perhaps swaying slightly but all the same looking very serious. Some were standing up BUT also looking very very serious.

People were wearing fleeces. Or political t-shirts. One lady had even kept her anorak on.

Badger Girl pushed past what appeared to a Geography Field Trip heading for Snowdonia, stumbled to the bar and ordered 2 bottles of WKD Blue.

People were staring. And I don't just mean giving us puzzled looks. I mean giving us looks that could easily turn lesser mortals to stone. I began to fear the door would be locked behind us and we'd be offered up to the Gods of Life is a Very Serious Business for typifying all that is wrong with today's world (i.e people are still having fun when there's so much wrong with it).

Nobody was moving very much so we tried to stand still and look serious and listen to the 'music'.

There was a lady on the stage in a leather corset and tights with hearts on (not to mention a tail) playing an accordion in the style of 'Theme Tune from 'Allo 'Allo' and 'singing' (but actually it was more like talking) over the top of the music.

She broke into her next number with the line:

'A munter fell in through the flaps'....

Badger Girl and I exchanged a shocked glance. Quickly followed by a screech of laughter.

'Did she just say 'munter'?'.

I nodded.

'A dog cocked it's leg and pissed on mine.....'.

'And the government is sh1t and we can't get out of it.....'.

By this point we had started to laugh deep and hard.

I mean that was the point surely? You can't start a song with the words 'munter' and 'flaps' and expect people NOT to laugh? Surely?

But nobody else was laughing.

Far from it.

Several pale reedy looking young men were looking SO serious that their eyes were almost shut, in a kind of devote meditation. It must be a terribly soulful and draining experience thinking very very hard about a dog pissing on your leg.

The more we tried to conceal our mirth the more it came shuddering out. Tears rolled down our cheeks. Hopefully others thought we were crying about the state of the government. But I doubt it.

It appears you can't act even a tiny bit happy during protest songs. Even ones about dog piss and munters.

The next song was something about politicians and bankers having too much money and deriding the fact that they never went to Primark or Poundland. There was then a repetitive line about Asda Smart Price Pasties.

And nobody was laughing.

Except us.

For the next number she announced it was one where 'we might want to get down on the floor'.

'Yay!' I shouted 'it's Oops Up Side Your Head!'

But it wasn't.

It was (and I wish in a way I was making this up but actually you couldn't) a song about the merits of growing vegetables which contained the line:

'And maybe if Hitler had spent more time manuring his leeks he wouldn't have killed 6 million Jews'.

Well there's something for the University Debating Society.

We got up again for the next song, which I'm glad about as it was about a man killing his wife and burying her under the patio and nobody realising because they were all too busy washing their net curtains and thinking he was a decent guy because he kept his car clean. This sounded more like a plot from Brookside eons ago than a radical new idea for a song but hey ho - by this time Badger Girl and I were daring eachother to shout 'Vote Tory!' just to get the rest of the crowd moving (even if it was towards us...... with bottles).

The show climaxed with a song which sounded exactly the same as all the others and (just for a change) centered around themes about how terrible the government is, how Bankers must die, how being poor isn't fun (really? Wow! I never figured that one out) and means you have to do things like catch the bus but at least it means you're not working for 'The Man' and something to do with being obese and documentary making (or maybe that was me just wishing I had a camera crew with me).

Never have I been so tempted to shout the words 'Blow your Whistles - we're going HARDCORE!'. Just to, you know, see what they did.....

At this point someone came up to me and told me they liked my handbag. So perhaps Capitalism isn't totally dead? Or perhaps they were being ironic.

The music then stopped and we were told CDs were available to purchase at the back of the room.

Nobody moved.

By this point I'd laughed so hard in a sort of 'internal trying to hold it in fashion' my hernia had popped out.

Yup that's right folks - like an old teddy bear that's been through the wash just too many times it appears my stuffing is starting to pop out through my seams.

Well I'm guessing it's a hernia, I haven't actually been to the doctors yet. Either that or it's the Alien getting ready for a sharp exit. Which would probably delight both my sons and provide a suitable playmate for the younger one but I've had my fill of sleepless nights so I'm hoping it's the first option and just a hernia.

The next band then came on and they were far far better (in a jump up and down and throw your arms around like a loon fashion) but my jumping was curtailed by a fear my guts would fall out.

'Urgh, I need a truss, and a sports bra' I moaned to Badger Girl (whilst musing that I clearly wasn't in the first flush of youth anymore - I can never remember wishing for supportive undergarments on a night out before. Another bridge crossed and all that.....).

'I've got a truss you can borrow!' she grinned.

'REALLY?'.

'Yeah - I've got loads in the shop - lets go back and get you in one'.

'Err there not medical trusses are they? More like PVC fetishwear or kinky fancy dress outfits'.

'It'll do the same job! Hold your bits in! Come on....'.

'Thanks but I think I'll just dance slower'.

I really DON'T think the rest of the audience were ready for me to reappear dressed as a PVC ladybird.

And on that note, later in the year Badger Girl and I are off in her camper van to a 3 day festival.

She's already booked her hair extensions and spray tan.

I don't think this is going to be your typical festival experiences but I'm sure it'll be highly entertaining...... I might need that truss after all.

Half a Boiled Potato Will Not Save Us

2011-03-17T11:41:00.003Z

Dear Mother,

I know I've raised this issue before, but keeping that 'half a boiled potato' on the wire shelf of your fridge will not save us in the event of global lockdown, outbreak of war or famine.

Every week, after the Sunday roast, it appears.

And there is stays.

For a week.

I don't know where it goes in the end but I'm guessing it isn't anywhere exciting?

No sooner than it's gone - it's back! Our little friend.... going slightly dry and grey and beginning to crumble..... Not once have I ever been tempted to do anything with it which it involve digesting it afterwards. And neither has anyone else.

That and a mysterious tea cup with something that looks like toxic sludge in it. I think it's 'dripping' but nobody is about to start spreading it on Yorkshire Puddings and dipping them in sugar so just give up, yeah? Unless you have a plan for this dripping then I'd suggest you accept it's no longer 1952 in Chesterfield and if we want a 'sweet snack' we'll opt for a chocolate finger.

We'll leave aside the homemade coleslaw which was last seen fizzing wildly and presumably turning itself into some kind of 'cabbage wine with a mayo finish' as I don't want to embarass you too much....but..

....whilst we're on the fridge, lets be bold and move to the freezer.

Ahhhh the freezer.

In that freezer there are many many 'freezer bags' containing odd items.

These freezer bags have special label bits you can write on. The idea is that you write on what is in the bag and when it was put in there. You seem to have missed this point?

Week after week after month goes by and nobody EVER defrosts ANY of them. It's a lucky dip too far.

Do you think it's not now time to bite the bullet and accept that it's highly unlikely we are ever going to ask for any of the following for tea:

- the cockerel (who may or may not have been gay) who was like a pet but you got killed due to 'over population of cocks' and then nobody could bear to eat (or it appears throw away) so lives his life in some kind of cryogenic suspension, year after year, in the freezer. I think he's been in there a decade now. Look, even if there are big jumps forward in science and technology it's highly unlikely they will be able to ressurect him and undo your guilt. For a start he's missing his entire head. And legs. And I should imagine his innards. Let him go.... just let him go.... and NOT into a Coq au Vin.

- the 'trout' which your friend Colin caught and kindly gave to you, but with a warning that it came from a 'pond' and would therefore be 'very muddy' and possibly 'highly unpleasant'. I would hazard a guess here that you are NEVER going to be hungry enough to eat a 'muddy and highly unpleasant' ancient old frozen trout? And frankly, neither am I. Once again, let it go....

- the pheasant (which may actually be another cockerel or possibly a duck) that has been in there SO long that it probably needs carbon dating in order to work out just when it should have been thrown away..... Apparently you didn't eat it because you were worried it would be dry and a bit tough. Well I should think that's no longer a worry, more of a dead cert.

- the potted shrimps. Potted sometime shortly after the 2nd World War I think....

- the alcoholic homemade icecream that I have now eaten twice and been violently sick afterwards, errr, twice. How many more times are you going to poison house guests? You claim throwing it away will be messy. Here's an idea! Let it melt and then pour it into the hedge or something. I've cleaned up worse.

I mean I'm all for 'thrift' and 'waste not want not' but it's time to now accept I'm never going to sit down to a meal of fizzing coleslaw, dripping, muddy trout and 20 year old frozen cock with toxic ice cream.

OK?

Yours, not hungry for once,

Your Daughter

The Wrath of the Ancients

2011-03-07T11:48:00.003Z

I have previously spoken via this blog about the 'very old line dancers' who rule, sorry 'rent', the village hall where I also happen to 'hire' (or should that be 'am begrudgingly allowed into') a room to do my stuff.

Well I have been back at that hall recently and boy oh boy are the line dancers not happy about my 'invasion'.

The class started well. Namely as there was no sign of them.

Then, at around 7.30pm, the fire exit flew open (how DID she open the fire exit from the outside?) and a very elderly lady dragging a suitcase on wheels (dare we ask what was in this suitcase? Her stetson, a pair of diamante studded chaps and not a lot else?) began to plod back and forth through the center of my class.

We all looked on somewhat aghast.

The hall has several other doors yet she had opted to use the only one that would mean she got to stomp stomp stomp all over my diagrams of fetal rotation

'Don't mind me - I've got to bring my stuff' in she grunted a manner I could only describe as a 'warning shot'.

And then there were two.

An elderly gentleman joined her. This wasn't the same elderly gent who previously threatened one of my clients (for making a joke about dolphins of all things) with the line 'you might want to think about it very carefully before you make any more smart remarks sonny' (gulp - he was clearly missing his 'fighting days' but really - picking on bemused expectant fathers? Wrong - just wrong!), but he did look rather sinister. In a sort of 'be he alive or be he dead?' kind of way.

Up and down they went.

A while later the music started up. It's not the traditional Country and Western I'm used to associating with line dancing. It's something to do with an accordion and rather gloomy. Actually is the kind of music you might sacrifice bats to. If you're into that kind of thing.

I took the chance to glance into their hall. Turnout was disappointingly low this week - there were 5 of them (always an awkward number I find) and even more disappointing, the raffle prize, keenly displayed on the top table, had fallen from the heady highs of 'Pack of Orange Club Biscuits' which it was at before Christmas to 'Pack of Bachelors Instant Rice'. I can only imagine the euphoria that would produce in the lucky ticket holder.

Now if they just stayed in there and danced (or shuffled, or snorted instant-rice flavouring, or practised getting a good tune out of Jerry's organ or whatever it is they do actually do in there) I'd live with it and stop moaning - but no. They share use of the kitchen and boy do they like boiling that kettle and 'plating up biscuits'.

They spend inordinate amounts of time arranging custard creams and Digestive half-coats on plates. Stacks of them. Mountains. Lofty peaks of fondant cream and crumbly stuff. This a silent and serious task so you never know they're in there. You nip in for a cuppa and find them all, huddled, beady eyed, round a Family Pack of malted milks, dividing them up and stacking them. You get 'the look'. The look that says 'this is private business. Turn around and walk away. Pretend you saw nothing. Speak to nobody of this'. That kind of look.

I've tried to be friendly. A cheery 'hello!' or 'they look tasty!'. But no. The most I get is a grunt.

It is clear.

They have been using that hall since sometime shortly after the First World War and I, with my out of control balls and knitted breasts (well truthfully I don't actually have knitted breasts, I have enough trouble controlling my real ones, but I know a woman who does.....) am not only an intruder but as I don't live in the village I'm also an outsider.

All the same I was slightly shocked on Tuesday night when they tried to actually smoke us out.

Yup - huddled in the kitchen - over their hordes of shimmering cheap baked goods - they lit up.

Not literally (as in their skin started glow and one by one the emitted a neon glow - though I should imagine it might be possible) but as in they started smoking cigarettes.

Sigh.

I could hardly let this aggressive tactic pass. Apart from fumigating a room full of pregnant women they were also about to set off the fire alarms.

I (reluctantly) went into their lair. 'I'm really sorry' I mumbled 'but could you not smoke in here, its blowing straight into the room and anyway it's not allowed'.

5 pairs of ancient eyes stared back at me. The message they transmitted was 'not allowed? There is no such thing as not allowed'.

'Edith' bellowed the very old man standing next to Edith, 'they can smell our smoke'.

'Humph I'll open the fire door then' she shouted back.

And with that they all moved about 3 foot further towards the door.

Riiighhhht.

And with that awkward stand off I retreated back to my room (wondering why on earth smoking hadn't killed them yet).

Eventually I finished and left. Only to realise I'd left some very important things behind (namely my biscuits) so back I went.

On arrival they'd locked all the doors so I had to peer through the window and try to locate them so I could be let in.

They had moved into the area we had been using.

They were sitting on our chairs.

Head's tilted back they were laughing raucously.

Hands poised they were eating..... they were EATING MY BISCUITS!

I banged on the window. Hard.

Eventually one of them moved in my direction and broodingly let me in.

'Ive come for my refreshments' I said'.

'Ohhhh they're yours are they? We thought you'd finished with them' said Edith.

'Err no, I need to take them thanks'.

Edith stopped and looked me up and down. Head to toe and toe to head and then back down again. I wondered if in a past life she'd worked auctioning cattle.

''Hmm' she pondered 'that is a VERY pretty outfit you're wearing'.

'Errr thank you' I said, utterly disarmed and somewhat floored by this turn in events.

'Yes' she pondered 'and it must be EVER SO hard finding pretty things, you know, at YOUR size'.

Kerrching.

Round 1 to Edith.

When I pick myself back off the floor I shall plan my sweet revenge.....

Edith - mess with my fig rolls one more time and you're going down my love. Do you hear me DOWN!

Slowly, Very Slowly...

2011-02-23T14:15:00.005Z

This posting is brought to you somewhat painfully as I've managed to fry the end of my one of my fingers. I was frying eggs (that immensely complex and intricate culinary task) and one of the eggs seemed to turn to dust in my hand and my hand plunged mercilessly into the boiling oil.... I had to resort to spending the entire evening and most of the night with my hand in a glass of iced water and then turn to cider in an effort to limit the suffering. Cider is to burns what gas and air is to childbirth - it's not actually going to do anything about the pain but if you have enough you won't be able to string enough of a sentence together to make a coherent fuss about it.

Anyway so here we are in good old Half Term. Again. And it's pouring with rain. Again.

More on the Half Term activities (other than wall to wall Scooby Do watching and way too much Malted Milk eating) later, lets first turn our attention to the end of Term itself and that great bastion of parental pride - Parents' Evening.

I kind of dread this anyway because it feels as if you, as a parent, are being somewhat scrutinised too and you don't have to study my departures and arrivals at the school too hard to see that, at times, I'm not getting an A+ in the 'wondrous parenting and organisation of small people stakes'.

As we know there was the time where I had to stand in the playground wearing one welly and a sheepskin boot.

There was also the time I smashed the teacher's wine all over the front seat of the car.

Or the time I took the children back to school on a day it wasn't actually open.

To this I could add a multitude of other failings.

The football boots forgotten six Fridays in a row so that in the end I only had to rock up at 2pm on a Friday afternoon and shout 'it's me' through the intercom to be let in.

The forgotten packed lunches meaning I had to speed to the nearest shop (several miles drive away) and resort to a jumbo hot dog, Fruit Shoot and Freddo the Frog (these were the days I lived in fear that Jamie Oliver would rock up with a full Channel Four film crew and make a documentary sobbing over the contents of my child's locker. I would then appear on page 5 of the Daily Mail wearing ill fitting leggings and shouting at the camera in a angry fashion beneath the banner of 'The Mums that Just Don't Care Enough').

My comments in the 'Reading at Home' folder ('I notice that on page one of this epistle mum has the wine out. Well she had the right idea as by the end of trudging through this lot I'd had to sink half a bottle').

The Valentine's Disco where I broke all the rules and took an 'under 4 year old' only for him to disgrace me utterly by hurling a ketchup adorned hotdog onto the lap of the PTA Chair before crawling round the dancefloor and causing a pile up which I can only compare to some kind of outlandish contemporary dance performance designed to represent the 'inner torment of the forgotten soul'.

Or in fact the day my son returned home from the 'Welly Walk' to inform me that he'd enjoyed the outing but found it rather painful as I'd sent him in with one of his wellies and one of his three year old brother's...... He didn't say anything. Just scrunched up his foot and hobbled across the fields......mile after painful mile. In my defence - both wellies were green. There's nothing more I can say.

So I was nervous before I even sat down but if the general comments on Facebook, internet message boards and 'typical mummy blogs' are anything to go by, every other small child in the world has a parents evening which roughly goes along the lines of 'your child is the most gifted, able and wondrous being that has ever graced my classroom and every time I stare upon them I am beholden to their captivating intelligence, beauty, wit and manners'.

Every child it appears but mine.

For mine the teacher greeted me with a sigh. Her shoulders slumped in a fashion which indicated just too many years at the coal face of trying to persuade 4-6 year old to put their own knickers back on after PE, try not to take eachothers eyes out with the sharp ends of pencils and work out what to do with a magic 'e'.

'Your son' she stated 'has to be probably the most frustrating child I have ever taught. One of the kindest and most tolerant but boy oh boy is he hard to get going!'.

'I know' I replied 'I live with him'.

'It's not that he can't do it - he's clearly highly intelligent - it's just that, well to get him to actually DO anything, other than immensely detailed drawings and run around outside, it takes superhuman amounts of time and energy'.

I nodded.

I know.

Its this superhuman effort which means that by the time I have 'persuaded' him each morning to get dressed, eat, put his shoes on, close the car door etc etc etc I manage to forget his lunch, his PE kit, 2 matching wellies or his spelling list.

Well that's my excuse anyway.

And yet you put him outside (or in Asda, any large DIY store, long institutionalised corridor or cemetery) and you can't blimmin stop him!

Go figure.

I think he needs to go a forest school.

However, his teacher said, when he does click into 'go' mode he does come out with some lovely work.

She pressed his Topic book in front of me.

There was a beautiful drawing of what was clearly our bathroom, the two kittens and his brother. And there were all the bottles of beer filling up the bathtub (long story involving home brew). And there was 'mummy' in the doorway. With a face like the 'Scream' painting.

Beneath it was written:

'Last nite my bruver took the kittens and frew them in the bath on top of all the beer bowtles. Mummy went mad and towld him off and frew the kittens out and then we had to watch tele all nite long'.

Marvellous.

So now as well as thoroughly disorganised with a son like a Sloth with chronic fatigue, I'll also be down as the woman who keeps a bath filled with beer and allows her children to torture kittens before staying up all night to watch TV.

And the youngest one hasn't even started school yet.......and there my people's lies real trouble....

The Facker at the Window - and other childhood tales...

2011-02-05T16:29:00.004Z

So my Original Son is now in Year 1.

This means he's basically in proper school and is his day involves him needing to sit at a table with a pencil in his hand and create something other than a detailed map of the South Eastern Rail Network (he is perhaps the only child in the country who steals packets of biscuits from the cupboard so that he can build a replica freight yard on the living room carpet).

This is not a popular move.

If it's indoors and it doesn't involve trains, tornadoes (and other fearful enemies of Japan) or chocolate then basically it's not worth the effort.

The problem is added to because his intermittent loss of being able to hear anything much at all (glue ear) means that he's either oblivious as to what is going on or just fills in the gaps and makes up a totally different reality.

This can be summed up by me telling you that a recent spate of watching Scooby Doo and the Abominable Snowman 15 times a day was reinterpreted by him as Scooby Doo and the Vulnerable Snowman.

Well yes I guess all snowmen ARE vulnerable. Mainly to dogs cocking their legs on them, drunk people knocking their heads off and daytime temperature above 0 degrees Celsius. However running around screaming 'waaaaa RUN, it's a Vulnerable Snowman!' was somewhat confusing to onlookers and other children in the park. Especially when it hasn't snowed for weeks.

Then there are the spelling tests where he can't make out the sounds in the word let alone spell it correctly. Preparing for these is much loathed by all - I have better things to do at 8am on a Friday morning than bellow 'not SPUNK, I said SPANK, A, A, AAAAAAAAA - CAN YOU HEAR THIS!? SPANK - yes? Like this (slamming my hand down hard on my thigh). He blinks back, somewhat befuddled and carefully writes 's p a n g' across the pages.

Sigh.

God knows what the neighbours think but as they frequently see me loading a female pelvis, replica placenta and a variety of balls into my car, probably not much different than they did already.

His first official attempt at the school spelling test started with the word CROP. He made a good stab at it but summed up his feelings by replacing the O with an A.

The teacher put a polite cross next to it and moved on.

And then we have reading.

Off he cracks 'Biff and Chip are at the castle. Biff looks up. There is a...... what's this word mummy?'.

The world is face. F.A.C.E.

'Sound it out. SOUND IT OUT!' I bellow, forgetting that face isn't really that phonetic. Something to do with a magic E.

FFFFFFF

AHHHHHH

KKKKKKK

ERRRRR

Facker! It says Facker!

Oh dear god.

'There is a facker at the window'.

I start to laugh.

I can't stop.

Pleased that he's actually pleased me, he continues.

'Kipper looks up. 'I can't see a facker' he says'.

'They go into the castle to look for the facker'.

By this point I'm laughing so hard I can't breath and both kids, ultra-happy, that for once I'm not gritting my teeth and sighing, start to rush around the house screeching FACKER FACKER FACKER. FIND THE FACKER!'.

Oh crop I think, here we go again.....

The Dog Days are Over

2011-01-31T20:54:00.008Z

So here we are at the end of January. I intended to blog much more than this but once again life overtook me and I seemed to spend most of the month dealing with other people's insanity (it's saying something when I find myself the sanest person in my immediate surroundings), tax returns (more on that when I summon the super human strength required to speak the words Unique Tax Reference Number without suffering palpitations) and arranging to have my mum's dog killed.

Let me explain (and before I do this please note that this blog post, whilst humorous, talks about a dog dying, I think we've already established that. So if you're not in the frame of mind to cope with Canine Loss, then log out now).

Anyhow, this was a dog, well known on this blog, that should have died long, long, LONG ago. It was the dog that after 16 joy filled happy years (well more like 15 actually) now spent every moment of its conscious life either trying to rip my children limb from limb (fortunately it could only detect them if they moved so if I shouted FREEZE and they obeyed it would stumble, confused, into a kitchen cupboard) or spraying the world's MOST PUNGENT AND FETID URINE everywhere.

There are no words for the smell of this dog. Visitors to the house were sometimes caught standing in a corner, facing the wall, panting shallowly, because in trying to escape the smell they had ended up pinned there and couldn't face walking back through the fug to truly escape.

At one point my mum actually took it to the vets about the smell and they just shrugged their shoulders and said it was probably hormonal.

Hormonal?! Cripes. I mean I get pretty hormonal at times but I can hand on heart state now that I have NEVER smelt like that. I've never smelt anything like that. Anywhere. Anyplace. Anytime.

I think by hormonal they meant 'rotting from the inside out and covered in wee soaked fur' but were too polite to say it.

The dog was very very well loved and had a very very happy life but if things had been different it would have gone to the big dog basket in the sky about a year ago as its Happy Days were well and truly over (as were those of anyone spending time within about 50 foot of it). However what with my dad being ill and dying and my mum trying to come to terms with the big hole in her house she couldn't really be coping with the dog dying too. She couldn't be coping with the dog's stench or increased violence either but sometimes it's easier to live with a problem than deal with it.

The rest of us though were at breaking point and, having skidded in reeking dog piss one morning too often, I told mum that if she couldn't do it then I would take it all from her hands and call the vet.

She thanked me profusely and promptly rushed out to the washing line (which I think is where she goes for little secret cries).

So there we had it. I was now the Official Dog Executioner. My life's just one feelgood happy-trip after another....

I called the vet's and made an appointment for the next day.

At this point I thought it best to mention to the children that the dog was going to be 'going on'. Fore warned is fore armed.

'Children, I think the time has come where this here dog is very very very very old and I don't think it will be here for much longer'.

'Why mummy?'

'Because I'm taking it into the town in the car and arranging for it to be pumped full of deadly poison so that I never again have to choke back my own bile every time I enter this house' (no not really, that would kind of mess with their heads. Especially as they aren't guaranteed continent themselves).

'Well because she's had such a long and happy life but now she's so poorly and she doesn't like this life any more so she wants to go and have a really big rest'.

'Oh right, Ok. So like she's going to live with with God then?'.

'Errr yes' (whilst thinking, crikey, I presume the whole gist of God is that he's not that picky but surely there is no place in Heaven for anything that smells THAT bad?).

'Can I have a Mini Roll?'.

And that was that.

Until we went to leave.

'Say goodbye to Grandma'.

'Goodbye Grandma. Oh and hello Dog. Do you know what? You haven't got many days left now until you die! Now isn't that interesting?'.

Gulp.

For once the dog didn't attack.

And so the day came and I ensured the dog had a very dignified, peaceful end. Which she did.

The vet then turned to me and asked me if I wanted to take the body home with me.

'Good heavens NO!' I recoiled, 'errr I mean sorry but no, I think it's best I don't'.

('Hi mum! I'm home! Could you just get me a chemical protection suit so I can wrestle the dead dog out the boot of your car?').

'Ok then, well we will just leave you in here with her for a while then, so you can have some time alone together'.

I blinked, confused, at the vet as she backed out of the room (and presumably straight out the back door into the cool, fresh, sweet smelling air).

And then there I was. Standing under a strip light with the corpse of a stinking dog (dead of alive, it still stunk) which I had just carried to its death. With nothing but a small box of tissues and it's collar in my hand.

I mean how is one supposed to act in these situations? 'Time alone together' with a dead dog is not a relationship I have ever explored before.

All I wanted to do was run, very fast, after the vet. But that somehow didn't seem 'right' and so I felt it wise to spend some time, alone, with the, now defunct, dog.

But how much time? What is the right thing to do in these situations? How long do other people stay? What is respectful? 5 minutes? 10? 20? On into the night before having to be carried wailing to the car?

And how do they spend this time? I mean I wasn't really in the frame of mind of falling to my knees and sobbing into her fur, and there was no one there to read a poem to or reminisce about the 'good old days when she could chase a squirrel straight up a tree and clear a gate with a single bound'.

So I settled for as long as I could safely hold my breath, muttered, 'well done old girl, must be getting on' and retreated to the reception area, where I was handed another box of tissues, a sympathetic look and a bill for £118.......

So there we go.

There's a lot of money in dead dogs.

My mum was sad but relieved all at once and for the time being she still has one other very old (but very kindly) dog living with her. However this dog seems to have decided to take up the mantle of making my life that bit more unpleasant already. Yesterday I knelt on the carpet to pick up some toys only to find both my knees extremely wet.

'Mum' I shouted 'I think the dog's weed on the carpet!'.

'No darling' she trilled 'I think it's actually been a little bit sick'.

So that's alright then......

Dog Number 2, be warned, I have contacts and I'm not afraid to use them.....

I'm Spinning Around..

2011-01-25T14:12:00.003Z

....I'm outta control...

Makes a change then?

Anyway things are still going great guns at the gym. The influx of new blood for the new year, who in the main look significantly less fit than me (which is going some), means that, hopefully, some of my latest embarrassing incidents won't have been too obvious.

Firstly there was the time I found myself pinned beneath circa 18 stone of sweating flesh. I wish I could say that this was by choice or in fact, even if it wasn't, that I'd found it at least mildly thrilling, but no.

No.

There was I lying on the crash mat things, breathing (I was supposed to be doing something strong with my 'core' but at this point I was just lying back and thinking about having scampi and chips for tea) when I heard a loud grunt, felt a thud and a large man, who'd got rather over exuberant astride a gym ball, came over the top and landed across my torso.

Thanks but errr no thanks. He nearly ruptured something.

Acutally I've never seen him since.

I was perhaps his first, and last, experience of getting a sweat on?

Then there was the time I was on the step machine, tugged my sweatshirt off over my head and put my fist straight through a polystyrene ceiling tile... People stared but I just carried on as if punching holes in the ceiling was an every day part of my life.

And who knows maybe it should be?

Anyway, last but not least, there are my experiences of 'spinning'.

Spinning, if you're not 'up with the fitness vibe', is basically sitting on a stationary bike listening to pounding music whilst a sadist in Lycra shouts phrases like 'turn up THAT RESISTANCE I WANT TO SEE YOUR PAIN'.

You can see my pain, resistance or not because the seats are like flaming concrete and 30 seconds after positioning my arse on one I can assure you that you CAN SEE MY PAIN.

I've been told to buy a special gel seat covering but I've noticed they are normally only carried by elderly ladies who've had some kind of prolapse and I'm not there. Yet.

Anyway the thing about Spinning is that unlike a lot of aerobics classes, Spinning is popular with men. Fit, cycling men. Lots of very fit cycling men, glistening with sweat and working hard to keep grinding those pedals round and round......

So you don't want to go making a fool of yourself in front of them.

Howver, last week, there I was Spinning away, when I noticed a rather nauseating aroma. It appeared that one of the men was wearing somekind of horrid aftershave. Sort of sweet and sickly and spicy and musky and just wrong, really really wrong. Even more wrong than Lynx. And that's going some.

And then I realised.

Realised that having made a giant vegetable curry in the slow cooker I had spent the last 3 days eating it. Morning, noon and night. Nothing but curry.

And thus I was sweating the sweet (or rather stale) scent of curry.

And the more I sweated the more I stank.

I'm telling you now, people were looking around wondering who'd fired up the Balti pot.

Hmmmm.

However as my friend pointed out last night, smelling of curry is not necessarily a bad thing.

Men like curry.

Men like women.

Put them together and you've got two for the price of one.

'Good sense of humour, likes a good time and cider, can cook (but not clean) and tastes like an onion bhaji'.

Form and orderly queue gents, form an orderly queue......

You're Fired

2011-01-06T20:52:00.007Z

Well we all made it to 2011 then?

Just.

Resolutions for 2011?

Getting to the end of it, sane. That'll do.

Dare I even begin to wonder what this year holds in store for me? In a word 'no' but I'm sure it will entertain us all, one way or another.

I ended 2010 by piercing my right nipple with a staple gun.

This wasn't actually a desperate act of self-harm aimed at releasing my inner torment.

No.

It was more a desperate attempt to try and at least pretend that I was in possession of crafty-goddess-like-abilities at creating a family home.

I should have known it was doomed. Just like the time I tried to replicate the dog's head in cross-stitch. (The irony of that crafty creation is that it's still half-done in my drawers and has been transported across the country in this state. Meanwhile the man it was intended for has actually died and the dog it replicates actually HAS had a stroke. So at least if I ever finish it it will be that tiny bit more life-like - what with the eyes being out of kilter and all that.....).

Anyway - back to my nipple.

Basically I wanted a big noticeboard for my house but found that none were quite big enough so decided that with a large amount of MDF, some ribbon, fabric and good flocking I'd create my own.

I bought these items and then left them lying round on the floor for somewhere near 9 months (well you don't want to rush your creative urges do you?).

Then, 24 hours after being released from hospital with my youngest child I decided that shortly before painting my entire kitchen scarlet, I would make the noticeboard.

There's nothing like a week of being locked in a bile coloured room with a 3 year old child to send you off on a slightly wild tangent once you achieve freedom....

But large sheets of MDF are somewhat unweildy and you need a good bit of purchase on them if you're firing staples into them.

Voila - my bosom - the perfect counter-balance......

BANG.

Oh. Dear. God. I think I've been stung by a hornet.

No dear, that'll be the staple traveling through your dressing gown, flannelet PJs and straight into your tender flesh.

On the brightside - it could have been summer and then I'd been wearing far less and probably needed to attend A&E and have the offending article dug out by a Junior Doctor on his first rotation.

And for such small mercies I intend to remain grateful.....and stay away from anything labeled 'crafty'.

Here's to a good 2011 my lovely people!

Lock Down

2010-12-20T09:12:00.004Z

So there I was, on the 2nd December, writing away on this blog about going the gym and women who 'yip' during intercourse, and as I wrote it, my 3 years old ('The Beast') was asleep on my lap looking quite poorly. But what kid isn't a bit poorly at this time of year?

After a while I noticed that he really was looking VERY poorly. And he was very very very hot. And he was covered in a rash.

Gulp.

But I'm still not overly alarmed because basically I reached the stage long ago in my life where confronted with yet another catastrophe I sort of mentally go 'whatever' and roll my eyes like a sulky teenager (whilst trying to conceal the stirrings of a deep dark dread and the thumping beginnings of panic).

Anyway I called the doctor and took him in - expecting to leave 10 minutes later with reassurance it was just a virus.

In fact we left 10 minutes later in an ambulance with all the nee naws going.

Didn't see that one coming.

His temperature was over 40 which is pretty considerable considering he'd had Calpol and Ibuprofen. Bits of his rash weren't fading. And above all he was 'unbelievably cranky and hostile'. I wanted to put my hand up at this point in proceedings and say 'but that's normal' but I was too busy being offered a glass of water (water? water? Surely a stiff gin would be more appropriate) by the receptionist as the other receptionist called 999 as the GP couldn't get through to the hospital on her special line thing.

And then off we went in the back of an ambulance for the second time in his short life.

At the other end it was feared he had meningitis. He didn't. Thank heavens. What he did have continued to confound medical science for an entire 6 days and nights.

6 days and nights in which I was forced to exist in the confines of a small bile-yellow coloured hospital room with no break, watching my child be regularly tortured ('the strongest 3 year old we've had to cannulate' as he bucked free and wrestled various medical professionals to the floor....), very little food (they only feed the children or the pregnant - adults are supposed to be able to go out and forage - rather hard when you have a 3 year old you can't leave) and an incredible shortage of tea (not to mention Strongbow).

During this time I was subjected to NHS red-tape at it's very finest. Now I'm a huge fan of the NHS and I really can not fault the way they saved my life 3 years ago, got me sane again not long after and looked after my little boy (plus I work for them sometimes so I need to be nice ;) ) but when it comes to bureaucracy - well they love it. I recently spent an entire morning be ingtrained how to lift up a cardboard box. Brace yourself for this information but you can pick it up either with a 'palm hold' or with a 'diagonal hold'. Don't try using your teeth or wires attached to your nipples. We also got to 're-enact' such tricky procedures as 'pushing a trolley with leaflets in' and, even harder, 'pushing a trolley through a door which needs to be opened'. Two men got to pick up a big armchair together, with full commentary, but us feeble women were spared that indignity. Anyway - this bureaucracy showed itself at it's finest during my stay when my son needed to go for a chest x-ray.

Now bearing in mind he was the ill one and there was NOTHING WRONG WITH ME, it seemed odd I had to go to the x-ray department in a wheelchair. With him on my lap.

A porter (sorry 'member of the multi-functionary team') turned up with a chair and I was slightly worried because he was a very tiny man of Far Eastern origin who looked as if he'd struggle to push a grape, let alone me and my hefty child. Anyway we climbed aboard and off he huffed.

After around 5 minutes he parked me at the side of a cold draughty corridor and went to sit on a bench.

Hmmm. That heavy am I?

After a while I started to shiver so asked him what was happening now (I was actually starting to feel quite scared - should I sit here submissively and await my fate or get up and flee?).

He informed me (as best he could in very broken English) 'We must wait here because it is Sunday. Not many people. It is Sunday. We wait for escort. On Sunday's there could be incident. I could molest. So we have escort. Not on other days. More people'.

So you are potentially a sex pest? But only on a Sunday?

Well that's reassuring then.

Around 10 minutes later a female escort (as in a woman who works for the hospital following men round who are pushing other women in wheelchairs - but only a Sunday. Not escort as in woman you pay to take back to your hotel room) lumbered up and we went on our merry way to the x-ray department.

Bizarre.

Not quite as bizarre as another porter who I befriended (without an escort) in the hope of getting a cup of tea (I did, I got 3) and later told me that he knew where I lived and particularly admired my new shed. He'd stood on the bridge and looked down upon it many, many times......

Anyway the main thing is he's fine (my son, not the shed-loving-porter) now (we still aren't quite sure what it was but they have thankfully ruled out some rare auto-immune stuff and a lung x-ray showed he may have a lung infection and new antibiotics co-incided with him getting better) but seriously - you couldn't make this crap up.

I mean is that REALLY how I needed to end this dreaded of years!?

No.

And then I was released back into society (what is that blue expanse above me? The sky! THE SKY! What are those fast moving shiny metal things? CARS! What is this I see before me? A cup of decent tea!!) and managed about 4 normal days before the school told me to come and get my older son as he'd sort of fallen to the ground sobbing and was rather hot.

Yipeee! What now? Rabies? Ebola?

No - just a nice dramatic ear infection and yet another perforated ear drum later he's much better. But not without a 2am nose bleed which I stupidly dealt with by taking him into my own bed to calm him down. This meant that about 10 minutes later when his body decided he wasn't a vampire and it would therefore vomit up the vast amount of blood he's swallowed - he did it all over my bed.

Now I'm all for a bit of excitement in the bedroom and I'm open to new ideas but, erm, having blood spewed over me like something from The Exorcist by a small howling child? Errr no.

So that's where I've been. In yet another form of hell.....

Hopefully normal service will now resume but I can in no way guarantee anything!

Happy Christmas to you all and thanks for sticking by me through this most testing of years.

It nothing else, at least my life's not dull.

Running Just as Fast as We Can

2010-12-02T13:06:00.004Z

With all the 'hoo har' going on in the rest of my life, several people have enquired, rather nervously, about whether or not I'm still training for the 'big race' next year.

The answer is - yes of course I am! (I did tell one person that I wasn't just doing it, I was damn well winning it, but I was fuelled by 5 pints of Strongbow at the time, which says just about everything about my chances of that happening).

The truth is, I have (brace yourselves) - fallen. in. love. with. the. gym.

Gulp.

Now it's important to point out here that this is NOT a shiny edifice of a gym where toned hotties flex their oiled muscles amidst smoked glass and chrome.

For a start I'm in there.

No - this is the council gym and it's very well equipped and it really is open to everybody - a lot of clients get their memberships on 'prescription' from the GP - so the clientele are a mixed bag.

Notable examples include:

- the very elderly man who moves very slowly on the treadmill, except for when a Katy Perry video comes on MTV. At this point he gets off the treadmill, moves quite rapidly so he's standing about 4 inches from the screen, and remains there for the duration. I'm not sure the GP quite intended this sort of exercise but it clearly does get his old ticker racing.

- the very beautiful, very smartly dressed lady who only ever does one thing. Get on the treadmill, set it to maximum incline (which is so steep she has to hang on to the bar at the front, lest she should drop off) and take very tiny, very dainty steps for a solid hour. She then gets off, not even a hair out of place, and leaves. For some reason this un-nerves me. I think she might be a vampire.

- the bunch of wannabee-muscle-men who hang round the weights machines, mostly talking and swigging out of their drinks bottles in a 'manly' fashion. Every now and then they all start trying to use the machines but don't actually use them properly. 3 of them watch while one of them grunts and hauls himself up and down a few times, not actually using the weights, and then they go back to talking and swigging. I don't know why they bother. They could do the same thing down the pub and just use the Darts Board and/or toilet door for pull ups.

- the lady next to me on the Cross Trainer who kept emitting a noise not unlike a small dog yapping. I had my headphones in and couldn't work out what this weird squeak was so I took them out. It was her. Every time she put in a little bit too much effort a strange kind of 'yap' would escape her throat. I found this very un-nerving. Not least because whilst at university I had the misfortune of living with a very promiscuous housemate who used to make the same noise during 'intimate relations'. As she really was VERY promiscuous this was a) haunting and b) embarrassing. People's mums would pop round for a cup of tea and you'd see them pause, mid-way through putting a custard cream in their mouth, tilt their ear towards the ceiling and try to locate the source of the 'yip yip yip YIP YIP' resonating round the house. You could pass it off as the neighbour's dog, as long as her bed didn't start banging against the radiator. Then the plumbing of the whole house used to start ringing.

- the slightly psychotic looking woman in the non-sporting floral socks and holy leggings, who swigs her water out of a Mr Tickle water bottle (when she can't find her 'proper' one - which is often) and has given up on the arm strap for her iPOD - on the grounds it slips and chafes - and instead fits it nice and firmly down her cleavage. No slipping! No chaffing! Several sideways glances when she has to change a track or adjust the volume mid-run on the treadmill and some possible water damage from excess perspiration (the volume keeps shooting up mid track - even when it's supposedly locked) but still, a near perfect solution.

Yeah - obviously the last ones me.

Keep on running people......

My Socks is on Fire

2010-11-25T19:43:00.004Z

I have previously likened sleeping at my mum's house to the Japanese game show 'Endurance' (the modern equivalent of which is, I suppose, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here).

I stand by that claim.

Some of you will probably struggle with this concept so let me go back to basics here and run you through my morning:

1am - still trying to sleep but my mum is still up watching god knows what downstairs and the sub-bass is making the bedroom floor shake ('if your chest ain't rattling, then the bass ain't happening) so I give up and move into the double bed in the other room with my Original Son.

2 am - maybe get to sleep.

4am - so sick of Original Son thrashing around like a conger eel I get up believing and hoping it might be morning. It's 4am. Hmmm.

5am - have got back to sleep but now re awoken by a blinding light and inhuman noise.

It is of course my younger child (a.k.a The Beast).

The Beast is standing at the end of my bed, sweeping it's range with a torch (not just any torch but a proper farmer's flashlight with something like 10 million 'candlepower' - basically enough to blind a fox or scorch a child's eyes from its head), emitting a noise like an air-raid siren and screeching 'wooooo woooo I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost'.

Now there are, possibly, a couple of people on the entire planet who I wouldn't object to standing at the end of my bed at 5am, holding a flashlight and emitting a piercing a wail, but let me just clarify right now - he is NOT one of them.

A kind of hushed tussle ensues with me trying to shout at him in an authoritarian manner - but only in a whisper so we don't disturb his poor exhausted brother.

My whispered attempts fail. Brother arises. A full battle ensues involving a miniature toaster which originated in a second-hand dolls house which I played with during my childhood. Apparently very very tiny toast is 'the' thing to have these days amongst young chaps.

An hour later I give up lying in the middle of a ruck and pretending I am 'somehow' acheiving rest and drag the pair of them downstairs.

It is still pitch black and it's freezing, freezing cold.

I'm wearing a pair of pyjamas two sizes too big which don't stay up and don't' stay done up.

I get to the base of the stairs and flick the lights on.

The lights fuse.

So I'm still standing in the dark with my trousers round my calves and my knockers hanging out and by this point everyone, bar me, is shouting orders.

I only have two children but all at once, apparently, I need to:

- turn the lights on.
- get the TV on.
- make sure they don't miss Octonauts (which isn't even on for HOURS - it's 6am for god's sake).
- get them drinks
- get them some food because they are so hungry they are DYING.
- get rid of the dogs.
- open the curtains.
- find the golf balls my mum STUPIDLY gave them to play with the night before (and I have hidden).
- fit the wheels back on a car which has been stamped on.
- carry them into the kitchen.

ALL AT ONCE.

- and make porridge.

At the same time the dogs are barking to get let out and all I can smell is the hideous assault of 'ancient dying dog urine'.

This means that, somewhere, in the dark, there lies a pool of dark fetid dog piss. And I need to get the dogs out now but I can't see where it is and I can't flaming breath due to the acrid, bile churning, stench.

And the kids howl on.

At this point I can't contain my frustration any longer and holler 'I CAN'T DO EVERYTHING AT ONCE, THESE DOGS NEED TO DIE! I CAN'T COPE ANY MORE!', pull my trouser up and tuck my knockers back behind the buttons of my 'sleep jacket'.

This is not, I repeat NOT, a good example to set your children but, as I often hear myself singing these days, 'I am not a robot'.

What I really really hope is that my mum will get up and help but she's still sparko after 3 bottles of Blossom Hill and sitting up til 2am with Snoop Dog, P-Diddy and Gay Rabbit Chat.

Sigh.

Some time later (I've 'lost' the next 10 minutes - and I don't want to find it) I try to help my children get dressed. Small (well quite big) problem - one of The Beast's socks is missing. I only bring one pair of socks with me when we go to my mums (basically there are more important things in life than having a spare pair of socks - well so I thought) so a missing sock is not good.

Especially when it's snowing.

I eventually locate the lost sock.

It's floating - like a corpse - in last night's bath.

Last night's bath is 'still in' because the chain has snapped off the plug and thus no one can drain it.

So I have a very wet sock and a child with one cold bare foot throwing a fit.

Well what would you do?

I fried it.

Let me explain.

My mum has an Aga stove thing and she often puts clothes on top of it to warm up/get totally dry.

Ah ha! I thought. What I need to do is that but only TO THE MAX. So I'll lift up the hatch thing and put it on the hot plate. That way it will get really dry really quick!

Errr, yes it will. And then it will go brown, combust and start to burn.

As The Beast himself said 'Mummy, mummy, my socks is on fire!'.

At this point (of course) my mum appeared.

'Darling, what ARE you frying' (she says peering at the hotplate but seeing nothing but smoke and a vague outline of an Argyle pattern).

'A sock mum. Could I have a cup of tea and could you get the dogs humanely euthanised?'.

And then the sun (finally) came up.

And my day began.

I've said it once. I've said it twice. And I will keep on saying it. If I didn't laugh I'd spend my whole life crying!

Tea Towels, Tea Urns and Twitching

2010-11-16T19:04:00.004Z

So, amidst all the heartache, soul searching and general chaos, my balls came back out.

As we have quite a few new followers to this blog (hello and welcome people, sign up and enjoy the ride. I can assure you, it will never be dull) I probably need to explain what my balls actually are.

Well, they are predominately blue, although one is pink, and they average around 65cm in diameter, although one currently has a puncture so is somewhat smaller. They make driving quite difficult as they tend to bang against my gear stick at inopportune moments and they have a habit of being rather wayward. The most prime example of which was when one was actually liberated by a young 'fan' and tossed into the middle of an electricity sub-station.

I take my balls to halls around the country and get people to bounce on them, lie across them or do whatever they fancy with them - often in a dimly lit room whilst being massaged by a partner.

No - I'm not a sex therapist (although who knows, it could provide a promising second income and I've done weirder sh1t) - I'm an antenatal teacher and bouncing around on giant balls is really great at helping babies get into the best position to be born and can also be jolly handy at getting women in really good positions to cope with contractions and get the baby out during labour.

Failing that - you can stick a few out in the garden once the baby reaches 'toddler-hood' and voila - hours of free childcare whilst they body-surf from ball to ball. Obviously this come with a reasonably high risk of injury but personally I've found the benefits far out-weigh the risks.

Anyway - my balls were back out for the first time in a while and I was entering a new and previously uncharted sphere (no pun intended) - that of the 'well kept village hall'.

My word.

The politics!!

The rules!!

The red tape!!

It was as if I had been given begruded permission to enter a Pharaoh's tomb - only with more tea towels and unruly tea urns.

Having been briefed (at length - great, great length) by the 'key holder' on everything from the fuse in the stair lift (hopefully not needed but you never quite know!) to 'Colin with the Hat - you must know him? Always wears a hat?' (errr no, I don't, is he actually a celebrity? Or only if you live within 3 streets of the village hall?), I was finally left alone in the building to prepare my equipment and pump up my balls. But not without a warning.

A warning about the 'Line Dancers'.

Apparently they would be 'coming through my group to use the kitchen' and I'd know because they would 'sort of stomp'.

Sure enough, whilst holding aloft of an A1 laminated poster of a woman's 'mons pubis' complete with cervix and rotating baby, three elderly women stomped on through muttering something about incorrect tea towel folding.

And then, a few minutes later, whilst examining cervical dilation, they stomped on back, each carrying a steaming glass of a hot yellow liquid which was either a hot toddy or their own urine.

The group looked bemused.

I was bemused.

We were all mutually bemused because the lot of them could barely stand erect, let alone do a few speedy turns to 'Achy Break Heart'.

There was only one thing that could be done. I needed to follow them. And so, during the coffee break, I traced them to the 'Reading Rooms' where they undertook their sinister arts.

Sure enough - they were having a stomp.

I can't call it Line Dancing.

The music was a sort of dirge played on the accordion and they weren't' really dancing - more having a bit of a twitch.

And what was even more thrilling - there was a raffle.

The prizes were lined up on a table at the head of the room and the tickets lay somewhat forlornly at the base of a wicker basket. All 5 of them.

And top prize in the raffle - a 6 pack of Orange Club biscuits.

Can I just say here and now - however bad my life gets, if I ever reach the point where a 'grand night out' constitutes some mild twitching with a man who can barely stand up, topped off with the lure of winning an orange laced biscuit - you have permission to shoot me.

OK?

I'll leave the bit about the gas leak, the alarm and the left behind birthday cake that wasn't really left behind until next time...

Erections

2010-11-14T20:45:00.004Z

Firstly can I just say a hand on heart thank you for all the messages of support after my rather surprising last blog post. It honestly really does make a huge difference, so thank you. Watch this space and come what may I'll promise to still try and entertain you - because if my life is one thing it is certainly never dull. Or even slightly ordinary.

Anyway - considering my current bed-state (i.e. sleeping with nothing but a rather threadbare stuffed Ted and long may it remain that way. Ahhh the bliss of lying diagonally across an entire double bed. Some people have to go to sleep on a mat on the floor, amidst a pile of blankets. Rather like a dog. But you make your bed and ye shall lie in it. Amen), I was rather surprised to open my eyes last week and be greeted by the sight of an erection.

And not just any erection.

A MIGHTY erection.

And not just any mighty erection, but a mighty erection with a blue band round the middle and a red end.

Crikey.

The erection was actually made entirely of Lego and had been hand crafted by my children (at something like 5am - but I'll forgive for that - this once) and as they gingerly held it aloft my Original Son informed me that it was 'The Tower of Love' and that they'd made it for me.

The Tower of Love (a rather fragile structure if ever I saw one) now stands beside my bed and serves as a reminder of the fact that however fragile love is, the love of your children is ever present and although being a parent is the hardest, most exhausting, most all consuming job you will ever do it is also the greatest privilege you will ever have. And to forget that or take it for granted would be the a very great mistake indeed.

So thank you to my children - for taking me to places I never dreamed or feared of going and carrying me on through it all, regardless, and out the other side. I could and would have never done it all without you and whatever I have lost for you, you have given me far, far more.

Now if you could just stay nice and asleep until the clock reads something more akin to 7 then I'd be just that'll tiny bit extra happy and less prone to shrieking, feeding you nothing but fishfingers and going out with odd shoes on.

Deal?

And then I Opened the Box and the Bomb Went Off

2010-11-09T14:16:00.003Z

Right well as (approximately) half the nation is waiting with baited breath to find out what happened when I went to my MIL's house a few weeks back, I'd better stop rolling round on the carpet in a deranged state and get on with it.

Please don't fret - I did make it back. If I hadn't I'd probably be a dessicated husk by now, caught between a psychotic looking china rabbit playing a banjo and a drummer boy with more than a passing resemblance to Chucky.

However, for reasons too personal to go into (even I have to draw a line somewhere, wee, poo, insanity and piles are OK, this is a step too far) I came home alone (well I kept the kids, obviously, one more day in the Biome and they'd have needed rehydration therapy).

So Husband-With-A-Sad-Face is no longer actually Husband-with-A-Sad-Face. I'm not actually sure what category his face falls into now (other than 'under the heel of my shoe' - joke - he's a fan of this blog so I'd better now be too harsh now had I?) but whatever his face does, he's no longer actually my husband. Well he is on paper until the divorce comes through but we are now 'separated'. Like eggs. I'm not sure who is the yolk and who is the white but one part always gets left in the fridge and then binned so hopefully that's not me.

Woooooo.

I told you the bomb went off didn't I?

There will be people all over the nation (and possibly overseas, and who knows, maybe on a space station somewhere) falling off their chairs right now and having to re-read that bit but yup - that's what happened next.

So in the last 3 years I've:

- given birth
- been extremely very critically ill.
- gone nuts.
- spend 2 months living in a psychiatric unit.
- cared for 2 small children.
- gained useful employment.
- relocated to the other side of the country.
- gone through major building works with both kids in the midst of it.
- watched my dad die of a brain tumour.
- tried to hold my mum together as she falls apart, again and again..
and now for (hopefully) the big FINALE!!!!

MY HUSBAND'S LEFT ME!!

Well he's not actually 'left' me - legally this is his home too so he's living in the loft.

And actually, yes, I am still laughing. You can't go through all that and survive vaguely mentally intact without being able to put a bit of a spin on things and trying (really trying) to see some kind of glimmer of hilarity in them all.

So there we are - now you know.

On the plus side, it got me out of staying longer at my MIL's house.........

And even better - I got my balls back out last week and it felt SOOOOOO good. More on that later (it was, of course, eventful. Airing my balls in never a smooth passage of 'pump, bounce and go' - this time it included elderly line dancers, a large ginger Tom and a gas leak).

Now a couple of questions:

1. How much for the film rights? I'm happy to play myself. My whole existence frequently feels like I'm walking through the part of someone in a bad soap opera anyway, so I'm more than qualified.

2. Can you get stretchmark removal on the NHS?

Central Heating will Kill You and Herald the Arrival of Aliens...

2010-10-21T19:49:00.002+01:00

...and other such far fetched ideas.

Or at least that's the case if you're a dyed in the wool old West Country Boy (or girl).

Many a time during my youth did I overhear conversations along the lines of:

'Old Bob's gone on' (gone on means died, just in case you're mistaken and think he's 'gone on the bus' or something equally less terminal).

'Oooooooooooo (deep intake of breath). Well you know what that's down to then, don't you?'.

(The obvious answer would be that Bob was 106 and his time was up but no....)

'Yup'

'Yup, he'd had the Central Heating put in' (you'd think by the way they said Central Heating it akin to Crack Cocaine)

'Yup, said it would be the end of him and it was'.

'Yup. And 'is brother's Aunt's dog's gone on too. That there Central Heating stopped it's heart - the shock - dropped down it did'.

Going by what the old timers believe, the Winter Fuel Allowance is in reality a form of Genocide for the over 60's.

And it's not just death and canine destruction that Central Heating allegedly causes. I have also heard it held responsible for:

- all skin complaints that have ever existed.
- all breathing problems that have ever existed.
- all joint problems that have ever existed.
- all hair loss problems that have ever existed.
- lax morals.
- compulsive gambling (as in 'they got that there Central Heating and that t'internet and the next thing she's on that Foxy Bingo 24/7. Gambled the house. Central Heating and all....).
and...
- infidelity ('well what do you expect? They got that Central Heating put in and before you know it she's walking the floors in her smalls and having men in')

Oddly the one thing I've never heard it held responsible for is Global Warming.

Hmm.

Anyway, I'm staying at my mum's and it's cold. Very cold. She does have Central Heating but to turn it on you need to have started to show secondary symptoms of Frostbite. However she has lit the fire which is marvelous - as long as your sat by it and don't need to move anywhere. Ever.

However, I am attempting to embrace this sensation because come Saturday I'm off to my Mother in Law's house. Yup - the one who lives in Lincolnshire's equivalent of a Tropical Biome and collects figurines so horrific they should come with a blindfold....

http://slightlysouthofsanity.blogspot.com/2010/04/heat-is-on.html

Don't worry - I'll blog about it once I get back and have managed to re-hydrate and restore my lax morals.

Every Little Heartbeat

2010-10-17T07:49:00.004+01:00

So me and mum were sat in her front room trying to watch some kind of a crime detective programme on the BBC.

I say trying because it's hard to concetrate. As well as the moving pictures and the characters speaking, there is also the somewhat alarming presence of a well spoken lady speaking very very quickly over the top of the programme, describing EXACTLY what is happening.

'Geoff walks down a path in terraced street. He enters a red door. The wall paper is flocked and stripped. A gas fire is lit. A woman in a flannelette nightdress is seated. The woman appears pensive. Geoff rolls his eyes. A cigarette burns in an ashtray'.

For a split second a feeling of unease chills me.

Am I hearing voices in my head?

Is this what it has come to?

And if so, am I not supposed to hear someone telling me that I AM the Virgin Mary or perhaps the Second Coming (or at the very least that my soul will find redemption if go outside with no clothes on bar a pair of Argyle socks).

I never thought true aural psychosis would involve a man called Geoff and a woman in a flannelette nightie.

Hmm.

But then it clicks. It's not in my head. My mum's got the 'extra visual description' function turned on the TV. You know, the facility for blind people so they can actually follow what's happening between the dialogue.

'Mum?'.

'Yes Darling!'.

'Why have you got that mad commentary thing on the tele?'.

'Oh I know darling, it's the new thing it seems. All the programmes seem to have it these days. I'm surprised someone hasn't written into Points of View about it!'.

'Does Points of View still exist?'.

'I don't know actually, but it's very odd isn't it?'.

'Mum. It's for blind people'.

'What, Points of View?'.

'No. That crazy woman talking. It's a special thing to use if you can't see the pictures. Last time I looked you weren't blind and I don't think you've had THAT much white wine'.

'Oh (stunned). I just thought it was the trend'.

'Did you not ever stop to wonder why EVERY programme had the same woman talking, manically, over the dialogue?'.

'Erm, no'.

'Right well I'll turn it off. It's an option. Not compulsory'

(A brief tussle with the remote control later I have failed to turn it off. What I have acheived are sub-titles. So now we have moving pictures, dialogue, woman frantically describing wallpaper and facial expressions AND the written word).

We fall into a defeated silence, our senses overloaded.

Sometime later, my mum speaks.

'Would you look at that. My wine is moving to the rhythmn of my heartbeat'.

'You what!?'.

'The surface of my wine. When my heart beats. It moves. How extraordinary'.

'Erm, mum. Is your heart beating really hard or something? The wine is on the table. You are in your chair. How on earth could your heart be making the floor vibrate?'.

'I don't know. It's like we're connected'.

'Riiighhhht'.

(She watches the wine shimmer for a few more minutes).

'Oh actually, no. It's not my hearbeat. Its the dishwasher'.

'Mum, those plants by the front gate, are they still intact?'

And they think I'm the mad one.......

Da Weed

2010-10-08T14:27:00.004+01:00

Me: (Trying to get out of front gate and into my car) Mum?

Mum: (Emerging from home in her dressing gown) Yes darling?

Me: You appear to be growing cannabis? Around the front gate.

Mum: Oh, that'll be the birds.

Me: What the birds have started up their very own skunk factory? I never knew they had it in them.

Mum: No, it'll be from their seed. I put their seeds on the gate and they get knocked off and grow. We get all sorts!

Me: You feed the birds dope?

Mum: No but I expect it's in the mix.

Me: (thinking it's too early in the day for this kind of conversation) Commercial bird seed contains cannabis?

(I can see The Sun headline now 'Blue Tits Off Their Tits on Seedy Seed').

Mum: Well maybe. It was from Asda. Or it maybe blew in from somewhere?

Me: (glancing round at the surrounding vista of desolate, cannabis free, fields) Riiiiiiiggggghhhht. All the same, is it wise to leave it growing by the gate hear. I mean a lot of people come through here. The postie, the man who brings the oil, the, erm, vicar......

Mum: I'll get my glasses.....

Mum (again - this time sounding slightly thrilled): Ohhhhhh, you know what, it IS cannabis isn't it!

This was on Monday.

It's still there, reaching for the sky amidst the Autumn sunshine and showers.

Quite a harvest.

I'm keeping out of this but if you see a gentle looking lady in Breton stripes and M&S jeans on the local news for running a miniature cannabis farm, you know the situation has deteriorated.

Friction Burns

2010-09-26T21:53:00.007+01:00

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.

We are the Champions...

2010-09-15T22:28:00.004+01:00

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.

Pussy Problems

2010-09-15T14:25:00.005+01:00

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.

Back to School...

2010-09-07T19:50:00.004+01:00

...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.......

End Credits

2010-08-23T21:05:00.003+01:00

Well lets keep this simple.

My dad has died.

I could write a book on the whole thing (the before, the during, the after so far) but then I could write a book on a lot of things. None of them particularly joyous events but yet gripping, entertaining and, at times, funny in that kind of hysterically dark 'if we didn't laugh we'd cry' way.

Anyway, if you follow this blog you could probably have guessed he had died, thus my absense. Let's face it - I wasn't likely to be away on a cruise round the Caribbean was I? (On any level). Or camping in a field somewhere. Or, erm, just having fun? Nooooooo.

That just wouldn't be the way it would run.

Anyway, I'm back, you can't get rid of me. Life so far has tried to sink me in a multitude of forms, but yet, it hasn't yet pushed me to the depths from which I can not rise back up and wrestle it to the ground. Like a giant squid. Or Jaws (before he bit into an underground electric gable and died with smoke pouring from his fibreglass eyes).

Anyway he died last week, the funeral is Friday. I've been to Matalan and bought my frock. I tried to go to John Lewis but, on leaving the M5, got caught up in a series of mini-roundabouts, signs asking me to decide between 'The Mall, The Venue, The Retail Park and The Super-Retail Park' and, to cut a long, traumatic and expletive strewn story short, ended back on the motorway going in the wrong direction. At that point I gave up and decided I'd been out of the Big Smoke long enough to truly start to sweat once I pass Weston-Super-Mare.

How do you fill a hole this big? Well you can't. For the moment the panther that is this grief walks beside me. I know that he is there and sometimes we fix eachother with our stares, but for now I walk with his stride. I do not let him overtake me so that he can turn back and stop me in my tracks. I do not let him fall behind so that he can push me to the ground. I match his stride, I listen to his breath and I wonder. About it all. But I do not let him take me. Yet.

So many of our memories of my dad are now taken up with the last few months. And these are not what he was. So the most important thing that people can do for the moment is help us all remember who he REALLY was. The real man.

The vicar is trying to put together 'some words' to summarise my dad on Friday.

How long has she got?

My mum wondered if she'd like to tell the story about the 'left-behind darning needle' and his left testicle but we decided that was, perhaps, a bit too much for the vicar, however 'Vicar of Dibley-Stylee' she may be.

If you think my life is random, if you think I can tell a good story......Well you never met my dad. He always wanted to write a book but he never got there. He never even got to retirement age.

Today, during a rather dark afternoon, I got an email from his old work colleagues, passing on some stories for the vicar to retell. This one just about sums him up. As I said, the apple doesn't fall from the tree...........

Dad (or Doug as he is in this), this one's for you:

Doug had gone to New Zealand via the USA in Boston and Russ met him in Auckland.

He was exhausted and really grumpy as his luggage had not turned up and all he was left with was the clothes he was standing in.

They had to fly down to Christchurch for a meeting so couldn’t wait around and Russ told him that the luggage would have to catch him up.

In Christchurch they found a large man's shop (Doug was 6' 7" and over 25 stone) and got him ashirt and trousers but the boxer shorts were way too small so Russ told him he would need to wash the pair he was wearing every night and they should dry ok as it was summer.

He went to Doug’s room the following morning and as the door opened he could hear whoosh.....whoosh ..........whoosh. What on earth?

Well Doug had attached his damp boxers to the overhead cooling propeller type fan and put the thing on full speed!!!!. There were his pants, rotating round the hotel room ceiling at top speed whilst Doug checked his emails on the laptop. Russ collapsed in laugher whilst only being able to have visions of a large schooner in full sail. Doug however carried on as if this were perfectly normal behaviour for a man on the road who had to be adaptable.

Nuff said.

Heirlooms

2010-08-08T19:35:00.003+01:00

Kids are great. Even though they wreck your figure, sanity, bank balance, house, car (did I tell you the toddler ran down the side of mine with a rock in his hand gouging out a deep scratch from bonnet to boot? People keeps saying 'oh my god, someone's keyed your car!' and I have to tell them it was my child.... and that was before he threw up half a field of pick-your-own strawberries all over the back seats), love life and ability to look 'together' (not that I have ever managed to channel that look) they do manage to keep you grounded and make you laugh, even when the rest of your life is a bucket of poo (and yeah, they like poo too).

Take my eldest son last night whilst playing with Winky.

Now before I go on I need to explain that Winky is in fact an 8 foot long stuffed rattlesnake with a bell in his tail who came from Ikea back in the days when me and my OH were still 'young lovers' and thought a large fake snake with a bell-end was the kind of 'funky interior design' that would look good in our first flat (along with a lava lamp, fibre-optic 'UFO' light and large plastic cactus that acted as a lamp. I actually sold the cactus at a car boot sale to a woman who collects them and 'plants' them in her garden. She claimed that people walking past 'stop and stare'. I'll bet they bloody do love.).

Many many times I have gone to chuck Winky out only to stop and realise that he held (note the past tense used there) a soft spot in my heart - and then the kids got old enough to play with him so he's staying. Forever it appears.

He didn't used to have a name and it was the kids who named him Winky We won't dwell on that one other that to say, boys will be boys....

Anyway they have a favourite game with Winky which is called 'poisoning mummy'. The rules are thus:

Mummy has to remain on the bed and they attack her with Winky. If either his tongue or 'rattle' touches her she is poisoned and dies horribly (with sound effects) unless she reaches the 'antidote' and rubs it on the poisoned bit. The antidote is a stuffed guinea pig (also from Ikea - not actually a real stuffed deceased pet - that would, erm, a step too far. Even for me. You can probably get arrested for rolling around on the bed whilst rubbing your body with deceased pets, and if not, you should be). They try and keep the guinea pig from me at all costs.

This game always ends with everybody totally and utterly hysterical (including me) and someone always hits their head or falls off the bed (or both) and thus I requested that they could, perhaps, poison Daddy instead. No, I was told. They only enjoy poisoning Mummy.

Hmmm, this is not what I imagined that long-ago day when I stared down at those thin blue lines on the pregnancy test, but then again I didn't imagine much else of what happened next either. Which is probably for the best.

Anyway, Winky is very much loved (by them, not me, I actually find him slightly sinister these days and make sure I never voluntarily touch his 'poisoned' areas, just in case, you know, there is some truth in their claims, call me paranoid and all that but the way my luck runs, you never can be too careful) and then last night my eldest said:

'I wish I could keep Winky longer'.

Of course you can we said, why couldn't you keep him?

'What you mean I can keep him until I'm a TEENAGER!'.

Yes, of course you can.

'WHAT! I can keep him forever!'.

Yes, he's yours!

'YES! I can keep Winky until I DIE and then I can leave him to somebody else......'.

Erm, right yes, that would be lovely.

So there we are. We now have a family heirloom. I expect him to appear on the Antiques Roadshow 200 years from now, together with a print out of this blog post to prove his provenance.

Priceless, that's what Winky is. Just make sure you don't touch his bell-end. Well not unless you've got a stuffed guinea-pig to hand.....

Egg on Your Face (and everywhere else)

2010-07-30T09:24:00.003+01:00

I had kind of hoped that after the last few years I had already reached the summit of public humiliation.

But no.

As I never actually get a proper holiday (as in one where you are relieved of some of your daily duties) I have a holiday project in progress whereby my children eat out as much as possible thus minimising the need for me to undertake such hideous chores as handling peanut butter and picking rice out from the cracks in the floorboards. For reasons of budget this means basically conducting a tour of supermarket cafes.

On Tuesday this project enabled me to reach new heights of shame when my youngest decided it appropriate behaviour to launch an egg mayonnaise sandwich over the railing in Sainsbury's Cafe.

This situation was made infinitely worse because of the fact that Sainsbury's Cafe is situated on a mezzanine floor, with lofty views across the shop floor, and the eggy-delight sailed onward and downward and into the newspaper stand.

A couple of slightly bemused gentlemen looked upwards but bearing in mind this Sainsbury's is nationally notorious for having had a robin living INSIDE the store (there were even Facebook campaigns dedicated to saving its life) they probably just presumed it was bird sh1t.

A woman behind me said 'ohhh you should slap him' but considering the fact that she had previously been wittering on about how the air ambulance was bringing 'outsiders' in to steal 'locals' hospital beds, I just scowled at her. She was actually outraged that she'd seen an air ambulance landing with 'Dorset' written on it. I mean the HORROR - people that might have been injured/fallen ill in a different county might CROSS THE BORDER and make use of a nationally funded major trauma centre...... That and the small issue that the air ambulance is actually called 'The Somerset and Dorset Air Ambulance' and is funded by charitable contributions from both counties....... Hopefully she'll fall sick in Devon and they'll turn her away for not looking local enough.

Anyway from now on I think I'll avoid egg mayo. This isn't my first run in with it.

Back in the days when I was pregnant and commuting daily on the Tube, I reached the end of a long working day and was rushing for the train when I realised if I didn't eat NOW I would either be sick or collapse (or both), so I ran into the cafe and grabbed the only sandwich they had left - egg mayo. I then jumped on the Tube train and realised that egg mayo wasn't the most appropriate thing to consume on packed public transport - but yet if I didn't eat I'd vomit..... So I kept the sandwich inside my handbag, snuck of the wrapping off, dipped my head into the handbag and took a surreptitious mouthful.

A large dollop of egg mayo promptly shot out the end of the sandwich and onto the suited leg of the business man rammed up against me.

Oh. Help.

This was almost as embarrassing as the time I opened a bottle of 'shaken up Coke' on the Tube just after September 11th and the soft popping noise followed by violent hissing caused people to fall to the floor and scream.

Anyway, the man looked down at his newly soiled leg and recoiled in horror.

I stayed very still, daring not to even swallow the evidence.

The man started to look, searchingly, at his fellow commuters.

My heart began to thud and I quickly formulated a plan that, if caught I'd inform him I was diabetic and it was a case of 'egg mayo or fall into a coma' (not that egg mayo is a particularly likely choice for a diabetic in trouble but hey ho, I hoped he wasn't a doctor).

He began to search more and more, all the time looking more and more furious (and who could blame him).

I bailed ou at the next station and stood, panting, on the platform swearing that I would never again get involved with egg mayo in a public place.

Clearly I should have taken my own advice....

Irritations

2010-07-22T22:48:00.005+01:00

Well here I am on 'Hospice Watch' and if I don't talk to you lot, I've got to talk to my mum and as she is currently talking to a mosquito, it has to be you lot.

Seriously. I've just heard her say 'you're right in my ear, you bugger, you are humming in my ear, sorry, but I'm going to have to squash you, now where have you gone now? Ahhh yes.....'

So either it's a mosquito troubling her or she's taken up 'Polite Dominatrix Phone Line Sex Chat' - and I know which is most likely. And it's not the one that pays.

Actually, I'll pause now whilst I hear her shout 'BUT YOU'RE LOCAL!'.

No, it's defiantly a mosquito, the paper just came down, hard and fast. And the phone's still on the hook......

Anyway here we go folks - HAPPY HOLIDAYS! My kids broke up today and we now have 6+ week of sheer unadulterated fun FUN FUN!!

My oath not to shout and to enjoy every tiny moment of these precious days (which I do truly appreciate in case you have no sense of humour and think I don't actually realise the magic of these days) lasted until about 3.25pm (10 minutes after school was out) when I was heard to bellow 'what did I just say about not making big noises!? SHUT UP' down the corridor of the hospice - approximately 10 times louder than either of my children.

Anyway - this holidays - family tragedy and other such crap aside - if the strain of the kids doesn't get me, the poo talk will.

OH.MY.GOD.THE.POO.TALK.

Let me just say NOW you can not comprehend the depth and breadth of poo talk unless you have ever held custody of a 5 year old boy child. Or possibly a girl (depending on whether they are into Hannah Montana or poo - I'll pause on making a judgement there.....).

If you don't 'get' just how all encompassing and random and just NUTS poo-talk is here is today's bath time, the songs mentioned are actually hymns. Hymns with bespoke lyrics:

Son 1 (singing in a lovely fashion): He's got the whole world in his hands, he's got the whole wide world in his hands, he's got the plants and the poo poos in his hands, he's got the whole poo poo in his hands.

Son 2: HA HA HA HA HA.

Me: Deep exhale, what did I say about poo poo talk in front of grown ups?

Son 1: Carpenter carpenter make me a wee, that's the work or some poo poo far greater than me. Somebody greater than you and me, put the poo pants in the apple tree,the flowers in the earth and the poo in the sea, they're by somebody far greater than you or me.

Me: ENOUGH!

Son 2: COCK A DOODLE POOO!!!!

Son 1: I can't stand the rain on my poo poo pain.

Me: And breath.

Son 1: We are climbing Jesus' ladder ladder, we are climbing Jesus bladder bladder, poo poo of the LORD.

Son 2: Who is the Lord?

Son 1: What?

Me: Who IS the Lord? In your song?

Son 2: LADY GA GA.

Me: Or dear LORD ABOVE, not this again.....

Son 1: Lady Ga Ga is ........................................... boobies.

Me: BATHTIME. NOW.

(10 minutes later as I try to extricate children from bath, by this time one glass of wine and 1 pint of cider later, under the distinct impression that parents get is wrong-diddly-wrong when they crack open the booze after bedtime - DO IT BEFORE - it's the secret to being able to get excited about 'The Great Big Little Red Train' for the 350th reading. NEVER will have the coupling-up of a load of logs to a wagon of old sofas sounded so utterly, endorphin fuelled, thrillingly FANTASTIC. It's like being back on that podium punching the air and thinking you can dance the world out of depression all over again - but with a little red steam train and a quaint sketch of a forest. Maybe).

Me: Right, out of the bath now (as I swing down the Thatcher's Old Rascal with the one hand not holding up a flannel, because this isn't my house and I can't find a towel).

Son 1: Mummy, if I'm going to get out the bath you need to know this very important thing.

Me: What?

Son 1: This icecream tub, with a lid (only the best bath toys for my children) contains my PRECIOUS water. NOBODY, especially not that toddler more than anything, must EVER DESTROY my precious water.

Me: Err, fine.

(Rustling of flannel and attempted drying of children ensues).

Suddenly.

Son 1: MUMMMEEEEEE, the toddler's got my precious water!!!

Son 2 (who is NOT a toddler): This is WEE WEE!!!

Son 1: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO (and thus takes precious water and runs, yes RUNS, with a rapidly draining icecream tub of water through the upstairs floor of my mum's house).

Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (and thus pursues rapidly draining ice cream tub of precious water through upstairs of mum's house).

Son 2: That water is WEE WEE.

Me (under my breath): Jesus.

Son 1: Jesus CHRIST. If that toddler doesn't stop ANNOYING ME, I'll send him back from where he came from.

Me: I think I need to open another bottle.

Son 1: The water, water of life, Jesus gives us the wee wee of life......

My mum: Darling, can you bring down the Wasp-Eze, I've been bitten......

Me: Where are those mediational singing bowels when you need them?

Son 1: Go down to the city into the street, tell the people of Jesus, let his poo poos meet.

Me: If you don't actually follow the instructions and inhale Wasp-Eze , deeply, what does it do......?

Interview Technique

2010-07-17T21:09:00.003+01:00

Wow - you disappear into the fug 'hideous life' for a couple of weeks and can't blog and what happens? Loads more people start following you! (Virtually - not 'actually' - well I hope not- I don't want to wake up one morning and find 149 'fans' in the street outside waiting for me to make them laugh. It would be like something from 'The Life of Brian').

Anyway - hello everyone, lovely to see you, big shout going out to the blog-following-massive and all that.

Now before I go on, a lot of people have been asking me about two things. 1. My dad and 2. The MADs Awards so here goes:

1. My dad is currently in a hospice. Things have been immensely difficult for various reasons but tonight, at least, he is safe and comfortable and in his own way, happy, and I feel 'free' enough to actually log on to the computer.

2. The MAD award's winners aren't actually announced until September at a 'live' ceremony (in Bognor, no less). Very sadly I can't go for obvious reasons which is a tad gutting but that's the way life goes. So I don't know if I won anything, and no, I still don't have any bedroom curtains, and yes, that is trying at 4.45am when the goddam sun comes over the goddam horizon. I keep toying with the idea of a flight-mask but realise I'll probably wake up, think I've gone blind, have a panic attack and fall down the stairs (or similar), plus, I don't know if I want Husband with a Sad Face to see me like that. We'll skip all the other ways he's seen me, and just focus on the flight mask being 'not my look'. Anyway - thank you for all your support. Who knows - it was certainly worth a shot.

Anyway - in amongst all the hospice visiting, raising children, looking after my mum, trying to sleep past 4am crap - I also had a job interview. Random I know. It was only for very part time, 'come and go' type work but it's a foot in a door that I feared was rapidly closing so I couldn't say no. Even if the timing was a tad poor.

It went very well. If there's one thing the past few years have taught me, it's that basically, stuff like job interviews are nothing to worry about.

I took it all in my stride, perhaps a tad too much, but hey, you need to appear relaxed and confident........

Interviewer 1: Could you summarise your life to date?

Me: Gulp (thinking to myself 'they only know what you tell them') 'well as you can see, I'm a graduate with MARVELOUS experience across SEVERAL fields..... (waffle on for 5 minutes, leaving out all references to insanity, near death, people dying, random acts of insanity, gay pets and the fact I once worked for a man who bought me silk pyjamas in a special box and a bottle of 'Allure' before telling me he'd never once looked at a pornographic image).

Interviewer 2: Have you ever worked in a role where you have needed to use the telephone?

Me: (You weren't listening to a f'cking word I said, were you? How could you do any of those jobs and NOT use a telephone? How, for example, would you 'liaise with clients across the globe' without using the telephone? Rock up on the back of a camel and ask them to just double check you had booked your boss a suite in Dubai Hilton?). Errr, yes. I have lots of experience using a telephone. And doing fancy things with it to, like putting people one hold. And, erm, stuff.

Interviewer 1: Can you tell us what you understand by the word 'teamwork'?

Me: (Yup. It means having to deal with loads of other people, most of them a drain on your resources and/or a pain in the arse when really you'd just like to get on with it. People are either total muppets and make things worse or they are great, in that they make you laugh and stop you doing any real work, either way, team work is a BAD IDEA for the company as a whole) Yes, being part of a team is crucial to getting a job done effectively. The most important element of team work is communication (yawn...drone on like a robot for 2 minutes).

Interviewer 2: Can you think of a time when you have dealt with something which hasn't gone to plan?

Me: (Let out a involuntary guffaw of laughter and then frantically scrabble through mind to try and recall something which I could dare to actually share in an interview, but all I can see is blood, mental health units, crying people, small children weeing in very inappropriate places and, erm, that German guy in the Youth Hostel frantically trying to pump up my balls. I need to search deeper. There is NOTHING since I had children which is fit for interview-consumption) Erm, yes. I was once running a training seminar (something like 10 years ago) and when we got up in the morning the venue was under several foot of water. That posed some interesting problems.

Interviewer 2: Wow, yes, I can imagine. So what did you do?

Me: (Think YEE HAA AND PRAISE THE LORD!!! I haven't got to spend an entire day making an arse of myself infront of miserable gits in tweed. I can go home early and lie about on the sofa watching This Morning and eating cake) Well I immediately put in to place an effective and comprehensive communication strategy to inform those affected.....(i..e I phoned them all up and told them not to come and then stood at the top of the motorway sliproad with a sign saying 'event cancelled').

Interviewer 1: Well thank you for your time, could you just let me have your CRB form so I can photocopy it?

Me: Yes certainly (reaching into handbag feeling rather organised for once).

Interviewer 1: (Looks down at CRB form, looks confused, looks more confused, peers closely at what should be proof that I have no history of molesting children or robbing old ladies).

Interviewer 1: Erm, sorry, this is isn't your CRB form.

Me: Oh sorry (more like oh shit!).

Interviewer 1: No. It's actually a tourist information leaflet on boat trips to go Puffin watching on Lundy Island.

Me: Ah so it is......

Interviewer 1: Have you been? To Lundy that it is?

Me: Err, no (and to tell you the truth I have no idea how it even got in my handbag).

Interviewer 2: Well it's been wonderful meeting you. If you could just fill in the Occupational Health forms and I'm sure we'll meet again.......

Me: (Only if I lie on the forms).

Well it take all sorts......and something's got to pay for those curtains.

An Adult Education

2010-06-30T20:59:00.008+01:00

I have had, through my door, a booklet outlining what Somerset has to offer in terms of Adult Education.

During darker times, this document has cheered me up no end.

There are parts which are, to be frank, bonkers.

This may sound rich coming from someone who goes around attempting to get adults wrestling with my giant balls whilst panting and connecting with their pelvic floors, but hey, that's different.....(and at least I don't get people to lie on mattresses and cry, well unless they go home to do that bit?).

Anyway, my own activities aside, I can tell I've gone West and back where I belong.

I'm used to evening classes being all 'Cooking for One', 'Double Entry Book Keeping for the New' and 'How to Spend 12 Weeks Slaving Over A Sewing Machine Only to Produce a Pair of Trouser Which Could Only Be Used for the Back End of a Panto Camel'.

That was my attempt at learning dress making but my career ended prematurely when I used a pattern for a pair of floaty wide leg summer trousers and, for my fabric, selected thick GOLD velvet. Very thick. I think it may actually have been upholstery fabric. Nope, I have no idea what I was thinking either. I should have just cut my loses, chopped off the waist band and turned them into two extra-fat draught excluders, but instead I took them home and tried them on alone before sending them to Help the Aged. I've never got over it.

Evening classes here seem a little different.

Don't get me wrong, there is still your Lace Making, Pottery and German Immersion (turns out its in the language, not amongst being dipped amongst actual German bodies) - but amid all this is an eclectic mix if ever I saw one.

Let's take a closer look......

We have 'Solar Panel DIY' (who would have thought there was such a market for fiddling with your own solar panels?), 'Bee Smart -for people with no experience with bees' (??), a 12 hour course on 'First steps with your digital camera enabling you to change the settings' (alternatively you could save yourself £60 and read the manual, but hey, that's just a suggestion) and an intriguing sounding course called 'Taming the Shrew - could this be you?' Aimed at women going through the menopause.

We also have:

Practical Animal Workshop - Dogs
'Learn how to handle, communicate and control dogs, using kind methods'.

What as opposed to a course educating you on how to control dogs using cruel and inhumane things like sticks and electric prods? It makes no mention of bringing our own dog and is held in a hall so I guess no real dogs are involved? Do you think everyone has to 'pretend' with a stuffed toy or do they use eachother? 'Please secure a lead around Cyril's neck and if he sits when asked, reward him with a chicken morsel and a tummy rub. Do NOT kick him or jerk him to strongly'. I bet they love it. Most popular course in the prospectus I would imagine.

Next to that (and if it's got you thinking) there is:

Philosophy - Part 1
'What exactly is philosophy? If it can help you think more clearly and expose, nonsense, why haven't you done it before'?

Erm, I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Interestingly there is no 'Philosophy - Part 2' listed. Perhaps once is enough for everyone? Or they just learn to think more clearly and 'expose nonsense'?

Coastal Skipper/Yachtmaster - Offshore
Experience the channel in the classroom!

Forgive me for pointing out a small problem with this but surely the classroom (in landlocked Illminster) is not 'offshore'? I've got visions of a dozen men of a certain age, wearing thick jumpers and yellow wellies whilst sitting atop a school desk and rocking it from side to side vigorously. Meanwhile someone flickers the lights on and off and plays a tape of 'waves crashing'. Ahh I can almost taste the sea......

The course includes 'navigating offshore passages'. I find this a teensy bit worrying. Do they leave the class room blind -folded and have to direct each other to the toilets and back without bumping into any tea trolleys or stacks of chairs?

Perhaps before embarking on this you would have been wise to attend:

Five Animal Frolics

You what!? WHAT!? This got me reading more. I had visions of learning to 'frolic' with 5 different types of beast. But no. Apparently 'Five Animal Frolics is an ancient Chinese Qigong Practice'.

Riiiiight. So that clears up my confusion there then.

If that confused me then I was even more befuddled by:

Singing Bowel Meditations and Applications
'Experience singing bowel sounds for emotional wellbeing'.

Even for Glastonbury this sounded a bit way out. Do people actually come together, open their mouths and make farting noises in order to restore inner peace? I needed to know more! I mean I used to go a Pilate's class where the instructor asked us to relax our anuses and once lent me a book which turned out to be highly disturbing, pornographic and badly translated from French (slightly awkward one that, she said she'd 'known it was for me the minute she saw me', before handing it over with a special smile. I never felt comfortable relaxing my anus in front of her again).

Then I realised I'd misread the title and it was actually Singing BOWL Meditations. A quick Google assures me that the bowls are Tibetan, stop 'internal dialogue' and don't make farting noises.

I still like the farting idea though. I might put a proposal forward.

I mean someone out there is getting paid to run a 6 week, 12 hour course on (brace yourself for this)

'Buying and Selling on Ebay'.

'By the end of the course you will be able to set up an account and have insight into its use'.

An INSIGHT!? After 12 hours of paid tuition I'd be wanting complete mastery with knobs on.

Well I'll be blowed.

Coming soon to a village hall near you (run by me):

'How to open a blog account and, if you're feeling brave, write some words on the Internet!'

Price includes unlimited cheap squash and custard creams, bring your own mattress for compulsory crying and perhaps a bowl to block out your inner voices. Frolicking with Chinese Animals not compulsory but who doesn't want to grapple with a Giant Panda? Menopausal women especially welcome. Offshore passages will not be navigated and kindness to dogs will be encouraged'.

It got 'sold out' written all over it.

Tread Softly Because You Tread on My New Floors (or maybe into a lake of wee)

2010-06-21T13:07:00.005+01:00

Well amidst all of 'this' (the horrors) three good(ish) things have recently occured and in order to count my blessings I shall list them here:

1. New Floor - Part I:

My floors have been sanded so the downstairs of my house now actual resembles a house and not a cowshed.

The process left me marooned upstairs, waiting for the floor-oil to dry but the phone downstairs rang and, fearing an emergency, I answered it. This caused me to stay still for too long on the newly oiled floor and the soles of my feet became somewhat adhered but, a deep breath and a painful ripping sensation later, I was free (if somewhat lame).

Although I can't deny that being glued to my own floor would have been mighty good blog-fodder I am somewhat relieved I didn't have to call 999 and inform the emergency services that I was being held by invisible forces to my hallway floor, my kids were upstairs but I was otherwise alone and, no, I couldn't open the door for the paramedics/fire brigade, they'd have to break in but, whilst doing so could they take their boots off and try to keep footfall to the minimum? I've waited a long to time to have a normal floor and I won't give it up without a fight.

2. NEW FLOOR - PART II

On the floor front I also have a new carpet in my front room. Gone is the battered pink shagpile (yum yum!) encrusted with peanut butter (and let's face it, things that would make 6 month old peanut butter actually look appetising) and in its place is something neutral, non-shaggy and peanut-butter free. And it's my ambition that it shall remain as such.

My eldest son is less convinced:

Son 1: Mummy?

Me: Yes.

Son 1: How long do we have to be nice to the new carpet for?

Me: Be nice? What you mean not cover it in foul matter and dig holes in it with those long bits of Lego?

Son 1: Yes.

Me: Oh a very long time.

Son 1: What? Like as long as the big holiday all summer! (Said in aghast horror).

Me: No (pause for effect) - FOREVER.

Son 1: WHAT!? WHAT!? Forever!?

Me: Yes. Forever.

Son 1: What until we DIE?

Me: (slightly shocked) Errr yeah - that long.

Son 1 firmly addresses his younger brother: Did you hear that toddler? We have to keep the carpet clean UNTIL WE DIE and have to go and live with Jesus (at the word Jesus he collapses into a state of 5 year old boy hilarity which is normally reserved for phrases involving poo and/or boobies).

The Todder: I. AM. NOT. A. TODDLER!

Me: That changes nothing - respect the carpet or you shall feel my wrath.

Son 1: Mummy what is your wrath?

Me: I'll show you later......

3. BYE BYE NAPPIES

The toddler (who is not a toddler) has decided to totally toilet train himself with no guidance or assistance from me whatsoever. This could possibly sound smug if it wasn't for the fact that his 5 year old brother is still a 'work in progress' when it comes to these matters and I've had 3 angst filled years which have involved everything from laxatives to Jaffa Cakes to beating him with a small stick (only joking - but there have been times when I have had small fantasies on this theme - don't judge me until you've spent many many years cleaning up poo in public places. People keep asking me if I'm going to get a dog. What? WHAT!? Just so I can pick up poo and carry it round in a small plastic bag FOREVER!? No. Thank you for thinking of me but NO).

However I think the root of the toddler's willingness is less 'desire to please' as 'desire to feel hugely powerful and shoot stuff out of my body at will - my wee is my weapon and I feel it makes me hugely powerful'.

When he wees on the toilet he wees so powerfully that is usually shoots straight over the top and hits an adjoining wall. I can cope with this but it's more awkward at other people's houses......

Then there's the outdoor weeing. He's good at keeping cats off my patio but the downside is it's less 'rose scented waft of summer', more 'men's public urinals after a good Saturday night'. I keep glancing out my window to see him jetting piss onto foxgloves/fences/my rhubarb. Every time I turn my back, down come his shorts and off he goes - giving everything a good hosing.

This has reached the point where my OH has renamed him 'The Mannequin Pis':

That is actally a scarily accurate representation of him - only he's of a lighter skin tone, sports less of a six-pack and tends to have his feet planted in a pair of Iggle Piggle socks.

Until Friday I was taking the view that 'at the end of the day he's listening to his body and not weeing in his pants - where is the problem with his outdoor weeing?'.

Then it was Friday morning and we were in the school playground.

The toddler had run off in hot pursuit of his brother and all the other children who like to pretend he's a monster and run away from him screaming (it's tough being the youngest isn't it?) when suddenly all the other children came running back with a look of sheer joy/shock/horror/amazement on their faces.

A little girl ran up to me and said 'oh my word, you little boy has just pulled down his pants and weed on the Headmaster's door!'.

And he had.

The playground emptied as children flocked to gaze upon the scene of the crime. Small boys tried to push each other into the lake of wee. Small girls shrieked and giggled. The Headmaster's door swung open. I hoiked up the toddler's pants, flashed his my best smile and quickly retreated. The toddler chuckled. He never was one for authority.

Looking on the bright side - at least it wasn't my new carpet......

Somerset Ink

2010-06-08T21:11:00.007+01:00

I'm a firm believer in laughter really being a bloody good medicine - thus this blog - and today was a case in point.

Yesterday was hideous - truly hideous - and I got up this morning (after very little sleep and waking up soaked in sweat) feeling even more hideous, utterly convinced that today would be even worse.

But then I met up with two old school friends for a cup of tea (or 15) and we laughed so long and so hard we reached a point of sort of mutual hysteria. It you could package the physical and spiritual effects of that kind of laughing into a 'therapy' and offer it, then people would queue at the doors. There really is nothing like it. As I sat there rocking with laughter with tears spilling down my cheeks I thought 'life is short and if you get the chance to laugh then you really need to grab it and go with it because you really don't know what's round the corner.

And for that reason I shall be eternally grateful for 'Bob' and his 'skills' at a tattooist.

See, the great thing about old school friends is that you get to catch up with what became of some of the people you went to school with (the ones that don't even make it onto Facebook) and boy did we go to school with some oddballs. Take for example the boy who, for no apparent reason, came to school one day naked but for a British Airways towel (on the bus no less).

Anyway, whilst catching up on what happened to one girl (lets, for reasons of anonymity and my own safety call her Jane) a rather alarming tale came to light.

Jane it appears is now married. She's married to man who I shall refer to as Bob.

Now Bob, by all accounts, is a rather odd man (who sits in a corner mumbling to himself) but one of his claims to fame was that he once worked in a Tattoo Parlour. From what follows I presume he was making the tea or sweeping up blood or something, but nonetheless, he worked there (allegedly).

Now someone (and who this person is I do not know but they are, now, clearly identifiable if going topless so you may well spot them) on the estate where Jane and Bob live heard about this and decided to kit Bob out with a full set of tattoo gear and ask him, just like that, to tattoo the image of Leonardo Di Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man' across his entire back.

As you do (if you've got the IQ of a frozen pea).

If you are unsure what the Vitruvian Man looks like (and he clearly was) then here we are:

See his proud noble head.

See his perfectly proportioned, well muscled body.

See his manly organ, the penis (because if you are drawing a man's anatomy it's kind of essential).

See his symmetrical strength and sense of power.

And then feast your eyes on this:

Sorry but WHAT. THE. F***?

See his crazed face and dodgy perm (more '14 year old boy's take on Iron Maiden Album Cover' than 'work of a genius' but hey, we all make mistakes....we just don't generally ink them onto someone's body for all eternity).

See his hands. His hands!!!! How many fingers DID the perfectly geometrical man have? As for his muscles - I think the 'artist' needed another Stella to steady himself by that stage.

See his feet! Well actually you can't miss the one of the right because it appears to extend for about a meter.

While you're looking at his feet you may also want to look at the 'colouring in'. The original piece of art did not look like it had been coloured in by a 4 year old with a brown felt tip but hey, it can be good to add your own twist to things. Then again, it can also be crap.

You may also note that his penis is missing. Interesting piece of censorship there. I guess the conversation went something like this:

Deranged victim: Oh by the way Bob, leave the cock off, I ain't have no man's dick on me back.

Bob: No worries mate (secretly thinking 'phew, one less thing to totally f*** up, I've never inked a penis before, or in fact anything but I'm gonna get away with this....), what do you want me to do in it's place?'.

Deranged victim: Dunno mate, I'll leave it up to you (probably hoping for something uniquely artistic and relevant. A metaphor for a penis if you like).

Bob: Alright mate (thinking, I'll just do some squiggles and colour him in brown, no one will notice he's missing his dick).

According to Wikipedia

This image exemplifies the blend of art and science during the Renaissance and provides the perfect example of Leonardo's keen interest in proportion

and

The drawing itself is often used as an implied symbol of the essential symmetry of the human body, and by extension, of the universe as a whole.

According to me:

This image actually exemplifies the blend of stupidity with lack of talent and provides the perfect example of Bob and his victim's keen interest in high-strength lager, home grown cannibis and not a lot else.

and

The drawing itself could often be used to symbolise to kids just what can go wrong with the human body if you let an untrained idiot loose on you with a tattoo gun and don't even ask for a reference. This example can, by extension, relate to a lot of what goes on in our universe and why we're in such a bloody mess.

My friend summed up the situation up more succinctly by howling:

'That's not the Vetruvian Man - it's f***ing Chewbacca!'.

She's got a point.

The reason I have a copy of the image is because this guy is emailing it out as an ADVERTISEMENT FOR HIS SERVICES. If you want his number, just drop me a line.....

Apparently if you can't pay in cash he accepts Viagra.

I'm just hoping that after writing this he doesn't track me down and exact revenge by tattooing the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel across my arse.

Going Ga Ga

2010-06-06T20:05:00.006+01:00

Just to add to the incredibly random and surreal nature of my life, I have, probably, the most random and surreal kids in the world. Or actually surely kids are random and surreal by the very fact their kids and their minds aren't constrained by adult ideas of the 'norm' so kids really are the norm and we are all messed up? Who knows.

Anyway, ask the older one what he's thinking about and his answer could be anything from 'the cooling system of a diesel-electric locomotive' through to 'Jesus's wee wee' (followed by howls of hysterical laughter).

Ask the younger one what he's thinking about and he'll probably just shout 'NO' in your face. You have been warned.

Hey ho.

One thing they seem to think about a lot is Lady GaGa.

I don't think they actually know that much about Lady GaGa but they think her name is almost as hilarious as wee wee or even (the most hilarious word to small boys of all time) 'boobies' (which leads to me giving them some 'right on' lecture about how boobies are not funny, they are part of a woman's body, they are the vessels to suckle the next generations, they are miracles of mammalian evolution etc etc etc but yeah at the end of the day boobies are actually still hilarious and will fascinate the male of the species for all eternity. I give up. Keep laughing kids. You're gonna need to).

So they talk about Lady GaGa a lot. Way too much actually.

They also seem to think she might actually be a mannequin.

As in a shop mannequin.

This makes shopping even more stressful than it already is (which is Very with a capital V).

Every mannequin they spot they scream 'THERE'S LADY GA GA!' and of course people turn round and stare (just in case The Ga Ga has decided to pop into Asda for a jumbo sausage roll and 24 snack eggs).

And then the kids roar with laughter and I (why me!?) gets evil looks from the deluded public.

Even worse is when you are in the sort of shop that has non-standard mannequins (i.e they are not just your basic pink over-sized Barbie).

This leads to screams such as:

'There's Lady GaGa and her head's fallen off!' (what IS it with the headless mannequins? M&S do a fine line in these).

'There's Lady GaGa and she's a man' (well there were rumours)

and

'There's Lady Ga Ga and she's gone all black'

The public are ever more confused. I am ever more embarrassed.

The zenith of the Lady GaGa shame came (once again) in Asda.

Whilst trying on something dubious which involved no straps (what was I thinking? Grief clouds the mind) both mine and my children's interest was piqued by the conversation in the cubical next door.

Lady 1: 'Oh eee's luverly in't eee?' (this is a curious West Country thing I'd actually forgotten about until I moved back - calling inanimate objects 'he' and assigning them personalities. You could be talking about your new girdle and it would be a 'he' and he could be a 'real gem').

Lady 2: 'Do you reckon? I'm not sure? It's a bit modern'.

Lady 1: 'Ohh yeah but he's after that Lady Ga Ga in ee? You could BE Lady Ga Ga in that. You could BE HER!'.

Lady 2 (soundly distinctly unsure): 'Do you really reckon?'.

My kids: LADY GA GA! LADY GA GA! Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Me (muttering darkly): Be quiet or I'll take you outside and lock you in the car.

My kids: With the windows shut?

Me: Yes.

Lady 1: 'Oh yeah - you are the SPIT of Lady GaGa! You gotta get it!'.

My eldest: 'Mummy - Lady Ga Ga is in there! Can we go and look?'.

Me (thinking 'don't make threats you can't follow through on): 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!' (whilst wrestling myself out of unfortunate strapless item and grabbing both their collars to ensure they don't try and duck under the dividing wall and into the 'GaGa's' booth).

But truthfully my interest was aroused. The last time I looked George at Asda weren't pushing the boundaries of fashion with the likes of:

This:

This:

Or This:

Though maybe they should. I'm tempted. Especially by the first one. I used to do a fine line in balaclavas (but that's another story and no, I wasn't robbing banks).

Of course I hung around to catch a look at Somerset's own GaGa but let's just say the similarities between the two started and finished with the fact they are both women. If the GaGa gains 200lbs, ages a couple of decades, decides to razor cut her hair into a mullet and cultivates a taste in white velour and an evil glare then maybe - but even then, she was pushing it.

If I was disappointed, the kids were devastated:

Original Son: Oh mummy! THAT'S not Lady GaGa! She's all.......

Me: RIGHT MOVING ON - WHO WANTS CHOCOLATE!

Lady GaGa she might not have been, but good in a fight I'm sure she was was and I for one did not want to end up brawling on the floor of Asda.

You have to draw the line somewhere.

Dog Days

2010-05-31T19:47:00.008+01:00

First of all thank you, a really massive thank you, to everyone who has sent me their kind thoughts after the post about my dad. It really means a lot to me and I'm very touched by everyone's concern.

The thing about being a parent is that life goes on - in all its day to day mundaneness - whatever else is happening.

Planets could collide, the house get struck by lightening (please no - I haven't even unpacked yet), tsunamis could sweep across the lawn and Neptune could enter Uranus and STILL you'd have to change nappies. burn fish fingers and explain 450 times a night exactly why it's bedtime even though the sun is still up and the neighbour's kids are all on a trampoline.....

In some ways this can be hard, very hard. But in other ways it's bloody brilliant because you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and the chaos brought forth by two small boys can be a welcome distraction from 'the other stuff'.

I've mainly been having to live at my mum's which means I have also had to live with a 15 year old collie dog with Dementia (seriously). This dog is my Nemisis.

This dog (who no doubt will now spite me by dropping dead within the hour):

a) does poo which I (and only I) step in (in flip flops - I think I need counselling);

b) has to be chased round with a can of Febreze as it smells THAT BAD (and I have eons of experience with toddler poo, dead animals and other such fragrant gifts);

c) barks repeatedly at 4am until I have to get up and let it out. Then, having let it and the other dog out, it DISAPPEARS INTO THE NIGHT. I then have to find a pair of wellies (inevitably the wrong size and full of cobwebs) and a torch (inevitably with hardly any battery power and emitting the light of a glowworm) and go out into the pitch-black night and conduct a search. Halfway through this search it occurs to me that the dog may actually have been barking at something (rather than just the moon) and that thing could technically be an axe-man/masked raider/jumbo badger come to avenge his kind, so I contemplate going back to bed and leaving the dog to the jumbo badger. But then I get the guilts (and a realisation that the dog will only come back half an hour later and bark to get back in) so gird my loins and continue my search.

d) is convinced my children have come to steal away its kingdom so ANY kind of movement into or out of the house, or in fact into or out of the kitchen, has to be conducted in a manner akin to the SAS storming the Iranian embassy (only no-one gets shot - yet).

and finally

e) it has taught my toddler more words and phrases which I'd rather he wasn't pouring forth (although the toddler isn't really a toddler anymore).

Well the dog hasn't actually taught them more words. The dog has forced me to use more words and the toddler now enjoys spitting them forth with venom. Not swear words (yet) but phrases such as:

- 'hate'
- 'YUK! That stinks'
- 'oh FOR GOD'S SAKE' (said with immense ferocity)
- 'the collar, the collar, grab the collar'.
- 'that bloody dog is a pain'.

The toddler is enjoy using his new words and phrases.

He demonstrated some of them to my eldest son's entire school on Friday during Golden Assembly (fortunately the school is a very small one).

Golden Assembly happens every Friday and basically all the parents can come and watch and any children that have done nice/good/kind/clever things get to stand up and get clapped.

I went because I wanted a sliver of normality in my life (I must have forgotten that for me normality equals cringeworthy embarrassment and oddness of the highest order).

Anyway three little girls got up to demonstrate the 'non-fiction work' they had done about a topic of their choice.

Two of the little girls had written a couple of scruffy sentences (I presume the other kids had produced nothing but a squiggle).

However, one of the little girls (Amelia) had written two A4 sides and made an annotated poster all on the topic of Meerkats (who would have known Meerkats had such depth?) and apparently 'she read the entire non-fiction book herself. In its entirety'.

Amelia proudly held her poster aloft and everyone clapped (albeit in some cases with gritted teeth).

A hush fell.

The Headmaster cleared his throat.

The toddler shrieked:

'Oh MY GOD! THAT MEERKAT STINKS! IT IS YUK!'.

Never have I wished so hard for some kind of shift of the tectonic plates allowing me to simply disappear.

Every child in the room (except perhaps for Amelia) fell to the floor in hysterics (particularly the younger ones) and several of the parents also seemed to be struggling to contain themselves.

The Headmaster had to get cross and rapidly move on to a slide show about Vikings (interestingly omitting any raping, pillaging or mentions of Valhalla).

I think perhaps I need to avoid Golden Assembly for a while. I wonder if you can spend Friday mornings in Valhalla?

This is not a Funny One

2010-05-28T11:27:00.005+01:00

People come to this blog for light relief. They come because it makes them laugh (and wee their pants in some cases - apparently) and lets them escape for a few brief moments from their own lives, which sometimes aren't all that happy (and sometimes are downright bloody hard).

Every now and again I have to write a post which won't make people laugh and which won't make people's day better and to be honest I hate doing it. It feels like I'm letting the side down and it's not why this blog is here. However - I need to be honest with you so you can understand what is going on with my life and why I might post a bit infrequently.

So it goes like this.

If life has taught me one thing (other than I can't decorate cakes and dead badgers are very heavy), it's that it is what happens when you are busy making other plans.

Case study to date include:

1. Holding your new baby in your arms and planning a cup of tea and a nice lie down only for life to decide that you're going to exit the building surfing a tidal wave of your own blood and, almost, straight to the mortuary.

and

2. Pushing a double buggy proudly round Tesco planning on dinner only for life to decide that before you can say 'I think I'll do something with anchovies' you'll actually find yourself having all your distinguishing marks recorded on a chart so they can admit you to a psychiatric unit and, if needs be, the police can identify you, dead or alive (my abiding memory of this was that the guy noted my build down as medium - if he'd put 'heavy' I might have really got mad).

and unfortunately the latest case study of:

3. Loads of really amazing people nominating you for 2 really cool blog awards and you thinking 'oh hell, how am I going to enjoy all this and do the publicity without my dad finding out!' only for life to.......

.....well for life to take your dad away in ambulance and then inform you that his very sudden loss of function is because he has a brain tumour. And not just any old brain tumour. One right in the middle of his brain which they can't really do much about and which looks to be highly aggressive. You know it's bad when they have to take you to a little private room. You know it's bad when the doctor can't meet your eyes and keeping fiddling with his thumbs and struggling to find the words. You know it's bad when the doctor tells you to 'prepare for the worst'.

Just like that. From fine to the stuff of nightmare in a few short days.

And overnight dreams turn to dust and the world keeps on spinning even though you're sure its actually stopped. You want to wake up and realise that none of this is true but you can't wake up because this is reality. Your new reality. Your dad's new reality. Your mum's new reality. Your brother's new reality. And the new reality of all his family, friends, colleagues and everyone else touched by him. And someone as big as my dad (both physically and in his character) touched a lot of people's lives.

I can't even tell you how I feel because I'm not sure I can actually feel. Well I can but it's odd. I am basically having to live with my mum to try and get her through the days (and nights) and everything is just a mess.

When my Grandma died in the autumn I said grief was like a moth, sitting quietly on the wall and waiting to flutter down into the light and clatter it's dusty wings across your face.

This is not a moth.

This is a panther.

It pads at your heels wherever you go and you know it's there, you can feel it's breath on your back and hear it breathing, but you dare not turn and look because you fear that if you meet its eyes it will push you to the ground, knock the breath from your lungs and destroy you.

And yet life goes on and do not fret, this blog will go on.

Sitting here reading some of my old posts last night was the first time I've felt vaguely normal in a week. I actually sat here laughing. LAUGHING. I never thought I'd laugh again. It's probably wrong to laugh at your own stuff but I don't care.

In the last 48 hours I've managed to:

- stand aside to let a man leave the hospital car park, only to position myself under the car park barrier so that it came down on my head, I mistook it for a swooping eagle or falling building and thus threw myself to the ground screaming 'ARRRGGHHH'. Having to get back up and smile at all the onlookers was even more cringeworthy.

- ground the car on top of a wall outside the school, balancing it like seesaw. Not good for the bodywork or the wall or my reputation.

- stand in a large, fresh, dog poo in flip flops (this I seriously do NOT recommend).

and

- fail to notice the toddler smuggling a packet of digestive biscuits into the bath. I wondered what the hell was going on when the water turned to gruel but it appears he was not aware of the concept of soggy biscuits. He is now.

So as you can see, whatever happens in my life, I am never short of blog fodder.

To my old fans and my new - I hope you can stick with me through this - I'm going to need to generate the laughs as much as you.

Life - sometimes it ain't half sh1t.

In Disguise

2010-05-11T20:38:00.007+01:00

Right so as you all know I'm a finalist in the this big old blog competition 'THE MADS' (kindly sponsored by Butlins) and also finalist in the 'Funniest' category (kindly sponsored by John Lewis - very nice company that, have a nice haberdashery department, I like a good rifle through their buttons). This is apparently 'quite a big thing'. And 'quite big things' tend to attract the public gaze.

Oh hell.

I've been contacted about 'going to the press'.

Gulp.

The thing is if I did go the local press (not the Financial Times, I doubt they'd want me) I know they'd snap it up. Not because it's an amazing, thrilling tale. Simply because they've got nowt else to publish.

Examples of recent billboard headlines I've seen outside newsagents include:

'Man could have been killed by boiler!'.

The crucial word here is 'could'.

Not 'was' or 'almost' but 'could'. I mean thank heavens he wasn't even injured but generally, every single day there are a lot of things which you could (technically) be killed by. Stray buses, meteors, 13 bottles of vodka in straight succession. They don't generally make headline news unless you are unfortunate enough to meet your end via their means.

More recently we had 'Outrage Over Bingo Gifts!'.

As I was saying, they would take the blog story.

Feeling confused I consulted Husband with the Sad Face.

Me: They are urging me to go the papers with my blog. Other people are, and then they'll get loads of publicity and votes and I won't get my curtains.

HWASF: Well you know what they say?!

Me: Err, no, what?

HWASF: There's no such thing as bad publicity!

Me: I think you'll find that you are actually wrong and there actually is.

HWASF: Like what?

Me: Like the fact we live in a small town which is a hot bed of gossip where I grew up, my parents still live and everyone talks about everyone. I REALLY don't want all my dad's mates down the pub talking about the time his daughter (i.e. me) burnt off her pubic hair with toxic chemicals, wrestled with a dead badger, weed in the turn-up of her trousers, got sent to live in a mental home, stole the church Christmas tree and overdosed on dog hormone tablets (albeit not at the same time).

HWASF: Hmmmmm (looking thoughtful).

Me: PLUS everyone will find out about the incident with the used chutney knife, the time he strangled my brother for 'putting a log on the fire like a dick' (see here) and the fact he tried to make me dress in used Asda bags to stop me getting hit by a car.

HWASF: Hmmmmm (looking even more thoughtful).

Me: PLUS this blog contains blasphemy, refrences to vaginas (haunted and otherwise), innuendo, disrespectful remarks about small children AND cruelty to (albeit dead) animals. The letters page of the local paper would go bonkers. Someone changing the sequencing of the traffic lights on the industrial estate generates an entire page of letters for 13 weeks on the trot. People write in about the number of dead headghogs they've seen and how it's a harbinger to the end of times. There is a 4 month debate going on about where the bench has gone from the old shopping centre and where are the infirm going to sit down now? People send in passages from the bible with no other explanation, just a name underneath AND THEY PUBLISH THEM. A link to this blog would - well they'd never get over it!! People would start to spontaneously combust.

HWASF: Ok, you have a point........

So I won't be going to the local paper. Well not without a disguise. And I need a disguise anyway because this whole Blog contest ends in an AWARDS CEREMONY no less and as I don't get out enough, love a good knees up and haven't been to an Awards Ceremony since I attending the South Somerset Schoolboy Motocross Winter Championship Awards in 1990 (where I received a pineapple, fresh, from none other than Dicky Dye, a man so un-famous there's not even a Wiki page about him). And let's face it - I'm not exactly going be invited to the Oscars.

Maybe I could emulate 'Bucket Head' - the legendary guitarist?

Then again, I'm not known as Bucket Head but Stickhead - so that would mean my disguise would need to involve a pile of sticks. Something like this perhaps:

Although I might struggle with that on the dance floor.

Suggestions for my disguise welcome, just don't tell my mum or she will resurect the lacewing costume (see here).

Having said that, even Belle de Jour came out in the end......

(p.s if the people organising the awards ceremony are reading this, could you make sure they've got Strongbow behind the bar? I'm gonna need it......).

The One About the Boobie Bush

2010-05-07T20:00:00.004+01:00

So I took the kids back to the Garden Centre. Don't ask me why, it's a long story involving gynecological procedures which might put people off their tea (as opposed to mere Haunted Vaginas and Tossing Badgers - which you can read over a large Chicken Dansak and not miss a bite).

Anyway I needed a sit down and some peace and a large slice of chocolate based cake - even if it did cost £3.50 Obviously I didn't realise that until I got to the till and had a small choking fit.

THREE POUNDS FIFTY. That makes the whole cake 28 quid. Pah. I'm going into cake making for a living. Actually, on second thoughts, no......

Things went OK whilst in the garden centre, mainly because we sat outside away from all things china. There was a small moment of shame when Original Son stood atop the climbing frame and boomed, across the heads of various congregated silver gents, 'MUMMY I NEED A WEE AND A POO AND IT'S VERY URGENT, IN FACT SO URGENT THAT THERE IS A SMALL BIT COME OUT BUT IT'S OK BECAUSE IT'S ONLY WEE. SO THAT'S OK ISN'T IT? YOU'RE NOT THAT CROSS, ARE YOU?'.

I'm sure the scone nibbling pensioners of Somerset were relieved to hear they could continue their afternoon tea free from worry about potential skid marks and witnessing some kind of a child beating.

Sigh.

Obviously, after this we had to leave and it was on leaving that the problems started.

The first problem is that just outside the door is one of those ride on toys you put money in so kids can get a 2 minutes trip to happiness. Only my kids don't actually know that. The bit about the money that is. They aren't aware those ride on toys do anything other than the bits that come free (i.e they remain stock still, like a statue, unless you rock them really REALLY hard when they do move a teeny tiny bit).

The ride-on toy in question is a rather odd one to say the least. It's not your normal Thomas the Tank or Pink Elephant. No.

It actually takes the form of a large psychedelic toadstool complete with psychotic looking rodents and a strange bluebird.

The kids however love it. They leap aboard and shriek 'we're going to the moon!' before attempting to rock it off it's moorings. For 0 pence it gives quite a good ride I have to say.

The downside is that as it's right by the Exit a large number of people walk past and either give me a very odd look or 'helpfully' suggest I put money in it. The odd few laugh or give me a sympathetic smile. I'm not sure if they presume I'm too poor to pay for it or too stupid to work out where to put the money in, but frankly, I don't care.

Anyway understandably I am desperate to leave and they never want to so today I lured them away with a promise of the first thing I could think off that would be irresistible to a small boy.

Chocolate?

Toy cars?

A trip to a freight train depot? (Or is that just my kids?).

No. None of the above. I glanced frantically round the car park and came up with......

'Wow kids, let's go and look at some amazing bushes!'.

I mean who wouldn't want to sprint away from a psychotic mushroom that takes you to the moon to look at some topiary?

The bushes in question have been carefully crafted into various forms and line the side of the car park so the kids were in full view of many people when the eldest decided to launch himself on top of the totally spherical one.

In a single bound he was balanced on top of the dense foliage. He then began a mild humping action whilst shrieking 'THIS BUSH IS CRAZY!'.

Sigh. Too much time in the mushroom methinks.

Having been quickly dragged off the bush, he turned his attention to the one next door .

The one next door is some kind of creature sat on it's arse with it's 4 legs sticking out in front of it and large erect ears. I think it's a mouse, my kids think it's a dog.

A dog with boobies.

To be fair about this the top 2 legs do actually bear a striking resemblance to very large, pendulous bosoms (I think they need a bit of pruning before they droop all the way to the dog's knees). They also wobble. A lot. Particularly if attacked by two small boys screaming 'BOOBIES BOOBIES BOOBIES' as they run back and forth whacking them.

Such was my desperation to remove them from the scene that I ended up having a tug of war with the toddler - me holding his lower torso, him holding a topiary boobie......

A struggle ensued but it had to end when I realised that this was only going to end with the 'boobie' coming adrift and me (and the rest of the garden centres customers) being forever haunted by the gaping, leafless hole it would leave (not to mention what the hell I'd do with a disconnected leafy boob).

So I let go and lured him away with chocolate.

There's not a chapter on these sort of scenarios in Toddler Taming, is there? I think it needs rewriting.

Sponge Impressions of Guinea Pigs Passed

2010-05-05T21:12:00.011+01:00

Well it's been a while since I baked any cakes bad enough to become No. 1 on Google Searches (if you are reasonably new to Slightly South of Sanity then you need to know that is the home of 'officially' the world's most popular crap Iggle Piggle cake). Oh yeah and there was also the cake laced with curry powder which we used to try and poison the vicar but we'll gloss over that one....

And then I realised that where Iggle Piggle and the Poisoned Cake rose, other attempts had risen (or failed to rise) before them.

Whilst (finally) unpacking some boxes after our house move, I found a packet of photos (these must have come from an era where I actually had time to print out photos - i.e. Before Children) and amongst these happy memories I found a photograph of my OH's (Husband with the Sad Face) birthday cake from many years ago. So many years I'd forgotten I'd ever made it (or blanked it out amidst a sea of shame).

The theme for this cake was to be a guinea pig. In fact it was to be the face of 'Steve-O', a dear pet at the time, now of course dead (but not to be confused with Satchmo).

Now don't get me wrong, Steve-O (named after a neighbour actually - the one between Mr Squirrel and the House with the "Man in Chains Who Burst Through a Window One Otherwise Quiet Sunday Afternoon and was Never Seen Again") was a dark and glum looking guinea pig (he did, after all, die of constipation, although I can assure you the cake was modeled on his living self rather than his corpse - not that you can easily decipher that from it's appearance), but he wasn't THIS freakin' dark and glum:

Note: the bright light on the table below Steve-O's face is a reflection of the camera flash - not a portal to a parallel universe. Sadly. That would have been a handy distraction to just HOW crap my OH's birthday cake actually was.

What can I say!? (Other than, where are his ears? Despite his intestinal issues, he definitely had ears).

Martha Stewart eat your heart out.

Who needs sprinkles, velvet icing, sugar-roses, silver baubles and frosting when you've got squirty cream (and Strongbow)?

I'm not quite sure what went wrong with "Steve-O's Head in a Chocolate Sponge Medium" (other than it clearly being burnt to a cinder, covered in squirty cream and sunk like the Titanic).

Personally I blame the oven.....

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

2010-05-04T22:20:00.003+01:00

No, not in the election - pah what's the future of our Nation when £200 of John Lewis vouchers are at stake.....

It appears that my blog is one of the 5 finalists in the MADS 2010 Funniest Blog awards (gulp) and that is all thanks to you amazing lot - so thank you, thank you, thank you. From the minute I bowed to public pressure and started this thing up, it's you lot that have kept me going. Even if it has meant complete strangers approaching me from behind at buffet tables and saying 'I love your blog, especially the one about your piles.......'.

However - it ain't over until the mad lady is blowing her vouchers on Strongbow (only joking - I need some curtains in my bedroom so I stop scaring early morning dog walkers with my 'womanly self') and the winner is decided purely on number of votes so if you can I'd be ever so grateful indeed if you went to the website and in the 'vote for the finalists' bit, do your stuff in the Funniest category.....

CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR SLIGHTLY SOUTH OF SANITY

If you vote I promise to keep up the hard work and mis-use hair removal cream, misplace my balls, misname homosexual chickens after religious icons, mis-locate wigs into the wheels of my pram and misplace my mind well into my old age and all whilst never EVER misplacing my sense of humour.

Thank you.

Who's the Daddy?

2010-04-30T10:42:00.003+01:00

The toddler seems to be having some difficult working out who is father is.

It actually started with me - first of all he identified a 17 year old in the paper as 'mummy' which could have been sort of flattering if it hadn't have been an article on binge drinking which showed her falling into the gutter surrounded by vomit.

Next he became convinced I was Cerrie on Cbeebies - this was a step up as Cerrie is not renowned for binge drinking or wading about in vomit only a) I don't look like Cerrie at all and b) Cerrie only has 1 arm and I have 2 so I started to wonder just how much attention he's really been paying to his daily carer for the last 2 years?

He probably answered that question himself when, on seeing a photo of Denise Lewis (as in the amazingly fit Olympic Heptathlete who also happens to be black) he shouted 'MUMMY!'.

I was wondering where it would all end (mummy being mistaken for Gordon Brown? A chair? A gutted squid on the Asda fish counter?) but then (fortunately) he turned his focus on Daddy.

'Daddy's home!' he shouted in glee at front room window. Thinking this rather odd as Daddy was actually sat upstairs, I rushed to the window only to see a large ginger cat waiting by the front door.

Hmm. I can assure you now I have never entered into a romantic liaison with a cat.

Some days later we perusing the homewares in Matalan when he let out a delighted shriek of 'DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!'. Several people turned to look. I turned to look. He was pointing at a large. A large poster of?

'Colin & Justin' the two super-camp interior designers:

I think the other shoppers were as surprised as I was but probably not as surprised as his actual father who on reading this will no doubt rush to the mirror and try to define whether he's more of a Colin or a Justin.

I'm not sure love but if you come home wearing a blazer trimmed with fushia ribbon and a dandy bloom, you'll be sleeping in the office......

The Haunted Vagina

2010-04-29T20:07:00.004+01:00

No, not mine (although the way things are going, who knows? That would be an interesting call to NHS Direct. On the plus side - it would also be a sure fire £200 from Take a Break for a double page spread).

No, last night I learned that whilst I might write on some rather odd topics on this blog, there are people out there who have had books actually PUBLISHED (and paid for) on far weirder stuff.

While searching for a totally unrelated academic book on Amazon I was slightly intrigued when the 'customers who have viewed this, also viewed.......' banner came up with a book called 'The Haunted Vagina'.

Well how could I not take a peek?

I thought perhaps it was more serious than it sounded (although I have to confess it sounds pretty serious) and was maybe an academic tome on the oppression of women or the lust for designer labia.

But no.

The product information reads as follows:

Product Description

It's difficult to love a woman whose vagina is a gateway to the world of the dead.

Steve is madly in love with his eccentric girlfriend, Stacy. Unfortunately, their sex life has been suffering as of late, because Steve is worried about the odd noises that have been coming from Stacy's pubic region. She says that her vagina is haunted. She doesn't think it's that big of a deal. Steve, on the other hand, completely disagrees.

When a living corpse climbs out of her during an awkward night of sex, Stacy learns that her vagina is actually a doorway to another world. She persuades Steve to climb inside of her to explore this strange new place. But once inside, Steve finds it difficult to return... especially once he meets an oddly attractive woman named Fig, who lives within the lonely haunted world between Stacy's legs.

"A very strange and surprisingly touching love story, despite the deliberately asinine premise. With subtle humor, surreal erotica, and some genuinely creepy moments, The Haunted Vagina is a completely unique reading experience."

I'm not really sure what to say now. It's not often I'm left speechless but I'm, erm, speechless. I don't even know what to make of the bit about the 'living corpse'. Is a corpse not, by it's very definition, no longer alive?

I think I need to order it to complete my research. I can then donate it to the school's Christmas Tombola and ensure that I'm never again asked to assist with any PTA events whatsoever.

Oh well, this blog is already a magnet for those looking for sucked balls, moist panties and crap Iggle Piggle Cakes. I guess I just opened myself up to lovers of surreal erotica......